Was the Protestant Reformation a Radical Revolution?
Written by Glenn A. Moots |
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
The Protestant ethos of “Ad Fontes” (“to the sources”) demonstrates their appreciation of the ancient faith. Protestants likewise cherished the social and intellectual roots of ordered liberty, and they opposed all efforts by radicals or revolutionaries to tear them up.
If critics of Protestantism are to believed, Reformation Day is a day to lament: Patrick Deneen blames Protestantism for Enlightenment liberalism; Ralph Hancock charges Calvin with rationalism; Catholic intellectuals Hilaire Belloc and Brad Gregory blame the Reformation for destroying Western civilization. So serious and existential are these charges that going “home to Rome” is, for some converts, the ultimate act of resistance against modernity.
But was the Reformation revolutionary at all? If one rightly confines it to the Magisterial Reformation: No. Magisterial reformers are called “magisterial” because they partnered with civil authorities (or “magistrates”) to preserve the corpus christianum and social order in Protestant polities against radicals on one side and Catholic powers on the other. Magisterial Protestantism included the Reformed, Lutheran, and Anglican traditions as well as some British nonconformists. Magisterial Protestants rejected the proliferation of radical sects and dissenters on both sides of the Atlantic and were, by liberal standards, quite severe with their opponents (e.g., Anabaptists or Quakers). According to Sidney Ahlstrom, three-quarters of eighteenth-century Americans were magisterial Protestants.
Progenitors of Individualism?
Even if magisterial Protestants opposed radicalism, didn’t they still seed it by asserting freedom of conscience? That would be true if Protestants had in fact freed the conscience in the way critics assert. Freeing the conscience was not directed at presumed “irrational religious and social norms” (as Deneen put it). Nor did Protestant theology necessitate a successive wave of freedoms, as David Corey has asserted.
Luther refers to the conscience over five hundred times, identifying it as the “coram deo”—that which puts us before the face of God—to distinguish it from the ethical and political rules of society. Luther never frees the conscience; he prioritizes its binding. The conscience of man is bound by ethical and moral rules of society as well as the Word of God—particularly Old Testament Law. Human bindings are conditional; the conscience is unconditionally freed only by the Gospel. Luther did not empower the individual to free his own conscience any more than Thomas Aquinas did. Luther opposed anyone who presumed the conscience to be autonomous and it is impossible to find a magisterial reformer who did not bind the conscience to the authority of scripture and church leaders. Ordered liberty of the conscience is not anarchistic spiritual individualism.
What we now call “Church-State Relations” (an ongoing debate in Christendom) entered a new phase during the Reformation, but “freedom of conscience” had little or no effect on the freedom of an individual. In fact, because a believer’s conscience is inwardly free (as Luther, Richard Hooker, and others argued) it is therefore untrammeled by outward impositions (e.g., conformity in vestments or liturgy) judged prudent by civil or ecclesiastical authorities for the unity of Church and Commonwealth. Nonconformists in England were counseled by continental reformers like Heinrich Bullinger to be prudent in their dissent. So-called “adiaphora” were not presumed to bind in the same way that the Word of God did, but they were imposed for the sake of unity and good order. John Locke’s defense of imposition of adiaphora or “things indifferent” in his unpublished Two Tracts (1660-62) is an inconvenient truth for any Whig history of toleration from Luther to Locke to Madison, for example.
If the Protestant Reformation led to what would eventually become religious liberty, then the path is indirect at best, and not landing there for at least a century or two. If anything, circumstance and pragmatism should get the credit. Arguments like those of Roger Williams were ridiculed, if not forgotten, for almost two centuries and Andrew Murphy makes a good case that principled arguments for toleration probably had little effect. More importantly, Williams, Anabaptists, Congregationalists, or Baptists desiring to separate believers, as wheat, from the tares of society (Matthew 13) were accused of secularizing the commonwealth and abandoning Christendom. Some were martyred. Most Protestants therefore fought against secularization and liberalization.
The Doctrine of Vocation vs. Egalitarianism
Protestants not only opposed an autonomous conscience, they opposed leveling the social institutions essential for civil society. Activities of daily life, freed from their implicit inferiority to holy orders like monasticism, were elevated almost to the level of worship. Daily life was directed by one’s vocations. Though Luther is most famously associated with the Protestant doctrine of vocation, its fullest presentation was in a remarkable work of 1626 by William Perkins, a Cambridge theologian of the Elizabethan settlement more popular at the time than Shakespeare or Richard Hooker. Perkins argued that every calling must be “fitted to the man, and every man be fitted to his calling.” And though Perkins argued that God is the author of each man’s separate calling through Creation and Providence, the application of that fact is neither individualistic nor egalitarian but instead deeply conservative. One learns one’s desires and gifts within a community, particularly the communities of family, the Church, and one’s neighbors. Our contribution to these communities invests our vocations with moral significance, not some modern individualistic and existential search for personal identity.
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What Grieving People Wish You Knew at Christmas
Grieving people around you feel the weariness of life and death in this world and wonder how anyone around them can rejoice. They are in desperate need of the reality of Christ to break through their loneliness and despair. While we don’t want to preach at them, we do look for the opportunity to share with them the comfort and joy to be found in the coming of God himself in Christ to rescue us.
“Happy Thanksgiving!” “Merry Christmas!” “Happy New Year!” As the end of the year approaches, everywhere we turn someone is telling us we should be happy.
But for those who’ve recently lost someone they love, the holidays can seem more like something to survive than to enjoy. The traditions and events that can add so much joy and meaning to the season are punctuated with painful reminders of the person we love who is not here to share in it. Many have wished they could find a quiet place to hide until January 2.
While those of us who surround grieving people can’t fix the pain of loss, we can bring comfort as we come alongside those who hurt with special sensitivity to what grief is like during the holidays. Grieving people wish we all knew at least five truths, among others, at Christmas.
1. Even the best times are punctuated with an awareness that someone is missing.
I remember a conversation I had with a friend as we prepared to head out on a holiday trip shortly after our daughter, Hope, died. “That should be fun!” she said. I sensed I was supposed to agree wholeheartedly with her.
What I didn’t know how to explain is that when you’ve lost a member of your family, even the best of times are painfully incomplete. Someone is missing. Even the best days and happiest events are tinged with sadness. Wherever you go, the sadness goes with you.
2. Social situations are hard.
I have never been able to figure out why crowds are difficult when you’re grieving, but they are. Small talk can be unbearable when something so significant has happened. Meeting new people will likely bring questions about family. To walk alone into a room full of couples when your spouse has died, or into an event filled with children when your child has died, can be a soul-crushing reminder of what you have lost.
If you’ve invited someone in the midst of grief to your holiday event, let them know that you understand if it seems too hard at the last minute and they have to cancel, or that they may only be able to stay for a short time.
If you’re going to an event, give a grieving person a call and ask if you can pick her up and stick with her throughout the event for support. When you come upon a grieving person at a holiday social event, let him know that you are still thinking about the person he loves who has died, and invite him to talk about his memories with that person. Don’t be afraid to say the name of the person who has died. It will be a balm to the grieving person’s soul.
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15,409 Days: Psalm 90 and Wisdom
Will we listen to the voice that tells us to exist solely for the present moment and the pleasures of this life, or will we listen to the voice with a staff in his hand and a veil on his face? The voice that would have spent time with God–face to face–as a friend? The voice that says to use your time wisely since you don’t know how much you have. One of these voices is well acquainted with the character of the Lord. This voice knows that eternity is coming and that our present life is as fleeting as a vapor. That the next life will last forever.
5,409 days. That’s how long my dear wife lived on this Earth. When we were dating, we obviously had no idea. When we got engaged, there were no mystical revelation. And when we got married, this number certainly wasn’t written on the back of the marriage certificate for us to see.
In our twenties we were rather unaware. Most of our thirties passed normally. But cancer struck when she was 38 and death was suddenly part of our thoughts about the future. She would end up living four more years. Chemotherapy would work excellent and she would carry on. But one year ago the unwelcome guest would visit again. This time cancer never left. My wife lived 15,409 days. How would we have lived differently if we had a ticker counting down each day. What if we knew when we got married that she only had 8,174 days left? What would we do differently? Or when our first child was born, would knowing she only had 3,577 days left have changed the myriad of decisions we would make as we raised our children?
Some would object to this way of thinking. With all the swagger of Wayne and Garth, they would cry “live in the now!” Why waste time worrying, just live! Live your life “authentically” as you go from day to day. But another voice would disagree. With, perhaps, his staff in hand and maybe a veil on his face, he would say the opposite. “Teach us to number our days, oh Lord, that we might get a heart of wisdom.”
Psalm 90
In Psalm 90 Moses declares four characteristics of God and what our response should be. In verses 1-2 he speaks of the eternality of God.
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Remembering this Classic Volume and Its Current Relevance
Liberal theology is not another type of Christianity but something altogether different. Machen had to fight this on many fronts during his career, including having to leave the increasingly liberal Princeton Seminary after 23 years to form Westminster Theological Seminary. And of course things are no different today and perhaps even worse. Modern forms of this heretical take on Christianity are now called “progressive Christianity” and the like, but it is the same destructive theology that has jettisoned biblical truths for trendy, man-pleasing pablum. That is why a book like this will never go out of date, and will constantly need to be revisited.
OK, I am a bit off by a few weeks, or a few months, but we can still commemorate the appearance a century ago of one of the most important theological works of recent times. I refer to the 1923 book, Christianity and Liberalism by the American Presbyterian theologian and New Testament professor, J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937).
The copy of it that I am now holding in my hands is the 1974 paperback edition put out by Eerdmans. Because it is such a classic work, it is still of course being reprinted today. Six months ago a one-hundredth anniversary edition was released by Ligonier Ministries.
I have written a number of pieces on Machen and his famous volume over the years. As far as a general overview of the man and his work, see this piece: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2018/08/28/notable-christians-j-gresham-machen/
And for some write-ups that feature a number of quotes from the book in question, see these articles: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2017/07/15/theological-liberalism-progressive-christianity/
And this one: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2021/03/11/no-we-are-not-all-on-the-same-side/
But for those wanting a quick overview of the book and its message, let me just offer a few choice quotes from the book’s opening pages:
“In the sphere of religion, in particular, the present time is a time of conflict; the great redemptive religion which has always been known as Christianity is battling against a totally diverse type of religious belief, which is only the more destructive of the Christian faith because it makes use of traditional Christian terminology. This modern non-redemptive religion is called ‘modernism’ or ‘liberalism’.”
“[W]hat the liberal theologian has retained after abandoning to the enemy one Christian doctrine after another is not Christianity at all, but a religion which is so entirely different from Christianity as to belong in a distinct category.”
“[D]espite the liberal use of traditional phraseology modern liberalism is not only a different religion from Christianity but belongs in a totally different class of religions.”
“[L]iberalism in the modern Church represents a return to an un-Christian and sub-Christian form of the religious life.”
These brief quotes give you a clear feel for the drift of his volume. Liberal theology is not another type of Christianity but something altogether different. Machen had to fight this on many fronts during his career, including having to leave the increasingly liberal Princeton Seminary after 23 years to form Westminster Theological Seminary.
And of course things are no different today and perhaps even worse. Modern forms of this heretical take on Christianity are now called “progressive Christianity” and the like, but it is the same destructive theology that has jettisoned biblical truths for trendy, man-pleasing pablum. That is why a book like this will never go out of date, and will constantly need to be revisited.
Obviously so many great theologians over the past century have noted the utter importance of this man and this book. Let me feature just one: Carl Truman. He is well placed to write on this: for some years he had taught theology at Westminster, before moving on to teach at Grove City College. He has penned various pieces on this, so let me draw your attention to some of them.
In a 2008 article for Themelios titled “The second most important book you will ever read,” he opened with these words:
In the lounge next to my office hang the portraits of a number of the founding faculty of my institution, Westminster Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania. There is one of John Murray, the dour-looking Scotsman with the glass eye. Legend has it that you could tell which eye was the real one because that was the one which did not smile.
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