Projects of rethinking historical events are often linked to a debunking of old myths or to the creation of new ones, both prone to be motivated by practical interests in the present rather than disinterested exercises of historical scholarship. The year 2017 will mark the 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation. As the date gets closer, all kinds of activities are already gearing up to commemorate it, some intellectually sophisticated, some blatantly profane. There is a flurry of theological reflections about past and present Catholic-Protestant relations. The tourist agencies of states in eastern Germany are already advertising tours through â??Luther land,â? while American Lutherans are invited to renew their spiritual roots by following the footsteps of their revered founder. Most of the official ecumenical activities are animated by expressions of mutual respect and affections between the two big branches of Western Christendom. These events stand in splendid contrast to the violent conflicts between Sunni and Shiâ??a Muslims, continuing a dispute between the followers of Muhammad in 7th-century Arabia (more than 800 years before Protestants and Catholics started the wars of religion that devastated large areas of Europe).
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