So there’s been a fun spat of posts and discussions about protestantism of late, following the Future of Protestantism round table discussion a week ago. I watched most of the event live and caught up on the parts I missed shortly thereafter. I’ve also enjoyed the follow up posts by the participants themselves. But lest it be thought that I was merely an amused spectator watching from the sidelines as though it were golf on the television on a lazy Saturday afternoon, let me throw a few thoughts into the pot.
1. First, this is an important discussion, and I think you can gauge something of the importance by the fact that a fairly large crowd of Christians gathered to listen (live or electronically) to two conservative Presbyterian ministers and an Evangelical Free Church seminary professor discuss the Future of Protestantism. I mean, seriously. The fact that these guys got this much air time says something. And I don’t mean any disrespect. I think there’s a good reason why people would want to listen to these men talk about this topic, but I think it’s saying something when lots of folks agree with me! Add to this the fact that First Things was a cosponsor of the event, a journal interested in joining together, as Rusty Reno reminded us at the end, with all “people of faith” (including Muslims and Jews) — that’s significant too. It seems clear that Christians in America (of many denominations and non-denominations) have a sense that something has changed or is changing. I suspect that part of this is related to the internet age as well. Blogs and websites create opportunities for theological food fights, but they also bring us into contact with Christians from many different backgrounds and force us to some extent to reckon with real people, not just the caricatures we’ve heard about in hushed tones at dinner parties.
2. One of the key moments in the round table discussion (for me) was at the very end following a question from a girl about ecumenism in pro-life work. Somebody gave an answer of general approval, and then Carl Trueman closed the evening out dismissing the girl’s concerns by explaining that this area was not even an ecclesiastical issue. It’s in the civil realm, he explained, and he would have no problem working with Jews or Muslims on pro-life issues because it is not a church-sphere thing. It struck me that what Peter Leithart is proposing at the very least assumes Christendom. It is a practical proposal that presupposes that the presence of the Church goes beyond the four walls of a building on Sunday mornings. Related to this then is the relative urgency for this project. If the Church is limited to Sunday mornings (and maybe an hour for coffee after the service), there’s little to no pressure for “the Church” to reconcile. And it keeps the subject matter almost entirely limited to doctrinal issues. Bumping into your Roman Catholic neighbors or Baptist coworkers is all out there in the world, in the “civil sphere.” So they may as well be Muslims or Hindus or JWs, and all we’re worried about is the “common good” or some bland tyranny like that. Of course I know that Carl Trueman cares about his neighbors and wants to see them meet Jesus, but there is certainly less tension outside of Sunday worship between our creedal claims and our actual ecclesial practices when there’s no expectation that the Church must exist out there in the world.
3. Anyone who’s read this blog over the years knows that I’m one of those grenade launching protestants who has the audacity to make rather extreme sounding claims from time to time, and I don’t mind when it sounds like I’m being inflammatory or contradictory — so long as I’m being biblical. So on the one hand, taking one thing with another, I happen to think that evangelical Protestants converting to Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy are engaged in highhanded spiritual adultery. I tweeted one time that converts are basically giving their Protestant families and churches an ecclesiastical middle finger, and I still think that. It starts as ecclesiastical voyeurism, lusting over papal swimsuit issues and before you know it, it’s turned into a full blown ecclesiastical porn addiction, where Protestants are drooling over icons late at night on their computers. Really, this has gotten so bad that there ought to be some kind of porn blocker for this particular malady. But then when he gets busted by his wife (or he comes clean), he explains to his pastor that the arguments for apostolic succession and prayers to saints are just so sexy, and the fragmentation of protestantism just makes his little heart go flub-flub-flubbity. But the way this goes, this guy is well past actually talking about theology. You can’t reason with a man in heat. That dog won’t hunt. This guy isn’t following Jesus; he’s found a mistress in the trappings of liturgy and a lazy mysticism.
4. But on the other hand, for all my polemics, I believe that the Roman communion is a branch of the one true Church. It’s a branch full of deadwood, but it’s still a real, live branch, and there is still fruit being produced there. I’m reading JPII’s Theology of the Body at the moment and there are some wonderful biblical treasures there. There are Christians from liberal congregations finding a comparatively real, biblical Jesus in the Roman Church. There are cradle RCs that somehow find the gospel of grace through the Bible teaching of parish priests. There are Bible study renewal movements in branches of Orthodoxy. Not to mention the rich history of sources we have stretching back into the middle ages and early church. Whatever their foibles, misunderstandings, and blind spots (and they had many), they are our fathers and mothers in the faith. When RCs and EOs show up at my church, they are welcomed to the Lord’s Table because we recognize their Christian baptism and trust that the Lord is at work in them. This doesn’t mean I’m not concerned for them; this doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t seek to teach them what I consider the doctrines of grace as articulated in the Reformation. But here I would agree with Fred Sanders, Orthodox missions to Muslims are to be celebrated. The doctrines of the Trinity and the Deity of Christ (Nicaea/Chalcedon) do not exhaust what the Spirit has said to the churches, but they are certainly bedrock doctrines which I would be willing to argue imply a robust Reformational confessionalism, despite the protestations of our Roman and Eastern brethren.
5. A day or so ago I linked to an article that Rich Bledsoe wrote for the Trinity Institute website. When a friend raised a question about it, I went back reread it, and I have to admit that there were a number of things that could be confusing, but the reason I linked the article, the reason it resonated so strongly with me was that I found his central point — the analogy of the Church as a family with parents and children an extremely helpful way of framing the issue. Like all analogies, I’m sure it breaks down in various ways, and in hindsight I probably should have just written this article, but here we are. On the one hand, I think Rich assumed a lot more dysfunction in families in general than would have been necessary to make his point. I also take a bit of issue with his general assumption of belligerence on the part of protestants. Nor am I as confident about his read on where we are in the justification conversation with Rome. I have heard things that occasionally make me hopeful, but I’m still waiting for Pope Francis to announce that Trent was a stupid mistake and sorry about the Marian persecution in England, folks. But, nevertheless (and on the other hand), Rich is a friend and I happen to know a lot about his personal ministry in a big liberal city where he (as a presbyterian minister) has become good friends with many different pastors, including at least one Roman Catholic priest and through those friendships has had some extraordinary opportunities to be a gospel presence to the leaders of his city. I also happen to know that Rich is a dyed-in-the-wool Puritan when it comes to gospel basics and pastoral care. So assume that and keep that in mind while you read.
6. But what really pleased me about Rich’s family analogy was the explanation it offered for why it’s ridiculous to convert to Rome or Constantinople. It’s like moving back in with your parents when you’re forty-two. In other words, Rich’s essay frames the issue in a way that highlights the tension of disunity while presenting the solution as something other than conversion. I think that’s extremely helpful. One of the great dragons that faces all inter-denominational dialogue is romanticism. And what I mean is that romantics on the whole tend to be idealists and perfectionists. They have a particular vision for a particularly pristine version of their own heritage, doctrine, liturgy, etc., and anything short of that perfection is considered compromise at best and apostasy at worst. And converts are often created by this romantic perfectionism. But Rich’s family analogy is helpful because families are dynamic and messy. There are feelings and personalities, gifts and weaknesses, good days and puke on the sheets, and everything else. And what makes a family “family” is a central loyalty, a central table, a commitment to one another. And at the same time, as families grow and mature they must, by necessity, have additional space — space for living, space for some measure of difference, space for different callings, space for different emphases, space for different methods of faithfulness. And that’s all assuming a relatively Christian faithfulness in a family. Add a few bumps and bruises here and there, and it gets a bit more complicated even when everyone involved is doing their best to follow Jesus. But the biblical pattern is that children leave and cleave, and the fifth commandment still applies. In tribal societies, children never really leave, families just grow into clans that resemble the blob. On the other hand, in our disjointed, fragmented modern culture, there is little to no loyalty or connection between parents and children, and the requirement to honor parents almost seems foreign. But the biblical vision is one where leaving is expected and planned for, and yet honor and loyalty remains. I find Rich’s analogy a compelling picture of how the Roman Church has envisioned a sort of perpetual childishness in its hierarchy and style. I also find an embedded hopefulness about the future, and how the Lord intends to multiply His blessings to successive generations. Yes, we have much to learn from the past, but our God piles up blessings for our children and children’s children, implying for me, a certain measure of optimism about protestantism. While some protestants perhaps left with huffy attitudes and some have perpetuated a certain kind of bitter, divisive spirit, I think Bucer and Calvin and Luther and company largely left because they were 35 and getting whipped for reading the Bible under their covers at night and daring to think for themselves. As a pastor I have had to work with grown children trying to honor overbearing and overreaching parents. It’s a tightrope walk, but it still must be done. There’s no reason for grown children to move home, and grown children leaving oppressive homes are under no compulsion to suddenly start trusting an abusive dad. But God still calls us to honor; He still calls us to hope for reconciliation. And when you apply the analogy to the facts on the ground, I do believe we are finding that churches are hardly monolithic. There are Methodists that love Jesus. There are Roman Catholics that love Jesus. There are Baptists that love Jesus. And all, despite our obvious and important differences. But we are not aiming at a unity that will end up being a centralized office or common letterhead. It will be a growing unity of Spirit, growing commonality of confession, one baptism, one table, a growing unity of mission. And even though Rich probably didn’t intend this, there’s also the possibility that our Roman parents will eventually grow so old and senile that they’ll need to move in with us!
7. Last thought (since it’s number 7): For all of Rev. Trueman’s Two Kingdom doggedness and pessimism, I actually have some sympathy with his questions about losing priorities or relativizing the gospel/confessional center of traditional protestantism. He pressed this point several times with Peter Leithart during the round table. Ironically, I do think that there can be a kind of ecumenical/liturgical ecumenism that is confusing and less than pastoral. We can, if we are not careful, unintentionally give the impression that liturgical unity, ecumenical attempts, doctrinal common ground are more important than the gospel itself. Unless Jesus is preached loudly and clearly, unless the bloody cross and the blood-bought atonement are heralded early and often, unless we review our Heidelberg heritage and the glorious Solas of the Reformation continually, this new catholicity will go the way of pathetic liberal gruel which is actually far more schismatic in the long run. But here’s the thing: I think reformed evangelical “catholics” (Protestants who love Jesus and His Church) are in the best possible position to live this kind of catholicity out. We have a unique set of gifts through a robust evangelical personalism that insists on true heart conversion to Christ and at the same time, a covenant theology of grace, an ecclesiology that looks in faith to the Good Shepherd, the Chief Pastor of the whole flock of God, expecting Him to be faithful to His promises to make us all one.
Bryan Cross says
Toby,
To be consistent you should add that Protestants are basically giving the Catholic Church an ecclesiastical middle finger, and have been doing so for almost 500 years. So if doing so longer (i.e. 500 years) makes it ok, then these converts need only wait for a while, so that it becomes ok.
Or perhaps we could ease up on this sort of incendiary language. 🙂
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
Ellen Anderson says
Lifelong Protestant here (Baptist, Presbyterian) with some thoughts on parts of your essay that stood out to me.
1. “It starts as ecclesiastical voyerism, lusting over papal swimsuit issues and before you know it, it’s turned into a full blown ecclesiastical porn addiction, where Protestants are drooling over icons late at night on their computers.”
This is very funny! Perhaps it’s also true for some, especially when combined with the notion of romanticizing our past, as you did. However, reading both Protestant and Catholic writers, as I do, I generally find that good Catholic thinkers are more interesting than good Protestant thinkers. Not sure why this is, but I like the way they challenge me to think. Reading them hasn’t made me stay up late (very little does!) or seriously consider converting, but I can see why some would, and I don’t view that as “giving their Protestant families and churches an ecclesiastical middle finger….” I just don’t see us as Right and them as Wrong. (OT, voyeurism needs a u.)
2. “… why it’s ridiculous to convert to Rome or Constantinople. It’s like moving back in with your parents when you’re forty-two… I think Bucer and Calvin and Luther and company largely left because they were 35 and getting whipped for reading the Bible under their covers at night and daring to think for themselves.”
I agree in part, but the whole parent-child analogy ultimately fails for me. I’m very Protestant in that I see no Father but God, but I think we Prots fool ourselves in thinking that we don’t set up church structures/hierarchies that, though less formal, rival the Catholic “let me tell you how to think” thing. The most helpful vision for me is Richard Foster’s “Streams of Living Waters” … a massive river of faith with streams of varying foci. I truly think that you could plop me down in any Christian faith tradition, and I’d be okay. I’d just find the folks who love the Bible and Jesus and hang with them.
3. “… we are not aiming at a unity that will end up being a centralized office or common letterhead. It will be a growing unity of Spirit, growing commonality of confession, one baptism, one table, a growing unity of mission.”
Agree wholeheartedly with this. For true Christian unity, which will be a stripping down to essentials, everyone will have to give up some things that are dear to them and accept some things that they’d rather not. Are we willing to? I’d give it a try … as long as there’s classical music rather than contemporary! And therein we see the smallest part of the problem 😉
Ron Dodson says
Thanks, Toby. Good stuff. I loved Rich’s post – and the idea of the Church as your new family is one under-taught in Protestantism, yet it came straight from the mouth of Jesus.
Anand says
It seems to me that (despite what you say at the end of point 6), you are being unnecessarily patronizing to a significant group of folks who join Orthodoxy and Catholicism. I was saved through a Pentecostal college fellowship. But as I’ve found myself in very different churches (Southern Baptist, Nazarene, Church of South India, Episcopal) as I’ve moved multiple times over the past 29 years- the criteria for moving being to find a church where my wife and I were challenged to follow Jesus and had a place to minister.
What I see in the Reformed movement is a dedication to serving God with our minds- to right doctrine. The moral order which this brings is often badly needed in lives that have been chaotic and undirected. But there’s often a real weakness when it comes to seeing a renewed heart and soul- to ministering to the emotional and aesthetic life. For those who need renewal in that area, many churches in the Reformed tradition seem like prisons. And the skepticism of works can lead to a denial of the importance of loving the Lord with all our strength as well. Insofar as some Reformed pastors have made an idol of doctrine- well frankly they deserve to get the ecclesiastical finger.
Anonymous says
Your description of the Catholic and Orthodox Church is an ecclesiastic middle finger if I’ve ever seen one. If we are to talk about unity to Christ as adopted children of the Father, then all humanity is family, not just biological relatives. Therefore, nobody is worthy of an ecclesiastic middle finger.
If I were to summarize this blog, it would say “Nobody should leave Protestantism because those Orthodox and Catholic are stuck at their parents house, stuck looking at pornography and never growing up.” What’s unbelievable to me is that I’m pretty sure that you would say I’m correct at my summary. If all Christian leaders think in this spirit, though, we will never achieve the unity that you call for.
I would urge you to seek to inflame Christians to unity and not to aggravated divisions.
Matt Petersen says
Um, ok. But:
1) Don’t tell me you’re just basically saying what Dr. Leithart says. That’s clearly not the case. (You didn’t say that here, but you have before.)
2) Given Dr. Leithart’s treatment by the PCA, and the wide berth, say, Liberation Theology, has in the Catholic Church, it’s a preposterous to claim that they just don’t let people think for themselves.
Larry says
“It’s like moving back in with your parents when you’re forty-two.”
You mean like the Prodigal Son?
Anyway, it seems that, for many, the future of Protestantism is Catholicism and Orthodoxy…it’s only natural to be drawn to them if one takes the Bible seriously. Protestantism is a bit like being a Chinese company in that you are constantly making cheap imitations of the real thing.
I don’t understand how you can use the phrase “perpetual childishness” with a straight face when Evangelical “culture” both inside and outside your Sunday meeting space is filed with silly pop music and ministers who vary between cheesy motivational speaker and sullen tattooed hipster.
“And what makes a family “family” is a central loyalty, a central table, a commitment to one another.”
Amusing comment coming from a Protestant.
Father James Bozeman says
Thank you for a very interesting and entertaining post. I couldn’t help but chuckle as I read it. You sound just like I did in the decade before I became an Orthodox Christian. You have the best reasons and the best arguments, but you’ve never really taken a look at the Church from the inside.
Don’t do it! Stay far away! I decided to put aside my inflammatory remarks once and stand in an Orthodox vespers service, and nothing has been the same for me since. Now I’m a priest.
If I’m an “addict” (I really took no offense at this word, BTW), then it seems to me that there could not possibly be a better “addiction” than this. The things that drew me to the Orthodox Church and to the fullness of Christianity which I found there are not necessarily the things that have keep me here. Oh, “the one true Church” thing was really exciting (N.B.: it, as it turns out, is actually *true*, believe it or not!), and the whole historical reality of the Church as presented by the Orthodox was really drool-worthy (especially the fact that theological arguments are nearly nil in the Orthodox Church… they’ve been settled for longer than the existence of Reformed Theology). But the thing that keeps me here and has ended my wandering (not that I did too much wandering) and my soul-searching is the fact that Christ is here, and in His entirety. This was the problem that I encountered in my prior Protestant life.
I was a faithful, committed Evangelical, who stayed in the same church for years, and loved it and the people and pastor there. I was not a malcontent. I was not looking to convert to anything else. But then I found the Orthodox faith… which I hated at first, and continued to hate for many years. Those weirdos were idolaters and theological simpletons. But after several years of fighting it, I actually decided to go to a service, and nothing has been the same since. Why? Am I some sort of flakey, spiritual-porn addict? Actually, no. I was quite content to remain an evangelical forever… until I saw Christ in the Church in His fullness. Not sure how to say it any other way.
If you want to convince folks like me to stay Protestant, Here are a couple of suggestions:
1) You are going to have to convince them that conversion to Orthodoxy (or, I guess, some other non-Protestant expression of Christianity) is going to cost them something, and that they are going to lose something in the switch. You need to make them realize that Protestantism is the “one, true faith”. That it is “the historical Church”. Or at least make them realize that this is nonessential and doesn’t really matter. Also, convince them that the Protestant tradition(s) is the “fulness of the faith, once delivered by the Apostles, without change.” In other words, you need to help them see that they will be abandoning the Church. You call it a form of spiritual adultery. Then help them see that they, if they convert, will be yoking themselves to something other than Christ. Of course, you will have to prove this in any number of ways in order to make this argument compelling.
2A) Help them to see that the ancient traditions of Orthodoxy (or whatever else they might convert to) are now outmoded and outdated; that the ancient Church fathers who helped form the theological foundation of our understanding of the Gospel, and who worshipped in the same manner as the Orthodox do (I can’t speak for anyone else in this case), are only to be listened to for their “words” and not for the way in which they worshipped.
2B) Make them see this: just because St John Chrysostom, St Athanasius, St Basil the Great, St Augustine, St Gregory the Theologian, et al, wouldn’t likely recognize what a Protestant church service was and would not (and even more so, *could not*) take communion in such a service does not make that service wrong or bad or negative. In other words, those men worshipped in a manner that the Orthodox (and the traditional RC’s) would easily recognize. But that’s not a problem. Right?
Of course it isn’t right. And this should matter to all of us. There is only one Truth, one Faith, one Baptism and one Christ. There is only one Body, and such a unified Body, while it may (sadly) contain divisions due to human failure, cannot be disunited within itself in terms of communion and confession. If a member of the Body is not in communion with another member of the Body, then it has suffered dismemberment: either as a lost limb, or a Body that has lost that limb. In the case of the Protestant world, it is a continuity of self-dismemberment that you are arguing for. As if an arm can live and exist and thrive as an arm without a body.
The Church is not Frankenstein: a body sewn together of random parts that (in some fantastical way) are made to work together, but ultimately do not belong together. We are united to Christ in Baptism, and we become one Church and one Body by way of Christ. We are each changed and made into members of Christ’s Body. But if we refuse to live as one, we suffer from self-dismemberment and self-exile and self-excommunication. We are intended to be one Body, fully united.
It seems to me that some Protestants see this sort of unity as confining or somehow abrogating their illusions of spiritual autonomy. But that is by far not the case. Speaking as an Orthodox priest, I have never been more free and more able to pray and to sense what unity in Christ means than since the time I became Orthodox. This is the reality and result of hewing oneself to the one unified faith. This is the reality of an unchanging Tradition fleshed out in the lived reality of the Gospel over two millennia. I don’t have to make anything up: it is provided for me, and I shape myself to that worship. And it in turn shapes me. is this “lazy mysticism”? I think not. And neither should you.
It seems to me that this is the challenge that Protestants face now. I don’t argue for an end of the many varied Protestant traditions. I argue that there is and can only be one Church, one faith, one truth and one Christ. Our spiritual lives as Christians should reflect this, that we may be one even as Christ and the Father are one, beyond any limitations of metaphor or ecumenical dialog.
I hope this doesn’t come across as snarky. I really say these things in the hope of illumining the issue, and out of a deep, sincere and abiding love for my brothers and sisters in the Protestant world. Forgive me, a sinner!
David says
For a measured, mature and far more gracious take on the Fut. of Prot. Seminar here’s a brief response… from one of those thousands of Orthodox converts who can no longer think for themselves…living with their parents. 😉 Read thoughtfully without all the CREC triumphal “we are the center of christendom” nonsense…and see just whom has their middle finger forever ready. [much other excellent stuff here…for those with ears to hear.]
http://orthodoxbridge.com/back-to-the-future-for-protestantism/
Joshua says
“…my church…”
Perry says
“It starts as ecclesiastical voyeurism, lusting over papal swimsuit issues and before you know it, it’s turned into a full blown ecclesiastical porn addiction, where Protestants are drooling over icons late at night on their computers… he explains to his pastor that the arguments for apostolic succession and prayers to saints are just so sexy, and the fragmentation of protestantism just makes his little heart go flub-flub-flubbity.”
I do not know of any Orthodox Priest who would receive a potential catechumen for the reasons that you have listed. If I had walked into my Priest’s office fifteen years ago and said that I wanted to be Orthodox because “my heart went flub flub flubbity” at the mention of the Filioque, he would have gently sent me home with the admonition that I come back when I had more substantive reasons for wanting to convert.
It is hard to be Orthodox. The additional services, standing through the hour and a half to two hour liturgy, the fasting for over a third of the year… All of these additional obligations add up to what for some is an unbearable burden. Many do not make the cut. I can think of three converts in my parish who have gone back to their protestant denominations.
For many it is an agonizing decision. They face anger, fear and derision from friends and family. It is a gut-wrenching experience to hear a family member say you are not welcome in their home until you come to your senses and return to Jesus.
The sacrifices can be terrible, but as Father Bozeman says upstream, you soon realize thay you are now a member of the one church that has the fullness of the faith, and the thought of leaving becomes just as unbearable as the thought of joining once was.
True converts are not running from protestantism, they are running to Orthodoxy and Catholicism. If you have lost or are losing parishioners to Catholicism, I would recommend you sit down and ask them why, and listen to their answers, instead of the strawman reasons you have listed here. The true reasons may or may not surprise you, but they will give you more understanding.
Please pray for me, as I willl preay for you.
SarahS says
So many excellent responses, I don’t think I can really add much. Pastor Sumpter radically underestimates both the reason for conversions and the resulting satisfaction, the putting down of one’s roots into soil deeper than the Reformation.