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The basic doctrines of Protestantism at the Reformation, in addition to
those of the creeds, were: justification by grace alone through faith alone;
the priesthood of all believers; the supremacy of Holy Scripture in matters of
faith and order. There has been variation in sacramental doctrine among
Protestants, but the limitation of the number to the two "sacraments of
the Gospel," baptism and Holy Communion, has been almost universal. | |
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In theory Protestantism has stood throughout its history for a principle of
protest that calls under judgment not only the beliefs and institutions of
others but also one's own movements and causes. On those grounds, however, most
students of Protestantism would recognize that the Protestant tradition has not
been substantially more successful than have other faiths at remaining
self-critical or at rising above institutional self-defensiveness. | |
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Within the spectrum of non-Roman Catholic Western Christianity a great
variety of doctrinal views and polities have been expressed. Not all Western
non-Roman Catholic Christians have been ready to be included in Protestantism.
Some Anglicans and Lutherans, for instance, have been so eager to stress their
continuity with the historic Roman Catholic Church and their distance from
extreme Protestantism that they have asked for separate designations. Courtesy
suggests that such appeals be taken seriously; however, ultimately habits of
speech and sociological usage tend to predominate and, despite their
protestations, these groups are usually included in the Protestant cluster. | |
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The original Protestant leaders united in their contention that what
separated them from the Roman Catholicism of their day was their teaching that
man is justified by grace through faith. Devotion to this teaching has been
central to Protestantism throughout its history. Although there have been
subtle variations in the differing Protestant church bodies, a core of shared
belief was at first easily discernible. | |
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Concern for "justification" was related to the obsession that in
the 16th century was often expressed in terms of finding oneself on good terms
with God. The metaphors were drawn from the courts of law. Aware of its
shortcomings, its ignorance, its sin, and its guilt, mankind saw itself
standing before a bar of justice presided over by God. Without help, the
individual could expect nothing but God's wrath and condemnation. This meant
that he would perish everlastingly, and his present life would be full of
torment. Yet the Bible also presented mankind with a picture of a loving and
gracious God, who may very well desire happiness for all. The question then
was: how could the individual be sure that God would reveal his gracious, and
not his wrathful, side? How could he have the confidence that he was included
in the positive loving action of God? | |
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The teaching of the Reformers becomes most intelligible when seen against
the Western Catholic doctrines (e.g.,
sin, grace, atonement), as they saw them. In the Protestant view the late
medieval Catholic teaching held that a human being was brought back to God only
when so much grace had been infused into his soul that he merited the favour of
God. God could not have been expected to accept someone who was unacceptable,
but he could impart something that would make humans acceptable. This something
was grace, and its flow depended upon the merits of God's perfect Son, the man
Jesus Christ. The church, according to medieval Catholicism, in a sense
controlled the flow through the sacramental system and through its hierarchy. | |
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To the Reformers the Roman Catholic sacramental system seemed to be part of
a transaction that was always going on between man and God. In it, people made
sacrifices designed to appease and please God. They would attend the mass,
bring offerings, show sorrow, do penance--which might involve self-punishment
or compensatory good works--until God would be gracious. The leaders of the
church, from priests through bishops and popes, mediated the transaction. The
Reformers believed that such an arrangement could easily be misused as a
political instrument for forcing rulers to comply with the church's wishes and
as a personal instrument for keeping people in uncertainty or terror. It was
this vision of Catholicism that helped inspire the Protestant leadership to
rebel and to define justification in other terms. | |
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The terms for this Protestant teaching came from the Bible, especially from
the New Testament, and even more so from the writings of St. Paul. In St. Paul
they saw a religious hero and thinker who had endured a spiritual quest similar
to their own. He could be described as having been brought up in a legalistic
version of Judaism, a system in which he was constantly striving to please God
by following his Law, particularly as set forth in the Old Testament through
the Ten Commandments. Yet Paul failed and was assailed by doubts about his
worthiness and his salvation. His conversion meant a radical turning and a free
acceptance of God's favour "in Christ." This meant that in faith a
person could be so identified with Jesus Christ that when God looked at him, he
saw instead the merit that Christ had won through his self-sacrifice on the
cross. God looked, in short, at the sinner; but he did not see the sinner. He
saw his perfect Son. So he could declare the person righteous; he could justify
him--even though the person was still a sinner. (see also Index: sin) | |
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When taken out of the historical context of St. Paul's teachings in the
letters to the Romans or the Galatians and transferred to their own times, the
Reformers' teaching of justification relied heavily on the work of the Holy
Spirit. The Holy Spirit, in effect, made Christ's action contemporaneous with
the sinner's quest. God was working now on behalf of those in need. Through
preaching, humanity learned of Jesus Christ's sacrifice and death. If the
individual believed this historical narrative and, more importantly, if by the
power of the Holy Spirit he believed that it was told and enacted for him, he
stood before God in a new light. Grace was not infused into him to the point
that he became acceptable and pleasing to God. Instead, while the individual
was still a sinner, God accepted him favourably and justified him. Christ's
death on the cross was then the only "transaction" that mattered
between God and man. The sacraments reinforced the relation and brought new
grace, but no pretense was made that the human subject had achieved
satisfaction before God or produced enough merit to inspire God to act. | |
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In the Reformers' view the new situation was one of freedom. Whereas
Catholics constantly stood in fear as to whether they had provided enough
merits, had achieved enough good works, or had pleased the church as God's
bargaining agent, the Reformers' version had the believers standing before God
completely freed of these nagging questions. They were liberated both from the
terrors of sin, death, and the devil, on one hand, and, on the other hand, from
the enslaving pride that went with the belief of human beings that they had
achieved or at least had substantially cooperated in their own salvation. | |
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This left the Reformers with a serious question, one to which their Roman
Catholic opponents regularly referred. What had happened in this teaching of
justification and freedom to the biblical accent on good works? Jesus himself,
in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), was constantly preoccupied
with the effort of making people better, of having them bring forth "good
fruit." Even Paul shared such concerns. Had the Protestant movement
slighted these concerns in its desire to free human beings from the necessity
of merits and good works? | |
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The literature of Protestantism is rich in its expression of answers to such
questions. The Reformers were virtually unanimous: good works did not produce
appeasement of God or salvation, yet they inevitably flowed from the forgiven
heart and were always the consequence of the justified person's life. The Law
of God could never be used as the saving path along which human beings walked,
as a sort of obstacle path or road map to God. Instead, the Law of God measured
human shortcomings and judged them. A gracious God acting through his Gospel
brought human beings back to him. | |
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The Reformers' vision of human beings implied in such teachings was
doublesided. They believed that from God's point of view the justified person
was so identified with Jesus Christ that he shared Christ's perfection. The
same person, throughout all his life, left to his own devices or when seen by
God apart from Christ's sacrificial work, remained a sinner. The difference
came through God's gracious initiative; nothing that a person did started the
process of his justification. To the eyes of many in subsequent generations the
result was an apparently pessimistic and gloomy view of human potential in
Protestantism. The will was bound, apart from God's loving activity. No merits
or good works would satisfy God. Sometimes the phrase total depravity was used
to describe the human condition, though it must be said that the term had
connotations in the 16th century that were different from those that it has
today. It was used not so much to provide lurid connotations for descriptions
of the depth of sin but rather to describe its extent; man as a total being was
in trouble. Even good works, piety, religiousness, and efforts, apart from
justification by grace through faith, fell under God's curse. On the other
hand, the justified sinner could be described in the most lavish terms, as one
who could be "as Christ" or even sometimes "a Christ." | |
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Those who have heard this Protestant teaching outlined through the centuries
have regularly seen the difficulties it raises insofar as the portrait of God's
character is concerned. Protestants never came up with logically satisfying
answers to the resultant questions, though they were convinced that they were
faithful witnesses to biblical teachings concerning the mystery of God's
nature. The central question: if everything depended upon God's initiative and
yet the majority of people are not saved, does this not mean that God is
responsible for creating humans only to have them suffer; is he not guilty of
the worst kind of cruelty by being the sole agent of their damnation? | |
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In facing the question Protestant leaders differed slightly from each other.
Some said that whenever people were saved, it was to God's credit; whenever
they were lost, it was through their own fault. They were free to hear the
Word; they were free to respond and accept the gift of grace in Christ; their
own hardness of heart kept them from freedom and new life. Others ran the risk
of presenting cruel pictures of God's nature and action in their interest to
witness to his sovereignty and initiative. The view that God predestined some
people to be saved and others to be damned was called "double
predestination." Some theologians argued that God did this predestining
before humans fell into sin; others saw it as a new act of God consequent upon
man's fall. Those Protestant parties that were generally non-Calvinist in
outlook were usually less systematic and less logical in their statements. The
non-Calvinists taught a doctrine called "single predestination." They
shared the Calvinists' affirmation of God's total responsibility for human
salvation; but they tended to be silent or to relegate to the area of mystery
and unanswerable questions the issue of how God could then be other than
responsible for human damnation. In general the Protestants saw themselves to
be more successful at preserving the teaching of God's sovereignty and the
corollary of human helplessness than they were at making his character
attractive to all. They saw themselves overcoming this problem in biblical
terms by a stress on his loving relation to humanity in sending his own Son,
Jesus Christ, to suffer on its behalf. | |
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If the teaching of justification had important consequences for the
doctrines of God and of man in Protestantism, it was of at least equal import
for any statement of the meaning of the church and especially of the relations
between clergy and laity. The medieval system, sacramental and hierarchical, in
effect gave the priests a monopoly in monitoring the transaction between God
and man. The Protestant teaching of justification broke this down and the
Protestant leaders reverted to what they held to be the biblical view, that all
believers have a share in spreading the word of grace and the acts of
forgiveness. The result was an emphasis not on the privileges of a priestly
caste but rather on "the priesthood of all believers." | |
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The Reformers viewed this teaching as based on the free-flowing sense of
authority that existed between Christ and his Apostles, who had been pictured
in the Gospels as being active apart from an elaborate clerical church order.
At the same time they believed that their doctrine would effectively displace
the Roman Catholic hierarchical thought and action. Now all people were to be
enjoined to take responsibility for each other's salvation; any Christian could
represent the needs of all others before God. Originally the priesthood of all
believers was an enlargement of the view that all Christians had intercessory
powers, that they could all pray for one another. But it came to refer to the
Protestant view of an equality of status between clergy and laity and to the
common calling of all Christians to be agents of God's Word and grace. | |
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The affirmation of the priesthood of all believers had widespread
implications in society. In Protestant areas and nations the privileges of the
clergy were limited and the scope of lay activity enlarged. All believers
shared a "vocation" (calling), and priestly vocations were not
considered to be more meritorious or nobler than lay vocations. Monastic
vocations were almost entirely swept away, and restorations of the monastic
ideal have been rare and exceptional in Protestant history. Protestants kept,
for the most part, a rite of ordination (though some Anabaptists dispensed with
all acts that seemed to imply separation between a ministry of ordained persons
and laymen) but did not regularly view it as a sacrament. That is to say,
ordination conferred no special grace on men. In part a ministry was kept on a
pragmatic basis; the clergy were to tend to the business of studying and
preaching the Word, properly administering the sacraments, and caring
professionally for the health of the church. A set-aside ministry was also
derived from biblical precedent in the Book of Acts and early Christian
letters. (see also Index: monasticism) | |
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Protestants, while acknowledging their belief in the equality of laymen and
clerics in the priesthood of all believers, have not always seen themselves as
particularly successful in clarifying the laity's role. In most cases laymen
were not to be the preachers in public worship, and administration of the
sacraments usually remained in clerical hands. By demanding of preachers
expertise at expounding the Bible, Protestants often have made educational
requirements a basis for ordained ministry, at the expense of a full lay
involvement. Yet their views did greatly enhance both the theological and
practical status of laymen, when contrasted to the situation in medieval
Catholicism. | |
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If all believers were priests, then no single church could monopolize the
mediation of grace, since Protestants saw that there were believers in all
churches, Roman Catholic and Protestant, Lutheran or Calvinist or Anglican. As
a result the teachings inherited from medieval Catholicism about the visible
and the invisible church were called into question. To many Reformers, most
notably Luther, the church was always visible because it was made up of people.
But its limits and borders were invisible since one could not examine the heart
of others to determine exactly who were the true believers and who were the
faithless. This inability to define the boundaries of the church led other
Reformers, among them Calvin, to continue to employ the distinction between a
visible church and an invisible one, the latter referring to the people who
were saved, even if they were in churches where full doctrinal purity had not
been achieved. People see the visible, humanly organized church of Christ, but
they cannot simply identify this with the Bible's one, holy, catholic, and
apostolic church, which is properly discerned only by God and hence invisible
to humans. The visible church, in the Reformers' view, almost certainly
contained a mixture of members of the invisible church, on the one hand, and
hypocrites, or false believers, on the other. (see also Index: Anglican
Communion) | |
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Justification by grace through faith and the priesthood of all believers
were affirmations that challenged the inherited Roman Catholic views of
authority because they seriously undercut the monopoly of the hierarchy in the
system of grace. Downgrading the medieval system of authority left a vacuum
that Protestantism hastened to fill. Full of variety and pluralism as the
movement was from the first, it was rarely characterized by a love of anarchy
or indiscipline, and the Reformers set to work at once to establish the locale
and extent of authority in the church and the believer's life. Almost
unanimously they saw final authority to reside in the Word of God, which tended
in the minds of many to be simply equated with the Bible. The need of the
Protestant movement to redefine authority enhanced its view of Scripture just
as, one might argue, the rediscovery of scriptural teaching was seen to be the
primary impetus behind the Protestant movement. | |
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Later generations of Protestant thinkers sometimes resorted to scholastic
philosophical definitions similar to those of the medieval Catholic
theologians; in such definitions justification became the material (or
substantive) principle of the Reformation, while the matter of scriptural
authority became the equally important formal (or structural) principle. In
some epochs debate about the nature of the Word of God or the Bible was even
more preoccupying than was discussion of justification. Protestants often have
portrayed medieval Catholicism as being a nonbiblical or even an antibiblical
faith, one that denied the Bible to the laity. The expense of reproducing
manuscripts led many libraries to chain books to the wall, and the Bible
chained to the wall entered Protestant mythology as a symbol of the denial of
lay access to the Bible in Roman Catholicism. In many circles Protestantism has
been celebrated as a religion of the "open Bible" in opposition to
the closed book of Catholicism. | |
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Mythology aside, Protestants without exception concentrated on biblical
teaching, and this led to a new passion for translating the Bible into the
vernacular and disseminating it as widely as possible, an activity aided by the
almost simultaneous invention of movable type and the resultant progress in
printing technology. It was to be put into the hands of as many ministers and
laymen as possible. Thus, they also had to be taught to read, and the
Protestant movement claims some credit for hastening the modern impetus toward
the ideal of universal literacy. While the Bible was ordinarily read in the
churches and interpretation was shaped by the old and new traditions of these
churches (Anglicans read the Bible's teachings on apostolic succession in a way
different from that of Anabaptists, for example), what came to be called
"the right of private judgment" was often exalted. | |
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While Protestants could agree that the Word of God was authoritative in
matters of faith and that the Bible as the book inspired by the Holy Spirit had
unique status, they did not agree on all interpretations of the Scripture, nor
did they unite in a single doctrine of scriptural authority. The Anabaptists,
and later the Quakers, stressed an immediate experience of God and thus tended
to qualify the importance of the Bible in shaping Christian life. But even
among the Lutherans, Calvinists, and Anglicans there were differences of
opinion about the Bible. | |
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Latter-day Protestant Fundamentalists have argued that scriptural authority,
if it is to be believable and if it is indeed the Word of an all-knowing,
perfect God, dare not be described as including errors, even errors in
historical or geographic detail. They have backed up this contention with
citations from John Calvin and Martin Luther. At the same time, subsequent
Protestant contenders for a more open and critical attitude toward biblical
literature are equally capable of citing the Reformers--Luther, for example.
Luther often spoke of the Bible as "the cradle in which Christ lies"
and as a book that derives its authority from Christ and not from an a priori
(presumed) doctrine of inerrant inspiration. Their argument concludes that
Luther could quite freely relegate some books of the Bible to secondary status
or criticize the argument of others, even as he could complain of Paul's
grammar or illogical argumentation, and point to errors of detail. Part of the
confusion on this matter results from the fact that the Reformers in their era
did not see questions regarding truth in the same terms as they have been
recognized in the later scientific world, and, also, they could accept the full
and governing authority of the Bible without elaborating theories concerning
its perfection in detail. | |
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The unquestionable elevation of the Bible as the authority in matters of
faith led to a corollary downgrading of other authorities in the church. The
hierarchy, and especially the pope, were hardest hit, and papal authority was
denied in almost every sector of Protestantism. In place of papal authority
more regard came to be paid, at least by conservative reformers, to the Fathers
(doctrinal teachers and interpreters) of the early church, who were sometimes
cited in the confessional writings of the various Protestant bodies. The
Fathers were revered as guides rather than as final authorities. Similarly, a
critical attitude toward councils of the church came to prevail. On the one
hand, it was widely asserted that councils can quite often and do err, and
historical studies pointed to contradictions between various conciliar
statements and to unsubstantiated assertions by past councils. On the other
hand, many formulas and creedal statements of the ecumenical councils,
particularly as these referred to the Trinity or to the Person and work of
Jesus Christ, were highly regarded, and many Protestant churches took the chief
creedal statements of past councils into their own official body of teaching.
(see also Index: papacy, Church Father) | |
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Canon law, the inherited body of legal materials that regulated faith and
morals, quite naturally also suffered because of the high regard for the Bible.
In most Protestant circles it was difficult to make legislation binding upon
conscience unless it was based on clearly affirmed biblical legal teaching;
more important, accent on the Gospel of grace led most Protestants to want to
undervalue the whole role of law in the life of the church. At the same time,
new church order soon developed, and it must be said that Protestants often
acted as legalistically as did the Roman Catholics, whom they were repudiating.
Most Protestant bodies, notably the Anglicans, developed their own versions of
canon law or rules of church order and discipline. | |
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The church that is to be judged not by the pope but by a normative Bible,
that is grounded in a priesthood of all believers and critically affirmative of
Church Fathers and councils, and that rejects inherited codes of canon law
differed vastly from medieval Catholicism. In few respects did it differ more
than in its establishment of the principle of an ongoing reformation. While
most of the Reformers, once established, tended to resist extensions of
reformation that would jeopardize their status and definition, almost all
Protestants, at least nominally, assented to the idea that ecclesia reformata semper reformanda--i.e., that
the church was always reformed and always in need of further reformation. The
Protestant movement, then, was conceived as an unfinished product, constantly
to be judged by a reading of the Bible, its polity continually subject to
debate, its policy open to ongoing appraisal and change. It was in that climate
that the sacramental teaching of Protestant churches was argued and developed. | |
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On few points did Protestants disagree more than in their interpretation of
the sacraments, but they did unite in their rejection of some aspects of Roman
Catholic teaching. Since attack on the sacramental-hierarchical system of
salvation was at the heart of their reform, almost nothing of it survived
intact. In place of the churchly system the new accent fell on limiting
sacramental teaching to those acts clearly commanded by Christ and connected
with his promise in the Scriptures. One can argue that, since
"sacrament" was not a biblical term, the debate had to do simply with
definitions. Most Protestants defined sacraments, then, as acts that impart
grace and the new life. They must combine the Word of God and some visible
means (like bread, wine, and water); they must have been established by God and
instituted by Christ. On these terms, five of the seven chief Roman Catholic
sacraments failed to meet the definitional tests: marriage, ordination,
confirmation, penance (now called repentance), and extreme unction (now called
anointing of the sick). Not in every case did Protestants abolish these acts
from their rites, but they ruled them out as sacraments. Thus the Protestant
teaching on marriage was normally as "high" as Catholic doctrine and
may be considered quasi-sacramental. But it was seen chiefly as a civil act
blessed by the church, and it did not convey grace to the participants, nor was
there a visible "means." | |
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Though Protestants--with a few exceptions, chiefly Anabaptist and
Quaker--had little difficulty limiting the number of sacraments and
perpetuating a high regard for those that survived the change in definition,
they were far apart in their understandings of what went on in sacramental
acts. Basically three views were debated. To the "right," as one
might call it, was the Lutheran view, which critics considered as being quite
close to Roman Catholicism. Luther seemed to bring with him something of a
medieval worldview, in which symbols of the material world were transparent to
another invisible, divine order. This attitude made it possible for him to make
much of the material objects in the sacraments. When he connected them with
biblical words, he was able to say of bread and wine that these are the body
and blood of Christ, and of baptism, that it effected a change in the
believers' status before God. (see also Index: Eucharist) | |
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At the "left" was the view of Huldrych Zwingli and other Swiss
Reformers, who accented the spiritual side and downgraded the material. In some
respects they shared more of what has come to be considered a modern view of
matter and spirit, in which the symbols were opaque, disengaged from an
invisible "other order." Such teaching meant that what mattered most
in the sacraments was the following of Christ's commands, the reminiscence of
his participation in the world of his disciples, and the spiritual intentions
brought to the acts of believers. For Zwingli the bread and the wine were
symbols that merely represented the body and blood of Christ, and baptism was
more a sign of a Covenant with God than a supernatural imparter of grace.
Between the Lutheran and Zwinglian views were Calvinist and Anglican attitudes
and definitions. All Reformers agreed, however, in their criticism of the Roman
Catholic teaching called "transubstantiation," which held that the
actual "substance" of the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper was
turned into the body and blood of Christ. But they did not agree over the
alternatives to that teaching, and debate over the sacrament did as much as any
other theological factor to contribute to internal Protestant division. | |
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Equally varied were the attitudes toward civil authority among the various
Protestant parties. Martin Luther expressed what in theory could have been a
most radical theological view of the separation of civil and religious realms
through his doctrine of "the two kingdoms." He could reduce his
teaching virtually to an aphorism: God's Gospel ruled in the churchly realm and
his Law ruled in the civil society. To rule the church by the Law or the civil
realm by the Gospel would be to bring legalism to the sphere of grace and
sentimentalism into the orbit of justice and thus dethrone God and enthrone
Satan. In practice, however, the Lutheran Reformation worked to keep its ties
to the civil order and was the established religion wherever it predominated in
Germany and Scandinavia. In many territories princes actually took on the
superintending roles that bishops had known in Roman Catholicism. | |
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John Calvin made less of a theoretical effort to separate civil and
religious realms. Under his plan Geneva was to be a theocracy in which the
saints would rule. God's covenanted community was to be based on his Law, as
revealed in the Scripture. Consequently, no detail of civil or community life
was too remote, too secular, or too petty to escape inclusion by the Calvinists
in the ecclesiastical sphere of supervision or regulation. Zwingli taught a
variation of this version, one that asked the Christian to be a zealot or
patriot in the civil society--a teaching that he confirmed with his blood, for
he was killed in battle in 1531. In the Anglican approach there was also no
attempt to separate the civil and religious realms; in England the church was
given the mandate to press conscientious matters upon the sovereign and other
civil authorities. These established Protestant views were to be subverted or
countered by radical Reformers who did want a separation from civil spheres.
These views were also constantly revised with the rise of the modern secular
state. | |
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Protestantism was forced to find means to propagate and sustain itself
through time. Reformers had removed many of the inherited props or means and
developed, within a century, parallel structures of most of those that had been
repudiated along with Roman Catholicism. Lacking papal authority, canon law,
and "international" connection with civil authority (as there had
been in the old Holy Roman Empire), along with the binding power of church
councils or a single philosophy on the basis of which to argue their case, they
came up with alternatives or surrogates for most of these, though the new
systems were more varied than the at least nominally homogeneous Catholic
skein. | |
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Most notable among the structural necessities was the formulation of
"confessions," or creedal statements--and Protestants met frequently
and regularly to write them--by which they could define their positions for the
benefit of their adherents and their opponents. The Lutheran Augsburg
Confession (1530), Reformed documents such as the Second Helvetic Confession
(1566) and the Westminster Confession (1646), Anglican affirmations such as the
Thirty-nine Articles (1563), and Anabaptist confessions such as that of
Dordrecht (1632), all gave evidence of the Protestant impulse to define their
positions. The Protestant leaders recognized that their movement could not long
exist or continue with the fervour and ferment of first-generational impulses.
(see also Index: confession of faith) | |
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Confessions of the church appealed to the minds of theologians, the
administrative passions of leaders, and the legalistic spirit of those who
would impose them as doctrinal standards, but they did not warm believers'
hearts. Thus, Protestant leaders had to concern themselves with the affective
side of church life in order to hold the attention of masses of people and to
give them opportunity to express their faith and life in God. The chief
instruments to achieve these aims were liturgies and hymns. The inherited
liturgies included much of the Roman Catholic sacramental teaching. As such
they were given over too much to an accent on the sacrificial character of the
mass and thus had to be purged. Conservative Reformers retained the shell, or
outline, at least, of these formulas for worship, though they took great pains
to bring both these outlines and the nuances of expression into line with what
they considered to be a more evangelical teaching. Since worship is perhaps the
chief public expression of gathered Christians, all Reformers had to give
attention to its detail. | |
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Luther initiated the process with his Formula Missae ("Formula
of the Mass") of 1523, a service that retained the Latin language; but he
soon devised (in 1526) a Deutsche
Messe ("German Mass"), a vernacular and folk expression of
greater informality. At about the same time Zwingli was producing a Reformed
order with two liturgies for the Word and the Lord's Supper in 1525, soon to be
followed by Martin Bucer's work on Psalms and church practice in 1539 and
Calvin's Form of Church Prayers in 1542 and 1545. The Anglicans were
preserving stately forms of worship used in subsequent centuries, chiefly in
The Book of Common Prayer of 1549 and 1552, and in Scotland John Knox
helped formulate Presbyterian worship in
The Forms of Prayers in 1556. (see also Index: Presbyterian
churches) | |
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While Protestant orders were somewhat less ceremonial than the Roman
Catholic liturgies they replaced, the human impulse to routinize ceremonies
prevailed, and almost everywhere these forms for worship took on a more or less
formal character. They differed from Catholicism chiefly in their elevation of
the act of preaching the Word of God. Preaching was viewed as the means of
grace whereby men were encouraged to repent and accept the grace of God through
faith in Christ, just as the sermon was used to shape the community and give
guidance. For some this accent on preaching meant a downgrading of the Lord's
Supper; for others there was to be a parity, with the sacrament providing a
necessary parallel means of conveying grace. Communion "in both
kinds," with reception of both bread and wine, prevailed (whereas in the
Catholicism of the era of the Reformers the cup was withheld from the laity),
and, except in Anabaptist circles, the Catholic practice of infant baptism by
means other than total immersion was retained. The Protestants, for the most
part, took over existing Roman Catholic church buildings for worship, or they
met in academic or civil halls or homes; but as time passed, they also took
responsibility for erecting church buildings. | |
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Hymnody played a major role in giving voice to Reformation sentiment, never
more successfully than in Martin Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our
God," which came to be called "the battle hymn of the
Reformation." The Genevan Reformation and the Presbyterian churches tended
to prefer simple and sometimes stolid hymnody in the form of rephrased and
parsed psalms, such as The Genevan Psalter of 1562. The rejection of hymns and
attention to sung versions of Scripture also prevailed in early Anglicanism,
not so much because of principle but because of the failure of Anglican
Reformers to devote themselves to the propagation of their movement through
song. The great tradition of Protestant hymn writing developed later, in the
18th and early 19th centuries. | |
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Liturgies and hymns appealed to the heart and soul, but Protestant
theologians also addressed the mind through an impressive outpouring of works
in systematic theology and dogmatics. Calvin was the supreme systematizer of
first and second generation Protestantism, and his Institutes
of the Christian Religion (1536) is a classic on even the shortest shelves
of Christian doctrinal literature. Luther was, of course, a first-rate
theologian, but he made considerably less effort to be systematic, and his
scores of volumes of theology usually grew out of comments on issues that
agitated him or inspired or disturbed his movement at any moment. His disciple
and colleague Philipp Melanchthon, in the Loci
Communes of 1521, was much more concerned with systematic discipline. | |
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In the 17th century the Protestant movement tended toward more rigid
doctrinal expressions, as individuals interpreted the confessional statements
of the earlier century with an almost fanatic attention to detail. Huge works
of Lutheran and Reformed dogmatics poured forth from presses, most of them
based on a kind of Protestant reversion to the type of scholastic philosophy
that had prevailed in the late medieval period. Leaders in the period of
Lutheran orthodoxy were Martin Chemnitz (1522-86) and Johann Gerhard
(1582-1637); Reformed Orthodoxy was marked by the scholarship of Theodore Beza
(1519-1605) or, in England, men like William Perkins (1558-1602). The ponderous
and often lifeless writings of lesser orthodoxists than these were often
expressions of internecine Protestant warfare. Debates raged over the
sacraments, over the two natures of Christ, over the relations of
ecclesiastical and civil realms, and over the part man played in salvation.
Almost never did these debates lead to concord, and despite occasional irenic
figures, such as Georg Calixtus (1586-1656) or Hugo Grotius, Protestantism was
fated to remain divided, at least until the ecumenical movement in the 20th
century began to produce new amity and common purpose or assent. (see also Index:
Reformed church) | |
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The interpretation of Protestantism up to this point has been, with only a
few noted exceptions, based on the majority view among the 16th-century
Protestant movements. No single term adequately covers the
Lutheran-Calvinist-Anglican complex, though "magisterial,"
"establishment," "mainline," "conservative," and
"classical" have frequently been applied to these movements. Of
considerable parallel significance was the Protestant activity of another, and
even more complicated, cluster of movements, for which also no single term can
be agreed upon. Some historians speak of "the radical" Reformation or
"the left wing of the Reformation"; others have concentrated on
components, such as the Anabaptist-sectarian or the spiritual-mystic or the
rationalist-unitarian versions. In almost every case, these were the
expressions of the economically and socially deprived classes in the
16th-century societies, though their latter-day heirs have sometimes known or
sought the favour of civil authority and social arbiters. | |
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The "radical" Reformation was radical in that it deliberately
chose to repudiate as much as possible of traditional Roman Catholicism in
various acts of "restitution" of what it held to be the obscured and
eclipsed but true original apostolic church. The "conservative" or
"magisterial" Reformation, on the other hand, tended to keep whatever
it could of the medieval ecclesiastical tradition and to affirm continuities in
the life of the church wherever possible. | |
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The varieties of radical expressions are rich and bewildering. They grew in
virtually every Protestant land, sometimes as an extension of the logic of the
conservative Reformation but more often as original movements bearing a logic
of restitution all their own. The radical Reformation also occurred in Catholic
territories, such as Italy, where the mainline Protestant movement never knew
much success. In Lutheran circles men like Karlstadt and Thomas Müntzer
set out, in Luther's prime years, to shatter much of what he wanted to retain
and to carry reform in new directions. Debates over the Lord's Supper and
baptism led to new radical movements in Switzerland, southern Germany, and
Bohemia-Moravia. In Strassburg a significant group of radicals, including
Kaspar Schwenckfeld, Melchior Hofmann, and Sebastian Franck, gathered around
1529. The north of Germany and the Netherlands were havens of early Anabaptism
(re-baptism), and in the southern Netherlands Menno Simons spread the movement
that has come to be called Mennonitism. In Poland and eastern Europe the
radical Reformation often took spiritualist and unitarian (anti-Trinitarian)
turns, as it did in Italy. "Radical reform" was also behind some of
the Puritan and separatist movements in England. Because they were by nature
competitive, free-formed, and varied, it is difficult to generalize about the
radical Reformation movements, but some assertions common to major segments are
possible, and the study of these movements is important because of the role
they were to play in shaping modern Protestantism, especially as it developed
in North America. | |
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The radical Reformers were united in their opposition to established
Protestantism's view of ecclesiastical continuity with the church of Christ in
every age. The mainstream Reformers were radical in their rejection of what
they regarded to be false teaching in the medieval church and almost never had
kind words to say about any of its forms. But they did believe that God had
kept a body of faithful teachers and respondents through the millennium or so
after what they considered to be the "fall" of the church during the
closing years of the Roman Empire, and this view of the succession of believers
was integral to their doctrine of the church. Just as emphatic was rejection of
this view in radical circles. Some radicals were willing and eager to trace a
kind of continuity from John the Baptist down to the 16th century, but it was
significant that they found virtually every evidence of true faith only in the
sectarian movements that had separated themselves from official Roman
Catholicism or that were condemned, harassed, and persecuted by Catholics.
Among these were the Waldensians (a medieval religious movement espousing
voluntary poverty and lay preaching); the Albigensians, also called Cathars
(medieval sect espousing dualism and asceticism); some forms of Spiritual
Franciscanism (branch of the Franciscan order espousing poverty); and other
reform movements of the Middle Ages. Just as often, however, radicals taught
that the true church had died not long after Christ and had to be restored as
if from the foundation itself. (see also Index: Waldenses) | |
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The repudiation of continuity was paralleled by rejection of a tie between
the civil and ecclesiastical realms. The bond between these two, in the era of
the Roman emperor Constantine (d. 337), was viewed by the radical Reformers as
the root of the church's fall and later vicissitudes or death. From that
experience, it was argued, the church ought to have learned not to let the
spiritual infection of political authority prevail nor to permit any one to be
regarded as a member of the church without an explicit personal affirmation of
faith. In a widely used phrase, the church was to be "the believer's
church," made up of assenting and consenting people of decision who chose
to respond to God's Covenant. This view appeared in contrast to the view held
by those who argued that baptism of infants, who of course could not make
personal decisions, conferred church membership and that, thus, virtually
entire populations of territories could be members. | |
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The keystone of the concept of the believer's church is that people
voluntarily choose to be members. No one can be coerced into it nor can one
become a member automatically, as it were, through a sacramental act. It was on
this ground that infant baptism was condemned by almost all radical Reformers.
A result of this accent on voluntarism has been a strong stress on the will of
the believer and the giving of a voice to all believers in the questions of the
governance and destiny of the church. | |
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The theological counterpart to the teachings that disengaged radical
Protestantism from Catholic continuity or established life was the view that no
human authority determined modes of church life. The church is Christ's, and
not man's. As such it seeks to transcend territorial, racial, and ethnic bounds
in theory, even if it is rarely consistent or successful in practice. As
Christ's church it is capable of representing him fully in each place, and thus
local governance or authority, and even autonomy, was universally stressed. | |
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The radical Reformation almost always restored the sense of an apostolate
(missionary outreach), whereas the conservative Reformers had often neglected
the importance of a sense of witness and missionary activity, and some of them
had even ruled it out from the church's present-day mandate. Anabaptists and
spiritualists and "free" church (non-state) advocates tended to be
missionary, even if this meant a kind of subversion of established Protestant
churches, filled as these were--in radicals' eyes--with unbelievers or
inadequate believers. | |
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Churches as disengaged as these were from established structures were in
principle devoted to, and in practice successful in adhering to, ideas that
called for sharp distinctions between Christian and non-Christian, sacred and
secular, religious and worldly life. This is not to say that radicals took no
interest in the civil or social realm; they often did, indeed. But they brought
a special viewpoint. They were "eschatological"; that is, they almost
always were moved by dramatic views of the future, in which Christ would come
again or the Kingdom or Day of the Lord would be announced to change
everything. Worldly conditions were temporary and were judged by the saints as
ephemeral and corrupting, even if they found it necessary to live with or to
employ earthly instruments in the meantime. At the same time, for the sake of
the freedom and purity of the believer's church, its members advocated
separation from the civil realm, permitting no intrusion by civil authorities
in church affairs and seeking no direct involvement in administration of the
state by ecclesiastical figures. | |
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Because such a large number of radicals believed that Christ's new order was
imminent, they generally took a negative view of most human means of facing
problems. Many of them advocated a rejection of warfare and saw in the Gospels
a support of pacifist positions. The modern "peace church" witness of
Mennonites, Brethren, and Quakers was born of this impulse. Paradoxically,
there were other radicals (such as Müntzer) who on occasion saw violence
and warfare as legitimate means for them to help hasten Christ's new order. | |
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Separation between the church and the world and membership based on clear
commitment made it possible for radicals to insist on higher standards of
church membership and stricter means of church discipline than could their
magisterial counterparts. Social control was more feasible in these smaller and
well-defined groups than in the established churches, and "the ban,"
as a form of excommunication, was the instrument which supported discipline.
The use of the ban meant expulsion from the congregation of believers and, with
it, social exclusion. The ban was not conceived as merely a punitive measure;
brotherly admonition and discipline were to continue, with the hope that the
wayward could be rescued. (see also
Index: church and state) | |
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A special word must be said concerning baptism since it gave its name
Anabaptism to part of the movement and was one of the radicals' most dramatic
points differentiating them from the rest of Protestantism. Infant baptism,
from the radicals' viewpoint, cheapened the standard of church membership and
was not clearly designated or foreseen in the New Testament documents that
chartered the church. Michael Sattler (c.
1500-27), Menno Simons, and Balthasar Hubmaier (1485-1528) led the
opposition to infant baptism. Radicals would follow Jesus, who underwent
baptism as an adult, and they also would be "buried" (in water) with
him, as St. Paul said baptized people would be. "New birth" would
come from this act, and the reborn believers would restore the church. | |
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The concept of ministry was also changed more drastically in radical groups
than in the more established Protestant circles. When priests became Lutherans,
Calvinists, or Anglicans, there could be a rather subtle transition in their
calling. The Anabaptists and spiritual Reformers, however, wanted a clean break
with the past. The minister was viewed chiefly as a prophet, not as priest. As
an agent of a new order, anticipating Christ's fulfilled Kingdom, he was not to
care about earthly prerogatives or routines. Some men, such as Menno Simons,
believed that the only way to take on the new ministerial vocation was to
repudiate their Roman Catholic ordination. But such conversions from Catholic
to radical clergy were rare, and the radical wing of the Reformation more
frequently expressed its views on the ministry by simply placing a low
valuation on ordination. The classical Reformers wanted university-trained,
theologically expert ministers. The radicals, on the other hand, permitted
laymen to be ministers: leaders such as Kaspar Schwenckfeld and Konrad Grebel (c. 1498-1526)
were probably never ordained. | |
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The radical Reformation and the believer's church were made up of people who
were prepared to suffer for their faith at the hands of both civil authorities
and Catholic and other Protestant ecclesiastical leaders. The story of the rise
of Anabaptism is one of persecution, of exiles and fugitives, and of a pilgrim
church. The story of the rationalist form of Reformation, as in the case of
Michael Servetus (anti-Trinitarian; c. 1511-53), often ended in
something that can be called a Protestant Inquisition, in which men died for
their ideas. Though some erratic personalities may have revealed a desire for
martyrdom, more characteristic were those who upheld the idea of patterning
one's life after Jesus, the great example. He had not known status or security
and was eventually condemned to death; how could his true followers evade a
similar path? | |
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Doctrinal varieties among the radicals were many, and it is hardly fair to
cluster the various emphases. Certain features stand out, however. First of
all, the role of Christ, central to Protestant Christianity, shifted subtly but
significantly. The emphasis on Christ's priestly work, in which he brought
sacrifice for men before the altar of God, was displaced by a new regard for
his prophetic role. He had thundered against the powers of religion and civil
society, against established forces, and against the rich; so would his
followers. He was seen less as an agent in a divine-human transaction
culminating in death on the cross as a sacrifice, and more as the supreme
exemplar and leader. | |
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The radicals spoke critically of scholastic philosophy and the
intellectualized theology built upon it, and therefore they displayed a
distaste for the more arcane expressions of classical theology. Faustus Socinus
(1539-1604) in Poland and Michael Servetus in Strassburg became shapers of
modern Unitarianism. They believed that the doctrine of the Trinity was an
unscriptural abstraction and that simple monotheism could best be protected if
Christ were not defined as a full expression of the Godhead. Unitarianism
remained a distinctly minority emphasis in the radical Reformation. The Bible
was usually highly regarded, but whereas the magisterial Reformers tended to
see it in the context of tradition, the radicals stressed contemporary personal
experience and often allowed for or claimed new special revelation. (see also Index:
Reformation) | |
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Protestantism eventually became the majority faith throughout northwestern
Europe and in England and English-speaking America. From there, in the great
19th-century Protestant missionary movement, it was carried into all parts of
the world, joining Roman Catholicism as a minority presence in Asia and Africa
and at the same time also establishing beachheads in largely Catholic Latin
America. It is impossible to separate Protestantism from the general history of
the North Atlantic nations, where it was firmly established for centuries and
where its "free" churches or, after "separation of church and
state," its voluntary churches, still predominated. | |
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Thus it is possible to speak of Protestantism's contribution to modern
nationalism. It shared in shaping this force initially by helping bring to an
end the Holy Roman Empire, which was disintegrating already at the time of the
Reformation but which finally collapsed in 1806. The old corpus
Christianum (Christian body; i.e.,
Christian society) did not survive; the presence of Protestantism spelled
the doom of an international, transterritorial, unified Christianity under one
head. Protestantism's desire to cultivate literacy and to spread regard for the
vernacular served to remove the Latin linguistic bond of older Christendom and
to encourage the rise of national boundaries based on languages. All but the
radicals tended to make much of loyalty to the existing state, and Protestants
often provided an ideological base for each new state as it rose to
self-consciousness--as was the case in Prussia or in the United States. | |
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Protestant attitudes toward the arts have been ambivalent and therefore have
produced mixed results. For the most part, Reformed and spiritualist
Protestants have been uneasy about the arts, fearing lest the symbol be
confused with the reality--and lest, therefore, the symbol be idolized and the
reality forgotten. Thus Calvin and Zwingli found little place for the visual
arts, though Luther showed interest and was a friend of some artists of his
time, including Lucas Cranach. Luther also revealed a more affirmative attitude
toward music than did the Swiss Reformers, though through the centuries most of
Protestantism encouraged the use of music. When Protestant historians want to
point to past glories in the aesthetic realm, they cite men like John Milton in
literature, Rembrandt in painting, and Johann Sebastian Bach in music, though
such a group has few heirs in more recent centuries. | |
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While it is clear that Protestantism by nature had to allow for great
variety, not all Protestants have rested content with division and separation.
They were caught between two biblical mandates. One commanded them to seek the
truth and not to express full fellowship with those they considered to be in
error. The other stressed the values of Christian unity as a witness in the
mission of the church and as a foretaste of the eschatological, or fulfilled,
life of Christians when, all agreed, they will all be one. The ferment of the
16th century and the doctrinal formulations of the 17th century led to
ever-increasing divisions and hardening of lines or positions. The 18th-century
Enlightenment, which in its British and German forms lived off and fought
against Protestantism just as the French forms similarly related to Roman
Catholicism, tended to breed a spirit of consensus. The Enlightenment placed an
exceedingly high value on toleration of differences even as its spokesmen
worked for agreement on doctrines based on a search for what they viewed as
natural in reason and law. Such a tendency inevitably served to minimize
doctrinal differences among Protestants. (see also Index: ecumenism) | |
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The 20th century, however, has seen more effort toward producing consensus
than did the previous three and a half centuries. The modern ecumenical
movement, today thoroughly Protestant- Catholic-Orthodox in its outlook, was
first born and institutionalized on Protestant soil by men who saw the mission
of the church frustrated by competition and division. Beleaguered, huddled
together like sheep in a storm, to use a familiar picture, they sought each
other's company. | |
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At the same time modern transportation and communication techniques
effectively reduced their world and made uniting symbols accessible. A
theological recovery was fused with a new vision of common tasks to produce a
Protestantism eager for common statement and often for common action in an
ecumenical era. The ecumenical movement has led to denominational mergers and
to conciliar organizations, on both confessional and transconfessional lines. | |
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In the meantime, the openness of Roman Catholicism, particularly exemplified
in the career of Pope John XXIII (1881-1963), led to new amity and concord
between Protestants and Roman Catholics. In the last third of the 20th century
both of the old warring parties, without formally repudiating their polemical
positions of the 16th century, have tended to move beyond their terms and to
find new bases for meeting. Modern Catholic biblical commentators speak in what
sounds much like Protestant terms of grace and faith. Protestants have new
appreciation for a Roman Catholic view of the interconnectedness of the
components of the church. More and more, Protestants view the Scriptures as
rooted in a tradition and tradition as rooted in the Scriptures. Thus they have
a new sympathy for Catholic views of tradition--even as some Catholics
criticize unreflective responses to ecclesiastical authority on coercive lines
in their own communion. Protestants and Eastern Orthodox Christians, generally
spatially quite separated, have begun to understand each other through agencies
and organizations such as the World Council of Churches. (see also Index:
Bible) | |
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In the latter half of the 20th century many heirs of Protestantism, among
them the philosophical theologian Paul Tillich, began to speak of "the end
of the Protestant era," or of the times as being
"post-Protestant." This does not mean that they all wavered in their
faith in Protestantism's general witness. Tillich, for one, argued that
"the Protestant principle" of prophetic criticism had to be included
in any authentic expression of church life and that it was a genuine value in
the secular world. But these thinkers believed that the cultural dominance of
Protestantism on its own historic soil was waning. | |
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From the Renaissance onward and increasingly during the Enlightenment the
adherents of Protestantism saw their thought-world repeatedly challenged on
many fronts. During the 19th century, with the rise of industrialism and
urbanization, a changing world presented new problems to societies and cultures
shaped by traditional Protestantism. Meanwhile, ideologues, some of whom were
avowed "god-killers," rose up on Protestantism's territory to
challenge its deepest beliefs: the economic theorist Karl Marx, the
evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin, and the philosophical nihilist Friedrich
Nietzsche, to take only three examples, were thoroughly at home with the
Protestant experience and were able to use it as a foil to develop many of
their own views. | |
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In the 20th century Protestantism has become uncertain about its
"foreign mission" of expansion in a postcolonialist, anti-imperialist
world. The modern appreciation for values in non-Christian religions has led
many Protestants to adopt positive attitudes toward these at the expense of the
desire to extirpate or displace them with an expanding Protestantism.
Totalitarian forces, particularly in Nazi Germany, absorbed some Protestant
emphases and changed them beyond recognition, or they persecuted those
Protestants who radically opposed suppression. | |
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The attractions of modern life, secularization, and a crisis of faith all
have contributed to a general Protestant decline, beginning with a measurable
decrease in church membership, first on the Continent in the 19th century and
then in England around the turn of the century. Therefore, while huge
majorities of the population (as in Scandinavia and England) are baptized
members of established Protestant churches, only a small percentage of these
are attendants at worship services or responsive to the disciplines and
mandates of the church. Those who use church attendance and support of
ecclesiastical appeals as indicators of Protestant fortunes unite with those
who see that Protestant dogma no longer defines belief, and its divisions no
longer excite Western man--and then note the end of the Protestant era. | |
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On the other hand, Protestantism is deeply integrated into so many elements
of Western culture that it can be expected to continue to assert subtle
influence. It has experienced ebb and flow or revival and decline periodically
and now may be going through an extended period of decline. Yet even to speak
in these terms may betray a Western provincialism that does not do justice to
major trends. Countering all phenomena that elicit words about decline are at
least two forces. One is the strength of conservative and evangelistic forms of
Protestantism: Pentecostalism, Evangelicalism, and Fundamentalism. While
historical antecedents of these movements were often world-denying, sectarian,
and withdrawn, late 20th-century versions include men and women eager to shape
their surrounding culture. They give evidence that they may be doing so, or may
begin to do so, in forms that not many would have foreseen a few decades ago. | |
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The other compensatory force is the growth of Protestantism in sub-Saharan
Africa, Latin America, and many parts of Asia. Some of these new Protestant
churches have begun to take indigenous forms that have little to do with the
forms initially introduced by missionary forces and to witness far beyond
Protestantism's conventional Western bases. (M.E.M.) | |
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