McAtee Dissects Leithart’s Call For Protestantism’s Burial

Recently, the Cambridge learned Rev. Dr. Peter Liethart opined over at first things,

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2013/11/the-end-of-protestantism

that Protestantism is over.

I am taking the opportunity to poke some holes in his thesis.

The Reformation isn’t over. But Protestantism is, or should be.

Leithart is a Master at linguistic deception. Here he tells us that the Reformation lives on while Protestantism is dead and yet the Protestantism he describes in his article sounds a good deal more like your average epistemically self conscious Reformed congregation then it does the Methodists, Nazarenes, Lutherans and Independent Baptists I know of. So, while Leithart says we need to throw the dirt on dead Protestantism, the corpse he describes as dead reads to be a description, in many respects, of historic Reformed theology.

Peter J. Leithart (PJL) writes,

When I studied at Cambridge, I discovered that English Evangelicals define themselves over against the Church of England. Whatever the C of E is, they ain’t. What I’m calling “Protestantism” does the same with Roman Catholicism. Protestantism is a negative theology; a Protestant is a not-Catholic. Whatever Catholics say or do, the Protestant does and says as close to the opposite as he can.

Dr. Leithart claims that Protestants define themselves as “not Catholic” and yet I find most of Protestantism has a great deal in common with Roman Catholics. Rome teaches a Universal Atonement, so does most of Protestantism. Rome teaches justification by faith plus works. So does most of Protestantism. Rome denies irresistible grace and unconditional election and total depravity. So do the Wesleyans, many many Baptists, most modern Congregationalists, as does your garden variety Pentecostal. What JPL should be arguing is not that Protestantism needs to be buried but that Protestantism embrace its inner Roman Catholic self. It is not a burial that is needed in terms of Protestantism but a marriage. Those are much more fun to market.

However, if we posit that there is some linguistic deception going on here then what we read PJL advocating is the burial of the epistemologically self conscious Reformed Church. It is that Church which understands that its worldview and identity stands in contrast to both Roman Catholicism and to contemporary Protestantism.

PJL writes,

Mainline churches are nearly bereft of “Protestants.” If you want to spot one these days, your best bet is to visit the local Baptist or Bible church, though you can find plenty of Protestants among conservative Presbyterians too.

Protestantism ought to give way to Reformational catholicism. Like a Protestant, a Reformational catholic rejects papal claims, refuses to venerate the Host, and doesn’t pray to Mary or the saints; he insists that salvation is a sheer gift of God received by faith and confesses that all tradition must be judged by Scripture, the Spirit’s voice in the conversation that is the Church.

Bret responds,

PJL’s Reformational Catholicism sounds a great deal like just garden variety Reformed thinking except for the conspicuous absence of the nasty word “alone.” It is true we Reformed people don’t do Papal claims, host veneration, or Mary and Saint praying, but what we Reformed people do do when we talk about salvation as a gift of God is that we do say it is received by faith alone. We also insist that also say that all tradition must be judged by Scripture alone. When Dr. Leithart loses these “alones” we Reformed types — those very chaps that Dr. Leithart insists need to be buried — begin to smell a Papist in the woodpile.

In these “alones” is the difference between both the Reformed Faith and Roman Catholicism and the Reformed Faith and the Reformational Catholicism that PJL is championing in his First Things piece.

When PJL suggests that “all tradition must be judged by Scripture” and then seemingly describes Scripture as “the Spirit’s voice in the conversation that is the Church” all kinds of red lights go off and bells start ringing. First of all as sons of the Reformation we insist that all tradition must be judged by Scripture alone and we have always been suspicious about “the Spirit’s voice in the conversation that is the Church” because one of our founders spoke about how Pope’s and councils can err. Our understanding of the Church is that it is ministerial in these matters and not magisterial. Perhaps that is what PJL intended. Perhaps it isn’t. Either way the absence of those “alones” makes us about to be buried corpses nervous.

PJL wrote,

Though it agrees with the original Protestant protest, Reformational catholicism is defined as much by the things it shares with Roman Catholicism as by its differences. Its existence is not bound up with finding flaws in Roman Catholicism. While he’s at it, the Reformational catholic might as well claim the upper-case “C.” Why should the Roman see have a monopoly on capitalization?

A Protestant exaggerates his distance from Roman Catholicism on every point of theology and practice, and is skeptical of Roman Catholics who say that they believe in salvation by grace. A Reformational Catholic cheerfully acknowledges that he shares creeds with Roman Catholics, and he welcomes reforms and reformulations as hopeful signs that we might at last stake out common ground beyond the barricades. (Protestants also exaggerate differences from one another, but that’s a story for another day.)

A Protestant believes (old-fashioned) Roman Catholic claims about its changeless stability. A Reformational Catholic knows that the Roman Catholicism has changed and is changing.

Bret responds,

I quite agree with PJL that the Reformed faith is the alone Catholic faith. I also agree that we share some words, creeds and concepts with Roman Catholicism. However, I must insist that as those shared words, creeds, and concepts like it distinctly different worldviews (Augustinian vs. Pelagian) that those shared words, creeds, and concepts end up having diametrically different meanings.

And yes it is true that we are skeptical of both Protestant (for example, Free Methodist, Church of God — Cleveland Tn., Assembly of God, etc.) claims to salvation by grace and Roman Catholic claims to salvation by grace. A denial of the doctrines of Grace as well as a denial of the “Solas” lead us to being skeptical because in claims to salvation by grace we always find salvation by not grace. So, again, the burial that PJL is looking for is not the burial of Protestantism but the burial of the Reformed Church.

PJL wants to get beyond the barricades but until we can agree on those “alones” the barricades will remain. To give up those alones as being absolutely necessary is to give up our reason for existence. It is to give up everything. It is to be buried.

PJL writes,

Some Protestants don’t view Roman Catholics as Christians, and won’t acknowledge the Roman Catholic Church as a true church. A Reformational Catholic regards Catholics as brothers, and regrets the need to modify that brotherhood as “separated.” To a Reformational Catholic, it’s blindingly obvious that there’s a billion-member Church of Jesus Christ centered in Rome. Because it regards the Roman Catholic Church as barely Christian, Protestantism leaves Roman Catholicism to its own devices. “They” had a pedophilia scandal, and “they” have a controversial pope. A Reformational Catholic recognizes that turmoil in the Roman Catholic Church is turmoil in his own family.

Bret responds,

I absolutely insist that many Roman Catholics are Christian. At the same time I equally insist that Roman Catholicism, as expressed in the Council of Trent is not Christianity. Rome, with its council of Trent likewise anathematizes me. Oddly enough, though I agree with PJL that a scandal in the Roman Church hurts us all but only because Joe Sixpack doesn’t distinguish between Roman Catholic Churches and Protestant Churches today.

PJL seems to suggest that all because 1 billion Roman Catholics exist therefore they must be a Church. Has it really gotten to the point that counting noses determines what is and isn’t a church? Mormonism has 14 million members and insist that they are part of the Church. Should we include them as well? Mormons talk about Jesus. They talk about sin. They use much of the same language. Why not include them?

PJL writes,

A Protestant views the Church as an instrument for individual salvation. A Reformational Catholic believes salvation is inherently social.

A Protestant’s heroes are Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and their heirs. If he acknowledges any ancestry before the Reformation, they are proto-Protestants like Hus and Wycliffe. A Reformational Catholic gratefully receives the history of the entire Church as his history, and, along with the Reformers, he honors Augustine and Gregory the Great and the Cappadocians, Alcuin and Rabanus Maurus, Thomas and Bonaventure, Dominic and Francis and Dante, Ignatius and Teresa of Avila, Chesterton, de Lubac and Congar as fathers, brothers, and sisters. A Reformational Catholic knows some of his ancestors were deeply flawed but won’t delete them from the family tree. He knows every family has its embarrassments.

Now, we have an agreement with PJL. Protestantism is hopelessly atomistic. However, I don’t need to go to the artificially re-imagined Reformational Catholicism to find covenantal (social) categories of salvation. I only have to look to the Reformers. The whole individualistic thing marks Protestantism as being different from both Roman Catholicism and Reformed covenantalism. I would welcome the burial of datable conversion, decisional regeneration, walking the sawdust trail, the mourners seat, that “askingJesusintoyourheart” Protestantism. But I can do that without embracing PJL’s Reformational Catholicism.

I have learned from many of the names cited by PJL, however, I think we must be careful who we include and how we include people in that list. Will we also include the Borgia Popes, Tomás de Torquemada, Pope Leo X, Bloody Mary, Mary Queen of Scots, Cardinal Reginald Pole, House of Valois or any number of other “Christian” villains of Church History?

PJL writes,

Protestants are suspicious of a public, “Constantinian” church. While acknowledging the temptations of power, a Reformational Catholic views public witness as an expression of the Church’s mission to the nations.

A Protestant mocks patristic and medieval biblical interpretation and finds safety in grammatical-historical exegesis. A Reformational Catholic revels in the riches, even while he puzzles over the oddities, of Augustine and Origen, Bernard and Bede. He knows there are unplumbed depths in Scripture, never dreamt of by Luther and Calvin.

Bret responds,

Constantinianism is an inescapable category. All nations are formed with implicit or explicit State churches. The Crown and the Mitre always walk together. Most Protestants and many Reformed are too dull to understand that.

PJL argues for a maximalist hermeneutic. But how maximalist shall we go and how shall we know when Alexandrian hermeneutics have gone to far?

I agree that the pseudo scientific historical-grammatical hermeneutic is sometimes insufficient but we better know the dangers of other approaches before we go to them. I’ve read some of Leithart’s family members hermeneutics and it is a Alice in Wonderland experience all over again.
blockquote>PJL writes

A Protestant is indifferent or hostile to liturgical forms, ornamentation in worship, and sacraments, because that’s what Catholics do. Reformational Catholicism’s piety is communal and sacramental, and its worship follows historic liturgical patterns. A Protestant wears a jacket and tie, or a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, to lead worship; a Reformational Catholic is vested in cassock and stole. To a Protestant, a sacrament is an aid to memory. A Reformational Catholic believes that Jesus baptizes and gives himself as food to the faithful, and doesn’t avoid speaking of “Eucharist” or “Mass” just because Roman Catholics use those words.

This is where PJL gets kind of creepy. To a Reformed person this all sounds like smells and bells religion. PJL insist that it is an aid to memory but how many Roman Catholics can tell you what the incense at a Roman Catholic funeral is supposed to do to the memory? The Reformed have always centered on the clarity of the Word. This doesn’t mean that high liturgy is necessarily evil but it does mean that high liturgy better be overshadowed by the centrality of the spoken Word. If Reformational Catholicism is going to take us off the centrality of the Word then Reformational Catholicism can keep re-imagining the Reformation all it wants.

PJL writes,

Protestantism has had a good run. It remade Europe and made America. It inspired global missions, soup kitchens, church plants, and colleges in the four corners of the earth. But the world and the Church have changed, and Protestantism isn’t what the Church, including Protestants themselves, needs today. It’s time to turn the protest against Protestantism and to envision a new way of being heirs of the Reformation, a new way that happens to conform to the original Catholic vision of the Reformers.

Bret responds,

Here we get to the nub of what Peter is about. Peter wants to rethink, re-articulate, and re-apply the Reformation. He says it is about Protestantism but it really isn’t about Protestantism except in a very minor way. It really is about those blasted Reformed Churches that won’t go along with all his high worship, alone-less Christianity, and the non Roman Catholic friendly opposition. I quite agree that Protestantism needs buried but I would say it needs buried because it has to much in common with Reformational Catholicism which has to much in common with Roman Catholicism.

Perhaps Peter sees the mounting opposition to the Church in the public square in the various shades of humanism that is pressing down on us and so thinks that a new coalition has to be built to stop that. As such, he is willing to give up many of the central tenants of the Reformation in order to build that new coalition. Even if he succeeds he will fail if that is the case.

Reformational Catholicism, as championed by PJL has to many jagged un-tucked in corners in order to make a cohesive worldview. It may be the case that it will draw many people in but its incoherence combined with the fact that it does not correspond with reality will assure that it never becomes what the Reformation was and continues to be.