A HERMENEUTICS OF HISTORY FOR AN ECUMENICAL FUTURE.

As the churches plan for the 2017 commemoration of the date used to mark the German Reformation of the sixteenth century, a new look at the traditional narratives of that era is in order. This paper will survey some interpretive principles developed in the ecumenical movement to help understand and reinterpret the Christian narrative for a reconciled future, using the 16th century as an example. The paper is presented as an invitation to ecclesiologists, the theologians of history, and the historians of Christianity and especially the sixteenth century [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]