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features VOL.22 | NO.1 | JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2013

Is Evangelical Enough?

Who's in Charge Here? The Illusions of Church Infallibility

From Bishop to Pope: A Timeline

The Inventions of Rome

Going to Church with the Reformers

BY ADRIANE DORR

BY MICHAEL S. HORTON

BY TOM WENGER

BY W. ROBERT GODFREY

BY MICHAEL S. HORTON

MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

Always Wanted to Write for MR?

WEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;RE LOOKING FOR READERS LIKE YOU TO SUBMIT BOOK REVIEWS, SHORT ESSAYS, AND FEATURED ESSAYS TO MODERN REFORMATION.

H AVE AN IDEA? SUBM I T TODAY AT MO DER NREFO R MATIO N.ORG/SUBM I SSI ON S.

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR BY RYAN GLOMSRUD

INTERVIEW ›› Is the Reformation Over? MICHAEL HORTON Q&A WITH MARK N OLL

FROM THE HALLWAY ›› New Catechisms BY MICHAEL S. HORTON

THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD ››

Part I: From Eve to Tamar BY ZACH KEELE

47 54 56

BOOK REVIEWS RUSS DOUTHAT, MICHAEL J. KRUGER, AND BRAD S. GREGORY

GEEK SQUAD ›› The “Good News”

According to Rome

BACK PAGE ›› Is the Reformation Over?

Plenary Indulgence for the Year of Faith Editor-in-Chief Michael S. Horton Executive Editor Ryan Glomsrud Managing Editor Patricia Anders Marketing Director Michele Tedrick Design Director José Reyes for Metaleap Creative, metaleapcreative.com Department Editors Ryan Glomsrud (Letter from the Editor & Reviews), Michael S. Horton Designer Tiffany Forrester Copy Editor Elizabeth Isaac Proofreader Ann Smith Modern Reformation © 2013 All rights reserved. ISSN-1076-7169 1725 Bear Valley Parkway Escondido, CA 92027 (800) 8907 5 5 6 i n fo @ m o d e r n re fo r m a t i o n .o rg w w w. m o d e r n re fo r m a t i o n .o rg S u b s c r i p t i o n I n fo r m a t i o n U S 1 Y R $ 3 2 2 YR $58 Digital Only 1 YR $25 US Student 1 YR $26 Canada 1 YR $39 2 YR $70 Europe 1 YR $58 2 YR $104 Other 1 YR $65 2 YR $118

MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

LETTER from the EDITOR

RYAN GLOMSRUD executive editor

We launch Modern Reformation in 2013 by posing a provocative question, especially for a magazine with a name like ours! Is the Protestant Reformation over? We certainly don’t think so, but it is crucial to take stock from time to time in order to discern whether it is still necessary to keep up a genuinely Protestant protest against the encroachment of Roman Catholic theology even within evangelicalism. The question isn’t merely self-reflective, as Adriane Dorr, editor of The Lutheran Witness, reports; there are a number of highly aggressive Roman apologists who are bringing the fight to evangelicals, especially on the Internet. Some are reviving the label “Rambo Catholics” for their hard-nosed tactics. In the past, we have devoted a great deal of energy to the controversy over the gospel itself, understood in terms of the Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone, through grace alone, in Christ alone. We continue to think that this is the crucial article of faith on which the church literally depends as the bride of Christ. But the solas of the Reformation are all interrelated, as Martin Luther knew so well. This is why Luther’s challenge of the practice of indulgences (a practice still alive and well in 2013) was at the same time an attack on the Roman papacy

itself and a defense of the view that Scripture alone is the ultimate authority able to bind men’s consciences before God. “Is the Reformation Over?” is our way of asking this authority question. Does Rome still maintain the very same teachings that Protestant Christians since the sixteenth century have recognized as profoundly unbiblical? In feature articles by Editor-in-Chief Michael Horton, together with W. Robert Godfrey (president of Westminster Seminary California) and Tom Wenger (associate pastor at the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Annapolis), we consider Rome’s claims about the authority of the pope along with other teachings in light of Scripture and history. To set the stage, we present an interview with leading evangelical scholar Mark Noll, professor of history at Notre Dame, along with a number of important book review articles. There is nothing more critical than a solid grounding in the basics of the faith in order to distinguish biblical truth from manmade religion. So also in this issue, Michael Horton compares the old Heidelberg Catechism with the New City Catechism, an instructional venture undertaken by Pastor Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York. Further, and as an expression of our desire to help you know what you believe, Orthodox Presbyterian minister Zach Keele offers the first in a series of reflections on the big-picture story of the Bible. Some may be ready to throw in the towel, but in this important issue we want to help you understand what is at stake today in the ongoing Reformation debate over the authority of Scripture. We have two choices, Adriane Door insists, either pretend that the Roman Catholic threat isn’t on the rise, to our own peril, or “confess the faith even more robustly.” We hope you join us in encouraging our churches to do the latter in 2013.

“IS THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION OVER? WE CERTAINLY DON’T THINK SO”

INTERVIEW

Is the Reformation Over? MICHAEL HORTON Q & A WITH MARK NOLL

INTERVIEW

I S T H E R E FO R M AT I O N OV E R?

MICHAEL HORTON Q & A with MARK NOLL

ark Noll is the Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame and author of multiple books, includ-

ing The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Eerdmans, 1995)

and Is the Reformation Over? An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism (Baker Academic, 2008) with Carolyn Nystrom, which is the subject of this interview. One of the questions you probably expect curmudgeonly Reformation-oriented folks like us to ask is how exactly you’re defining “Reformation” here when you ask,“Is the Reformation over?” It seems that the basis for recent Protestant-Roman Catholic cooperation has been the culture wars and shared political sociocultural concerns. Do you really think the Reformation is over if it’s defined in doctrinal terms?

a. That’s a very pertinent question, because

not only since 2004, but actually for decades, there was a great deal of what I think Francis Schaeffer used to call co-belligerency between culturally conservative evangelicals and culturally conservative Catholics. So, yes, your concern about doctrine is really what we’re focusing on, and in defining the Reformation, we did not use any of the formulas of the sixteenth century, but rather we’re looking for Christ-centered, Bible-centered, grace-centered religion. Of course, as wishy-washy historians, we don’t really actually ever answer

our question in the book; but I think our conclusion would be that all Protestants, even those who pride themselves on being the strongest representatives of Reformation Christianity, need to be more Christ-centered, more Bible-centered, and more grace-centered. Yet, on the other hand, many manifestations of the Roman Catholic Church have moved in the past forty or fifty years toward more obviously stressing the Bible, Christ, and grace in their presentation of the Christian faith. What would you say to a critic who might argue that by going back to the confessions and catechisms of the Reformation and those definitions—rather than focusing on whether there is a Christ-centered emphasis, a Bible-centered emphasis, a grace-centered emphasis—you would reveal something completely different? Certainly the Reformers would never have said that Rome wasn’t Christ-centered or that they didn’t believe in grace or in the Bible.

I do remember reading Martin Luther’s great tracts of 1520, particularly the tract on the pope in Rome in which he calls the pope the antichrist, and the reason he calls the pope the antichrist is strictly spelled out. It’s not that the pope claimed to have authority over all Christians, or that the pope claimed to be descended from the apostles, but because the pope violated the mandate of the church to present Christ to the people. So to Luther the pope was the antichrist because he stood in the way of Jesus Christ working with the people. I do think that the more general definition we propose is one that, while not strictly fitting with the confessions and catechisms of the Reformation, is more or less in line with that sixteenth-century teaching. I should hasten to add a footnote that one of the books I enjoyed working on most in my academic life was preparing Confessions and Catechisms of the Reformation (Regent College, 2004) for use by students.

I’m pressing this a little further because I’m thinking of the solas in the hallmarks of the Reformation. It wasn’t because the Reformers didn’t think Rome believed in Christ, grace, faith, or Scripture, but that Rome didn’t believe in Christ alone as the basis for the believer standing before God, or grace alone as the moving cause, or faith alone as the instrumental cause. For instance, you write: “The Catholic catechism provides a substantial outline of Christian orthodoxy; it upholds God as Trinity, Jesus as wholly human and wholly divine, born of a virgin, crucified for our salvation.” But then you add, “It speaks of justification by grace through faith, and entirely as a gift from God.” That doesn’t seem, at least according to my reading, to be an innovation. The really difficult thing between Rome and the Reformers was that qualifier “alone.” Not that we’re justified by faith and grace, but alone. Am I right?

I’m not going to contest your interpretation of the sixteenth century, because I know I’m walking among experts here. But when I read statements such as, “Believing in Jesus Christ and in the one who sent him for our salvation is necessary for obtaining that salvation; faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to man,” I’m

“IT IS EASIER FOR US TO SEE AND APPLAUD SIMILARITIES BETWEEN REFORMATION AND CATHOLIC POSITIONS ON SOME OF THESE MATTERS IN LIGHT OF THE VIRTUAL PELAGIANISM OF AMERICAN RELIGION.” hearing something that sounds more like sixteenth-century formulations of Christian salvation than many formulations to be heard from Protestants today—not necessarily always Protestants in the Lutheran and Calvinist traditions, but many others. When I see that kind of declaration compared with the anathemas of Trent, I see a change. You’re familiar with the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation, which remains a controversial document. What they jointly assert is, Together we confess by grace alone by faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works. Faith is itself God’s gift through the Holy Spirit who works through word and sacrament in the community of believers and who at the same time leads believers into that eternal renewal of life, which God will bring to completion in eternal life. That statement, which has been approved by the Vatican as part of the Joint Declaration, MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

INTERVIEW

may not be crossing every t and dotting every i of what Luther would have done, but it is much closer than anything that Protestants could have expected to hear from Catholics between the Council of Regensburg in 1541 and the present. And we are certainly looking for every sign of encouragement. In my own comments about the Joint Declaration, I thought it really did display some surprising moves on Rome’s part. Didn’t it also, however, show some surprising moves on the part of the Lutheran World Federation when they defined faith as obedience or faith as love?

out, I think, more clearly by Calvin than even by Luther. That distinction is not a strong one historically in the Catholic Church, so I think there still needs to be some bringing together of vocabularies. But I do think it was quite clearly spelled out in the Joint Declaration and spelled out at greater length in the Catholic catechism. You do have a statement of salvation by grace through faith, and it comes close to grace alone, and it certainly states explicitly that faith is not a human work by which the gospel is apprehended; faith is a gift itself of the gospel, by which the gospel is appreMARK NOLL hended. Maybe that wouldn’t have been quite an A+ in Geneva or WitIs the Reformation tenberg, but that’s very good in the Over? An Evangelical United States of America in our day. Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism (Baker Academic, 2008)

It is defined as love, That’s one thing that struck me as but only after it’s defined as I was reflecting on your comments belief in Christ. I’m a Calvinin Is the Reformation Over? Tell This book provides ist who likes Charles Wesme if this is correct: it is easier for an evaluation of ley, so I’ve never felt that us to see and applaud similarities contemporary Roman faith active in love is a bad between Reformation and Catholic Catholicism and the formula. I think the tradepositions on some of these matters changing relationship off of the Joint Declaration in light of the virtual Pelagianism between Catholics and was for a stronger stateof American religion. In Amerievangelicals. ment from the Catholics ca’s God (Oxford University Press, than the Protestants might 2005), you explain something that have expected on sola fide is unfortunately true about Amerand sola gratia, and a stronger statement from ican revivalism when you write, “It is not an the Lutherans on the necessity of faith being exaggeration to claim that this nineteenth-cenactive in love. tury Protestant evangelicalism differed from the religion of the Protestant Reformation as much as sixteenth-century Reformation ProtLet me ask, for clarification, do you mean faith estantism differed from the Roman Catholic active in love as a formula for sanctification or theology from which it emerged.” I think that’s for justification? profound, but aren’t you really saying, then, that a Pelagian American religion (or what has been You put your finger on what is a legitimate called “Protestantism without the Reformadifference, because as you know in the Catholic tion”) doesn’t look that different from contemtradition that important distinction between porary Roman Catholicism, which is at least justification and sanctification was worked semi-Augustinian?

“THE KEY POINT I WANT TO ACCOMPLISH WITH THE BOOK IS BETTER AWARENESS BY EVANGELICALS OF WHAT IS HAPPENING IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, AND WHAT POSSIBILITIES NOW EXIST FOR FRUITFUL DIALOGUE AND COOPERATION.” a. I would actually say that, but that’s not how I

would say it. I don’t think I would imply the kind of concession I hear you implying. But yes, I do believe that given the state of modern religion, something nearly Augustinian is really very good. I would hate to say that the standards for sixteenth-century Protestant orthodoxy would need to be scrutinized.

But what about the sections, for instance, side by side with some of those you quoted? I’m thinking of sections I’ve read in the Catholic catechism that say that our first justification is by grace alone, we have an increase of justification as we cooperate with grace, and then our final justification is through grace and merit?

a. Right. I actually think what’s happening there

is that Catholics use one word for what over the past five centuries Protestants have talked about in terms of justification and sanctification. Scholars have written some sharp things on the developments in the Catholic Church since the Second Vatican Council, and have made very clear that some confusion between Catholics and Protestants is due to the fact that Catholics use the term

“justification” for the entire process of salvation, whereas classical Protestants divide up faith as defined by justification and sanctification. Do you think this is just a terminology problem?

a. I think the quotation you cite is. I actually

think there are some harder things to accept for Bible-believing, Christ-centered Protestants in the catechism than the statements about justification.

Merit as a category—that is, human merit as playing an essential role in our justification–is not, you would say, a church-dividing issue?

a. I don’t think I would say that. You’re pushing

me beyond areas of my competence, but I actually think the vocabulary of merit had become so corrupt by the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that it became impossible for Protestants to shape or express any part of the Christian faith with the vocabulary of merit. In the Catholic tradition, there were better and worse uses of the vocabulary of merit; and in the better uses, what was happening was what I would call a legitimate missiological expression of Christian faith in the categories of the Middle Ages. I’m actually glad the Protestants jettisoned the vocabulary of merit, but I think there’s a more benign strand that’s always used in Catholicism in the use of the vocabulary of merit.

What are you hoping is the outcome of this book?

I’d like particularly evangelical Protestants who have been aware of developments in Catholicism to take a closer look at those changes. We are ambiguous at the end about answering the question of our title, Is the Reformation Over? The key point I want to accomplish with the book is better awareness by evangelicals of what is happening in the Catholic Church, and what possibilities now exist for fruitful dialogue and cooperation, not just on cultural matters but on matters coming much closer to the heart of the Christian faith. MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

F R O M t h e H A L LW AY

N E W C AT E C H I S M S

by MICHAEL S. HORTON

n cooperation with the Gospel Coalition, Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City has recently produced the New City Catechism. Their motivation is commendable. Back in 1996, we at the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals sponsored a meeting of church leaders from different denominations to draft a statement called “The Cambridge Declaration.” Similar in motive (though not effect!) to Luther’s famous theses, our intention in the Cambridge Declaration was simply to put some issues on the front burner. Much to our surprise, we discovered that many churches were using it as a confession. We tried to assure people that, unlike a confession or catechism, the Cambridge Declaration was limited in its scope. It wasn’t intended to fill out the breadth and depth of what Christians should know and confess; it simply highlights critical concerns in our churches of the present moment. Clearly, there is a hunger for something like a confession and catechism in evangelical circles. The authors of the New City Catechism seek to answer that need. The ancient church flourished where believers—recent converts and lifelong disciples, young and old—shared a common confession (“the rule of faith”) and taught that faith in a common catechism. With their question-and-answer format, these basic instruction guides contributed greatly to building up the body in maturity and sound doctrine into Christ who is the head. The revival of catechisms was one of the outstanding achievements of the Reformation in the sixteenth century. Although “catechism” sounds Roman Catholic to many, it was the success of Reformation catechisms that provoked Rome to offer its own alternative. Luther was shocked to discover on his pastoral rounds that few could even recite the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, or the Lord’s

Prayer. That’s why his Small Catechism is clustered around these three basic summaries. Other catechisms, like Calvin’s as well as the Heidelberg and Westminster Shorter, followed suit. These catechisms were important to the missionary work of the Reformation. In fact, the first Protestant missionaries to the New World took the Portuguese Geneva Catechism to Brazil. The catechism was seen as a key resource for “making disciples of all nations.” The Heidelberg Catechism appeared in 1563. Quickly translated into Dutch, French, Italian, Spanish, English, Polish, and Hungarian, it even appeared in Hebrew at the hands of a Jewish convert who became a Reformed theologian and pastor. It was used for confirmation classes in the Church of England and was taught to all incoming undergraduates at Oxford and Cambridge. In 1646, the Church of England—during its Presbyterian era—was commissioned by Parliament to produce what became the Westminster Confession and Catechisms (Smaller and Larger). Drawing on the wisdom of J. I. Packer and Gary Parrett in their book, Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers in the Old-Fashioned Way (Baker Books, 2010), the authors of the New City Catechism, Tim Keller and Sam Shammas, see a great need in our day for recovering catechism at church and in the home. They are especially to be commended for encouraging catechism as a family affair, with children and parents learning MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

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and growing together. Public worship and public instruction should be supplemented by family worship and instruction. Catechism is a powerful tool employed by the Spirit to that end, and Pastor Keller has made a persuasive case for the need to recover the practice. REVIEWING THE NEW CITY CATECHISM One encouraging feature of the New City Catechism (NCC) is that it draws from both the Heidelberg Catechism (HC) and the Westminster Shorter Catechism (WSC). In terms of core teachings, these catechisms are very similar. In

NCC to the earlier catechisms: 1. The Decalogue: Two or three of the Ten Commandments are grouped together in the questions, which loses some of the richness of the fuller treatments of each; the distinction between the first and second table of the law could be blurred with the combining of the fourth and fifth commandments in the NCC. Nevertheless, at a time when the exposition of the Decalogue receives little attention in regular instruction and even public worship, the basic substance is retained in the abbreviated NCC version. 2. The Lord’s Prayer: The Lord’s Prayer is recited, but without exposition (compared with eleven questions in the HC and nine in the WSC). 3. The Apostles’ Creed: The HC asks “What then must a Christian believe?” by first stating the Apostles’ Creed, with a question-andanswer (or more) devoted to each article. All told, there are 30 questions unpacking the creed. The basic goal of the HC is to teach the creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer. That’s why the questions are wrapped around those three major expositions. Although the creed appears in the NCC (Q 31), there isn’t an exposition. Nothing of substance is lost, but the creed doesn’t structure the questions; without an explicit exposition, people aren’t as likely to learn the creed itself.

other words, the NCC doesn’t start from scratch but makes use of the faithful teaching of the past. The NCC is substantially shorter than the standards mentioned. Its 52 questions more conveniently fit an annual calendar, compared with the 107 questions of the WSC and the 129 questions of the HC (note, however, that the HC is organized as 52 Lord’s Days, with more than one question per week). Here is a selective comparison of the

4. Preaching and the Sacraments: When it comes to the Word and sacraments, Reformed churches have emphasized the priority of God’s activity. Through the preaching of the law, the Spirit slays the sinner; through the preaching of the gospel, the Spirit gives faith. Baptism and the Supper, too, are first and foremost God’s promise and work. They provoke our response, and only in faith do we receive the reality promised. Nevertheless,

BACKBONE OF THE FAITH Heidelberg Catechism The HC offers its own quick-reference table of contents with its second question, which then presents the structure of the catechism in its entirety in the following terms:

➨ “Guilt” (Qs 3–11): Explaining Matthew 22:37–40

➨ “Grace” (Qs 12–85): Exploring the Apostles’ Creed (Qs 23–58)

➨ “Gratitude” (Qs 86–129): Exploring the Ten Commandments (Qs 92–115) and the Lord’s Prayer (Qs 116–129), the latter being the chief part of gratitude Westminster Shorter Catechism In similar fashion, the WSC explains its two-part structure in Q 3 in aid of memorization and as a summary of Scripture:

➨ “Faith” (Qs 4–38): What the Christian is to believe concerning God

➨ “Duty ” (Qs 39–107): What duty the Christians owes to God; exploring the Ten Commandments (Qs 42–81) and the Lord’s Prayer (Qs 100–107) New City Catechism The NCC comes in three parts. It is not as easy to commit to memory as “Guilt,” “Grace,” “Gratitude” or “Faith” and “Duty,” but it certainly covers the same themes in abbreviated form. Its structure is further organized in a threefold manner, according to the persons of the Trinity, the movement of redemptive history, and aspects of the Christian life:

➨ “God, Creation & Fall, Law” (Part 1, Qs 1–20): Exploring the Ten Commandments (Qs 8–12)

➨ “Christ, Redemption, Grace” (Part 2, Qs 21–35): Memorizing the Apostles’ Creed (Q 31)

➨ “Spirit, Restoration, Growing in Grace” (Part 3, Qs 36–52): Memorizing the Lord’s Prayer (Q 41)

preaching and the sacraments are truly means of grace. In the NCC, our response to God’s work and the horizontal effects of God’s work are emphasized but not the means by which God does that work. Let me explain by comparison. The WSC first says that God’s Word, “especially the preaching thereof,” is a “means of grace” (Q 89). Then it makes a biblical point about how we hear God’s Word to our profit (Q 90). The NCC includes the latter verbatim but omits the former. Furthermore, the older catechisms refer first to God’s action through the sacraments, which are made “effectual means of salvation” by the Spirit who gives us faith to receive the reality that they signify and seal to us (WSC Q 91). As the HC puts it, “In the gospel the Holy Spirit teaches us and through the holy sacraments he assures us that our entire salvation rests on Christ’s one sacrifice for us on the cross” (Q 66). Through these means of grace, “ordained by Christ,” “Christ and the benefits of the new covenant are represented, sealed, and applied to believers” (WSC Qs 91–92). In fact, the NCC asks the HC’s question, “Where does this faith come from?” (NCC Q 34). However, the NCC answers, “All the gifts we receive from Christ we receive through the Holy Spirit, including faith itself,” while the HC answers, “The Holy Spirit creates [faith] in our hearts by the preaching of the holy gospel and confirms it through our use of the holy sacraments” (HC Q 65). In roughly the same space, the HC attributes faith to the Holy Spirit, but it includes the means he uses to create and confirm it, which are preaching and the sacraments. 5. Baptism: The WSC says that baptism is first “a sacrament wherein the washing with water in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, doth signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace” as well as “our engagement to be the Lord’s” (WSC Q 94). Over against Zwingli, Calvin labored this point that the sacraments are first and foremost the means through which the Triune God delivers Christ and his benefits, and then secondarily that they also call forth our response. In the NCC, however, the sacraments MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

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are first of all “visible signs and seals that we are bound together as a community of faith by [Christ’s] death and resurrection” (emphasis added). The order has been reversed: “By our use of them the Holy Spirit more fully declares and seals the promises of the gospel to us” (NCC Q 43). And significantly, the baptism of covenant children is entirely omitted from the NCC (compared with HC Q 74 and WSC Q 95). 6. The Lord’s Supper: The NCC answer on the Lord’s Supper mentions that it is “a celebration of the presence of God in our midst; bringing us into communion with God and with one another; feeding and nourishing our souls” (Q 46). Surprisingly, reference is made simply to the presence of and communion with God, whereas the Reformed churches hold more specifically that it is not only God or even the omnipresent deity of Christ, but the whole Christ according to both natures who is given to us by the Spirit through these means. To be sure, the presence of Christ in the Supper is controversial among evangelicals, but its affirmation is key in all of the Reformed confessions and catechisms. The WSC speaks of believers being “made partakers of his body and blood, with all his benefits, to their spiritual nourishment and growth in grace” (Q 96). The HC explains how the Supper assures everyone who receives it through faith in Christ with all of his benefits (HC Q 75; see also Q 79). GOSPEL MOVEMENTS AND GOSPEL CHURCHES It is wonderful to participate in the growth of a gospel-centered movement within evangelicalism, especially one that has brought renewed vitality to Reformed and Presbyterian churches. In my estimation, this common witness is to be celebrated. For more than two decades, Modern Reformation has provided a forum for Reformed, Lutheran, Anglican, Baptist, and

nondenominational Christians to celebrate what unites us. We come to our shared convictions not by setting aside these differences, but by letting each voice speak in its own dialect, according to its own confession. Those who take the differences seriously (without forgetting the proper proportion) are more likely to take the agreements seriously as well. For example, Calvinistic Baptists used Keach’s Catechism (1677). Based on Westminster, it even follows the Shorter Catechism’s affirmation of preaching as well as baptism and the Supper as “means of grace.” However, it restricts baptism to those who actually profess faith and repentance (Q 101) and, in case anyone was wondering, this excludes the infant children of believers (Q 102). Question 103 makes faithful baptism to consist in immersion. Here we find a great example of finding unity wherever possible, while teaching a distinctively Baptist position where differences arise. Neither side treated these differences as

“WHILE THE GOSPELCENTERED MOVEMENT IN EVANGELICAL CIRCLES IS ENORMOUSLY ENCOURAGING, CATECHISMS ARE PRODUCED BY CHURCHES FOR CHURCHES.…HOWEVER HELPFUL MOVEMENTS MAY BE IN GOD’S PROVIDENCE, CHRIST FOUNDED A CHURCH.”

unworthy of including in basic instruction. While the gospel-centered movement in evangelical circles is enormously encouraging, catechisms are produced by churches for churches. Whatever esteem in which the authors were held, the Reformation catechisms maintained their status only by being officially sanctioned by churches. Baptist, Lutheran, and Reformed bodies have acknowledged their wide areas of agreement, but is there a danger in relegating differences to irrelevance—falling outside the periphery of “gospel issues”? Surely we do not deny that those who disagree with us on these points are fellow believers. For all of their differences, these traditions agree that their distinctive convictions about matters like infant baptism should be included in a basic summary of God’s Word. Indeed, they would all acknowledge that the most glaring difference turns to matters related to the application of the gospel (especially with regard to baptism). Abraham Kuyper brilliantly pointed out long ago that it’s simply sectarian for a Reformed, Lutheran, or Baptist—or any other body—to have a separate existence if it doesn’t actually confess distinctive teachings it regards as important in Scripture. I realize that a catechism has a different (more “bottom shelf ”) purpose than a confession, but ideally shouldn’t it teach what actual churches confess? However helpful movements may be in God’s providence, Christ founded a church and churches confess their faith. When movements act like churches, the former become shallow and short-lived and the latter are impoverished. The history of evangelicalism provides a long series of cautionary tales in that regard. I’m not opposed in principle to the idea that confessions and catechisms may be improved or even replaced, especially to accommodate responses to new contexts. At least in my reading, however, the NCC doesn’t include a single question and answer addressing uniquely contemporary questions. In fact, one of the strengths of the NCC is that it doesn’t reflect the idiosyncrasies of the authors and the uniqueness of their ministry context, as I’m sure mine would if I were to write one! I guess my main question, then, is why we need a new catechism. If it’s to provide a resource for a gospel-centered movement that lacks a catechism, I can think of none better than the New City

“ABRAHAM KUYPER BRILLIANTLY POINTED OUT LONG AGO THAT IT’S SIMPLY SECTARIAN FOR A REFORMED, LUTHERAN, OR BAPTIST— OR ANY OTHER BODY—TO HAVE A SEPARATE EXISTENCE IF IT DOESN’T ACTUALLY CONFESS DISTINCTIVE TEACHINGS IT REGARDS AS IMPORTANT IN SCRIPTURE.” Catechism. However, I’m still convinced that the standard catechisms have stood the test of time and cultural diversity. They address the core Christian confession that binds us together across all times and places. One benefit of churches being responsible for catechisms is that they become officially received in their local and broader assemblies by a process of mutual admonition and correction. Like the creeds and confessions, their genius lies in the fact that they do not address every question that might have been peculiar to their cultural context. They don’t even address every important question that arises from God’s Word, but they teach the faith in a basic way to the body of Christ. Rooted in the Reformation, the New City Catechism reflects a judicious blend of two catechisms that have gained wide acceptance in our churches. For my money, though, basic instruction in the faith at home and church can surely do no better at present than to continue to unwrap the gifts that keep on giving.

Michael S. Horton is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation.

MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

THE

G R E AT E S T STORY EVER TOLD

PART I

From Eve to Tamar

by ZACH KEELE

ave you ever thought about how Eve would have felt? Having been

tempted, cursed by God and banished from Eden, Eve would not have been a happy camper. Sure, she was burdened with guilt and shame; but consider how she was inclined toward the Serpent. He tricked her, lied to her. Oh that sly snake. She would want vengeance. She would be ready to forge a sharp blade to slice and dice that snake, to behead that Ancient Cobra. Eve’s desire for vengeance is reflected in what God says to the Serpent, “He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15). In the upcoming battle between the Serpent and the offspring of Eve, the Serpent would only muster a flesh wound—a bruised heel. Yet Eve’s offspring would black and blue the Snake’s head—a mortal wound.

God announced that Eve could not take the ax in her hands, but her son would. What hope this would have given those first parents. Their son would win the victory for them over the Enemy. Adam’s faith and hope in this promise of God comes out as he names his wife Eve, the mother of all living (Gen.

3:20). All humans would come forth from Eve. The one son would be her son. Eve’s faith similarly bubbled up in excitement at her firstborn: “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord” (Gen. 4:1). Eve thought Cain was the son to crack the skull of the Serpent. The son has come—God kept his promise. MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

T H E G R E AT E S T S T O R Y E V E R T O L D

We know, of course, how Cain ended up shattering Eve’s hopes. Yet, Adam and Eve’s faith was not snuffed out. When Seth was born, Eve again let words of faith roll off her tongue: “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him” (Gen. 4:25). Adam and Eve realized that not all their kids would call on the name of the Lord; only one of their sons would be that victorious offspring. In faith, Eve named Seth as the appointed one, the replacement. Through him, God’s promise would find its fulfillment. It is this faith, this hope in God’s promise, that is then narrated in the genealogies. As history spreads from east of Eden to cover the globe, God records his fidelity to his promise through genealogies. Every son of the faithful is named in hope of God’s promise. Believing parents named their sons praying, “Will this be the son?” Genealogies are not tongue twisters like Dr. Seuss’s Fox in Sox, but they are a record, a stone carving of God’s faithfulness. The Lord keeps bringing forth sons, one of whom will eventually deliver his people from the Evil One and the curse. Even after generations, Lamech names Noah saying, “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands” (Gen. 5:29). Lamech looks to the Lord to bring deliverance from the curse through his son Noah. And on one level, God did just this. The Lord preserved his people from the flood curse through Noah. Yet sin’s curse of death still roamed the earth like a predator after the flood. So God’s faithfulness continued through the flood and beyond. Out of Noah’s three sons, God’s promise passed through one, Shem. God kept giving sons and his people kept naming in faith, even down to Abram. Then, as God appears to Abram, his promises are again centered on children, particularly a son. The Lord’s making Abram a great nation, with a great name and a blessing to all nations, depends on him having a son (Gen. 12:1– 13). The narrative of Genesis focuses on the son of promise. When Abram believes that the Lord will give him a son in his old age, it is reckoned

to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6). After Abraham messes up with Hagar, God confirms to him that the son of promise will be through Sarah (Gen. 17:19). When it comes time for Isaac to marry, Abraham expresses his faith by getting him a wife from his extended family back in Nahor. The promise had to come through Abraham’s offspring. Isaac and Rebekah trusted in the same promise. Esau’s marriage to Canaanite women displeased both his mom and dad (Gen. 27:46; 28:8), so they send Jacob back to Paddanaram to get a wife. Through all this history, we see that God’s people must express their faith in accord with the promises given to them. The Lord promised a son through whom his blessings would come, so the people must believe God by having sons. This expression of faith is particularly shown when Jacob returns to Palestine with his two wives and twelve sons. God has made clear that faith in his promises means not marrying Canaanite women. Yet Judah expresses none of this faith for he separates from the covenant community to marry a Canaanite (Gen. 38:2). After having three sons, Judah perpetuates his unbelief by taking the Canaanite Tamar as a wife for his firstborn son Er. But then God intervenes. The Lord executes Er for his wickedness. After Tamar is given to Onan, Judah’s second son, the Lord also strikes him down for his wickedness. At this point, Judah must give Tamar to his third son. But, thinking Tamar is bad luck, Judah refuses to do so and he seems to lose all interest in having grandkids. Tamar, however, possesses the faith Judah lacks. She knows that her only hope as a Canaanite is to become part of the covenant family. She must have a son within the line of Abraham. So she boldly takes matters into her own hands. Disguised as a prostitute, Tamar deceives Judah into sleeping with her. When Judah finds out Tamar is pregnant, he plans to burn her. But when she shows him the signet and staff he gave her as a pledge, Judah declares of Tamar, “She is more righteous than I, since I did not give her my son Shelah” (Gen. 38:26). Tamar’s faith in God’s

PART I

ABRAHAM’S FAMILY TREE

ADAM

EVE SETH TERAH

ABRAM HAGAR

NAHOR

HARAN SARAH

ISHMAEL

ISAAC

ESAU

ABRAHAM

REBEKAH JACOB

REUBEN, SIMEON, LEVI, DAN, NAPHTALI, GAD, ASHER, ISAACHAR, ZEBULUN, JOSEPH, AND BENJAMIN

LEAH

RACHEL

JUDAH TAMAR

DAVID PEREZ

ZERAH

CHRIST

promises was reckoned to her as righteousness. God then blesses this heroine with twins and gives her a place in the genealogy of Christ (Matt. 1:3). By faith, Tamar peered forth to behold Christ. She knew her salvation lay in God’s promises through Abraham’s offspring. By clinging to Judah, she became an heir of God’s promises. She received the privilege to ABRAHAM SENDS HAGAR AND ISHMAEL AWAY, ILLUSTRATION FROM THE HOLY BIBLE BY GUSTAVE DORÉ,ENGRAVED BY LIGNY, 1866 (ENGRAVING),

name her sons in faith, believing that through one of them Christ would come to deliver her from the Evil One and from the curse of sin.

Zach Keele is pastor of Escondido Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Escondido, California.

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WHOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S IN CHARGE HERE?

IS EVANGELICAL FROM BISHOP ENOUGH? TO POPE

THE INVENTIONS GOING TO OF ROME CHURCH WITH THE REFORMERS MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

IS EVANGELICAL ENOUGH?

by ADRIANE DORR illustration by STEVE WACKSMAN

LABEL THEM “RAMBO CATHOLICS.” CALL THEM “ECCLESIASTICAL BULLIES.” CLAIM THEY’RE “HARD-NOSED.” BUT IF YOU’RE BRAVE ENOUGH TO ASSERT THEY’RE GOING UNNOTICED, DO SO AT YOUR OWN RISK. THEY KNOW BETTER. C onservative in all things theological (and social and political), this new league of outspoken Roman Catholics won’t be ignored. They’re well versed in the church’s apologetics and its place at the cultural table, and they’re equally eager to dialogue with pretty much anyone who’s interested. They’ve piqued the interest of Protestants, and young people, in particular, have taken notice. While they aren’t abandoning Protestant churches en masse, a slow, steady trickle of Christians have dialogued, discussed and dived headlong into the Tiber, attracted to a theology that appears to have the history, orthodoxy, and reverence they’ve been missing. These converts have commonalities. They are mainly evangelical, and they are mostly millennials, the 80 million or so young men and women born from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s. But it’s not just the young. Seasoned Protestant pastors and theologians—Richard John Neuhaus and Francis Beckwith among them—felt the pull to Roman Catholicism as well. Their migration leaves the churches of the Reformation with two choices: to pretend it’s not happening or to confess the faith even more robustly. SPITTING UP SPIRITUAL MILK The publication of Colleen Carol Campbell’s The New Faithful: Why Young Adults are Embracing

Christian Orthodoxy (Loyola Press, 2002)—which analyzes this development in depth—points to something bigger still: a substantial demographic suffering from shallow theology. Young, inquisitive Christians find themselves increasingly opposed to a culture that turns men in on themselves rather than pointing them to Christ, asks eternal questions but can’t provide meaningful answers, and ultimately replaces the comfort of the gospel with the theoretical gratification of relativity. As repugnance for the superficial grows among young people, pop Christianity continues to offer little in the way of help, still struggling to discover where it went wrong. And so the young faithful search for something filling, something profound, something to which their faith can lay hold and to which it can cling. But their struggle is bigger than the contemporary culture. Their frustration lies in their lack of a past. Protestant churches that have forfeited the church’s ancient creeds and confessions, liturgies and hymnody have become their own downfalls, producing a generation that longs for—but has not been given—a theological foundation, a churchly history. The youth’s response? To reject their “Boomer parents’ fascination with novelty and reinvention,” says Issues, Etc. radio host Rev. Todd Wilken. He’s on to something. Scot McKnight, professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, Illinois, affirms that young Protestants are discovering that “evangelicalism is not enough, because it does not absorb the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church into its very bones.”1 They’re looking for something else, he believes—something enduring, reverent, disciplined, historic. So if the recent evangelical push toward coffeehouses and contemporary worship, praise bands, MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

and introspection isn’t meeting the theological needs of America’s youth, what is? “Ancient worship with a contemporary flair,” wrote Robert E. Webber, author of the widely read Ancient-Future Faith: Rethinking Evangelicalism for a Postmodern World (Baker Academic, 1999). They want a church that has an “authentic character,” “more use of ritual and symbol,” “more frequent celebration of communion,” “high participation,” and a “recovery of the Christian year as a spiritual discipline.”2 Catholicism—well known, vocal, and historical—then becomes the natural choice, Wilken says. “For many evangelical millennials, Roman Catholicism is the opposite of everything they have come to know as ‘church.’ It is low-tech, high-church without a hint of marketing or sales pitch.” They’re tired of the theological milk, he explained over a decade ago. They’re hungry for meat. WHAT IS TRUTH? The Roman Catholic creators of websites like calledtocommunion.com (“where Rome meets Reformation”) or Catholic Answers (forums.catholic. com) recognize this generation’s theological discontent. Intertwining robust apologetics and technology, the church now utilizes a unique platform to welcome disgruntled evangelicals “home” to Rome. Their theological presence on the Internet is formidable. From Facebook groups to blogs, Roman Catholics have been purposeful and persistent in making the case for their church. And they aren’t doing it quietly. Notre Dame’s Cathleen Kaveny labeled them “Rambo Catholics” during the 2004 Bush/Kerry presidential race, offended at their forceful theological stances in the public square. But rather than shying away from the phrase, Roman Catholics are embracing it. Thomas Peters, who runs the “American Papist” blog at catholicvoteaction.org, wears the title willingly. To be a Rambo Catholic signifies that he’s “proudly, joyfully orthodox.” That orthodoxy and its accompanying longevity, Peters believes, appeals to a generation channeling Pilate’s question: “What is truth?” People find that truth in the Catholic Church because it “challenges them, and not merely accommodates them,” he says. “The Catholic Church has held fast to the moral traditions taught by

Christ and…[converts] see a great deal of continuity between the early Church and how the Catholic Church believes and practices today.” Mason Beecroft is proof. Raised as a nondenominational evangelical, Beecroft joined the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS)—a creedal, liturgical, and sacramental church body of more than two million members—as an adult, awed by the confession and absolution found in the liturgy. To “hear that my sins were forgiven for the sake of Christ was an incredible comfort,” he recalls. He attended an LCMS seminary and pastored his own parishes, but the lack of doctrinal consistency within the church-at-large was hard to overlook. Like a handful of former LCMS pastors (most of whom converted to Eastern Orthodoxy), he’s since left the ministry and has settled into Roman Catholicism, “drawn by the Mass, mystery, and tradition.” “Rome is consistent on its theological and moral teachings,” he says simply. “Even with all of the scandal, the Church is solid.” THE REFORMATION CONTINUES But not all roads lead to Rome. Many people, such as Benjamin Bosch, have discovered the theology of the Reformation after wrestling with difficult theological questions. Bosch began to delve more deeply into the confessional writings of the LCMS after one of his friends, a pastor, converted to Catholicism. He was later confirmed into the Lutheran church as an adult. His reasons? The church

“MIGRATION LEAVES THE CHURCHES OF THE REFORMATION WITH TWO CHOICES: TO PRETEND IT’S NOT HAPPENING OR TO CONFESS THE FAITH EVEN MORE ROBUSTLY.”

“CONVERTING TO LUTHERANISM ‘WAS TO ACCEPT AND PRESERVE THE CONSTANT LITURGY OF THE CHURCH’...BUT, UNLIKE ROMAN CATHOLICISM, ‘PRUNED OF EXCESSES AND ACCRETIONS.’” was devoted to Scripture, used the historic liturgy, engaged the Lectionary, and confessed the bodily presence in the Lord’s Supper—the same things evangelicals are longing to find. So why Lutheranism and not Catholicism? Why Bosch but not others? Terence Maher, who was raised in the Roman Catholic Church but ended up taking a circuitous path to confessional Lutheranism by way of Orthodox Judaism, thinks it’s rather simple. He found in Lutheranism “no new doctrine or no new church, but the same one, the only one, that has been there all along.” Converting to Lutheranism “was to accept and preserve the constant liturgy of the Church, right along with the faith it expresses,” he says, but, unlike Roman Catholicism, “pruned of excesses and accretions.” A SINGULAR TRUTH While young Christians may be attracted to Rome’s presumed longevity and so-called authenticity, there’s one fact Catholics can’t ignore: “Catholicism has suffered the greatest net loss in the process of religious change….One-in-ten American adults is a former Catholic.”3 It’s a more telling trend: Rome can attract new members, but she has a hard time keeping them. Reformation theologians asking Luther’s standard question—“What does this mean?”—can

conclude that Rome doesn’t have a hold on proclaiming the gospel to a wandering generation after all. Instead, the historic, faithful churches of the Reformation actually have a profound opportunity to speak biblical truth to this confused culture, to point out what sets Wittenberg apart from Rome. One group in particular stands ready to face the challenge: a theologically astute clergy. And one of the most critical aspects of their ability to carry the church’s enduring, faithful response to the world, explains Dr. Lawrence Rast, president of Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana, is their formation. “Theological education,” he says, “forms students who have the ability to articulate, carefully and clearly, the biblical witness as rightly confessed in the Lutheran Confessions and maintained in the historic church.” These pastors, alongside their catechized laity, have an “ecumenical task,” explains LCMS president Matthew C. Harrison, “to hold forth worldwide for orthodox, biblical Christianity—for the singular authority of Holy Scripture; for the singular truth that salvation is completely by grace on account of Christ’s meritorious life, death and resurrection for us; for the singular truth that this gift is grabbed hold of solely by faith, which is itself worked completely by God through His Word.” It is that task that holds up the exact things millennials long for: Scripture, creeds, worship. It is that confession that is kept safe in the churches born from Luther’s Reformation. It is that truth that confronts the culture. It is that gift that sets faithful theology apart. It is that mercy, given by Christ, that sees it through to fulfillment. And so the theologians of the Reformation must remain tenacious and bold in their confession, despite a generation’s flirtations with Rome and without fear of confronting the culture. “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith,” St. Paul encourages. “Act like men. Be strong. Let all that you do be done in love” (1 Cor. 16:13–14). And, by God’s grace, they do.

Adriane Dorr is managing editor of The Lutheran Witness. 1 Scot McKnight, “From Wheaton to Rome: Why Evangelicals Become Roman Catholic,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, vol. 45, no. 3 (September 2002). 2 Robert Webber, “How Will the Millennials Worship? A Snapshot of the Very Near Future,” Reformed Worship (March 2001). 3 “Faith in Flux: Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S.,” Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (April 2009; rev. February 2011).

MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

WHOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S IN CHARGE HERE THE ILLUSIONS OF CHURCH INFALLIBILITY by MICHAEL S. HORTON

MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

N MY EXPERIENCE WITH THOSE WHO WRESTLE WITH CONVERSION TO R O M A N CAT H O L I C I S M — AT L E A S T

T H O S E W H O H AV E P R O F E S S E D FA I T H I N T H E G O S P E L —T H E D R I V I N G T H E O L O G I CA L I S S U E I S AU T H O R I T Y. H O W C A N I B E C E R -

TAIN THAT WHAT I BELIEVE IS TRUE? The gospel of free grace through the justification of sinners in Christ alone moves to the backseat. Instead of the horse, it becomes the cart. Adjustments are made in their understanding of the gospel after accepting Rome’s arguments against sola scriptura. I address these remarks to friends struggling with that issue. Reformation Christians can agree with Augustine when he said that he would never have known the truth of God’s Word apart from the catholic church. As the minister of salvation, the church is the context and means through which we come to faith and are kept in the faith to the end. When Philip found an Ethiopian treasury secretary returning from Jerusalem reading Isaiah 53, he inquired, “Do you understand what you are reading?” “How can I,” the official replied, “unless someone guides me?” (Acts 8:30–31). Explaining the passage in the light of its fulfillment in Christ, Philip baptized the man, who then “went on his way rejoicing” (v. 39). Philip did not have to be infallible; he had only to communicate the infallible Word with sufficient truth and clarity. For many, this kind of certainty, based on a text, is not adequate. We have to know—really know— that what we believe is an infallible interpretation of an ultimate authority. The churches of the Reformation confess that even though some passages are more difficult to understand than others, the basic narratives, doctrines, and commands of

Scripture—especially the message of Christ as that unfolds from Genesis to Revelation—is so clearly evident that even the unlearned can grasp it. For the Reformers, sola scriptura did not mean that the church and its official summaries of Scripture (creeds, confessions, catechisms, and decisions in wider assemblies) had no authority. Rather, it meant that their ministerial authority was dependent entirely on the magisterial authority of Scripture. Scripture is the master; the church is the minister (for helpful definitions, see page 30). THREE THESES ON SOLA SCRIPTURA The following theses summarize some of the issues people should wrestle with before embracing a Roman Catholic perspective on authority. 1. The Reformers did not separate sola scriptura (by Scripture alone) from solo Christo (Christ alone), sola gratia (by grace alone), and sola fide (through faith alone). As Herman Bavinck said, “Faith in Scripture rises or falls with faith in Christ.” Revealed from heaven, the gospel message itself (Christ as the central content of Scripture) is as much the basis for the Bible’s authority as the fact that it comes from the Father through the inspiration of the Spirit. Jesus Christ, raised on the third day, certified his

divine authority. Furthermore, he credited the Old Testament writings as “Scripture,” equating the words of the prophets with the very word of God himself, and commissioned his apostles to speak authoritatively in his name. Their words are his words; those who receive them also receive the Son and the Father. So Scripture is the authoritative Word of God because it comes from the unerring Father, concerning the Son, in the power of the Spirit. Neither the authority of the Bible nor that of the church can stand apart from the truth of Christ as he is clothed in his gospel. 2. Every covenant is contained in a canon (like a constitution). The biblical canon is the norm for the history of God’s saving purposes in Christ under the old and new covenants. The Old Testament canon closed with the end of the prophetic era, so that Jesus could mark a sharp division between Scripture and the traditions of the rabbis (Mark 7:8). The New Testament canon was closed at the end of the apostolic era, so that even during that era the apostle Paul could warn the Corinthians against the “super-apostles” by urging, “Do not go beyond what is written” (1 Cor. 4:6). While the apostles were living, the churches were to “maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you” (1 Cor. 11:2), “either by our spoken word or by our letter” (2 Thess. 2:15). There were indeed written and unwritten traditions in the apostolic church, but only those that eventually found their way by the Spirit’s guidance into the New Testament are now for us the apostolic canon. The apostles (extraordinary ministers) laid the foundation, and after them workers (ordinary ministers) built on that foundation (1 Cor. 3:10). The apostles could appeal to their own eyewitness, the direct and immediate vocation given to them by Christ, while they instructed ordinary pastors (like Timothy) to deliver to others what they had received from the apostles. 3. Just as the extraordinary office of prophets and apostles is qualitatively distinct from that of ordinary ministers, the constitution (Scripture) is qualitatively distinct from the Spirit-illumined but non-inspired courts (tradition) that

interpret it. Again, therefore, Scripture is magisterial in its authority, while the church’s tradition of interpretation is ministerial. To accept these three theses is to embrace sola scriptura as the Reformation understood it. RECEIVING THE WORD This is precisely the view we find in the church fathers. First, it is clear enough from their descriptions (e.g., the account in Eusebius) that the fathers did not create the canon but received and acknowledged it. (Even Peter acknowledged Paul’s writings as “Scripture” in 2 Peter 3:16, even though Paul clearly says in Galatians that he did not receive his gospel from or seek first the approval of any of the apostles, since he received it directly from Christ.) The criterion they followed indicates this: To be recognized as “Scripture,” a purported book had to be well attested as coming from the apostolic circle. Those texts that already had the widest and earliest acceptance in public worship were easily recognized by the time Athanasius drew up the first list of all seventy-seven New Testament books in A.D. 367. Even before this date, many of these books were being quoted as normative Scripture by Clement of Rome, Origen, Irenaeus, Tertullian, and others. Of his list, Athanasius said that “holy Scripture is of all things most sufficient for us.”1 Also in the fourth century, Basil of Caesarea instructed, “Believe those things which are written; the things which are not written, seek not. It is a manifest defection from the faith, a proof of arrogance, either to reject anything of what is written, or to introduce anything that is not.”2 Second, although the fathers also acknowledged tradition as a ministerially authoritative interpreter, they consistently yielded ultimate obedience to Scripture. For example, Augustine explained that the Nicene Creed was binding because it summarizes the clear teaching of Scripture.3 THE DEBATE WITH ROME Roman Catholic scholars acknowledge that the early Christian community in Rome was not MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

unified under a single head. Paul, for example, reNevertheless, building on the claims of fifth-cenminded Timothy of the gift he was given when the tury Roman bishops Leo I and Galsius, later bishops presbytery laid its hands on him in his ordination of Rome did claim precisely this “proud address.” (1 Tim. 4:14). In fact, in the Roman Catholic-AngliDeclaring themselves as Christ’s replacement on can dialogue, the Vatican acknowledged that “the earth, they claimed sovereignty (“plenitude of powNew Testament texts offer no sufficient basis for er”) over the world “to govern the earthly and heavpapal primacy” and that they contain “no explicenly kingdoms.” At the Council of Reims (1049) the it record of a transmission of Peter’s leadership.”4 Latin Church claimed for the pope the title “ponSo one has to accept papal authority exclusively tifex universalis“—precisely the title identified by on the basis of subsequent post-apostolic claims Gregory as identifying one who “in his self-exalof the Roman bishop, without scriptural warrant. tation [is] Antichrist’s precursor.” Is Gregory the However, there is no historical succession from Great correct, or are his successors? Peter to the bishops of Rome. Though inspired by God, ScripAs Jerome observed in the ture cannot be sufficient. It is a fourth century, “Before attachdark, obscure, and mysterious book ment to persons in religion was (rendered more so by Rome’s albegun at the instigation of the legorizing exegesis). An infallible devil, the churches were governed canon needs an infallible interpretby the common consultation of er. This has been Rome’s argument. the elders.” Jerome goes so far as The insufficiency of Scripture rests to suggest that the introduction of on its lack of clarity. It is true that bishops as a separate order above the Bible is a collection of texts he churches of the presbyters was “more from spread across many centuries, the Reformation custom than from the truth of an brimming with a variety of histomake the followarrangement by the Lord.”5 Interries, poetry, doctrines, apocalyping distinction in explainestingly, even Pope Benedict XVI tic literature, and laws; however, ing the difference between acknowledges that presbyter and wherever it has been translated in the Bible’s authority and episcipos were used interchangethe vernacular and disseminated the church’s, as well as ably in the New Testament and in widely, barely literate people have the relationship between the earliest churches.6 been able to understand its central Bible and church: Ancient Christian leaders of message. Contrast this with the lithe East gave special honor to the braries full of decretals and enMagisterial Authority bishop of Rome, but they considcyclicals, councilor decisions and Scripture is the final, ultiered any claim of one bishop’s sucounter-decisions, bulls and prommate, and inerrant guide premacy to be an act of schism. ulgations. Any student of church in matters of faith and life. Even in the West such a privilege history recognizes that, in this case, Scripture as Master. was rejected by Gregory the Great the teacher is often far more obin the sixth century. He expressed scure than the text. It’s no wonder Ministerial Authority offense at being addressed by a Rome defines faith as fides implicThe church’s summabishop as “universal pope”: “a ita: taking the church’s word for it. ries of Scripture (i.e., the word of proud address that I have For Rome, faith is not trust in Jechurch’s creeds, confesforbidden.…None of my predecessus Christ according to the gospel, sions, catechisms, and sors ever wished to use this probut yielding assent and obedience decisions) have a penulfane word [‘universal’].…But I say unreservedly simply to everything timate, derivative, and falit confidently, because whoever the church teaches as necessary to lible—though nonetheless calls himself ‘universal bishop’ salvation. There are many hazards valid—authority from God. or wishes to be so called, is in his associated with embracing aninThe church as minister. self-exaltation Antichrist’s prefallible text without an infallible cursor, for in his swaggering he interpreter. However, the altersets himself before the rest.”7 native is not greater certainty and

KNOW WHAT YOU BELIEVE

“THOSE OF US WHO REMAIN REFORMED MUST EXAMINE THE SCRIPTURES AND THE RELEVANT ARGUMENTS BEFORE CONCLUDING THAT ROME’S CLAIMS ARE NOT JUSTIFIED AND ITS TEACHING IS AT VARIANCE WITH CRUCIAL BIBLICAL DOCTRINES.” clarity about the subject matter, but a sacrifice of the intellect and an abandonment of one’s personal responsibility for one’s commitments to the decisions and acts of others. S CRIP TURE ALONE IS S UFFICIENT Those of us who remain Reformed must examine the Scriptures and the relevant arguments before concluding that Rome’s claims are not justified and its teaching is at variance with crucial biblical doctrines. A Protestant friend in the midst of being swayed by Rome’s arguments exclaims, “That’s exactly why I can’t be a Protestant anymore. Without an infallible magisterium everyone believes whatever he chooses.” At this point, it’s important to distinguish between a radical individualism (believing whatever one chooses) and a personal commitment in view of one’s ultimate authority. My friend may be under the illusion that his decision is different from that, but it’s not. In the very act of making the decision to transfer ultimate authority from Scripture to the magisterium, he is weighing various biblical passages and theological arguments. The goal (shifting the burden of responsibility from oneself to the church) is contradicted by the method. At this point, one cannot simply surrender to a Reformed church or a Roman church; one must make a decision after careful personal study. We’re both in the same shoes. Most crucially, Rome’s ambitious claims are tested by its faithfulness to the gospel. If an apostle

could pronounce his anathema on anyone—including himself or an angel from heaven—who taught a gospel different from the one he brought to them (Gal. 1:8–9), then surely any minister or church body after the apostles is under that threat. First, Paul was not assuming that the true church is beyond the possibility of error. Second, he placed himself under the authority of that Word. The frustration Reformation Christians have with the state of contemporary Protestantism is understandable. I feel it every day. Yet those who imagine that they will escape the struggle between the “already” and the “not yet,” the certainty of a promise and the certainty of possession, the infallibility of God’s Word and the fallibility of its appointed teachers, are bound to be disappointed wherever they land. As Calvin counseled on the matter, Scripture alone is indeed sufficient: “Better to limp along this path than to dash with all speed outside it.”

Michael S. Horton is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation. 1 From “Athanasius: Select Works and Letters,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts et al, 2nd ser. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 4:23. 2 “On the Holy Spirit” from “Basil: Letters and Select Works,” Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 8:41. 3 Augustine, “On the Nicene Creed: A Sermon to the Catechumens,” 1. 4 From Unity Faith and Order - Dialogues - Anglican Roman Catholic Authority in the Church II (Anglican/Roman Catholic Joint Preparatory Commission), paragraph 2, 6. 5 Cited in the Second Helvetic Confession, ch. 18. 6 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Called to Communion: Understanding the Church Today (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996), 122–23. 7 From “Gregory I: Letters,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 1:75–76; 2:166, 169, 170–71, 179, 222, 225.

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CIRCA

From

BISHOP

Pope to

T I M E L I N E

180 Irenaeus pens Against Heresies and describes Rome as a faithful preserver of apostolic doctrine, but there is no mention of papal primacy: “For it is a matter of necessity that every Church should agree with this Church on account of its preeminent authority... inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere.” 1

by TOM WENGER

CIRCA

251 In response to Pope Stephen’s appeal to Matthew 16 to justify his authority as “the rock” on which the church is built, Cyprian of Carthage argues: “Certainly the other Apostles also were what Peter was, endued with an equal fellowship both of honour and power; but a commencement is made from unity, that the Church may be set before us as one; which one Church, in the Song of Songs, doth the Holy Spirit design and name in the Person of our Lord.”2

CIRCA

381 Refuting Arianism, Ambrose argues that Matthew 16 established faith in the divinity of Christ, and not Peter’s authority, as the foundation on which the church is built: “That is the primacy of his confession, not of honour; the primacy of belief, not of rank. This, then, is Peter who has replied for the rest of the Apostles; rather before the rest of men. And so he is called the foundation, because he knows how to preserve not only his own but the common foundation.…Faith, then, is the foundation of the Church, for it was not said of Peter’s flesh, but of his faith, that ‘the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’”3 SAINT AMBROSE, 1833 (STATUE), LUIGI SCORZINI, MILAN. PHOTO BY GIOVANNI DALL’ORTO

446

CIRCA

417 The African General Synod at Carthage forbids appeals to Rome. In 417, Pope Zosimus reverses Pope Innocent I’s condemnation of Pelagius, declaring him to be orthodox and chastising the African bishops for condemning his teachings. In response to this, the African bishops hold the African General Synod at Carthage and reject the pope’s declaration, adding in canon 17: “If priests, deacons and inferior clerics complain of a sentence of their own bishop, they shall, with the consent of their bishop, have recourse to the neighboring bishops who shall settle the dispute. If they desire to make a further appeal, it must only be to their primates or to the African Councils. But whoever appeals to a court on the other side of the sea [Rome] may not again be received into communion by anyone in Africa.”4

451

Leo the Great asserts one of his many bold claims to papal primacy: “Bishops indeed have a common dignity, but they have not uniform rank, inasmuch as even among the blessed apostles…there was a certain distinction of power. While the election of all of them was equal yet it was given to one [i.e., St. Peter] to take the lead of the rest.…[T]he care of the universal Church should converge toward Peter’s one chair, and nothing anywhere should be separate from its head.”5

The Council of Chalcedon rejects Leo’s claims of primacy and instead bases Rome’s rank on the fact that it is the capital city of the empire: “Following in all things the decisions of the holy Fathers…we also do enact and decree the same things concerning the privileges of the most holy Church of Constantinople, which is New Rome. For the Fathers rightly granted privileges to the throne of old Rome, because it was the royal city. And the One Hundred and Fifty most religious Bishops, actuated by the same consideration, gave equal privileges to the most holy throne of New Rome, justly judging that the city which is honoured with the Sovereignty and the Senate, and enjoys equal privileges with the old imperial Rome, should in ecclesiastical matters also be magnified as she is, and rank next after her.”6

POPE LEO I REPULSING ATTILA, 1511-14 (FRESCO), RAPHAEL (RAFFAELLO SANZIO OF URBINO), VATICAN CITY

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588 Gregory the Great rejects the notion that anyone, the Roman bishop included, should ever be called “Universal Bishop”: “But not one of my predecessors has ever consented to use this so profane a title; since…if one Patriarch is called Universal, the name of Patriarch in the case of the rest is derogated. But far be this, far be it from the mind of a Christian, that any one should wish to seize for himself that whereby he might seem in the least degree to lessen the honour of his brethren. While, then, we are unwilling to receive this honour when offered to us, think how disgraceful it is for anyone to have wished to usurp it to himself perforce.…Certainly Peter, the first of the apostles, himself a member of the holy and universal Church, Paul, Andrew, John,— what were they but heads of particular communities?… Now I confidently say that whosoever calls himself, or desires to be called, Universal Pope, is in his elation the precursor of Antichrist, because he proudly puts himself above all others.”7

1075 800 On Christmas Day, Pope Leo III crowns Charlemagne King of the Holy Roman Empire, cementing the link between the papacy and the political sphere. “[Thus in] one brilliant gesture Pope Leo established the precedent, adhered to throughout the Middle Ages, that papal coronation was essential to the making of an emperor, and thereby implanted the germ of the later idea that the empire itself was a gift to be bestowed by the papacy.”8

Pope Gregory VII issues his Dictatus Papae, which includes the following edicts: 2. That the Roman Pontiff alone is rightly to be called universal. 8. That he alone can use the Imperial insignia. 9. That the Pope is the only one whose feet are to be kissed by all the princes. 10. That his name alone is to be recited in all the churches. 12. That he may depose emperors. 17. That no chapter or book may be regarded as canonical without his authority. 19. That he himself may be judged by no one.9 SAINT GREGORY THE GREAT, 1320-50 PAINTED LIMESTONE), VERONA, ITALY.

1870 During the deliberations of Vatican I, Pope Pius IX rebukes Cardinal Guidi for his opposition to the doctrine of papal infallibility by shouting: “I am tradition! I am the Church!”11

CIRCA

1200 Innocent III consolidates and defines both the ecclesiastical and political primacy of the Roman See and under his reign papal primacy truly reaches its zenith. He says of himself: “To me is said in the person of the prophet, ‘I have set thee over the nations and over kingdoms, to root up and to pull down, and to waste and to destroy, and to build and to plant’ (Jer 1:10). To me is also said in the person of the Apostle, I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.…You see then who is the servant set over the household, truly the vicar of Jesus Christ, successor of Peter, anointed of the Lord, a God of Pharaoh, set between God and man, lower than God, but higher than man, who judges all and is judged by no one.”10 POPE PIUS IX, 1792-1878 (PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINT).

NOTE OF INTEREST Catholic historian Johann Joseph Ignatz von Döllinger—who, according to his contemporary Philip Schaff, was “regarded as the foremost Roman Catholic Church historian”—assessed the significant evolution that the doctrine of papal primacy underwent after the first six centuries of the church. He concluded: The Tridentine profession of faith, imposed on the clergy since Pius IV, contains a vow never to interpret Holy Scripture otherwise than in accord with the unanimous consent of the Fathers—that is, the great Church doctors of the first six centuries, for Gregory the Great, who died in 604, was the last of the Fathers; every bishop and theologian therefore breaks his oath when he interprets the passage in question (Mt 16) as a gift of infallibility promised by Christ to the Popes.12

Tom Wenger is associate pastor at Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Annapolis (PCA) in Annapolis, Maryland.

1 Irenaeus, “Against Heresies,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Robertson et al (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 3:1–2. 2 Cyprian, “On the Unity of the Church,” in A Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Treatise V (Oxford: Parker, 1842), ch. 31. 3 Ambrose, The Fathers of the Church, The Sacrament of the Incarnation of Our Lord, IV.32—V.34 (Washington DC: Catholic University, 1963), 230–31. 4 Quoted in Charles Joseph Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church from the Original Documents (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1896), 2:461. 5 Leo the Great, “Letter XIV, To Anastasius, Bishop of Thessalonica,” trans. J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (London: Continuum, 2000), 420. 6 “Council of Chalcedon, 451: The Seven Ecumenical Councils” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts et al, 2nd ser. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 14:287. 7 Gregory the Great, “Epistles,” in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 5:18, 43; 7:33. 8 Brian Tierney, The Crisis of Church and State: 1050–1300 (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1964), 18. 9 Quoted in Tierney, 49–50. 10 Quoted in Tierney, 131–32. 11 Quoted in Roberto de Mattei, Pius IX, trans. John Laughland (Herefordshire, UK: Gracewing, 2004), 144, n. 39. 12 Johann Joseph Ignatz Von Döllinger, The Pope and the Council (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1870), 76. Note: this work is usually published under the pseudonym “Janus”; see also Philip Schaff, History of the Creeds of Christendom (repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 193, n. 1.

MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

THE

INVENTIONS OF ROME

by W. ROBERT GODFREY

or vast numbers of people, Roman Catholicism is the religion of choice. Rome can be attractive for a wide variety of reasons. The most significant is familial, people born into and persevering in the Roman Church. But other attractions of various sorts can be readily found: theological, philosophical, liturgical, moral, psychological, and historical.

Defenders of Protestantism over the centuries have entered the lists, confronting at great length all of Rome’s attractions. Understandably, the discussions have often focused particularly on biblical and theological arguments. But historical arguments are of great importance as well. Rome often claims that it represents two thousand years of unbroken apostolic succession and practice. The implication is that no fundamental changes have taken place in the church, but only a legitimate development of principles found at the beginning. I believe that this historical claim is profoundly false, and that in the interests of truth and biblical religion it must be challenged. The Roman Catholic Church today is at least the fourth or fifth iteration of that organization, each in basic ways different from the others. There is the ancient form, the medieval form, the Tridentine form (formed at the time of the Council of Trent, 1545–1563), and then at least two post-Tridentine forms shaped by two very different councils: Vatican I (1868–1870) and Vatican II (1962–1965). In its ancient form, Rome was in fellowship with the other Christian churches and held to Nicene orthodoxy. In its medieval form, it separated from other Christian churches insisting on absolute Roman supremacy, defining certain doctrines such as transubstantiation, but leaving many other doctrines (such as justification and the authority of tradition) open to discussion. In its Tridentine form, it defined

many more doctrines, cutting itself off from its medieval form by condemning views it had then tolerated. In its post-Tridentine forms, it theoretically upholds the decisions of Trent, but in practice moves beyond and contrary to Trent. As the Tridentine church claimed to supplement the Bible with tradition, but in fact used its traditions to contradict the Bible, so the post-Tridentine church has claimed to supplement Trent with other teachings, but in fact has used those other teachings to contradict Trent. The extensive claims of the previous paragraph cannot be elaborated or substantiated in the space of this article. My purpose is simply to present some of the statements of the sixteenth-century Council of Trent and the nineteenth-century First Vatican Council in which historical claims for the Roman church are made, and then evaluate those claims in light of history. S CRIP TURE AND TRADITION

In the sixteenth century, the Reformers taught that the Bible alone was the church’s ultimate authority, while the Roman Catholics responded that tradition along with Scripture were the authority for the church. The Council of Trent defined this Roman position in these terms: Seeing clearly that this truth and discipline are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand.1 This position continued to characterize the Tridentine church as it was reiterated in almost identical language by the First Vatican Council (1870).2 In the decrees of these two councils, we read nothing of evolving or developing traditions. Instead, the historical claim made by each is crystal clear: the authoritative traditions of the Roman Church were taught by the apostles in the first century. Such a claim is entirely untenable, as any informed Roman Catholic must acknowledge today. And so many Roman apologists now seek to show how current Roman teachings and practices, supposedly based on tradition, have progressed and grown from a kernel of truth found in the time of the apostles, and thereby justify contemporary practice. The problem with such an apologetic is that it contradicts what Trent and the First Vatican Council declared. John Calvin, in one of the most trenchant early criticisms of Trent, remarkably turned the table on Rome saying, in effect, that he would accept the authority of apostolic tradition as defined by Trent if the Romanists could offer historical proof for their claims of tradition. Calvin recognized already in the sixteenth century that such proof could not be presented.3 Historical studies since then have made Trent’s claims even more impossible to demonstrate. As we examine the decisions of Trent carefully, we find various places in which it claims the authority of tradition as the foundation of its teaching, particularly with respect to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. TRANSUBSTANTIATION

Trent teaches that its doctrine of transubstantiation is not only a perpetual, but also a sincere and firm commitment of the church even in ancient times: And because that Christ, our Redeemer, declared that which he offered under the species of bread to be truly his own body, therefore, has it ever been a firm belief in the Church of God, and this holy Synod doth now declare it anew, that, by the consecration of the bread and of the wine, a conversion is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood.4

ADORATION OF THE HOST

Trent also teaches that worshipping the consecrated bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper is an apostolic tradition going back to the earliest days of the church: Wherefore, there is no room left for doubt, that all the faithful of Christ may, according to the custom ever received in the Catholic Church, render in veneration the worship of latria, which is due to the true God, to this most holy sacrament.5 SACRIFICE OF THE MASS

Remarkably, Trent also declares both that the Mass was an unbloody, propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the living and the dead, and that this was the consensus of the apostolic tradition: And forasmuch as, in this divine sacrifice which is celebrated in the mass, that same Christ is contained and immolated in an unbloody manner who once offered himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross; the holy Synod teaches, that this sacrifice is truly propitiatory….Wherefore, not only for the sins, punishments, satisfactions, and other necessities of the faithful who are living, but also for those who are departed in Christ, and who are not as yet fully purified, is it rightly offered, agreeably to a tradition of the apostles.6 Suffice it to say, no reputable church historian would confirm any of these historical claims of the Council of Trent. Even if some very ancient support for some of these teachings were found, it would not substantiate Trent’s claims of clear and broad acceptance of them in the early period of the ancient church. SCRIPTURE AND ITS INTERPRETATION In addition to its decisions on tradition, Trent further decreed that only the church could properly interpret the meaning of the Bible, and further claimed that this position was the unanimous teaching of the church fathers:

“FOR ROME, THE CHURCH IS THE AUTHORITATIVE HIERARCHY THAT BY ITS POWER DECIDES THE MEANING OF THE BIBLE. FOR CALVIN, THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE IN DIFFICULT MATTERS SHOULD BE GIVEN TO LEARNED MEMBERS OF THE CHURCH TO STUDY THE MEANING OF THE BIBLE HUMBLY AND SUBMISSIVELY.” Furthermore, in order to restrain petulant spirits, it decrees, that no one, relying on his own skill, shall, in matters of faith, and of morals pertaining to the edification of Christian doctrine,—wresting the sacred Scripture to his own senses, presume to interpret the said sacred Scripture contrary to that sense which holy mother Church,—whose it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the holy Scriptures,—hath held and doth hold; or even contrary to the unanimous consent of the Fathers.7 The position articulated by Trent against sola scriptura has rightly sometimes been called sola ecclesia (by the church alone). It is not so much the Bible and tradition that determine the truth as the decisions of the church as to the meaning of the Bible and tradition. Here too, however, Rome’s claim is not that its teachings have evolved, but that it teaches what the whole church and the fathers of the

church have always taught. Calvin saw that in fact Rome did not give any real authority to the Bible. Rather, Rome made the Bible into a wax nose that would be reshaped to mean whatever Rome wanted it to mean.8 Calvin indeed recognized an important role for the church in interpreting the Bible, but has a very different notion of what the church is. For Rome, the church is the authoritative hierarchy that by its power decides the meaning of the Bible. For Calvin, the interpretation of the Bible in difficult matters should be given to learned members of the church to study the meaning of the Bible humbly and submissively.9 The question remains, of course, as to who exactly determines the meaning of the Bible and tradition for the Roman Catholic Church. Some in the sixteenth century looked to the great theological faculties in the universities. Many believed that only the pope and ecumenical councils could speak for the whole church. That is the view enshrined in the Tridentine Profession of Faith of 1564, issued by Pope Pius IV after the Council of Trent had adjourned and made binding on all who taught in the Roman Church.10 This profession declared the necessity of following the pope and the ecumenical councils: X. I acknowledge the holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church for the mother and mistress of all churches; and I promise and swear true obedience to the Bishop of Rome, successor of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of Jesus Christ. XI. I likewise undoubtingly receive and profess all other things delivered, defined, and declared by the Sacred Canons and General Councils, and particularly by the holy Council of Trent.11 The point to take note of here is that the Tridentine Profession of Faith assumes the authority of the ecumenical councils as well as popes, and further, assumes the agreement of popes and councils. In fact, the historical reality is quite the contrary to Rome’s claims, for the pope historically rejected what ecumenical councils said about Rome. Consider the famous sixth canon of the Council of Nicaea (325): MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

The ancient custom, which has obtained in Egypt, Libya, and the Pentapolis, shall continue in force, viz.: that the bishop of Alexandria have rule over all these [provinces], since this also is customary with the bishop of Rome. Likewise also at Antioch and in the other eparchies, the churches shall retain their prerogatives.12

AND FURTHERMORE… Other untenable historical claims made by the Council of Trent include:

➨ Trent declared the antiquity of the doctrine of Purgatory.1

Clearly the Council of Nicaea knew nothing of the notion that the bishop of Rome ruled over all the churches. Obstinately, Rome has not submitted to this canon of an ecumenical council, thus challenging the notion of pope-and-council harmony. A second and more surprising example can be taken from the second ecumenical council of Constantinople (381). At that time, the bishop of Constantinople was declared to have “the precedence in honor, next to the bishop of Rome.”13 The meaning of this statement is explained more fully in the twenty-eighth canon of the fourth ecumenical council, the Council of Chalcedon (451). After expressing its agreement with the Council of Constantinople on the bishop of Constantinople, the canon continued:

➨ Trent grounded the veneration of images in apostolic practice.2

➨ Tre n t i n s i s t e d o n t h e a n t i q u i t y o f indulgences.3

➨ Vatican I, then, reinforces these claims for the antiquity of the pope’s teaching on such matters: For the Pope that “the Holy Spirit was not promised to the successors of Peter, that by his revelation they might make known new doctrine; but that by his assistance they might inviolably keep and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith delivered through the Apostles. And, indeed, all the venerable Fathers have embraced, and the holy orthodox doctors have vener-

For with reason did the fathers confer prerogatives…on the throne [the episcopal chair] of ancient Rome, on account of her character as the imperial city…; and, moved by the same consideration, the hundred and fifty bishops [at the Council of Constantinople] recognized the same prerogatives…also in the most holy throne of New Rome [Constantinople]; and with good reason judging, that the city, which is honored with the imperial dignity and the senate [i.e., where the emperor and senate reside], and enjoys the same [municipal] privileges as the ancient imperial Rome, should also be equally elevated in ecclesiastical respects, and be the second after her.14

ated and followed, their Apostolic doctrine; knowing most fully that this See of holy Peter remains ever free from all blemish of error according to the divine promise of the Lord our Saviour made to the Prince of his disciples: ‘I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not, and, when thou are converted, confirm thy brethren.’” 4 1 2 3 4

PHILIP SCHAFF, CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM (GRAND RAPIDS: BAKER BOOKS, 1998), 2:198. SCHAFF, CREEDS, 2:200. SCHAFF, CREEDS, 2:205. SCHAFF, CREEDS, 2:268FF AND CITING LUKE 22:32.

The papal legates at the council protested this canon, but the council passed it anyway. Clearly the great ecumenical council did not acknowledge the right of the pope to determine its actions. Important to note is that for the council the discussion of the honor accorded to the bishop of Rome was purely a matter of its relation to the imperial system.

THE COUNCIL OF TRENT, 1588 (FRESCO), PASQUALE CATI DA IESI, ROME.

No mention is made of Christ or Peter in this matter. This canon is also rejected by Rome, again challenging the notion that popes and councils have always agreed. VATICAN I AND PAPAL INFALLIBILITY In many ways, the logical culmination of Rome’s claims for itself was the declaration of the First Vatican Council (1870) regarding the authority and infallibility of the pope. This council reiterated that what it taught about the pope was “in accordance with the ancient and constant faith of the universal Church.”15 Further, it insisted that the doctrine of papal authority over the whole church is necessary for salvation: “Hence we teach and declare that by the appointment of the Lord the Roman Church possesses a superiority of ordinary power over all other churches….This is the teaching of the Catholic faith, from which no one can deviate without loss of faith and salvation.”16 The irony and historical inaccuracy of this statement is outrageous. To abide by this teaching, the Eastern churches and many Western churches of the ancient period are read out of the true church without a moment’s hesitation. The absolute authority of the bishop of Rome is not only ancient and universal, one most held to be Roman Catholic, but it is also necessary for salvation for everyone. The council goes beyond asserting the authority of the pope over all churches. It also declares that he is infallible in his official teaching. The more familiar section of the declaration is as follows: “Adhering to the tradition received from the beginning of the Christian faith…we teach and define…that the Roman Pontiff, when he speaks ex cathedra…is possessed of that infallibility.”17 In context, the assertion about the pope is actually even stronger: “This See of holy Peter remains ever free from all blemish of error.”18 Has anyone ever believed that? The pope who called and directed the First Vatican Council was Pius IX. In perfect harmony with the sentiments of the statements, when it was suggested to him that he at least seek the advice of bishops and the tradition of the church in matters of doctrine, Pius IX answered, “Tradition, I am tradition.”19 For the Tridentine Roman Church, its

authority truly is sola papa (by the pope alone). The arrogance of Pius IX and his council is truly staggering. Few Roman Catholic scholars in the postTridentine church accept these sweeping claims as being either historical or binding. THE ONGOING NEED FOR REFORMATION Since Calvin’s time, Rome has continued its defense of itself through complicated arguments full of distinctions made after the fact. I have quoted at length from two of Rome’s own ecumenical councils to show how great is the distance between what the documents say and how Rome treats them. Rome’s historical arguments are simply not credible, though most Roman Catholics either do not know them or do not think about them. Those that do know them in the end follow the founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola, who wrote: “If we wish to proceed securely in all things, we must hold fast to the following principle: What seems to me white, I will believe black if the hierarchical Church so defines.”20 Such a position is not worthy of a Christian or of biblical religion.21

W. Robert Godfrey is professor of church history and president of Westminster Seminary California (Escondido, California).

1 Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1998), 2:80. 2 Schaff, Creeds, 2:241. 3 John Calvin, “Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent, with the Antidote,” Selected Works (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1983), 3:69ff. 4 Schaff, Creeds, 2:130. 5 Schaff, Creeds, 2:131. 6 Schaff, Creeds, 2:179ff. 7 Schaff, Creeds, 2:83. 8 Calvin, 69. 9 Calvin, 74ff. 10 Schaff, Creeds, 1:97. 11 Schaff, Creeds, 2:209. 12 Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1910), 3:275. 13 Schaff, History, 3:277. 14 Schaff, History, 3:279. 15 Schaff, Creeds, 2:258. 16 Schaff, Creeds, 2:262ff. 17 Schaff, Creeds, 2:270. 18 Schaff, Creeds, 2:269. 19 Cited in Robert Strimple, “The Relationship between Scripture and Tradition in Contemporary Roman Catholic Theology,” Westminster Theological Journal 40 (Fall 1977), 29. 20 Cited in Lewis W. Spitz, The Protestant Reformation, 1517–1559 (New York: Harper and Row, 1985), 306. 21 For additional information on the claims of this article, see the faculty blog of Westminster Seminary California: www.wscal.edu/blog.

MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

by MICHAEL S. HORTON

illustration by STEVE WACKSMAN

GOING TO CHURCH WITH THE REFORMERS

t doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really matter in the final analysis whether Luther and Calvin would find the average evangelical church in America today more or less congenial than Rome. Yet it does suggest an interesting point of departure as we think about whether the Reformation question is a live question today. 42

Many of us were raised to believe that we had all the answers (whatever they were) and that Roman Catholicism believes in Mary and the pope rather than in Jesus and the Bible, in salvation by works rather than grace. And yet, as the surveys demonstrate, we didn’t really know what we believed or why we believed it—at least beyond a few slogans. If one asked the question in the correct form, we could possibly give the right answer to some of the big ones. However, a rising generation now is indistinguishable in its beliefs from Mormons, Unitarians, or those who check the “spiritual but not religious” box. We’re told that “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism” is the working theology of most Americans, including evangelicals. So when it comes to authority and salvation—the two issues at the heart of the Reformation’s concern—Protestantism today (mainline and evangelical) seems increasingly remote from anything that the Reformers would have recognized as catholic and evangelical faith and practice. In my “cage phase” (when emerging Reformed zealots should be quarantined for a while), I read from a sixteenth-century confession the section on grace and justification. The audience was a rather large group of fellow students at a Christian college. “Do you think we could sign this statement today,” I asked. Several replied, “No, it’s too Calvinistic.” That was interesting, because I was quoting the Sixth Session of the Council of Trent, which anathematized the Reformation’s teaching that justification was by Christ’s merits alone, imputed to sinners through faith alone. I didn’t quote the whole section, but only the part that affirmed that we are saved by grace and that our cooperation in the process of salvation—even our will to believe—requires God’s grace. You have to dig beneath the sweeping slogans and generalizations; it’s precisely in the details—where many eyes glaze over—that the massive differences between Rome and the Reformation appear. COMING TO TERMS WITH THE CHURCH’S PAST Pelagianism—the view that we are saved by our own choice and effort apart from grace—was condemned by several ancient church councils and bishops of Rome. Even semi-Pelagianism—the

view that we make the first move by free will and then grace assists us—was also condemned. For example, the Second Council of Orange in 529 even anathematized those who say that we’re born again by saying a prayer, when it is only God’s grace that gives us the will to pray for Christ’s mercy. Yet the Latin Church always struggled with the Pelagian virus in varying degrees. Medieval leaders such as Archbishop Thomas Bradwardine wrote treatises titled “Against the New Pelagians.” Thomas Aquinas emphasized the priority of God’s grace in predestination and regeneration. Luther’s own mentor and head of the Augustinian Order in Germany, Johann von Staupitz, wrote “A Treatise on God’s Eternal Election” in which he expressed concern that free will and works-righteousness had begun to undermine faith in God’s grace in Christ. By the time of the Reformation, popular piety was corrupted by countless innovations and superstitions. Luther was first aroused to arms by the arrival of a preacher with papal authority to dispense indulgences (time off in purgatory) for money that would help build St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The Reformation couldn’t be dismissed, precisely because it resonated with so many who knew that Rome had drifted far from its ancient moorings into myriad corruptions. Awakened by the new biblical scholarship, many of Europe’s leading Renaissance humanists became convinced that the Reformers were correct in their interpretation and application of Scripture to the church’s condition. The Council of Trent, which anathematized the Reformation’s convictions, affirmed the importance of grace going before all of our willing and running. Nevertheless, it condemned the view that, once regenerated by grace alone in baptism (our first justification), we cannot merit an increase of justification and final justification by our works. Trent said in no uncertain terms that Christ’s merits are not sufficient for salvation. Everything turned on different understandings of grace: ROME God’s medicine infused to help us cooperate

REFORMATION God’s favor toward us in Christ

MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

This in turn resulted in two different doctrines of justification: ROME A process of inner renewal

REFORMATION A declaration based on the imputation of Christ’s righteousness alone

PELAGIAN REVIVALISM IN AMERICA As Presbyterian theologians Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield pointed out, the explicit convictions of the famous evangelist of the Second Great Awakening, Charles G. Finney, were much further down the Pelagian road than Rome. Finney not only denied justification through faith alone in Christ’s merits alone. He based this on a rejection of original sin, the substitutionary atonement, and the supernatural character of the new birth. Consequently, his “new measures”— i.e., methods whose only criterion was whether they were “fit to convert sinners with”—replaced the divinely ordained means of grace, and his “protracted meetings” (revivals) radically altered the shape of most Protestant services and ministries in America. As Arminian theologian Roger Olson has pointed out, much of evangelical preaching today isn’t really Arminian but is closer to Pelagianism. The result is a distinctly Protestant kind of hazy moralism (works-righteousness) and an equally hazy notion that somehow Rome believes we’re saved by works rather than grace. It can be a fatal combination, especially when people realize that Rome does in fact believe in original sin and the necessity of grace—more in fact than many who call themselves evangelicals. TOO CATHOLIC? WELCOME TO THE REFORMATION Now we see many evangelicals being attracted to the Reformation’s emphases, discovering a tradition that is both catholic and evangelical without many of the trappings of evangelicalism. As their encounter with the Reformation widens beyond election and justification, they bump into views that sound at first “too Catholic.” Sola scriptura

(by Scripture alone) doesn’t mean that creeds and confessions and the decisions of church councils and assemblies don’t have any authority. Although Scripture alone has magisterial authority, these faithful summaries of Scripture nevertheless have a ministerial authority. Sola gratia (by grace alone) is not set over against the regular ministry of preaching and the sacraments; rather, these are the means of grace through which the Spirit delivers Christ with all of his benefits. It’s not Roman Catholic, to be sure, but to many evangelical brothers and sisters it sounds “too Catholic.” Reformed and Lutheran churches include the children of believers in baptism, and liturgy, orders and offices, discipline, and the accountability of local churches to each other in wider assemblies. These characteristics of Reformed ecclesiology also strike many evangelicals, again, as “too Catholic.” And that makes some sense. After all, despite its critique of the magisterial authority assigned to the pope officially at the Council of Trent, the Reformation differs at least as much from the freelance ministry of “anointed” preachers who act like popes, only without any accountability to the magisterium. Churches of the Reformation not only challenged the hierarchical government of the Roman Church, but also the sects that followed their own self-appointed prophets. Yes, said the Reformers, individual members and ministers are accountable to the church in its local and broader assemblies. God doesn’t speak directly to individuals (including preachers) today, but through his Word as it is interpreted by the wider body of pastors and elders in solemn assemblies. Tragically, evangelical hierarchies today are more prone to authoritarian abuses and personal idiosyncrasies than one finds in Rome. REFORMATION CHURCHES AND ROME Dislodged from confidence in Pastor Bob and the givens of the evangelical subculture, Christians need to realize that the Reformation was, well, a reformation and not a revolution or “do over.” Luther was not the founder of a new church, but an evangelicalcatholic reformer. As expressed in the title of one of the great works of Elizabethan Puritanism—William Perkins’s The Reformed Catholic—there is a deep continuity with the undivided church.

“THE RESULT IS A DISTINCTLY PROTESTANT KIND OF HAZY MORALISM (WORKS-RIGHTEOUSNESS) AND AN EQUALLY HAZY NOTION THAT SOMEHOW ROME BELIEVES WE’RE SAVED BY WORKS RATHER THAN GRACE. IT CAN BE A FATAL COMBINATION.” On the Roman Catholic TV network (EWTN) recently, Fr. Pacwa interviewed a professor who had graduated from Wheaton and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Becoming more interested in the Reformation, the professor pursued a PhD at the University of Iowa focusing on the theology of Calvin. The title of this segment was “How Calvin Made Me a Catholic.” The Reformers were eager to show their connection to the pre-Reformation church. They did not believe that the church had basically gone underground—much less extinct— between Paul and Luther. Rather, they argued that a gradual decay had been accelerated by recent emphases and innovations that needed to be corrected. Calvin is recognized by Roman Catholics and Protestants alike as a scholar of the early fathers, and his Institutes and commentaries are replete with citations from writers of the East and the West. The great theologians of Reformed and Lutheran orthodoxy engaged the ancient and medieval theologians as their own, yet always subject to critique as well as approval on the basis of their interpretation of Scripture according to a shared confession. So I can understand why some evangelicals find the Reformation “too Catholic” or, weary of

Protestantism in any form, look back to their “Reformation episode” as a gateway drug to the mysteries of Rome. For a long time now, American Protestants have defined their faith and practice in reaction against Rome. Now a growing number are defining their faith and practice in reaction against evangelicalism. “If the Reformers were alive today, they’d be Roman Catholic before they would join an evangelical sect.” I’ve heard that sentiment on more than one occasion. WHICH CHURCH WOULD THE REFORMERS JOIN? However, the men and women who risked their lives in the sixteenth century to defend the sufficiency of Scripture and the sufficiency of Christ would refuse the false choice between a chaotic Protestantism and a Roman Catholicism that still maintains the theology of Trent. It would be perverse to imagine that Luther or Calvin would find Rome more acceptable today than it was in their day. Even in the much-publicized “Joint Declaration on Justification,” it was the mainline Lutherans who surrendered their confessional convictions; Rome did not change any of its official positions. And in any case, the Vatican has made it clear that this consultation in no way has any magisterial weight. Is the growing interest in Reformation theology among younger evangelicals going to mean that, for some, Geneva, Wittenberg, and Canterbury will be a rest stop before moving on to Rome or Antioch? I suspect there will be this kind of trend of some sort in the future. We dare not treat those struggling with these issues among us as “necessary casualties,” a minimal loss compared to net gains. Pastoral love, wisdom, and patience will be more valuable than gold. There are real questions here—existential, exegetical, theological, and practical, with real lives being affected. It’s not a time for us to grandstand or to shoot from the hip with speculations about peoples’ motives or character. Rather, we should strive to make a persuasive case, leaving the results to the Spirit of truth.

Michael S. Horton is editor-in-chief of Modern Reformation.

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Feed Your Inner Theology Geek. VISIT THE STORE. Be sure to check out White Horse Inn’s online store. In addition to books, you’ll find mp3s, study kits, and videos for sale—everything you need to keep the conversation going offline.

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book reviews 48

“The issue of canon formation is complex and sophisticated, but nonetheless imperative.”

52 MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

BOOK REVIEWS

Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books BY MICHAEL J. KRUGER Crossway, 2012 362 pages (hardback), $30.00

his is a massively important and timely book. We face an unexpected foe today that, unless reversed, will harm the evangelical gospel witness, perhaps even destroy that witness within the next generation or two. Admittedly, in pop culture, mass media, and the mainstream academy, the Bible (and therefore the gospel) seems to have lost all credibility. Since no one listens to Scripture or clergy because neither the Word nor the church seems to have any recognizable—let alone respected—authority, great have been the attacks against it. There are, in other words, attacks on the Christian canon of Scripture from without. But a very present enemy from within evangelicalism is biblicism; in other words, fundamentalist theories and misuses of the Bible’s content, purpose, and authority. Michael Kruger’s Canon Revisited is a serious apologetic that is both a bulwark against attacks from without and an of offensive measure over against naive and untenable doctrines of Scripture and canon formation arising from within American Christianity. As such, this book is required reading for all pastors and priests, church elders and clerics, as well as seminarians and learned laypersons. It is not so much a weapon of mass instruction against Roman Catholic or Dan Brown accounts of canon formation, as against Bible-belt biblicism that has become the whipping boy of cable TV talk show hosts. Biblicism typically resorts to practical fideism in its phobic attack on the Bible. In the biblicist

scheme, the canon “just is.” Kruger says that not only will this not do, but it’s also dishonest in addition to being impossible. The issue of canon formation is complex and sophisticated, but nonetheless imperative. Pollyanna positions have no place in the church and neither does prejudicial caricaturing. The discussion about canon necessarily includes contributions from historical-criticism and resources extrabiblical sources of authority, but both are substantially informed by the self-authenticating content and nature of Scripture. Acknowledging the danger of categorization and reductionism, the author frames the discussion in terms of three frequently competing models of determining the canon: (1) the canon as community determined, (2) the canon as historically determined, and (3) the canon as self-authenticating. Kruger argues that these models, when competing, fail to adjudicate the evidence each offers in an honest spirit of liberal scholarship in knowlthe pursuit of truth and knowl epistemoedge. The issue is epistemo logical. Historical-criticism has, on the whole, operated dismisswith a perfunctory dismiss al of the self-authentication model due to its worldview commitments. Meanwhile, evangelical biblicism has done devirtually the same thing by de nouncing higher-critical and subvereven historically determined models as subver sive of divine authorship. Ideological agendists may view these positions as antithetical, but within Kruger’s tripartite model they most certainly are not. There is a manifest need for the legitimate findings of each for a truly viable and coherent account of canon formation and scriptural authority. In fact, it must be acknowledged, explains the author, that the historical-critical model is correct to remind us of the role of the Christian

“MICHAEL KRUGER’S CANON REVISITED... IS REQUIRED READING FOR ALL PASTORS AND PRIESTS, CHURCH ELDERS AND CLERICS, AS WELL AS SEMINARIANS AND LEARNED LAYPERSONS.” community in the formation of the New Testament canon. When Jesus ascended, the New Testament didn’t immediately descend. There was a process, a progression to canon formation; yet not one without precedence, even a divinely ordained and orchestrated precedence. In other words, Kruger describes the genuine warrant for Christian belief in the divine origin and authority of Scripture, notwithstanding the circular nature of using Scripture to evidence Scripture’s origins and authority (after all, any clear-minded thinker will acknowledge that there is ultimately no escape for epistemic circularity when it comes to assessing fundamental sources of belief ). Whether the revelatory nature of Scripture is embraced or not, a consideration of its content in light of warranted belief should be concomitant with all scholarly pursuits of the canon’s origins and authority. The content of New Testament Scripture is nothing other than the intrinsically authoritative gospel of Christ—the all-authoritative King’s new covenant Word—hence biblical authority and the Reformation’s sola scriptura affirmations. While the historical-critical model of canonization largely ignores the internal record and selfpresentation of Scripture’s own canonical nature, Kruger argues that this is a biased and unscholarly exclusion. Central to his research, then, is Scripture’s covenantal content and structure. Scripture itself sets the terms for how its own origins are to be

investigated and explored with relation to canonicity. With extrabiblical parallels, the Old Testament shows us that God, by his redemptive activities, creates a covenant community. He then, writes Kruger, gives them documents that testify to that redemption and serve as a permanent, reliable, and holy transmittable record. As the author puts it: “It is not just the claim that these books are about Christ’s redemptive work in history but it is the claim that these books are the product of Christ’s redemptive work in history—that they are the outworking of the authority Christ gave to his apostles” (110). There are, therefore, three aspects to canon formation and recognition, rightly understood: (1) canon as reception (exclusive); (2) canon as use (functional); and (3) canon as divinely given (ontological). The book is well ordered with two main parts (“Determining the Canonical Model” and “Exploring and Defending the Canonical Model”), subdivided into three and five chapters respectively, followed by a conclusion. Of special importance in Part 2 are the chapters on the apostolic origins of the canon (rooted, of course, in the oral tradition of the gospel), as well as so-called “problem” books and canonical boundaries. Canon Revisited would have benefited from a more robust discussion and consideration of the place of liturgy as a vehicle of gospel preservation, transmission, and authority. The same could be said for other oral components woven into the New Testament (e.g., hymns, creeds, and so forth), as opposed to concentrating on gospel preaching. Other detracting features include the failure of Crossway editors to limit the endless, sometimes pedantic footnotes. Discerning readers will disapprove of some of his exegetical work. Additionally, the author’s representation of the authority of the oral tradition comes off muted as he steers away from certain (arguably plausible) aspects of Roman Catholic pronouncements on canonicity. All told, Michael Kruger has performed a major service for contemporary Christianity with a book that needs wide distribution.

John J. Bombaro (PhD, King’s College, University of London) is senior priest at Grace Lutheran Church, San Diego, and teaches at the University of San Diego. He is the author of Jonathan Edwards’s Vision of Reality (Pickwick, 2012).

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BOOK REVIEWS

Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics BY RUSS DOUTHAT Free Press, 2012 352 pages (hardcover), $26.00

he sight of heretics running rampant has always distressed the orthodox. Historically they’ve taken some extreme measures to restore their equanimity: wars of religion, the Spanish Inquisition, burnings at stakes, things like that. In America, so the story goes, with the advent of modernity, democracy, and the First Amendment, it was determined that religion was too hot for the state to handle and that there should be free exercise of religion. This arrangement unleashed new scope for heretical binges unchecked by the power of sword, and heresy flourished like a green tree in its native soil. But this was considered preferable to violent religious carnage, and Americans are proud of their forefathers for having had the sense to make the religious zealots settle their differences without weapons. This is the story as it’s usually told, with the focus on the glorious benefits of religious freedom. But New York Times columnist Ross Douthat would like to nuance this story in his book, Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics.. He believes that while America has always fostered heretics, these heretics used to react against a substantial orthodox Christian core. The minority heretics were good for religion, because heresy keeps orthodoxy on its toes. And

the situation as a whole was good for America, as the thus-enlivened orthodox, gathered in the institutional church, encouraged many social goods in its communal role, driving assimilation, and guaranteeing social peace. It also played a prophetic role, as “a curb against our national excesses and [as] a constant reminder of our national ideals” (16). But now this ideal heresy/orthodoxy balance is being threatened by the decline of institutional orthodox Christianity and the insurgence of numerous heresies. Rather than becoming too irreligious or too religious, Americans are becoming too heretical, which leads to the loss of the orthodox core and its supporting social role, and instead results in cultural and financial woes. Douthat narrates the decline of orthodoxy over the past fifty years along with the concurrent decline in cultural health, and he provides a handy compendium of the most prevalent modern heresies and the havoc they wreak upon society. From this data he argues that more orthodox belief would be good for America, and that even unbelievers and skeptics should be able to appreciate the benben efits America once reaped from its orthodox core. Douthat writes with keen intelligence when he outlines the current heresies and their perniperni cious societal effects. If you want to be briefed on the heresies held by many of your friends and neighneigh bors, I can recommend no better resource. Douthat oris less sharp, however, when he discusses or thodoxy. He attempts to make an instrumental argument for orthodox Christianity, which is Chrisdifficult to do without reducing orthodox Chris tianity to a simple tool. An instrumental version

of Christianity, sadly, is by definition no longer orthodox. It’s difficult terrain to navigate. Douthat readily acknowledges that Christianity must be sought for its own sake: “To make any difference in our common life, Christianity must be lived—not as a means to social cohesion or national renewal, but as an end unto itself” (293). But he struggles throughout the book to resist treating orthodoxy as a tool for political flourishing rather than the supernatural, stumbling-block-to-the-Jews and foolishness-to-the-Greeks kind of religion that it is. The struggle to describe Christianity’s social benefit without reducing it to those benefits is apparent in his definition of orthodoxy. He argues that orthodoxy recognizes that reality is complex, while heretics often try to rationalize and streamline doctrines they can’t explain, like the incarnation, leading to a flattened view of the world. He goes on to define orthodoxy in this way: “What defines this consensus [of orthodox Christian belief ], above all—what distinguishes orthodoxy from heresy, the central river from the delta—is a commitment to mystery and paradox” (10). This is an odd way to put it, because while believing in mysteries and paradoxes might help you believe in a more complex world, they have no inherent value in themselves. They are valuable only if they are true and help to explain reality as it actually is. Douthat’s indirectness about Christianity’s truth-claims might make for an instrumental argument that is more appealing to unbelievers, but it portrays orthodoxy in a manner less than accurate. The struggle continues when Douthat addresses the way the church needs to think of itself in relation to the world. For example, he writes, For a fleeting historical moment [the Civil Rights movement], it seemed as though the Christian churches might not have to choose between becoming religious hermit kingdoms or the spiritual equivalents of Vichy France. Instead, they might become something more like what the Gospels suggested they should be: the salt of the earth, a light to the nations, and a place where even modern man could find a home. (54)

“RATHER THAN BECOMING TOO IRRELIGIOUS OR TOO RELIGIOUS, AMERICANS ARE BECOMING TOO HERETICAL, WHICH LEADS TO THE LOSS OF THE ORTHODOX CORE AND ITS SUPPORTING SOCIAL ROLE, AND INSTEAD RESULTS IN CULTURAL AND FINANCIAL WOES. ” order to be salt and light, churches need to preach the Word boldly and administer the sacraments rightly, and Christians need to love their neighbors. Then they will be sufficiently salty and bright regardless of the sociopolitical outcome. Douthat makes similar missteps elsewhere in the book, but at the very end he offers an encouraging proposal: get thee back to church. He writes, “Anyone who seeks a more perfect union should begin by seeking the perfection of their own soul. Anyone who would save their country should first look to save themselves” (293). That’s still phrased a bit too instrumentally, because of course saving your own soul is no guarantee that your country will be saved, but he does at least get the order right. Far better to save your soul and forfeit the whole world than the reverse. And should the world benefit because your soul is saved, praise the Lord for his bountiful mercies.

Anna Speckhard (BA in Political Science, Geneva College) is currently working on a Master of Arts in biblical studies at Westminster Seminary California. She has written for The Institute on

In this quote he confuses being salt and light with the ability to effect certain social change. In

Religion and Democracy and contributed to Social Justice: Transforming Lives in Need (The Heritage Foundation, 2009).

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BOOK REVIEWS

The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society BY BRAD S. GREGORY Belknap Harvard, 2012 592 pages (hardcover), $39.95

ecularism, pluralism, individualism, freedom, rights, toleration—whatever. In his book, The Unintended Reformation, Notre Dame professor of history Brad Gregory provides a provocative examination of the moral decline of modern society. Troubled by the pluralism and secularism surrounding him, he argues that the Reformation produced a profound shift in attitudes toward truth and ethics. Starting with the Middle Ages and proceeding to the twenty-first century, Gregory attempts to offer a comprehensive analysis of the last millennium. Each chapter examines one of six realms in which Gregory believes that the Protestant Reformation negatively impacted the modern world: science, doctrine, society, morality, economics, and knowledge. First, he claims that the Reformation excluded the recognition of God’s work in the natural world by an insistence on a new way of understanding “being” (i.e., “being” is understood in a “univocal” way so that God and creation are the same qualitatively, differing only quantitatively), and by a rejection of sacramental realities (particularly transubstantiation). He holds that after the Reformation there was no longer any common framework to discuss God’s creative and providential role in the natural world as a result of this new philosophical understanding,

thus leading to the modern exaltation of science as fact and relegation of religion to mere opinion. In the second chapter, Gregory argues that the Reformers’ insistence on sola scriptura produced only contradictory truth-claims among “Christians,” unlike the apparently unified and authoritative truth-claims of the Roman Catholic Church. Next, he points out that the post-Reformation doctrinal differences understandably led to religious wars, which eventually produced civic toleration of religious differences in an attempt to escape further bloodshed. Gregory, however, is disturbed by this freedom of religion, believing that it limits the church’s relecontrol of souls and rele gates the control of bodies to the state, unduly separating the human unity of body and soul. Moreover, he posits that outward obedience to imthe state became more im portant than an inner love for God and others. Fourth, Gregory contends exthat the Reformation ex mochanged “a substantive mo rality of the good” for a “formal morality of rights” (184). In other words, medieval Christians were rightly motivated to practice the virtues because accordthe end was earning their salvation. But accord ing to Gregory, the Reformed insistence on salvation by faith alone removed the teleological motivation for ethics, leaving society with arbitrary, nonreligious “rights.” In his fifth chapter, Gregory deplores modern consumerist society and laments the lost medieval emphasis on self-denial. Because religion was not dictated by the state after the Reformation, Gregory concludes that religion was no longer a matter of public concern and that pursuit of material goods was the only remaining common

“ALTHOUGH THE UNINTENDED REFORMATION ASKS WORTHWHILE QUESTIONS, GREGORY’S CONTENTION THAT THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION WAS AT THE ROOT OF SOCIETY’S MORAL DECLINE IS LESS THAN SATISFYING HISTORICALLY—MOREOVER, IT IS THEOLOGICALLY TROUBLING. ” denominator. The previously condemned vices of greed and avarice became the new virtues of enterprise and economy. Finally, Gregory argues that knowledge has become secularized, disintegrated from other branches of learning, and separated from any consequences it may have in action. He believes that theology was the unifying factor for medieval knowledge and that the Reformation removed theology from the rest of knowledge by setting up specialized schools and by constant doctrinal infighting. In his conclusion, he points out that all these threads are different aspects of the same complex story, and although knowledge of the past cannot change the present, it can illuminate the present. Although The Unintended Reformation is learned and impressive in its breadth, this ambitious project left me with lingering historical and theological concerns. To be sure, the intellectual shifts Gregory describes did exist. But can the blame for such drastic changes be laid primarily at the feet of the Reformers? If the breakdown in

philosophical metaphysics really began with Scotus and Ockham during the Middle Ages, as Gregory describes in chapter 1, why are the Reformers to blame? Later, he argues against the traditional distinction of the confessional Reformed and the radical Anabaptists, saying that these two groups should be considered together ideologically because they were united by their opposition to the Roman Catholic Church. But if both the Roman Catholics and the confessional Reformed had similar concerns about the radical Anabaptists, the direct ancestors of modern religious individualism, why does Gregory lump the confessional Reformed and the radical Anabaptists together? I agree with Gregory that history is a complex story, but I would further add that history is so complex that his decision to blame the Reformation frequently seems arbitrary. Theologically, Gregory’s book is also troubling for the confessional Reformed, since it frequently serves today as an apology for the Roman Catholic Church. He finds that the Reformed insistence on Scripture alone with the guidance of the Holy Spirit produces disunity and confusion, that Reformed views on general revelation and common grace secularize knowledge and the natural world, and that belief in total depravity leads to complacency about public morality. Although there is much disagreement in the church, and sin clouds our understanding of the natural world and our actions in society, our answer to Gregory should be that this world is not our ultimate home. For all his insistence on man’s supernatural end of salvation in the world to come, Gregory wants to find authority, community, and unity in this world (presumably through the Roman Catholic Church and the reconstruction of Christendom). Gregory’s concerns about the modern world, particularly in chapters 5 and 6, are well worth further thought, and his breadth of learning is highly instructional. Although The Unintended Reformation asks worthwhile questions, Gregory’s contention that the Protestant Reformation was at the root of society’s moral decline is less than satisfying historically—moreover, it is theologically troubling. Amy Alexander (MA in historical theology) is a graduate of Westminster Seminary California in Escondido.

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GEEK S QUAD

THE â&#x20AC;&#x153;GOOD NEWSâ&#x20AC;? ACCORDING TO ROME

HOW MUST WE BE SAVED? DECREES OF TRENT

HEIDELBERG CATECHISM

WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM

(Chapter V)

(Q 60) How are you

(Q 85): What doth God require

The Synod furthermore declares, that

righteous before God?

of us that we may escape his

in adults, the beginning of the said Jus-

Only by true faith in Jesus Christ: that

wrath and curse due to us for sin?

tification is to be derived from the pre-

is, although my conscience accuses

To escape the wrath and curse of

venient grace of God, through Jesus

me, that I have grievously sinned

God due to us for sin, God requireth

Christ, that is to say, from His vocation,

against all the commandments of

of us faith in Jesus Christ, repentance

whereby, without any merits existing on

God, and have never kept any of them,

unto life, with the diligent use of all

their parts, they are called; that so they,

and am still prone to all evil; yet God,

the outward means whereby Christ

who by sins were alienated from God,

without any merit of mine, of mere

communicateth to us the benefits of

may be disposed through His quick-

grace, grants and imputes to me the

redemption.

ening and assisting grace, to convert

perfect satisfaction, righteousness,

themselves to their own justification,

and holiness of Christ, as if I had never

by freely assenting to and co-operating

committed nor had any sins, and had

with that said grace: in such sort that,

myself accomplished all the obedience

while God touches the heart of man by

which Christ has fulfilled for me; if only

the illumination of the Holy Ghost, nei-

I accept such benefit with a believing

ther is man himself utterly without do-

heart.

ing anything while he receives that inspiration, forasmuch as he is also able to reject it; yet is he not able, by his own free will, without the grace of God, to move himself unto justice in His sight.

WHAT IS FAITH? DECREES OF TRENT

HEIDELBERG CATECHISM

WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM

(Canon IX)

(Q 21): What is true faith?

(Q 86): What is faith in Jesus Christ?

If any one saith, that by faith alone the im-

True faith is not only a sure knowledge

Faith in Jesus Christ is a saving grace,

pious is justified; in such wise as to mean,

whereby I hold for truth all that

whereby we receive and rest upon him

that nothing else is required to co-operate

God has revealed to us in His Word,

alone for salvation, as he is offered to us

in order to the obtaining the grace of Jus-

but also a hearty trust, which the

in the gospel.

tification, and that it is not in any way nec-

Holy Spirit works in me by the Gospel,

essary, that he be prepared and disposed

that not only others, but to me also, for-

by the movement of his own will; let him

giveness of sins, everlasting righteous-

be anathema.

ness, and salvation are freely given by God, merely of grace, only for the sake of Christ’s merits.

WHAT ARE JUSTIFICATION & SANCTIFICATION? DECREES OF TRENT

HEIDELBERG CATECHISM

WESTMINSTER SHORTER CATECHISM

(Chapter X)

(Q 33): What is justification?

(Q 35): What is sanctification?

Having, therefore, been thus justified, and

Justification is an act of God’s free grace,

Sanctification is the work of God’s free

made the friends and domestics of God,

wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and ac-

grace, whereby we are renewed in the

advancing from virtue to virtue, they are

cepteth us as righteous in his sight, only

whole man after the image of God, and

renewed, as the Apostle says, day by day;

for the righteousness of Christ imputed to

are enabled more and more to die unto

that is, by mortifying the members of their

us, and received by faith alone.

sin, and live unto righteousness.

own flesh, and by presenting them as instruments of justice unto sanctification, they, through the observance of the commandments of God and of the Church, faith co-operating with good works, increase in that justice which they have received through the grace of Christ, and are still further justified, as it is written; He that is just, let him be justified still; and again, Be not afraid to be justified even to death; and also, Do you see that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. And this increase of justification holy Church begs, when she prays, “Give unto us, O Lord, increase of faith, hope, and charirty.”

MODERNREFORMATION.ORG

B A C K PA G E

I S T H E R E FO R M AT I O N OV E R?

PLENARY INDULGENCE FOR THE YEAR OF FAITH

ccording to a decree made public October 5, 2012, and signed by Cardinal Manuel Monteiro de Castro and Bishop Krzysztof Nykiel, respectively penitentiary major and regent of the Apostolic Penitentiary, Benedict XVI will grant faithful Plenary Indulgence for the occasion of the Year of Faith. "The day of the fiftieth anniversary of the solemn opening of Vatican Council II," the text reads, "the Supreme Pontiff Benedict XVI has decreed the beginning of a Year especially dedicated to the profession of the true faith and its correct interpretation, through the reading of–or better still the pious meditation upon– the Acts of the Council and the articles of the Catechism of the Catholic Church." "Since the primary objective is to develop sanctity of life to the highest degree possible on this earth, and thus

O C T O B E R

to attain the most sublime level of pureness of soul, immense benefit may be derived from the great gift of Indulgences which, by virtue of the power conferred upon her by Christ, the Church offers to everyone who, following the due norms, undertakes the special prescripts to obtain them." "During the Year of Faith, which will last from 11 October 2012 to 24 November 2013, Plenary Indulgence for the temporal punishment of sins, imparted by the mercy of God and applicable also to the souls of deceased faithful, may be obtained by all faithful who, truly penitent, take Sacramental Confession and the Eucharist and pray in accordance with the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff. "...Plenary Indulgence for the temporal punishment of sins, imparted by the mercy of God and applicable also to the souls of deceased faithful, may be obtained by all faithful who, truly penitent, take

2 0 1 2 – N OV E M B E R

Sacramental Confession and the Eucharist and pray in accordance with the intentions of the Supreme Pontiff." A. “Each time they attend at least three sermons during the Holy Missions, or at least three lessons on the Acts of the Council or the articles of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, in church or any other suitable location.” B. “Each time they visit, in the course of a pilgrimage, a papal basilica, a Christian catacomb, a cathedral church or a holy site designated by the local ordinary for the Year of Faith (for example, minor basilicas and shrines dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Apostles or patron saints), and there participate in a sacred celebration, or at least remain for a congruous period of time in prayer

2 0 1 3

and pious meditation, concluding with the recitation of the Our Father, the Profession of Faith in any legitimate form, and invocations to the Blessed Virgin Mary and, depending on the circumstances, to the Holy Apostles and patron saints.” C. “Each time that, on the days designated by the local ordinary for the Year of Faith, ... in any sacred place, they participate in a solemn celebration of the Eucharist or the Liturgy of the Hours, adding thereto the Profession of Faith in any legitimate form.” D. “ O n a n y d ay t h e y c h o se , d u r i n g t h e Year of Faith, if they make a pious visit to the baptistery, or other place in which they received the Sacrament of Baptism, and there renew their baptismal promises in any legitimate form."

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Articles inside

Going to Church with the Reformers

The Inventions of Rome

Who's in Charge Here? The Illusions of Church Infallibility

From Bishop to Pope: A Timeline

Is Evangelical Enough?