Throwback Thursday: The Problem With Protestantism
Note: This TBT is a bit of a cheat. It was not published on Gottesblog, but rather in the print journal (Trinity, 2012). I did not ask permission to throwback to a print article, but since we are Evangelicals, it should be easier to get forgiveness than permission. At any rate, I’m going to sin boldly here. ~ Ed.
The Problem with Protestantism
I was recently subscribed to a facebook group called "Reformation Protestants."
After being part of the group for approximately 23 seconds, I posted and proposed that the name be changed to "Reformation Catholics."
I was being tongue-in-cheek, but my one-liner set off an amusing exchange, including a call for a vote to actually change the name of the group (so far, it has not passed, but I seem to have touched on a nerve). A discussion ensued about what it means to be Protestant - including the revelation that one need not even believe in the Trinity to be considered Protestant.
Some people were miffed, and suggested that there was nothing wrong with the name of the group - and I actually agree with that. It's not my group. I didn't start it. I didn't even ask to join. I was just making a point about the shortcomings of the word "Protestant" - especially when applied to Lutherans.
The first issue is one of imprecision.
What is a Protestant? Well, it's any Christian who is not a Roman Catholic or an Eastern Orthodox. It is impossible to define "Protestant" in any positive way, we can only say what one is by saying what one isn't. As a theological term, it is useless. For what is Protestant Theology?
What is the Protestant view of Baptismal regeneration? Of the Real presence in the Lord's Supper? Of Confession and Absolution, of the Office of the Ministry, of the role of women, of the liturgy, of the nature of Holy Scripture, of the place for tradition, of creeds, of predestination, of speaking in tongues, of the nature of the free will, of the age of Baptism, of the age of accountability, of the theories of the atonement, of what elements are permissible in Baptism and the Lord's Supper, of evolution, etc. etc. etc., world without end.
The only thing all "Protestants" (from Lutherans and Anglicans to the Reformed, to the Baptists, and even to the snake handling sects) all agree on is that they do not recognize the pope as the head of the Church. And even then, they won't get an argument from the Eastern churches.
At best, "Protestant" is a historical shorthand for a reforming movement in the 16th century western Church - mainly in terms of Lutheranism, Reformed Christianity, and Anglicanism. The term has its origin in the Lutheran and Reformed "protest" of the 1529 Diet of Speyer. This leaves the Anabaptists and later movements (such as the Methodists and Pentecostals) in a kind-of historical no-man's land. Really muddying the waters are unitarians - such as the Unitarian Pentecostals. In leaving Trinitarian Christianity, have they left Protestantism?
Nobody seems to have a definitive answer. This doesn't even address the issue of Mormonism.
At best, "Protestant" is a historically ambiguous and theologically dubious label. At worst, it yokes us with church bodies that teach false doctrine, and in some cases, are not even Christian.
The second issue is one of self-identity.
Many of our Reformed brethren assume that we are comfortable with the term "Protestant." They speak of Martin Luther as a "Protestant" reformer. They describe our churches as "Protestant" churches. But according to our own self-definition as found in the Book of Concord, the word "Protestant" never appears. It is hard to imagine that a term that came into being in 1529 would have only accidentally been omitted from our confessional documents that were still in the process of being written and assembled for some fifty more years.
By contrast, the Lutheran confessions are filled with references to our faith and our churches as "Catholic."
In fact, the Athanasian Creed makes it clear that "Whoever desires to be saved must, above all, hold the catholic faith." In fact, if one does not "keep it whole and undefiled" he "will without doubt perish eternally." Without doubt! According to the same creed, we Lutherans are restrained by "the catholic religion" from holding a false view of the Trinity. And if the Creed were not clear enough, it closes with the confession that anyone who does not "believe it [the catholic faith] faithfully and firmly cannot be saved."
So even in matters of salvation, we Lutherans would differ with many other churches and Christians who bear the label "Protestant" - i.e. those who could not confess the Athanasian Creed with us.
Some Protestants might argue that all "Protestants" have the same view of justification by grace through faith. But then again, when you scratch the surface too much on this one, differences even in this doctrine are bound to emerge - especially in light of the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification - and the various Protestant churches that have signed onto it, claiming agreement with Rome. Other churches emphasize sanctification to the point of re-establishing a kind of Protestant Pelagianism. So much for "sola gratia" and "sola fide" as unifying Protestant themes.
There is not even agreement as to what "sola scriptura" means among Protestants, nor even whether the Bible can be taken literally or treated as being the Word of God (as opposed to "containing" the Word of God).
The label "Protestant" is a surrender to the papacy.
In the throes of the Reformation, the papal theologians made the argument that the Catholic Church was coterminous with the Roman Catholic Church. In other words, the Roman communion was the universal church, that there is no Christianity outside of the Roman Church. They made this argument by denying us the term "Catholic" - reserving that term to themselves. They invented new labels to differentiate us from the Church Catholic, the universal Church outside of whom there is no salvation.
It was clever marketing, especially when used against us Lutherans. The term "Lutheran" itself was impressed upon the Wittenberg Reformers as a way to paint this Catholic reform movement with the broad brush of earlier historic movements named after men, such as Arianism, Valentinianism, and Montanism. For the opposite of "Catholic" is not "Protestant" but rather "heretic." This is the historic use of the term, and it is precisely why Rome markets itself as "the" Catholic Church. We do ourselves and our confession a great disservice in surrendering our catholicity to the pope. And the same goes for accepting the word "catholic" only if it is spelled with a small "c" - as though we are some kind of "second class" catholics. The 1921 Concordia Triglotta shamelessly uses the upper case "C." I believe we should do the same.
Lutherans as Evangelical Catholics
The term "Lutheran" likewise is not part of our confessional self-identity. It is admittedly confusing in some cases. For example, some assume that we hold the writings of Martin Luther as authoritative, or that we somehow treat him as chief of all the saints and doctors of the Church. Indeed, Luther himself winced at the label and discouraged its use. However, that being said, at least the historic term "Lutheran" can (unlike the term "Protestant") be positively identified. In other words, we can define "Lutheran" in some other way than simply saying what we are not.
In fact, we could define Lutherans as Catholic Christians who accept the Book of Concord as normative of the Catholic, Biblical, Evangelical, and Orthodox faith. In that sense, "Lutheran" is a helpful term - so long as we debunk the belief that we hold Luther out to be a Messiah or some kind of alternative pope. We were the first churches to claim the mantle of Evangelical churches, and we never accepted the papal claim that we left Catholicism. In fact, regarding our doctrine, every Lutheran church and pastor affirms that "there is nothing that varies from the Scriptures, or from the Church Catholic, or even from the Church of Rome as known from its writers" (Triglotta, 59).
I believe we should reclaim the various adjectives that describe our faith, the faith practiced in our churches - and not yield to the canard that people will be "confused." If Methodists and Presbyterians can openly use the word "catholic" in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds, we Lutherans, who openly quote the church fathers and proclaim our faith to be "Catholic," should make every effort to proclaim our catholicity and to distance ourselves from the theologically lazy and historically hazy term "Protestant."
We are indeed "Reformation Catholics" whether the Reformed or the Roman Catholics or the facebook group "Reformation Protestants" approve or not!