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Edi tor-in-Chief Michael S. Horton Publications Director Sara McReynolds Managing Editor Devron Byerly Art John Dearstyne Megan Giles John Newcombe Paul Swift CURE Board of Directors Douglas Abendroth John G. Beauman Cheryl Biehl Dr. Robert den Dulk Dr. W. Robert Godfrey Richard Hermes Michael S. Horton Dr. Robert Preus Dr. Luder Whitlock President Michael S. Horton Vice President Kim Riddlebarger Office Manager Jo Horton Communication Sara McReynolds Development Dan Bach Production Director Shane Rosenthal Production Assistant Mike De Fusco Shipping & Distribution Brant Wilcox Correspondence Alan Maben Bookkeeper Micki Riddlebarger CUREis a non,profit educational foundation committed to communicating the insights of the 16th century Reformation to the 20th century church. For more information, call during business hours at: (714) 956, CURE, or write us at: CHRISTIANS UNITED for REFORMATION 2221 East Winston Road Suite K Anaheim, CA 92806 Copyright 1994, CHRISTIANS UNITED for REFORMATION. All rights reserved.
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MARCHIAPRIL 1994
THE REFORMATION
THEN & NOW
The State of the Church Before the Reformation
4
Alister McGrath
Reformation Essentials: The Crisis of Evangelical Christianity
12
Michael S. Horton
Reforming Worship Music
20
Leonard Payton
Evangelicals and Catholics Together:
22
The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium A Critical Review by Michael S. Horton
Glossary Evangelical Dictionary of Theology Walter A. Elwell, Editor
Baker Book House
On the cover: Interior of the Oxford Hall in which Reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli delivered his daily lectures on Romans. An entire generation of Protestants was deeply moved by this 16th century reformer.
modern REFORMATION
The State of the Churcfi
hy was there a Reformation? By looking at that we can begin to gain some understanding of our own situation today. One of the reasons why the Reformation happened, is that there was a rediscovery of the attractiveness of the Gospel. A new generation arose who, by reading the New Testament at first hand, began to discover for themselves that here was something exciting and life, changing, like new wine that could not be contained in the old wineskins of the church of the late Middle Ages. Underlying everything else was this sense of excitement and rediscovery of the Gospel. And there was a real realization that there was a need to bring this into the sixteenth century, that the medieval church was lacking something. But by studying Scripture, rediscovering the doctrine of grace, something was made available that gave new life, new meaning, new purpose to the church. You and I can rediscover that as well. In my hometown of Belfast, in Northern Ireland, is a house owned by my grandparents. It is one of these great big old rambling houses built back in the 1890's. At the top of the house is an attic where my grandparents stored all the things they picked up in their youth and their early married life. Why? They said, "You never know when these things come in handy." That is what the Reformation is like in many ways. It is about realizing that we can turn to our Christian past and rediscover things that we have neglected, that we have forgotten; things that really can be useful today. Studying history is not simply nostalgia, a sentiment that says, "Oh, they always did things better in the past." Rather, it is saying, look, we can reach into the past to enrich the present by discovering things that we need to hear today. One of the big themes, then, is rediscovering the Gospel. But the other side, which I'm going to address here, is that things had become quite bad in the late Middle Ages. One thing you will notice is that these problems seem to be emerging again. Woody Allen once said, "History repeats itself. It has to, nobody listens the first time around." The late Middle Ages saw the church going through a period of real doctrinal confusion. People were not sure what they believed or why they bel ieved it. There arose a whole generation of Christians who really did not
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Alister McGrath 4
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Woodcut portrait of Luther as he appeared while in hiding at the Wartburg castle.
modern REFORMATION
13efore the Reformation
understand the Gospel. That was enormously important for a whole range of things. One of the great themes of the doctrine of justification is this: It answers the question, "What must I do to be saved?" Yet in the late Middle Ages, people were not certain how to answer that question at all. Let me tell you a story to bring out the importance of this point. Back in the year 1510 in northern Ital y there was a group of Italian noblemen, probably about twenty of them. They met regularly to pray and to talk. One of the great themes they talked about was this whole issue of how you could be sure that you really have been saved. In the end, the group decided that there was no way of really answering that question, dividing into two groups, one group convinced that the only way of being sure of salvation was to go to the nearest monastery and spend the rest of one's life there. The others felt that some how you had to be able to live your life as a Christian in the world and be sure that your sins had been forgiven. But they were not sure at all that that was what the church taught. The point I am trying to make is that this is a big question, one tha~ we will surely be expected to answer. But these people were unsure. They were not stupid, nor were they uneducated.
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he Reformation brought to consciousness of the great truths of the Christian faith. Karl Heim, who is one of the great historians of the Reformation, once wrote a line about his Calvinist friends. He said the Calvinist knows what he believes, and why. Heim makes the point that the Reformation brought with it a rediscovery of the truths of the Christian faith, a rebirth of Christian understanding and of Christian knowledge. This, of course, is relevant for us today when people are often too experience oriented. What is Christianity all about? Well, they will say, "It's about my experience of God"- and it surely relates to our experience. Without a real experience of God we are simply talking about an external shell, with no real fire for life. But ideas, convictions, and beliefs are a real part of the Christian faith. There's real intellectual depth there . It has a converting power based on the strength of its ideas. If we do not know and understand them, we sell the Gospel sh ort talking about our subjective appreciation of the Gospel, apart from the objective truth that it brings to our lives. So that is one important area where there were problems in the late Middle Ages. I think the same thing is true of our own day. Let me move on and look at another maj or area that caused problems in the late Middle Ages: the clergy. The clergy in the late Middle Ages tended to be not very well informed. They were often the target of abuse- of ridicule-because they knew so little. This reflects the fact that the social status of clergy was not really very high. But deeper down was something much more worrisome: that all the clergy needed to do was tend to the pastoral needs of their flock and not worry about anything else. There was JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1994
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modern REFORMATION no real teaching ministry grounded in the Word of God. There was no real sense of mission or evangelism. Bear in mind, we are talking about late fifteenth,century Europe, where the assumption was that everybody was a Christian, so there was no need to evangelize at all. The result is that people did not like the clergy at all, for all kinds of reasons. The clergy had certain privileges. For example, they were exempt from taxation; they were exempt from compulsory military service. Above all, they were not well informed, and they were not seen to p lay any decis ive or important role in the life of the church. With the Reformation this changed in a very big way. It changed because enormous emphasis came to be placed upon the teaching role of the clergy. The clergy are there to enable their people to discover in its full depths the wonder and the glory of the GospeL They were there to open the Word of God for their people, to help their people to discover what they had already discovered; namely, the depth and the attractiveness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So the clergy began to discover a role, a role based on their understanding of what the Gospel was all about and their passionate concern to communicate this to their people. There was a real excitement in what God had done for them through the cross of Jesus Christ and they wanted their people to share in this. So we see in the late Middle Ages a church whose clergy really had ceased to have any teaching function at all. The Reformation restored the vital elements of teaching and evangelism to the ministers of the church. That was a much needed correction and I think it's a correction we also need to rediscover today. In the late Middle Ages, Christianity tended to become very formal, very external, very outward. In other words, it was simply about people doing certain things, maybe believing certain things . But very often there was no real sense of personal communion with Christ or delight in the Gospel. In other words,
if you were a Christian you would behave in certain ways. Christianity was defined in terms of what you did. There was very little sense of the dynamic-something transforming, something to take hold of your life and turn it inside out. We can see this beginning to change in a number of ways at the dawn of the Reformation. It changes a bit through the doctrine of justification by faith, inviting people to discover the wonderful truth that you can experience God's forgiving grace, even though they are still sinful-an enormously important insight. Here is something that makes the Gospel relevant to the world of ordinary people. Weare not talking simply about people being told to do certain things, but about the Gospel being able to bring new life, new hope to ordinary people; making the connection between the Gospel and this person or that person, helping people to discover what the Gospel could mean for them in their lives. So there was a real rediscovery of the existential effects of the Gospel: taking delight in its objective truth, while insisting that this has had a big subjective impact on peoples lives.
"r---rhe Reformation .1.. restored the vital elements of teaching and evangelism to the ministers of the church. That was a much needed correction."
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rediscov~ty
S o we can see this of the relevance of the Gospel and move away from mere outward observance, to a discovery of what the Gospel can mean for our lives. Luther talked a lot about the importance of experience in the Christian life. In one of his writings he says, "Only experience makes a theologian." That means there is no point in writing about God unless you have experienced God, unless you know what he is like. At one point in another writing he says, "It is not reading and understanding and speculating that makes a theologian, but living and dying and being damned." He means that the Gospel is about forgiveness. But unless you have fully appreciated that you are a sinner, then the sweet news of forgiveness is not really going to meet you in all its force. It's only by experiencing the death of sin
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that you can really understand how wonderful that message of forgiveness is. So there is a rediscovery here of the importance of the individual believer. There is a new relevance given to the ordinary lay person. That brings me to the next point.
T he late Middle Ages saw the clergy really living in a different world from ordinary lay Christians. They were at a different level. The laity simply had no real role to play in the church at all. With the Reformation came the rediscovery of the laity. As many of you know, one of the key ideas underlying this is the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, the idea that every Christian believer has a role to play in the church. You only have to look at the late Middle Ages to see how little the laity were valued. For example, if you look at Calvin's city of Geneva, which had 5,000 ordinary citizens and 200 clergy before the Reformation, you can see how many clergy there were and how little the laity were allowed to do. After the Reformation there were still 5,000 people there, but there were only six or seven clergy whose task was primarily teaching. The laity were rediscovered and given a real and positive role to play in the life of the church. I think the rediscovery of the laity is a vital aspect of the Reformation heritage: A rediscovery that the ordinary lay people have been called by God, have been equipped by God, and have been given something to do by God. We really need to rediscover and value that. Let me tell you more about the late medieval church. The late Middle Ages are now thought to have been a period of enormous interest in Christianity. People used to think it was an era of decline, but it is now increasingly thought that it was an era of growth that led to increasing criticism of the church. Ordinary Christians came to have greater expectations of what the church ought to be doing. When expectations were not met, people began to
criticize the church in all kinds of ways. One of the things you see developing is a¡ real cynicism on the part of ordinary Christians about the church and the clergy. They had a real sense that they were being exploited by those who were meant to be their pastors, their shepherds, their leaders. You can see this in all kinds of ways. Very often the exploitation in question was financial. ¡Many of you know about the indulgence controversy that was of great importance to Luther's Reformation at Wittenberg. Let me explain what this was and why it caused such a row. In the Middle Ages the idea developed that although God does indeed forgive sinners, it is appropriate to try to express your gratitude for forgiveness in various ways. One of those ways was financial. Because God forgave your sins, you would express your gratitude to God by, for example, endowing a church or giving money to charity. But by the early sixteenth century this idea had become debased. Now people were being told, "Give money and sin will be forgiven." Very often this played on the love of people for their dead relatives. Your father or your mother has died and you may be wondering if they made it to heaven. If you buy an indulgence they'll make it. In fact, there was an advertising slogan for indulgences: "When the coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs." In other words, once you have paid this sum of money, your mother, your father, or .other relative will be delivered from any torment they are going through and will find their way safely through the pearly gates. Of course it had enormous attraction for ordinary believers who were worried about what happened to their parents, their grandparents, people that they loved. At one level this was financial exploitation. For Luther, this was perversion of the Gospel, making forgiveness a commodity, something you could buy.
This woodcut compares real repentance and forgiveness, left, with the sale of indulgences, right. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1994
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modern REFORMATION
Before the Reformation, the clergy were distrusted, in part because of their licentious behavior. Here, priests and a nun feast, drink and gamble.
Luther was outraged and felt there was a real need to rediscover the idea of forgiveness, justification by faith-that you could die knowing that your sins really had been forgiven. Not because of anything that you have done, but because of the grace of God and what he has done for you through Jesus Christ. So there was financial corruption that made many people wonder if their church and their pastors really could be trusted.
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he same thing was happening elsewhere. For example, in the late medieval church when someone you loved died, someone had to say the right prayers for them. Someone had to conduct a requiem Mass to make sure they got safely to heaven. That person would have to be paid. Again people began to think, "Here we are being exploited. We want to know that our loved ones are safely in the arms of God. The only way we can do this is by paying money to this priest to say certain prayers." So again there was this deep unease in the late medieval church about the quality of its ministers and the integrity of the church. One of the things the Reformation tried to do was to 8
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restore the integrity and the public image of the church. But the Reformation countered, you and I do not need a priest to tell us that we will die with our sins forgiven. We don't need to pay a priest to say prayers for us. We know that when we die we will be safe in the arms of God. This very deep reassurance of knowing that sins have been forgiven through what Jesus Christ has done for us, is a central theme of the Reformation. We must rediscover this theme. Very often Christians are told that they are arrogant for thinking that their sins really are forgiven. But they are not arrogant, they are trusting-trusting in the Word of God that makes those promises, and realizing that they are addressed to us, who joyfully accept what God wants us to have. r have briefly addressed the problem of confusion in the late medieval church, trying to make the point that one of the things the Reformation did was to bring home to believers the importance of knowing what they believed. That brings me to the next theme, which is that of Christian education. In the late Middle Ages this was virtually non~existent. The only people who were educated were the clergy. Yet,
modern REFORMATION very often they were poorly educated indeed. They knew very little about the Gospel. As a result they were unable to answer questions that ordinary people had. BecCl.use of this a climate of unease built up about the trustworthiness of the Gospel, not because of any problems with the Gospel, but the inadequacy of the clergy made it difficult for the people to understand what the Gospel was saying.
T he Reformation brought home the importance ofChristian education. Not satisfied merely with having a literate and educated clergy, the reformers insisted also on having ordinary Christians who understood their faith and what it meant to them. You can see this working at two different levels. At the first level it meant being able to give a good account of the Christian faith. A whole range of works came into being at the time of the Reformation designed to give Christians a deeper understanding and a deeper appreciation of the intellectual resilience of the real intellectual depths of the Christian faith. John Calvin's Institutes are an excellent example of this kind ofwork. They brought home to people that Christianity made sense, that it could be trusted, that by having a good understanding of the Christian faith you were not only well placed to deepen your own faith, but also to explain it to others. Education was also important subjectively. It brought home to people that they could feel good about the Gospel by reassuring them of its attractiveness, of its stability, and of the fact that it did make sense. We need to redis~ cover that by deepening our un~ derstanding of our faith, we do
"One of the greatest curses of the modern church is the personality cult that seems to descend upon some preachers."
"Woody Allen once said, 'History repeats itself. It has to, nobody listens the first time around.' "
two things: We bring about a new depth of understanding of our own faith. It is good news for us. As we begin to realize the full depths of our faith, we begin to open up and explore something that we have always known was there, .but have never really ex~ plored in all its fullness . But by appreciating for ourselves all that the Gospel means, we can also be more effective evangelists as well. Having an enriched understand~ ing and appreciation of the Gos~ pel will help us to give a far more effective witness. Try to explain to oth ers what it is about the Gospel that is so attractive to us in the full knowledge that it could be attractive to them as well. This area of education was a great weakness in the late medi~ eval church, which the Reforma ~ tion was able to address, and one that we too need to rediscover. L et me make another point about the problems of the late medieval church. Very often in the late medieval church there was a huge gap between the ordinary Christian and Scripture. In part, the reason was technological. Before the invention of printing, Scripture had to be copied out by hand, and that was expensive. Not every Christian could read, so they were very often dependent on their priest for an understanding of Scripture. But with th e Reformation came this glorious rediscovery that Scripture was like bread upon which you could feed, that it was living water, which you could drink and wh ich would quench your thirst. It was a real move towards rediscovering the importance of Scripture for the church. All kinds ofdevelopments took place to encourage this. For JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1994
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modern REFORMATION example, the development of exegetical sermons, of biblical commentaries and works of biblical theology, like Calvin's Institutes. There was a real rediscovery of Scripture and a realization that you did not need to rely ,:!pon your priest to understand Scripture, but you could go to Scripture directly. One of the great themes of the Reformation [s that
you can go to Scripture directly, read it, and be nourished by the Word of God. This relieved people of the false teachings that the church was putting into circulation at the time. Reading Scripture is not merely about rediscovering the excitement of the Gospel; it is also about asking hard questions about what this religious teacher or that religious teacher is saying. As the reformers began to open Scripture for their people, they began to rediscover that a lot of things in the late medieval church could not be justified on the basis of Scripture at all. The idea that Scripture was not easy to understand emerged in the late medieval church. Therefore, God and his Providence provides the church authorities to interpret Scripture to the people. The reformers were saying, "No, go back to Scripture, read it for yourself and ask, 'Where did these ideas come from?'" Every believer has the right and the responsibility to ask, Where do these ideas that we hear from our pulpits come from? Are they justified in the light of Scripture? I think there is a need for us to rediscover that important Reformation theme, because even in today's church we have preachers who very often are saying things that may be what their congregations want to hear, which may be what they want to say, but that are not well grounded in Scripture.
"It
and discovering what it is saying, rather than relying upon some preacher who may act as if he alone is the mean of communication between God and his people. So I have addressed some of the problems that were there in the late medieval church. There were many, and there are many more I could mention.
I do not want you to gain the impression that we are dealing with a whole series of problems and that the Reformation simply came along as a solution to those problems. It was a solution to those problems, but it was also something else as well. You must never think of the Reformation solely as a negative thing, as a response to weaknesses. It was also about our rediscovery of the Gospel. Rediscovery of the Gospel led to the correction of the weaknesses we have been exploring. But in part, the Reformation was this glorious rediscovery of what God had already done for his people and would continue to do for them if they were faithful to him and would rediscover his Word and will through Scripture. I think this is a great theme for us, because you and I are seeking to rediscover the Word and will of God for his people. The Reformation offers us a case study on how to do that. Many of us may look at the Reformation and say something like, "Look, this is very interesting, and may be very academically important. But you are talking about something that happened in sixteenth, century Europe. We want to know, does it have any relevance here in the twentieth,century?" I think the answer is yes. First, we are talking about .the same God who needs to restore his church. By looking at the way God restored, renewed and reformed his church in the past, we can gain some ideas about what he might want to do to his church here, today, in this place.
is not reading and understanding and speculating that makes a theologian, but living and dying and being damned." - Martin Luther
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here is a need for us to rediscover Scripture with a view to checking our preachers' art, lest they lead us astray. To my mind, one of the greatest curses of the modem church is the personality cult that seems to descend upon some preachers. Going back to Scripture is about going back to the Word of God 10
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But also, the Reformation is one of those great moments in history when a church paused and asked itself this question: "What are we here for? What is
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modern REFORMATION the real reason that the church is here? What is different about the church? What must the church do if it is to stay the church of God?" In other words, there was a real taking of stock, a posing of hard questions about the real mission and purpose of the church. Every organization that has been around for a long time settles into inertia. It works on the assumption that, well, we've done this today and yesterday; it'll go on like this forever. There is no need to ask those hard questions. But the reformers felt that the only way a church could be reformed or renewed was by asking, What does God want the church to do in the first place? By rediscovering that sense of purpose, we can bring the church back to life by allowing it to do what God wants it to do. As many of you well know, people like Luther and Calvin asked that question. The answer they gave is that the church is defined by the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Wherever that takes place, there also is the true church. I think that is a very important insight. Weare to look back at our Christian history, back at Scripture, and ask, "Where does God want us to go on from here?" If you read Luther, you will discover that for him, reading the New Testament is like getting an insight for days when faith came to life, insights to days when the church seems to have died. Luther, and many others beside us, say we have a church that is slowly but surely dying because it does not know why it is here. By going back to Scripture and rediscovering apostolic preaching, by . rediscovering the real dynamism of the early church, we bring our church back to life by giving it the same mission, the same sense of encouragement that we find in the early church. I think we still need to do that -to regain our sense of direction.
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he reformers are saying this: There is no point in going forward, forward, forward. We're not saying that the Reformation is basically something we have to
repeat like parrots. Weare not saying that, as we seek to move the church into the future, it helps to look back at those great moments in Christian history and ask, "Can we learn from that time? Is there anything that the Lord wants to say to us through those people of long ago as we face their task in today's age?" Studying church history-studying the Reformation-is like being at a Bible study with a great company of people who thought about those questions that are bothering you and others. Why was there a Reformation? First, there was a Reformation because there was a Gospel that had to be rediscovered in all its fullness. When it was rediscovered, a reorientation had to take place. Second, there was a Reformation because the church had run into all kinds of problems, and someone had to sort them out. You and I can rediscover that Gospel today. The Reformation is about that process of rediscovering, and bringing to life. That is still very much our agenda. But also on our agenda, I'm afraid, is the simple fact that we are looking at a church today that very often has many of the same problems we find in the late Middle Ages. There is a need for us to think through what we can do about those problems. The Reformation gives us some bearings, some landmarks, some ideas about how to address today's issues, using the resources, the methods, and above all, the inspiration that comes from the past. t
"T,he very deep reassurance that sins have been forgiven through what Jesus Christ has done for us is a central theme of the Reformation."
Dr. Alister McGrath has gained an international reputation as a historian of the Reformation through his many books and articles for both academic and popular audiences. His popular works include The Sunnier Side of Doubt, A Cloud of Witnesses and Justification by Faith. He is a lecturer in historical and systematic theology at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, England. This article originally was a lecture given by Dr. Alister McGrath at the 1994 CURE Conference in Orange, California. The entire
Reformation Then & Now conference is available on audio cassette. Simply order by calling 800~956~2644.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1994
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11
The Crisis of Evangelical
Reformation Essentials '
t:hristianity:
Then & Now
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May, 1989, a conference jointly sponsored by the National Association of Evangelicals and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School was held at the Trinity campus in Illinois. Dubbed a consultation on "Evangelical Affirmations," the meeting revealed more than it settled. In the published addresses (Zondervan, 1990), Carl F. H. Henry, the dean ofAmerican evangelicalism, sets the tone for the book with his opening line: "The term 'evangelical' has taken on conflicting nuances in the twentieth century. Wittingly or unwittingly, evangelical constituencies no less than their critics have contributed to this confusion and misunderstanding." He warned that "evangelical" was being understood, not according to Scriptural teaching and "the theological 'ought,'" but according to' the sociological and empirical "is." In other words, Henry was disturbed that evangelicalism is increasingly being defined by its most recent trends rather than by its normative theological identity. Author after author (presumably, speaker after speaker) echoed the same fears that before long "evangelical" will be useless as any meaningful identification. The term itself derives from the Greek word euangelion, translated "Gospel," and it became a noun when the Protestant reformers began their work of bringing the "one holy, catholic and apostolic church" back to that message by which and for which it was created. People still used other labels, too, like "Lutheran," "Reformed," and later, "Puritans," "Pietists," and "Wesleyans." Nevertheless, the belief was that the same Gospel that had united the "evangelicals" against Rome's errors could also unite them against the
Michael S. Horton
modern REFORMATION creeping naturalism and secularism of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. The so' called "Evangelical Awakening" in Britain coincided with America's own "Great Awakening," as Wesley, Whitefield, Edwards, Tennant, and so many others centered their preaching on the atonement. Later, of course, Wesley's ~eal for Arminian emphases divided the work in Bri tain, bu t the Reformation emphases were clead y and unambiguously articulated in the Great Awakening. Out of this heritage, those today who call themselves "evangelicals" (or who are in these churches, but might not know that they are in this tradition) are heirs also to the Second Great Awakening. Radically altering the "evangel" from a concern with the object of faith, the Second Great Awakening and the revivalism that emerged from it focused on the act and experience of faith, in dependence on the proper "excitements" as Finney and others expressed it, to trigger the right response. In our estimation at CURE, this Second Great Awakening was the most important seismic shift in American religious history. Although the Refonnation emphases of sin and grace continued to exercise some influence, they were being constantly revised to make the "Gospel" more acceptable to those who thought they could pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.
Ours is a visual or image-based society, much like the Middle Ages, and yet Christianity can only flourish through words, ideas, beliefs, announcements, arguments.
O nly in the last decade of this century have many of the movement's mainstream leaders considered the loss of an evangelical substance. No longer is the evangel the focus of the movement's identity, but it is now known more by a sub,culture, a collection of political, moral and social causes, and an acute interest in rather exotic notions about the end,times. At a loss for words, Dr. Robert Godfrey answered a man's question, "Who are the evangelicals?" with the reply, "They're people who like Billy Graham." 14
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I t is at this point that those of us who are heirs to the Reformation which bequeathed to evangelicalism a distinct theological identity that has been since lost- call attention once more to the salas (only or alone) that framed the entire sixteenth,century debate: "Only Scripture," "Only Christ," "Only Grace," "Only Faith," and "To God Alone Be Glory."
Sola Scriptura:
Our Only Foundation
Many critics of the Reformation have attempted to portray it as the invitation to individualism, as people discover for themselves from the Bible what they will and will not believe. "Never mind the church. Away with creeds and the church's teaching office! We have the Bible and that's enough." But this was not the reformers' doctrine of sola Scriptura-only Scripture. Luther said of individualistic approaches to the Bible, "That would mean that each man would go to hell in his own way." O n one side, the reformers faced the Roman Church, which believed its teaching authority to be final and absolute. The Roman Catholics said that tradition can be a form of infallible revelation even in the contemporary church; one needs an infallible Bible and an infallible interpreter of that sacred book. On the other side were the Anabaptist radicals, who believed that they not only did not need the teaching office of the church; they really didn't seem to need the Bible either, since the Holy Spirit spoke to them-or at least to their leaders-directly. Instead of one pope, Anabaptism produced numerous "infallible" messengers who heard the voice of God. Against both positions, the Reformation insisted that the Bible was the sole final authority in determining doctrine and life. In interpreting it, the whole church must be included, including the laity, and they must be guided by the teachers in the church. Those teachers, though not infallible, should have considerable interpretive authority. The creeds
modern R EFORMATION were binding and the newly reformed Protestant communions quickly drafted confessions of faith that received the assent of the whole church, not merely the teachers. Today, we are faced with similar challenges even within evangelicalism. On one hand, there is the tendency to say, as Luther characterized the problem, "I go to church, hear what my priest says, and him I believe." Calvin complained to Cardinal Sadoleto that the sermons before the Reformation were part trivial pursuit, part story' telling. Today, this same process of "dumbing down" has meant that we are, in George Gallup's words, "a nation ofbiblical illiterates." Perhaps we have a high view of the Bible's inspiration: 80% of adult Americans believe that the Bible is the literal or inspired Word of God. But 30% of the teenagers who attend church regularly do not even know why Easter is celebrated. "The decline in Bible reading," says Gallup, "is due in part to the widely held conviction that the Bible is inaccessible, and to less emphasis on religious training in the churches." Just as Rome's infallibility rested on the belief that the Bible itself was difficult, obscure, and confusing, so today people want the "net breakdown" from the professionals: what does it mean for me and how will it help me and make me happy? But those who read the Bible for more than devotional meditations know how clear it is-at least on the main points it addresses-and how it ends up making religion less confusing and obscure. Again today, the Bibleespecially in mainline Protestant churches-is a mysterious book that can only be understood by a small cadre of biblical scholars who are "in the know." But we have the other side, too. There is a popular trend in many "evangelical" churches to emphasize direct communication with the Holy Spirit apart from the Word. In these circles, tradition and the teaching ministry of the church through the ages are not only treated as fallible (as the reformers believed), but as objects of mockery. The
sentiments of Thomas Muntzer, who complained that Luther was "one of our scribes who wants to send the Holy Ghost off to college," would find a prime' time spot on the nation's leading evangelical radio and television broadcasts. Calvin said of these folks, "When the fanatics boast extravagantly of the Spirit, the tendency is always to bury the Word of God so they may make room for their own falsehoods." Christianity is not a spirituality, but a religion. Wade Clark Roof and other sociologists have pointed out that evangelicals today are indistinguishable from the general cultural trends, especially when it comes to preferring to think of their relationship to God more in terms of an experience than in terms of a relationship that is mediated through words. Ours is a visual or image,based society, much like the Middle Ages, and yet Christianity can only flourish through words, ideas, beliefs, announcements, arguments. There can be no communication with God apart from the written and living Word. Everything in the Christian faith depends on the spoken and written Word delivered by God to us through the prophets and apostles. Further, sola Scriptura meant that the Word of God was sufficient. Although Rome believed it was infallible, the official theology was shaped more by the insights of Plato and Aristotle than by Scripture. Similarly today, psychology threatens to reshape the understanding of the self, as even in the evangelical pulpit sin becomes "addiction"; the Fall as an event is replaced with one's "victim" status; salvation is increasingly communicated as mental health, peace of mind, and self,esteem, and my personal happiness and self,fulfillment are center' stage rather than God's holiness and mercy, justice and love, glory and compassion. Does the Bible define the human problem and its solution? Or when we really want facts, do we turn somewhere else, to a modern secular authority who will really carry
Political ideology, sociology, psychology, marketing, and other secular "authorities" must never be allowed priority in answering questions the Bible addresses.
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modern REFORMATION weight in my sermon, of course, citing the Bible to bolster the argument? But political ideology, sociology, psychology, marketing, and other secular "authorities" must never be allowed priority in answering questions the Bible addresses. That is, in part, what this affirmation means, and evangelicals today seem as confused on this point as was the medieval church.
Solus Christus: Our Only Mediator In the Middle Ages, the minister was seen as having a special relationship with God, as he mediated God's grace and forgiveness through the sacraments. But there were other challenges. We often think of our own age as unique, with its pluralism and the advent on so many religions. But not too long before the Reformation, the Renaissance thinker Petrarch was calling for an Age of the Spirit in which all religions would be united. Many Renaissance minds were convinced that there was a saving revelation of God in nature and that, therefore, Christ was not the only way. The fascination with pagan philosophy encouraged the idea that natural religion offered a great deal-indeed, even salvation-to those who did not know Christ. The Reformation was, more than anything else, an assault on faith in humanity, and a defense of the idea that God alone reveals himself and saves us. We do not find him; he finds us. That emphasis was the cause of the cry, "Christ alone!" Jesus was the only way of knowing what God is really like, the only way of entering into a relationship with him as father instead of judge, and the only way ofbeing saved from his wrath. Today, once more, this affirmation is in trouble. According to University of Virginia sociologist James Hunter, 35% of evangelical seminarians deny that faith in Christ is absolutely necessary. According to George Barna, that is the same figure for con, servative, evangelical Protestants in America. They agreed that "God will save all good people when they die, regardless of whether they've trusted in Christ."
Eighty,five percent of American adults believe that they will stand before God to be judged. They believe in hell, but only 11 % think they might go there. To the degree that people think they are good enough to pass divine inspection, and are oblivious to the holiness of God, to that extent they will not see Christ as necessary. That is why over one,fourth of the "born again" evangelicals surveyed agreed with a statement that one would think might raise red flags even for those who might agree with the same thing more subtly put: "If a person is good, or does enough good things for others during life, they [sic] will earn a place in Heaven." Furthermore, when asked whether they agreed with the following statement: "Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, and others all pray to the same God, even though they use different names for that God," two, thirds of the evangelicals didn't find that objectionable. Barna observes "how little difference there is between the responses of those who regularly attend church services and those who are unchurched." One respondent, an Independent Fundamentalist, said, "What is important in their case is that they have conformed to the law of God as they know it in their hearts." B ut this cultural influence toward relativism is not only apparent in the masses; it is self,consciously asserted by some of evangelicalism's own teachers. Clark Pinnock states, "The Bible does not teach that one must confess the name of Jesus Christ to be saved. The issue God cares about is the direction of the heart, not the content of their theology." For those of us who have some inkling of the direction of their heart (see Jer 17:9), that might not be as comforting as Pinnock assumes. T a say salus Christus does not mean that we do not believe in the Father or the Spirit, but it does insist that Christ is the only incarnate self, revelation of God and redeemer of humanity. The Holy Spirit does not draw attention to himself, but leads us to Christ, in whom we find p~ace with God.
The Reformation was, more than anything else, an assault on faith in humanity, and a defense of the idea that God alone reveals himself and saves us.
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modern REFORMATION Sola Gratia: Our Only Method The reason we must stay with the Scriptures is because it is the only place where we are told that we are saved by the unprovoked and undeserved acceptance of God. In "The Sound of Music," Maria (Julie Andrews), bewildered by the captain's sudden at trac tion tp her, rhapsodizes, "Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could. So somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good." Deep down, human nature is convinced that there is a way for us to save ourselves. We may indeed require divine assistance. Perhaps God will have to show us the way, or even send a messenger to lead us back, but we can actually follow the plan and pull it off.
Many in the medieval church believed that God saved by grace, but they also believed that their own free will and cooperation with grace was "their part" in salvation. The popular medieval phrase was, "God will not deny his grace to those who do what they can." Today's version, ofcourse, is, "God helps those who help themselves." Over half the evangelicals surveyed thought this was a direct biblical quotation and 84% thought that it was a biblical idea, that percentage rising with church attendance at evangelical churches. On the eve of the Reformation a number of church leaders, including bishops and archbishops, had been complaining of creeping Pelagian ism (a heresy that denies original sin and the absolute need for grace). Nevertheless, that heresy was never tolerated in its full expression. However, today it is tolerated and even promoted in liberal Protestantism generally, and even in many evangelical circles. In Pelagianism, Adam's sin is not imputed to us, nor is Christ's righteousness. Adam is a bad example, not the representative in whom we stand guilty. Similarly, Christ is a good example, not the representative in whom we stand righteous. How much of our preaching centers on following Christ as important as that is-rather than on his person and work? How often do we hear about his work in us compared to his work for us?
To the degree that people think they are good enough to pass divine inspection, to that extent they will not see Christ as necessary.
T
he Law is in us by nature. We were born with a conscience that tells us that we are condemned by that Law, but our reason concludes immediately that the answer to that self~condemnation is to do better next time. But the Gospel is not in nature. It is not lodged somewhere in our heart, our mind, our will, or our emotions. It is an announcement that comes to us as foolishness and our first response, like that of Sarah, is to laugh. The story is told of a man who fell off a cliff, but on his way down managed to grab a branch. He broke his fall and saved his life, but before long he realized that he could not pull himself back up onto the ledge. Finally, he called out, "Is there anyone up there who can help me ?" To his surprise, a voice boomed back, "I am here and I can help you, but first you're going to have to let go of that branch." Thinking for a moment about his options, the man looked back up and shot back, "Is there anyone else up there who can help me?" Weare looking for someone to save us by helping us save ourselves. But the Law tells us that even our best works are like filthy rags; the Gospel tells us that it is something in God and his character (kindness, goodness, mercy, compassion) and not something in us (a good will, a decision, an act, an open heart, etc.) that saves us.
C harles Finney, the revivalist of the last century, is a patron saint for most evangelicals. And yet, he denied original sin, the substitutionary atonement, justification, and the need for regeneration by the Holy Spirit. In short, Finney was a Pelagian. This belief in human nature, so prominent in the Enlightenment, eliminated the evangelical doctrine of grace among the older evangelical Protestant denominations (now called "mainline"), and we see where that has taken them. And yet, conservative evangelicals are heading down the same path and JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1994
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modern REFORMATION have had this human, centered, works,centered emphasis for some time. The statistics bear us out here, unfortunately, and again the leaders help substantiate the error. Norman Geisler writes, "God would save all men if he could....He will save the greatest number actually achievable without violating their free will."
Sola Fide:
N ot only do most Christians. today not hear about the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone, many cannot even define it.
Our Only Means The reformers said that it is not enough to say that we are saved by grace alone, for even many medieval scholars held that view, including Luther's own mentor. Rome viewed grace more as a substance than as an attitude of favor on God's part. In other words, grace was !"ike water poured into the soul. It assisted the believer in his growth toward salvation. The purpose of grace was to transform a sinner into a saint, a bad person into a good person, a rebel into an obedient son or daughter. The reformers searched the Scriptures and found a missing ingredient in the medieval notion of grace. To be sure, there were many passages that spoke of grace transforming us and conforming us to the image of Christ. But there were other passages, too, that used a Greek word that meant "to declare righteous," not "to make righteous." The problem was, the Latin Bible everyone was using mistranslated the former and combined the two Greek words into one. Erasmus and other Renaissance humanists "laid the egg that Luther hatched" by cleaning up the translation mistakes. According to Scripture, God declares a person righteous before that person actually begins to become righteous. Therefore, the declaration is not in response to any spiritual or moral advances within the individual, but is an imputation of the perfect righteousness that God immediately requires of everyone who is united to Christ by faith alone. When a person trusts Christ, that very moment he or she is clothed in his perfect holiness, so that even though the believer is still sinful, he or she is judged by God as blameless. 18
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This apostolic doctrine, proclaimed to Abraham and his offspring, has fallen on hard times again in church history. Not only do most Christians today not hear about the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone, many cannot even define it. Although justification is the doctrine by which, according to the evangelical reformers "the church stands or falls," it has been challenged. Finney openly declared, "The doctrine of an imputed righteousness is another gospel. For sinners to be forens icall y pronounced jus t is impossible and absurd. The doctrine of an imputed righteousness is founded on a mOst false and nonsensical assumption, representing the atonement, rather than the sinner's own obedience, as the ground of his justification, which has been a sad occasion of stumbling to many." In our own time, Clark Pinnock wonders why we cannot even embrace the notion of purgatory: I cannot deny that most believers end their earthly lives imperfectly sanctified and far from complete. [Most? How about all!] I cannot deny the wisdom in possibly giving them an opportunity to close the gap and grow to maturity after death....Obviously, evangelicals have not thought this question out. [We have: It was called The Reformation.] It seems to me that we already have the possibility of a doctrine of purgatory....Our Wesleyan and Arminian thinking may need to be extended in this direction. Is a doctrine of purgatory not required by our doctrine of holiness?
Russell Spittler, a Pentecostal theologian at Fuller Seminary, reflects on Luther's phrase concerning justification: simul iustus et peccator, (simultaneously just and sinner): But can it really be true-saint and sinner simultaneously? Is wish it were so ... .Is this correct: 'I don't need to work at becoming. I'm already declared to be holy. No sweat needed? It looks wrong to me. I hear moral demands in Scripture... .Simul iustus et peccator? I hope it's true! I simply fear it's not.
modern REFORMATION The Wesleyan emphasis has always been a challenge to the evangelical faith on this point, although in his best moments Wesley insisted on this heart of the GospeLTo the extent that the consensus~ builders and institutional abbots of the evangelical monasteries have attempted to incorporate Arminianism under the label "evangelical," to that extent, it seems to me, it ceases to be evangelical indeed.
slogan Soli Deo Gloria was carved into the organ at Bach's church in Leipzig and the composer signed his works with its initials. It's inscribed over taverns and music halls in old sections of Heidelberg and Amsterdam, a lasting tribute to a time when the fragrance of God's goodness seemed to fill the air. It was not a golden age, but it was an amazing recovery of God~centered faith and practice. Columbia University professor Eugene Rice offers a fitting conclusion:
Soli Deo Gloria: Our Only Ambition The world is full of ambitious people. But Paul said, "It has always been my ambition to preach the Gospel where Christ was not known." (Rom 15:20). Since God has spoken so clearly and saved so finally, the believer is free to worship, serve, and glorify God and to enjoy him forever, beginning now. What is the ambition of the evangelical movement? Is it to please God or to please men? Is our happiness and joy found in God or in someone or something else? Are our services entertainment or worship? Is God's glory or our self~ fulfillment the goal of our lives? Do we see God's grace as the only basis for our salvation, or are we still seeking some of the credit for ourselves? These questions reveal a glaring human~centeredness in the evangelical churches and the general witness of our day. Robert Schuller actually says that the Reformation "erred because it was God~centered rather than man~ centered," and Yale's George Lindbeck observes how quickly evangelical theology accepted this new gospel: "In the fifties, it took liberals to accept Norman Vincent Peale, but as the case of Robert Schuller indicates, today professed conservatives eat it up." Many historians look back to the Reformation and wonder at its far~reaching influences in transforming culture. The work ethic, public education, civic and economic betterment, a revival of music, the arts, and a sense of all life being related somehow to God and his glory: These effects cause historians to observe with a sense of irony how a theology of sin and grace, the sovereignty of God over the helplessness of human beings, and an emphasis on salvation by grace apart from works, could be the catalyst for such energetic moral transformation. The reformers did not set out to launch a political or moral campaign, but they proved that when we put the Gospel first and give voice to the Word, the effects inevitably follow. How can we expect the world to take God and his glory seriously if the church does not? The Reformation
All the more, the Reformation's views of God and humanity measure the gulf between the secular imagination of the twentieth century and the sixteenth century's intoxication with the majesty of God. We can exercise only historical sympathy to try to understand how it was that the most brilliant intelligences of an entire epoch found a total, a supreme liberty in abandoning human weakness to the omnipotence of God.
Soli Deo Gloria! t Michael S. Horton is the president and founder of CURE and the author of Putting Amazing Back Into Grace, Made in America, The Law of Perfect Freedom, and Beyond Culture Wars . He is the editor of The Agony of Deceit, Power Religion, and Christ the Lord: The Reformation and Lordship Salvation. He is currently pursuing doctoral studies at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, England.
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Reforming Worship Music
his past August, I spent fifteen consecutive hours collecting ballots at a polling station. Along with me, there was a co,worker who had recently retired from a long teaching career at one of the larger schools in the California State University system. He had taught cognltlve psychology and personality theory. In the slow moments of balloting-of which there were many I tried to discover as much as I could about him and his teaching career. At one point, he lamented that he had watched a long and steady decline in the ability of students to think objectively, that he had been forced to abandon the most stimulating parts of the curriculum towards the end because it was just beyond the students' powers. I asked, of course, to what he attributed this demise. There was no hesitation in the answer: "The ascendancy of music." Allen Bloom said: Though students do not have books, they most emphatically do have music. Nothing is more singular about this generation than its addiction to music... Today, a very large proportion of young people between the ages of ten and twenty live for music. It is their passion; nothing else excites them as it does; they cannot take seriously anything alien to music. When they are in school and with their families, they are longing to plug themselves back into their music. 1 Of course, Bloom is not talking about classical music. It is popular music that he has in mind. And popular music has had this sort of power since the sixties. Who could have anticipated the force of recording, playback, and transmission devices? Within the Christian subculture, we have the same megashift from books to music. Indeed, some contemporary Christian music is nothing more than
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popular culture for Christians. And this shift to the primacy of popular music should concern us, if for no other reason than that one of history's most extravagant heresies flourished under just such a condition. Thucydidides said: "The thing that hath been is that which shall be." And our depravity is such that we should consider ourselves vulnerable to the same heretical yeast as that of the past. Arius (c. AD 250-336 ) maintained that "if the Father was God, then the Son was a creature of the Father." The Council of Alexandria (AD 321) condemned this assertion, burned Arius's writings, and banned him to Yugoslavia. -No doubt they considered that orthodoxy had won the day. Wrong! On the fringes of the Roman Empire, Arius spent his time composing songs that could be sung by boys and girls, shopkeepers, longshoremen, and sailors, in short, people of all classes. 2 They were sea chanties and marching tunes. We would call them "choruses" or "praise songs." Their chief feature was that they were simple and singable. W e too live an ethos where simple is good, complex is bad. I think this has more to do with eastern religion or a back,to,nature spirit than it does with any biblical notion. We shrivel at the arcane nature of Wesley's words, "In vain the first,lJorn seraph tries to plumb the depths of love divine." We hold our noses at the ornateness of Bach's music. In so doing, we expose ourselves to anyone who can make words rhyme and learn a handful of guitar chords. Today, there are many heresies and schisms waiting to burst into full bloom. Do we want to roll out the red carpet for them by tacit endorsement of populist tools? On the face of it, this seems a bit mean,spirited. After all, doesn't the very essence of "congregational singing" encourage any and every sort ofparticipation? Shouldn't we rejoice that our brothers and sisters are gaining even the humblest of musical skills and then using them to God's glory in corporate worship? Of course, we must be quick to commend all genuine efforts to glorify God.
modern REFORMATION The problem lies not in the humbleness of the means but rather in the pride of simplicity. "Simple" is not bad. However when "simple" is a virtue placed in rank above "biblical," then we are in trouble. What if simple means will not satisfy what we must textually accomplish? In that case, we h~ve abrogated our responsibility to "teach and admonish one another with psalms, hymns, and spirituai songs" merely by omission. When "simple" is a virtue placed in rank above "biblical," it is not long before we are writing a different gospel on the tablets of our hearts. After all, music is very powerful. We are more likely to find ourselves humming the songs of this past Sunday than contemplating what the pastor said. The more a person is inclined to subjective thinking, the stronger music's influence will be on that person. As a culture, we are progressively devaluing objective reasoning while giving subjectivity higher and higher priority. This is well,documented in Bloom's The Closing ofthe American Mind, Colson's Against the Night,3 C. S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man, and Bellah's Habits of the Heart . Kenneth A. Myers' All God's Children in Blue Suede Shoes demonstrates the momentum of cultural relativism among us, even in the church.
And yet, can we characterize Sears' treatment of Holy Scripture as any less fanciful? Knowing that Sears was a Unitarian, what might we suspect would be his objectives in the text of"I t Came Upon a Midnight Clear"? When we come to contemporary Christian music, the literature is rife with inaccurate handling of Holy Scripture. Even more subtle is the pervasive neglect of a full, orbed treatment of God's attributes; for example, John Wimber's "Jesus, sweet Jesus ..." Unlike the example of Edmund Sears, I do not believe that most writers of contemporary Christian music are devious. Still, by its very presence, something is often inculcated or "preached" that, as Reformed believers, we should resist. And we should resist it not with a frowning censure but with better music and better texts.
When "simple" is a virtue placed above "biblical," we are in trouble.
During the new age, music may communicate more than preaching. As reformed believers, this specter should be sobering. We must meet the new age with music, not music that strengthens the hand of the new age, but rather with music that challenges it head,on. Our [PCA] Book ofChurch Order, 53-6, says: "No person should be invited to preach in any of the churches under our care without the consent of the Session."And yet, we sing music in our congregations all the time without even a clue as to who the author of the text is and what his or her intent in the text might be. "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" is by Edmund Sears, a Unitarian. A careful reading of the text will yield the surprising evidence that references to God and Christ, are, at best, oblique. And what about the phrase, "from angels bending near the earth to touch their harps of gold"? Well, we would be livid with rage if our children came home from Sunday school with a story that Jonathan gave David a magic shield.
I
am not advocating that we expunge all contemporary Christian music. The Council of Laodicea (AD 367) tried to do just such a thing in response to Arian choruses. The result was an end to congregational singing until the Reformation. However, we must closely scrutinize contemporary Christian music. As we do this, we often violate the chief feature and goal of contemporary Christian music, that is, to feel good. But as we find we are feeling good about something that is not biblical, then we must confess the rebellion of our emotions and then repent of it. Some contemporary Christian music will withstand the scrutiny. May God be praised! We should embrace this music. t 1Allan Bloom,The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), p. 68. 2Albert Edward Bailey, The Gospel in Hymns: Backgrounds and Interpretations (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1952) , p. 218. 3See Charles C olson's chapter "Barbarians in the Pews." Against the Night. Ann Arbor: Servant Publications, 1989, pp. 97-106.
Dr. Leonard Payton is a graduate of Master's College, the University of SOllthern California, and the University of California in San Diego. He is currently writing a book to be published by Moody Press tentatively titled Facing the Music: Aesthetics and Worship ina Post Christian Culture . He is the music director at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Yuba City, California. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1994
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Evangelicals and Catholics Together:
The Christian Mission in th e T h ird Millennium
- A Critical Review
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modern REFORMATION pray that they may be one, even as we are one." Our Lord's high priestly prayer, with Golgotha looming on the horizon, has been the source of hope and no small amount of shame for a Christianity that is more divided today than at any time since the Savior prayed in Gethsemane that anxious evening. Rent asunder in the eleventh century by various issues (chief among them being whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone or from the Father and the Son), Christendom was divided into Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman or Latin Christianity. Throughout the Middle Ages, many of Rome's leading theologians complained of creeping Pelagianism, but their warnings went largely unheeded by an increasingly apathetic, corrupt, and worldly curia. Forerunners of the Reformation, such as Wycliffe, Waldo, and Hus, intensified these charges, to their physical ruin. But when Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk, inspired and assisted by the recent scholarship of Renaissance humanists like Erasmus of Rotterdam, revealed the corrupt theology that had rested on widely recognized corrupt translations, the debates over nature and grace erupted into the fiercest conflagration since the tim~ of the apostles. In time, other reformers, trained in the best of Renaissance scholarship, would take their place at Luther's side. At first, it seemed that a universal council might be called to settle the dispute and Luther and other reformers held out hope that such a council might decide in their favor. Although the German reformer was excommunicated by the Pope, it was still possible for "protestants" to remain loyal Roman Catholics, but Rome finally called that council and decided that the discoveries of the reformers, despite the fact that their own best minds provided the linguistic and historical scholarship that led to them, were, in fact, heretical departures from the Catholic faith. Despite the fact that Rome had now offici all y condemned the Gospel of justification by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone, in precise and unmistakably perspicuous language, reformers and Roman representatives burned the midnight oil in attempts to reconcile the widening division. Calvin's Antidote to the Council ofTrent and Chemnitz's treatment from \
the Lutheran side matched Trent's clarity in presenting the protestant objections. Both traditions spent the next few centuries unpacking these definitions and positions. Such debates strike modem people with a certain charming curiosity, but the notion that the Roman or the Protestant churches of today stand where their historic forebears stood on these issues is rarely taken seriously. To be sure, much has happened since the Second Vatican Council, meeting in the 1960's. Many Roman Catholic and Protestant theologians hailed the Council's irenic treatment of Protestants (now "separated brethren" rather than apostates) as an open door to reunion. Others on both sides went so far as ,to regard it as Rome's "reformation." After three decades of reflection, still others on both sides are compelled to regard the Council as more akin to the Enlightenment than the Reformation, with its openness to and influences from liberal Protestantism. Regardless, Vatican II has provided an unparalleled impetus for energetic dialogue between Protestants and Catholics, as well as dialogue with other religions. Every major Protestant tradition (Lutheran, Anglican, Reformed, Methodist, Baptist) has its own official commissions and conferences with Rome and these ecumenical exchanges have doubtless produced greater understanding, clarity, and a spirit of openness and cooperation, the blessings of which must not be lightly dismissed.
F
urthermore, an era of American nativism and irrational suspicion-so prominent especially in Victorian images of Rome as a seditious political ¡ movement-has been replaced by an environment in which Evangelicals and Roman Catholics may even be seen together in Bible studies, at conferences, in common prayer and opposition to the moral and social evils of our time. Protestants have much to learn from Rome's mature reflections in the realm of moral philosophy, metaphysics, epistemology, and the like, and many of the most irascible defenders of Reformation doctrine have nevertheless openly shared many philosophical presuppositions with Rome. The reformers themselves made use of natural theology and freely cited a common Catholic consensus for illumination of the infallible Scriptures. Their descendents hardly seemed troubled to make common cause on these points.
Michael S. Horton
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modern REFORMATION With this as the background, we come to a document that has attracted no small interest in recent days, Evangelicals
and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium. Drafted
"T he greatest danger of the people of God, Jesus said, was for the salt to lose its savor, and it is our conviction as Evangelicals that the savor of the salt is the Gospel of free grace."
by Richard John Neuhaus, the document is signed and enthusiastically supported by such Roman Catholic representatives as John Cardinal O'Connor and Monsignor William Murphy, and by such respected Evangelicals as Charles Colson, J. 1. Packer, Bill Bright, Pat
Robertson, Jack White and Hank Hanegraaff. Because of its wide appeal {leaders on both sides are adding their support and signatures as this is being written}, it is imperative that some critique be made of the document. The following is an attempt to reflect on the serious challenges and claims of this call, and it is offered in prayer that we may be united in truth as well as love. We shall follow the outline of the document itself.
Introduction
The document begins by acknowledging that it does not speak officially for any of the institutions that its signatories represent, but is motivated by a common vision to reach a lost world, expressed in the words of Pope John Paul II, as "a springtime of world missions." "As Christ is one, so the Christian mission is one. . . .Legitimate diversity, however, should not be confused with existing divisions between Christians that obscure the one Christ and hinder the one mission. There is a necessary connection between the visible unity of Christians and the mission of the one Christ." Evangelicals and Roman Catholics are called upon to "confess [their] sins against the unity that Christ intends for all his disciples." The first question that comes to mind concerns the nature of the Christian mission. It is assumed that there is agreement on the nature of this mission, but that seems to ignore the fact that, for both traditions, the mission is derived from the message. If the 24
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mission ofRome is to bring all men and women into communion with the Pope and the sacerdotal and sacramental ministry of that body-a mission that is modified, but not in the least repudiated by Vatican II-and the mission of Evangelicals is to bring men and women into direct communion with the sole mediation of Christ, then serious barriers to a common mission must be addressed before unity is merely assumed.
Second, confession of sin against unity is a serious business. Schism ranks with heresy itself as a crime against God. Those who willfully perpetuate division on the basis of pride, suspicion, and self, interest are not held guiltless. But this, too, begs the question of whether the historical divisions between Evangelicals and Rome are in that category. It assumes that Christ demands unity between Rome and Evangelicals and that an unwillingness to accept this is a sin "against the unity that Christ intends for all his disciples."
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e maintain that Christ does intend unity in the truth, but deny that he requires unity with anyone who preaches any other Gospel than the one that was believed by Abraham, and delivered by our Lord and his apostles with great clarity. At question for us is whether Rome officially tolerates-for we are .certain that she does not herself officially teach-her children to maintain views that Evangelicals must regard as essential to the unity for which Christ prayed. This question must be settled before we can confess sins against unity. If Rome continues to uphold the Decrees and Canons of the Council of Trent, all individual members of that body who follow those decrees (which, in Roman Catholic ecclesiology must include every faithful son or daughter) continue to stand in opposition to the unchanging Gospel of Christ. If they stray from the official teaching of Rome, either from ignorance or in opposition to those statements, they may be regarded as brothers and sisters in Christ.
modern REFORMATION Nevertheless, that does not require or allow institutional unity based on a common ecclesial mission. If our mission is to confront the moral, political, and social influences of secularism, then surely there is a sufficient basis for common cause. But is this the mission of the church? If the mission of the church as the church 'is to preach the Word correctly and rightly administer the sacraments, the question must be raised as to whether there is a sufficient agreement in these areas to warrant-in fact, to demand-common witness.
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he document further muddies the waters by insisting tnat, "The one Christ and one mission includes many other Christians, notably the Eastern Orthodox and those Protestants not commonly identified as evangelical. All Christians are encompassed in the prayer, 'May they all be one. '" Again, the drafters beg the question. Who are "those Protestants not commonly identified as Evangelicals" but Protestant liberals, whether old,line modernists or postmodern radical theologians? If Evangelicals can regard divisions not only between Protestants and Catholics, but between classical Christians and liberals as unnecessary and unchristian "sins" that need to be confessed and repented of, one wonders if there is any point to maintaining a distinct evangelical identity at all. As J. Gresham Machen argued so powerfully earlier this century, Evangelicals do not
view liberalism in its various forms as a different style or expression of a common faith, but as a studied departure from the Christian religion.
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ere it is useful to distinguish between catholic and evangelical as adjectives. Orthodox Protestants, in contrast to sects, have always maintained their catholic character as essential to their identity and mission. The word catholic refers to that which, in the oft,quoted formula of Vincent of Laurens, has been believed by everyone, everywhere, in all times. Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, and Protestants have historically regarded the core beliefs that unite them-settled by the ecumenical councils of the first five centuries-to be essential to catholic, or common, Christianity. Among these convictions are the two natures of Christ in one person, the Trinity, the virgin birth of our Lord, his vicarious atonement, bodily resurrection, ascension, and second coming in judgment. The reformers as fiercely defended catholic Christianity as any Roman Catholic. In fact, they opposed the charge of innovation, arguing that they were the ones who were being faithful to the apostolic, catholic faith, and felt obliged to call upon the church fathers Augustine, Anselm, Bernard, and others-to bolster that claim. Even as one former Evangelical wrote Evangelical Is Not Enough, so the reformers believed that "Catholic
This woodcut by Lucas Cranach the Younger shows the true church on the left listening to proper preaching of the Word and receiving proper administration of the sacraments. On the right, Cranach depicts priests, cardinals and the Pope engulfed in the flames of 'Hell's mouth.'
modern REFORMATION is not enough." Although Rome rightly insisted upon these great pillars of faith, it was also essential to affirm that one was justified or declared righteous before a just and holy God by the perfect righteousness of Christ, imputed to the believer through faith alone. Therefore, one must not only be "catholic," but "evangelical." That is, one must be committed to a Gospel that declares that the believer is justified, not by cooperating with grace, but by having the righteousness of some~ne else who is perfectly righteous credited to him or her. "That is why 'it was credited to him [Abraham] as righteousness,' " wrote St. Paul. "The words, 'it was credited to him' were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness-for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead" (Rom. 4:22-23). More will be said of this.
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he introduction observes that our two communities have been "marked more by conflict than by cooperation, more by animosity than by love, more by suspicion than by trust, more by propaganda and ignorance than by respect for the truth." Of course, these charges are valid and there is enough sad truth in them to make them sting with a sense of shame. Too often, we do not take the time to understand the issues, but are simply content to ignorantly pass along unwarranted insults in the place ofhonest and searching reflection. In many instances, we have been motivated by pride and prejudice. While this must be confessed as sin, it may not be used as a smokescreen for the real issues that divide us. Here, the document again appears to muddy the waters, confusing ad hominem polemics with polemics in general. One does not have to engage in the former in order to honestly and humbly pursue the latter. In the final analysis, the matter rests not on the character of the polemicists, but in the truth of their respective claims. Finally, the introduction attempts to set its proposed agenda before the reader in terms of larger issues. It is not that there are no differences between Evangelicals and Roman Catholics; nor is it the case that these differences do not (or should not) matter. The question in the minds of the document's authors is whether these differences should be allowed to inhibit both groups from confronting a greater common enemy: secularism and other religions. Missionary objectives strike a sympathetic chord with Evangelicals, since this group has been so ardently committed to the Great Commission. And surely the opposition seems overwhelming to the 26
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cause of Christ in our day. Nevertheless, it was Christ who promised, "I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." It is not we who build Christ's church; nor is it we into whose hands the success or failure of that missionary objective finally falls. Weare simply called to be faithful, to make disciples of all nations by proclaiming the Gospel, baptizing and teaching them everything delivered by Christ and his apostles. This is our calling as a church. The greatest danger of the people of God, Jesus said, was for the salt to lose its savor, and it is our conviction as Evangelicals that the savor of the salt is the Gospel of free grace. Our missionary objective is best served-and measured, therefore not in terms of numerical success, institutional power, or even by the visible unity of Christian denominations, but by a patient, articulate, persistent, and prayerful proclamation of a pure Gospel, in dependence upon the Word and Spirit. This is not to underestimate the scandal of sectarianism of which Protestants, Evangelicals in particular, have been especially guilty. It is to say that there is within evangelical Christianity a priority given to the Gospel as "the power of God unto salvation," in distinction to, though not divorced from, the church and its other important ministries. A resurgent Islam, Eastern cults, and secularism will not be thwarted by a unified Christendom, but by a clear Gospel. The document's supporters are "resolved to avoid such conflict between our communities. . .. Beyond that, we are called and we are therefore resolved to explore patterns of working and witnessing together in order to advance the one mission of Christ. ...The mission that we embrace together is the necessary consequence of the faith that we affirm together." This last remark is especially important, as it claims sufficient doctrinal agreement for a common evangelistic ministry. With that, the document outlines the following points of agreement.
I. We Affirm Together In this section, the document declares that Evangelicals and Roman Catholics affirm a common faith that includes various important convictions: First, that Jesus is Lord. Again, the most ardent Protestants ever since the Reformation have never doubted that catholic substance they hold in common with all Christians. Nevertheless, the next point of agreement is more problematic: "We affirm together that we are justified by grace through faith because of Christ." Of course, what the Evangelical ought to
modern REFORMATION notice as mlsslng is the very important qualifier that the Reformation made famous: sola ("only" or "alone"). Even the Rome of the Counter, Reformation would have had no trouble agr~eing that one is just~fied by grace through faith because of Christ. If not grace, what? If not faith, what? If not Christ, who? But the reformers were c~ndemned by adding sola to each of these: We are saved by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone. That is to say, grace is the only motivation on God's part; faith is the only means, and Christ is the only mediator. That one modifier, such a nuisance to Rome and so decisive for Protestants, shaped two distinct answers to the question, "What must I do to be saved?"
Why did the divisions occur in the first place? Was it because the world was different then? Was it because the key players were of a worse character or temper than we m'o re godly and gracious moderns? Whatever our conclusions, we ,must beware of a moral 'superiority that mistakes ignorance, naivete, and a lack of doctrinal clarity for humility and brotherly love. N ext, the document affirms, "However imperfect our communion with one another, however deep our disagreements with one another, we recognize that there is but one church of Christ." Again, one is astonished at the lack of theological definition and precision. Rome has a fundamentally different ecclesiology to that of Evangelicals. Once more, by evangelical, I do not refer to sects, but to historic Protestants who affirm the catholic creeds and adhere to confessional standards. Protestants recognize a visible church, comprising elect and non,elect members who will be separated at the last day. They are baptized, they hear the Word and receive the Lord's supper, but not all of them persevere to the end. Then there is an invisible church, comprising the elect of all ages. According to the historic Protestant and evangelical view, the marks of a true visible church are the Word rightly preached and the sacraments rightly administered. For Rome, the question was whether or not an individual was in full communion with the Roman See. That strict view, which excluded Eastern Orthodox and Protestant Christians from the kingdom of God, has been modified somewhat by Vatican II. Now, it is believed that as a pebble dropped into a pond creates ripples, so it is possible to be connected to this organic "body of Christ" (Le., Rome) even though one is outside the inner ring itself. Even atheists, who reveal their search for God in good works, are saved by this saving-if distant-relation to Rome. Karl Rahner called such a person an "Anonymous Christian."
"One is astonished at the document's lack of theological definition and precision."
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ot only is the affirmation sufficiently ambiguous to deny the evangelical distinctive; it is followed immediately by a passage on sanctification, not justification. Rome believed that justification was a process that began with the new birth in baptism and progressed as the believer cooperated with grace and made use of the sacraments. The Protestant doctrine of justification is not something one may approximate, for the differences are quite simple and allow no mediating answers. Rome believed it was a matter of infusion of righteousness, and still does. Protestants believed it was a matter of the imputation of righteousness, though they now do not seem to be as aware of or committed to, that doctrine. This, of course, makes it much easier for Evangelicals and Roman Catholics to find common ground. According to a number of recent polls, the vast majority of Evangelicals believe that human beings are basically good, capable of a moral character that, with God's help, can endure God's final judgment. It is not Rome that has come closer to an evangelical view of imputed righteousness, but Evangelicals who have forfeited their convictions or downplayed their significance. This is what accounts for the rapprochement.
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vangelicals, however, deny this Roman doctrine, whether classical or in its modern modification. A true Christian is one who, through faith in the promise of salvation by Christ alone, has been united to Christ and therefore to his spiritual body, expressed as' both the invisible and visible church. It is possible to be a member of the invisible church while a member of a false visible church, as we believe in the case of Roman Catholics. Although there the Word is not rightly preached and the sacraments are not rightly administered, there are individuals who do believe that Christ's saving work is the only reason that God accepts them as his children. We do not believe that salvation depends on how well one can articulate the doctrine of salvation in technical terms, but we do insist as essential for salvation that there be some recognition that God alone saves by Christ alone and that however little knowledge of doctrine is necessary, the essential features of the evangelical doctrine must not be persistently or directly denied. The first section then closes with an affirmation of the Apostle's Creed. Since this has been affirmed each Sunday in Protestant churches around the world for nearly five centuries, it should come as no surprise that Roman Catholics and Evangelicals could find common ground here. Once more, it has never been denied by Protestantism that there is a shared catholic heritage, but this consensus must not be regarded as a sufficient basis for regarding Rome as a true visible church while it denies what is also essential to Christianity-namely, the Gospel of free justification.
II. We Hope Together In its second section, the document pleads for greater visible unity. "We do know that Christ is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14) and as we are drawn closer to him walking in that way, obeying that truth, living that life-we are drawn closer to one another." While at first our criticism 28
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of this point may appear pedantic, this comment reveals a shift that makes such rapprochement possible. As Evangelicals, we believe that Christ is the Way in the sense that he is our only mediator, not first as a way in which we walk. We believe that he is the Truth, not merely as command to be obeyed, but as an object of saving faith, like the brass serpent in the wilderness. We believe that he is the Life, not chiefly as a manner of living, but as the one whose resurrection and intercession guarantees our own final redemption. We maintain that a shift has taken place in evangelicalism, influenced by an experientially sensitive culture, from objective Christianity to subjective spirituality. If Rome is viewed as an enemy to evangelical faith because of certain practices rather than chiefly for certain doctrines-as was the case in previous pietistic criticisms-, then to the extent that Rome modifies those practices, it is viewed as opening the way to further communion and consensus. Nevertheless, the Evangelical must not be chiefly interested in whether the services are conducted in Latin or the common tongue; whether the liturgy is "high" or "low," or whether Bible studies, prayer, and the lingo of evangelical spirituality are prominent expressions of piety. So long as the key differences remain over that question, "What must I do to be saved?", every modification will be cosmetic. The real question is whether Evangelicals are sufficiently evangelical themselves to recognize these differences or to regard them as warranting continued division.
"The reformers were condemned for adding alone to the phrase 'We are saved by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone.'"
Ill. We Search Together Most noteworthy in this section is the moment for which the critical reader has been waiting: A list of the points of difference that both sides recognize as abiding challenges, that nevertheless do not inhibit common witness and the affirmation of a common gospel. And yet, if one is expecting a list ofthe issues that divided the Evangelicals and Roman Catholics since the Reformation, one will be
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disappointed. In this list of ten major differences, those responsible for this document have managed to reduce the entire centuries,old conflict to false dilemmas and secondary issues. They are as follows: 1. "The church as an integral part of the Gospel or the church as a communal consequence of the Gospel." By our reckoning, this is the only legitimate dilemma the authors recognize in this list. 2. "The church as visible communion or invisible fellowship of true believers." As has already been argued, the historic Protestant position is that the church is to be understood as both a visible communion and an invisible fellowship of true believers. Here, the two are set in opposition and the nature of the church as a visible communion is recognized as a Roman Catholic rather than evangelical notion. 3. "The sole authority of Scripture-sola Scriptura-or Scripture as authoritatively interpreted in the church." Once more, the Reformation position is reduced to a sectarian absurdity. Historic Protestants (and therefore, we would hope, Evangelicals) regard Scripture as the only infallible test of doctrine and practice. They also believe that the creeds and confessions authoritatively interpret the Scriptures in the church, the view the authors attribute to Rome. Actually, Rome goes beyond the view that the church merely authoritatively interprets Scripture and insists that it infallibly interprets and supplements Scripture. 4. "The soul freedom of the individual Christian or the Magisterium (teaching authority) of the community." "Soulliberty is a Baptist distinctive and historic Reformed and Lutheran Protestantism would not prefer individualism to authoritarianism. As Luther said of an individualistic approach to exegesis, "That would mean that each man would go to hell in his own way." The church was still viewed as having a magisterial role in interpreting Scripture authoritatively-though not infallibly. The difference was that every believer was part of the church and was therefore capable of interpreting the Bible. Because the whole community was convinced that the Scriptures taught what the confession contained, office, bearers could be disciplined if their interpretations were contrary to the essentials as understood by the common consensus. The reformers and their descendants were set in opposition not only to Rome's magisterial authority, but also to the individualistic and subjective claims of the Anabaptist radicals. Despite this, that latter position is here regarded as the Protestant position. 5. "The church as local congregation or universal
communion." Once again, the authors give us a choice between an Anabaptist and a Roman Catholic view, but the Protestant and evangelical position is that the church has both local-many add regional and universal expression. 6. "Ministry ordered in apostolic succession or the priesthood of all believers." The priesthood of all believers was not set in opposition to apostolic succession by the reformers. Rather, they interpreted "apostolic succession" as referring to the handing down of the apostolic Gospel intact. 7. "Sacraments and ordinances as symbols of grace or means of grace." Every Protestant confession of faith, whether Lutheran or Reformed, explicitly states that sacraments are means of grace and "not empty symbols," as many confessions express it. Remarkably, the authors place evangelical Protestants other than Baptists in the Roman position. In reality, the debate was whether the sacraments were means of grace (the Protestant view) or <ex opere operata> operations of grace Further, the debate related to the question of whether the Mass was a communion with Christ or a re,sacrificing of Christ for sin. 8. "The Lord's Supper as eucharistic sacrifice or memorial meal." A,s astonishing as it is, we are again given a choice not between the Protestant and Roman Catholic positions, but between the Roman Catholic and Baptist positions. Although Ulrich Zwingli, the Swiss reformer, held to a memorial view ofCommunion, his successor and the entire Reformed community joined the other Evangelicals in denying the memorialist view. While it may be argued that one can be an Evangelical and hold that position, it is surely not the historic view of the majority of evangelical Christians, who have maintained some notion of a real presence of Christ in the eucharist, whether the Reformed and Anglican view (the believer feeding on Christ in heaven by Spirit,given faith, through the union of the Word with bread and wine) or the Lutheran belief in the physical presence of Christ in the eucharist. While the Baptist view may be included, surely the historic Evangelical views cannot be excluded from the definition of the Evangelical position vis,a,vis Rome. 9. "Remembrance of Mary and the saints or devotion to Mary and the saints." This really was not a prominent debate or theme of the Reformation. 10. "Baptism as sacrament of regeneration or testimony to regeneration." Once more, the debate is stated in a false antithesis. Expressed in these terms, the majority ofEvangelicals over the last five centuries would probably be closer to the position identified JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1994
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modern REFORMATION here as Roman Catholic. The classical Reformed view is not even offered as a distinct mediating position and, based on the preceding, one might easily conclude that the only options are Roman Catholic and Anabaptist views of baptism.
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ost astonishing of all, the "material principle . of the Reformation," that doctrine by which, according to the reformers, the church stands or falls-justification-by faith, is entirely absent from this list. While "remembrance of Mary" versus "devotion to Mary" makes the list, even though it was not a major factor in the division, the one doctrine that is regarded by historians and theologians on both sides of the divide to have been the most important issue is completely passed over in silence. N or is the monumental debate over monergism and synergism (free will and grace) mentioned. It is rather disappointing to see these glaring errors and an obvious lack of familiarity with the actual issues, in a document that takes so much responsibility in speaking to and for the successors to those debates. Before concessions are made, it is prudent for one to know exactly what one is conceding, and if this is what Evangelicals think that they must set aside in order to cooperate in a common evangelistic task, it is difficult to blame them for doing so on the basis of the preceding misrepresentations. In its favor, the docu, mentdoes imply that there are some views Roman Catholics and Evangeli, cals hold concerning each other that may have some justification. For instance, "Evangelicals hold that the Catholic Church has gone beyond Scripture, adding teachings and practices that detract from or com, promise the Gospel of God's saving grace in Christ." (Actually, Evan, gelicals hold that the Catholic Church denies the Gospel of God's saving grace in Christ by its re, jection of sola fide and re' lated doctrines.) But if it is acceptable for Evangeli, cals to continue to hold this view, how can they,
in good conscience, speak of a common Gospel, a common mission, and a common Church? The authors and their signatories must answer the follow, ing question: Is the Gospel justification by grace alone through faith alone or is it something else anything else? If it is the former, is it not a contradic, tion to say that we maintain a common Gospel while the Gospel of justification sola fide is officially con, demned by that very body?
IV. We Contend Together At last, the document reaches what is most likely the motivation for such consensus,building: The challenges of secularism in moral, social, and political battles. This is understandable for at least two reasons. First, as there is a shared catholic consensus on the fundamental doctrines we listed in the beginning of this response, so there are many shared assumptions in the field of moral philosophy. Here, not only can Evangelicals and Roman Catholics cooperate; Evangelicals have a great deal to learn from Roman Catholics about natural law , the classical virtues, moral dilemmas, and the like. Evangelicals tend to be issue, oriented, whereas Roman Catholicism has a tradition of incorporating public issues into its theological reflection. Our forebears appreciated this and often built their own ethical, social, and political views on this shared foundation. Cal, vin, for instance, modi, fied and advanced Tho, mas Aquinas's natural law theories in his day. The Protestant Scholastics (the generations immediately following the original re, formers) unabashedly em, ployed the traditional Roman Catholic scholas, tic categories for their theological systematiza, tion of the Reformation's insights. For them, guilt by association was a logical fallacy that would be left for future generations of Prot' estants to commit. They were concerned with truth, and were happy to follow it into common agreement with Rome whenever they believed it to intersect.
"We cannot sacrifice peace with God for peace with one another.'"
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his motivation by cultural factors is understandable also from the practical facts of our time and place. At a time of such moral chaos, is it a prudent use of resources to remain divided? And here, surely, Evangelicals should be encouraged to join forces with Roman Catholics, or for that matter, withJews, Moslems, Hindus, atheists, or anyone else who has some sense of justice and fairness left from the imago Dei stamped on the soul. United by so many common convictions and the shared history of Christianity's first fifteen centuries, Evangelicals and Roman Catholics have no reason not to form common alliances and work together for political, social, and cultural betterment. But we believe that cultural issues must be clearly distinguished from the mission of the church. By creation, all men and women are obligated to care for this world in all of its brokenness and are to take responsibility for their own failures as stewards. Christians have a special burden, as God's stewards who are called to see the world from his perspective "above the sun." Yet, however this may be the duty of Christians as human beings, it is not the mission of the church as our Lord defined it in the Great Commission. The goal of the mandate in creation was to "be fruitful and multiply," a cultural task to which we are still obligated by creation. But the goal of the Great Commission is to go, baptize, teach, and make disciples for Christ. As individual Christians, we do both, but the latter is the sole mission of the church.
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hen we confuse these tasks, it is easy for those who have a particular burden for political and cultural issues to undervalue the doctrinal and theological matters that are essential to the church's unique calling. In a particularly decadent time and place in a fallen world, different institutions offer different solutions. The church does not offer cultural, moral, social, or political solutions, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ, "the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes." It is equivalent to God's personal exercise of power and effectual persuasion. Thus, the mission of the church and the consensus upon which it may be formed must be determined by theological rather than cultural considerations. We must be faithful to the Word, for it has a power that no ecclesiastically united front can exert. In summary, we may-indeed, we must-"contend together" as Evangelicals and Roman Catholics for what we have in common: the Apostle's Creed, cultural concerns, and the defense of universal truth
and morality. But we cannot-we must not-confuse' such common cause with a common Gospel, a common Church, and a common mission while the Roman See persists in its denial of the message that makes the church's existence both possible and necessary.
v. We Witness Together The document bases its common witness not on its affirmation of the Gospel to which we must witness, but on its affirmation of the experience of conversion. Conversion is expressed by the authors as "a continuing process, so that the whole life of a Christian should be a passage from death to life, from error to truth, from sin to grace ....W e seek and pray for the conversion of others, even as we recognize our own continuing need to be fully converted." It is not the case that such expressions ought to be denied by Evangelicals, but it is quite clear that the tie that binds is conversion, not an objective Gospel message, and this reveals the fact that modern Evangelicals share an emphasis on salvation as conversion (such as in the "born again" emphasis) that makes it easier to see salvation more as a process than as a declaration of right standing that results in life, long sanctification and eventual glorification. Evangelicals, before the influence of Arminian revivalism, had the cross, not conversion, -at the center, and they preached Christ, not faith or the experience of rebirth. To the extent that Evangelicals have replaced the objective emphasis (what Christ did for us) with the subjective (what Christ does in us), to that extent Evangelicals have become more closely linked to the Roman emphasis on justification as a process of conversion. When piety, discipleship, and spirituality become the chief characteristics of Evangelicalism rather than products of Evangelical doctrine, the distinctions between the two communions lose their clarity. Of course, this may appear to be an easy solution, but it comes at an enormous cost. This last section is also one of the most troubling, although it does follow from the preceding arguments. Those who sign it agree that they will not "proselytize," which they regard as "sheep,stealing," as though evangelical and Roman Catholic churches were merely two different expressions of the same essential beliefs. "First, as much as we might believe one community is more fully in accord with the Gospel than another, we as Evangelicals and Catholics affirm that opportunity and means for growth in Christian discipleship are available in our several JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1994
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modern REFORMATION communities." Once again, the test is not whether the Gospel in its purity is available in our several communities, but it is the opportunity for discipleship and growth that determines the identity of a true church. On the basis of this, the document's supporters agree not to attempt to convert Roman Catholics to evangelical Christianity, since it is "neither theologically legitimate nor a prudent use ofresources."
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n what basis is itnot "theologically legitimate" to attempt to reach Roman Catholics or liberal Protestants with the Gospel and suggest that they find a church where they can hear the Word clearly preached and receive the sacraments properly? There have been no theological arguments that even remotely suggest the wisdom of such a conclusion: it is a mere assertion. We insist that so long as the theological differences we have already addressed remain, we must continue to encourage brothers and sisters in unhealthy and unfaithful communions-even if they are self,styled Evangelical churches-to sit under the proclamation of the Word properly preached. This is not bigotry, but a love of souls. It is not only true for Roman Catholics and liberal Protestants, but for fundamentalists, who do not hear the Gospel in their churches or evangelical charismatics, or members of Lutheran or Reformed churches where the Word is not clearly preached. The Gospel defines everything, including the identity of a true visible church. Conclusion As we conclude, it will be useful to call upon the most recent papal encyclical as an example of how Evangelicals may profit from and cooperate with Roman Catholic moral theologians, even while they carefully reject Rome's errors of systematic and biblical theology. It is impossible to be unmoved by the clarity of purpose, vision, and explanation in the encyclical Veritatis Splendor. In it, one finds one of the clearest commitments to absolute, unchanging moral foundations for a dynamic, constantly changing world. As evangelical Protestants, we read it with profit, but cannot help notice that whenever it moves from moral theology to systematic theology, the persistent errors remain. The encyclical is based on the text of Matthew 19:16, in which the rich young ruler asks Jesus, "Teacher, what good must I do to be saved?" Salvation is expressed in terms of discovering "the full meaning of life," having an "encounter with Christ," and turning to Christ "in order to receive from him the answer to their 32
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questions about what is good and what is evil." Where Jesus tells the religious ruler who wanted to justify himself, "Only God is good," the encyclical interprets this as saying, " ...God makes himself known and acknowledged as the One who 'alone is good'; the One who despite man's sin remains the 'model' for moral action, in accordance with the command, 'You shall be holy; for I the Lord your God am holy' (Lev 19:2); as the One who, faithful to his love for man, gives him his Law (cf. Ex 19:9-24 and 20:18-21) in order to restore man's original and peaceful harmony with the Creator and with all creation..." To avoid the obvious works, righteousness of this interpretation, the author acknowledges that we cannot fulfill the Law perfectly and that "this 'fulfillment' can come only from a gift of God: the offer of a share in the divine Goodness revealed and communicated in Jesus, the one whom the rich young man addresses with the words, 'Good Teacher' (Mk 10:17; Lk 18:18)."
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he answer to the ruler's question, therefore, has not changed for Rome. The righteousness God requires is still by the Law, not by faith alone. It is a "gift," not in the sense of imputation of an alien righteousness, but in the sense of a revelation of communication of divine goodness somehow infused into us through Jesus. In fact, the encyclical goes on to use the word "infusion" in this connection and concludes, "In this way, a close connection is made between eternal life and obedience to God's commandments....From the very lips of Jesus, the new Moses, man is once again given the commandments of the Decalogue. Jesus himself definitively confirms them and proposes them to us as the way and condition of salvation" (emphasis added). The reason that the rich young ruler is told to perfectly keep the commandments if he wishes to be saved is not in order to drive him to despair of his own righteousness, but "the Good Teacher invites him to enter upon the path of perfection." Therefore, "the commandments are the first and indispensable condition for having eternal life." At the end of the day, Rome has not changed even if Vatican II is distinguished from the Council of Trent. The modern Roman Church goes so far as to declare that "those who without any fault do not know anything about Christ or his Church, yet who search for God with a sincere heart and under the influence of grace, try to put into effect the will of God as known to them through the dictate of conscience .. .can obtain eternal salvation. ., .For
modern REFORMATION whatever -goodness and truth is found in them is considered by the Church as a preparation for the Gospel and bestowed by him who enlightens everyone that they may in the end have life" (Dogmatic Constitution of the Church Lumen Gentium, 16).
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he remaining message of this encyclical, drawing on historic Christian and biblical insights, is rich with moral wisdom and Evangelicals can greatly enrich their own reflection in this area by reading, discussing, and incorporating its concise criticisms and suggestions for the culture. Nevertheless, the Gospel remains obscured and disfigured, with confidence in the goodness ofhuman nature and salvation on that basis. The tragedy is that the majority of Evangelicals now support the same undergirding convictions, greatly influenced by the optimism of the modern spirit. According to some studies, nearly three~fourths of the adult evangelical population in America believe that man is basically good, and a growing number ofsignificant evangelical theologians are virtually indistinguishable from the inclusivism of Karl Rahner and the Second Vatican Council. Drawn together with the shift from objective to subjective considerations, from the object of faith to the act of faith, and from the centrality of truth and clear convictions to the centrality ofpiety, spirituality, and action, the rapprochement has more to do with Evangelicals, Roman Catholics, and liberal Protestants becoming increasingly conformed to the spirit of the age than with genuine ecumenicity and unity in the truth. Jesus did pray that we may all be one, but he qualified it with the petition, "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth" (J n 17:17). It is not by well~ intentioned efforts at making concessions in order to offer a united front that the church will conquer secularism, but by the Gospel. When the Apostle Paul offered his impassioned plea for unity, it was always from a desire that doctrine would produce, not inhibit, such genuine concord, as "we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God" (emphasis added). To be sure, these are not merely cognitive and doctrinal, but they are not less than that. After all, adds the Apostle, "Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is Christ" (Eph 4:13-15).
We pray that a divided Christendom will become one and that Protestants, Eastern Orthodox, and Roman Catholics will continue to listen to each other, learn from each other, and challenge each other. We also affirm together that we have many Roman Catholic brothers and sisters in Christ. But until the changeless Gospel is clearly affirmed and proclaimed, we do not believe we are given permission by God to concede that salvific Word to any body that does not maintain the essential purity of that Gospel, whether Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or indeed, even Protestant.
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hile we gladly cooperate with other Christians where there is a shared consensus and in a manner appropriate to the matters of that shared consensus, the best way to unity, we believe, is to proclaim the truth as the Spirit sets the captives free through the light of the Gospel and under the guidance and ministry of the church. And we long for the day when Rome not only repudiates the Council of Trent, but also the errors of subsequent declarations that have been influenced by liberal Protestantism. We also call upon Evangelicals to decide whether they will continue to retain an Evange1ical faith themselves. This is not a matter of bigotry or prejudice, but is guided by the fear of falling under St. Paul's warning, "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let ,him be eternally condemned!" (Gal 1:8). We cannot sacrifice peace with God for peace with each other. We must continue to protest against every denial of the Gospel and we affirm that the Great Commission requires us to seek the salvation of the lost even in our own communions. If they are not in a true visible church, where the Word is rightly preached and sacraments rightly administered, they must be encouraged to join one, but this is true also for "Evangelical" churches where these marks are not present. Even for the visible unity of a shattered church whose divisions offer a crippled witness, we may not sacrifice the essence of the Gospel. For by it, we are saved, together with all who will embrace the Gospel to their soul's joy and lasting peace. We hope for the Gospel's success in this bewildering time. t This article, appearing here courtesy of Moody Press, will be published in Roman Catholicism: Evangelical Protestants Analyze What Unites & Divides Us, edited by John Armstrong.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1994
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Ten Theses for Roman Catholic-Evangelical Dialogue
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We affirm that Evangelicals and Roman Catholics commonly confess the faith of the ecumenical creeds. We deny that this catholic consensus is sufficient for recognizing the Roman church as a true visible expression of Christ's body. We affirm that the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone is "the article by which the church stands or falls," and distinguishes a true from a false church. While clearly affirming the indissolvable bond between justification and sanctification, this doctrine insists that the righteousness that God requires for justification is neither attained by humans nor infused or worked internally by God into the human soul, but that it is a forensic declaration based on the imputation ofChrist's righteousness. The Council of Trent declared apostate those who embrace this doctrine. All subsequent magisterial declarations, including those of the Second Vatican Council, continue to bind Roman Catholics to the conviction that the Gospel of free justification by faith alone, apart from works, is not consonant with Roman Catholic teaching. We deny that there can be any fellowship with those who openly oppose that Gospel. We affirm that there is sufficient agreement on other matters to warrant cooperation where there is genuine consensus. Therefore, where fundamental catholic issues are at stake, we should indeed make common cause. And where there are fundamental moral and cultural issues involved, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals have every reason to join minds, hearts, and hands. We deny that such cooperation is sufficient to declare that both communions are engaged in a common mission, part of a common church, and witnesses to a common Gospel. We affirm that the great cultural and moral crises of our age must be confronted with intellectual depth and prayerful resolve, particularly by those who have been redeemed and are being conformed to the image of Christ. Nevertheless, we deny that this is the mission of the church, for it exists for the unique purpose of Word and sacrament, fulfilling the Great Commission of Christ. Therefore, we also deny
the priority of cultural, moral, political, and social concerns in determining the relationship of ecclesial communions and the setting of their respective agenda. We affirm that Christ's prayer for unity requires vigilance, patience, and diligence as we seek a greater visible unity. We deny that this prayer has reference merely to the spiritual or invisible church. We affirm that the unity we seek is determined by the Word of God, comprising the Law and the GospeL To this Word, the church must submit and correct its understandings. We deny that unity can be achieved in the absence of a common confession of the Gospel in its essential features. We affirm that individual Roman Catholics, who for various reasons do not selrconsciously give their assent to the precise definitions of the Roman Magisterium regarding justification, the sole mediation ofChrist, the monergistic character of the new birth, and similar evangelical issues, are our brothers and sisters despite Rome's official position. We deny that this allows for joint communion or similar expressions of visible ecclesial union. We affirm that the Commission of our Lord requires every Christian to be engaged in witness to the person and work of Christ and that this is not merely concerned with conversion, but with the catechesis and discipline of converts. Therefore, we deny that it is advisable for a convert to the evangel to remain in any communion or local expression of a communion in which the Word is not rightly preached and the sacraments are not rightly administered. We affirm that the Roman Catholic Church contains many true believers, but we deny that in its present confession it is a true visible congregation, much less that it is the mother of all the faithful to whom all believers must be related. We affirm that the issues that divide us are of abiding and deep significance. We deny that they are issues secondary to a common cultural engagement. The Gospel remains the jewel of the Church and secularism is, at its root, a spiritual and theological crisis that finally can only be confronted by the Word and Spirit.
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Glosssary ofTerms
Absolution The word comes from the Latin absolov, "set free." It is the theology to denote the forgiveness of sins, being specifically used by Roman Catholics of the remission given through or by the church. It is a suitable word in that the truly free person is one against whom no accusation of sin can be made. Catholic A transliteration of the Greek katholikos, "throughout the whole," "general," this word has been used in a variety of senses during church history. In the earlier patristic period it had the denotation of universal. This is its meaning in the first occurrence in a Christian setting-"Wherever Jesus is, there is the catholic church" (Ignatius Smyr. 8:2). Here the contrast with the local congregation makes the meaning "universal" mandatory. Justin Martyr could speak of the "catholic" resurrection, which he explains as meaning the resurrection of all men (Dialogues lxxxi). When the term appears in the Apostles Creed-"the holy catholic church"-as it has earlier appeared in the Nicene- "one holy catholic and apostolic church"-it retains the sense of universality and thus accents the unity of the church in spite of its wide diffusion. Ecumenism The organized attempt to bring about the cooperation and unity of all believers in Christ. The word "ecumenical" comes from the Greekoikoumene, "the entire inhabited earth." (Acts 17:6; Mt 24:14; Heb 2:5) The theological basis for Christian unity is rooted in the New Testament. Jesus prayed that his followers "may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me." (John 17:21) Likewise, Paul urged the Ephesians to "keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace" because "there is one body and one Spirit, . .. one Lord, one faith, one baptism." (Eph 4:3,5) Throughout his ministry, the apostle worked to maintain the unity of the church in the face of theological deviation (Galatians and Colossians) and internal division (1&2 Corinthians). Evangelism The proclamation of the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ with a view to bringing about the reconciliation of the sinner to God the Father through regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. The word derives from the Greek noun euangelion, good news, and verb euangelizomai, to proclaim good news. Evangelism is based on the initiative of God himself. Because God acted, believers have a message to share with others. "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8). Grace The word "grace" has a variety of connotations and nuances. Its meaning is that of undeserved blessing freely bestowed on man by God-a concept which is at the heart not only of Christian theology but also of all genuinely Christian experience. In discussing the subject of grace an important distinction must be maintained between common (general, universal) grace and special (saving, regenerating) grace, if the relationship between divine grace and human grace is to be rightly understood. Indulgences The means by which the Roman Church claims to give remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins, whose guilt has already been forgiven. The theology of this idea developed slowly in the Western church and from the sixteenth century in Roman Catholicism; it has often been the case that practice went ahead of theory. The granting of indulgences has sometimes been the occasion of abuse and controversy, for example, the controversy between Martin Luther and J. J. Tetzel in 1517 in Germany at the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. Providence The doctrine of providence tells us that the world and our lives are not ruled by chance or by fate but by God, who lays bare his purposes of providence in the incarnation of his Son. Purgatory The teachings of the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches set forth a place of temporal punishment in the intermediate realm known as purgatory, in which it is held that all those who die at peace with the church but who are not perfect must undergo penal and purifying suffering. Only those believers who have attained a state of Christian perfection are said to go immediately to heaven. All unbaptized adults and those who after baptism have committed mortal sin go immediately to hell. The great mass of partially sanctified Christians dying in fellowship with the church but nevertheless encumbered with some degree of sin go to purgatory where, for a period of time, they suffer until all sin is purged away, after which they are translated to heaven.
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e nonsense" "Horton's book is superb and timely." Os Guinness, author of The American Hour
"A very pertinent message for today; one that I do not hear enunciated very clearly elsewhere."
c. Everett Koop,
Former United States Surgeon General
"One of the strongest critiques of the church that I have read. A significant work at a very crucial time in the history of the church. If we digest this message then maybe all of society will benefit." John Perkins) Urban Family Magazine
"An important and impassioned plea. With the unsparing fervor of a true reformer, Horton points out that the evangelical churches are in no position to confront the world with its unbelief since there is so little interest in the substance of the apostolic faith within their own ranks. He paints an uncomfortable por trait, but one that could ulti mately lead to a genuine return to the Bible, that book so often invoked and so seldom lived." Edward Oaks, New York University
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