What I Am Protestant

Below is a letter I wrote to a friend on December 6, 2005. I came across it today and thought that its content was still relevant, so I publish it here for anyone else interested:

Dear Paul,

I felt particularly riled up after tonight's theological discussion. But the limitations of time and of extemporaneous speech's clarity kept me from responding in full. However, something you said (thought I do not actually remember the trigger) made me realize that my catholic sympathies might have unwittingly communicated that my protestant convictions were not deeply felt. So I want to write this letter in an attempt clarify my position better than I could through dialog in a moving car.

I have not systematized what I think are the crucial difference in our viewpoint. So what follows is not intended to be systematic or exhaustive but rather a few points at which I notice several difference clustering together. Also, since our ecclesiology sharply diverges, please note that whenever I say Invisible Church, I mean the set of all genuine disciples of Jesus, regardless of external affiliation, and whenever I say Church I mean the set of all people claiming some affiliation with Jesus regardless of actual conversion or external affiliation.

The Meaning of Reformation

When we talked on the phone, I merely had time to introduce a topic, namely, the gradual restoration of sound doctrine. I assert that the Church very early on began to succumb to corruption, both in teaching and in praxis. Paul prophesied, I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them (Acts 20:29-30). While persecution was still around as a purifying force, the disease was not pernicious. However, as soon as Constantine legalized Christianity, the Church headed to Hell in a handbasket. It took until the Reformation for people en masse to start to realize the errors that entered the Church. But even then, the realization has been gradual, sputtering, and littered with misapplication. Luther and Calvin rediscovered alot of things, but they over-reacted in some areas and under-reacted in others. Furthermore, the rediscovered truths are frequently lost again in a later generation. A good example of this is the Bible in the vernacular language. The medieval error was that the Bible legally should only be in Latin. Fortunately, Luther resisted this lie and translated the Bible into German. (Tyndale did this for the English-speaking people in the 16th century, but was burned at the stake for the offense.) However, now it is a trademark of Fundamentalist Christians to claim the King James Bible as the only authentic translation. These thoroughly Protestant Christians have chosen to embrace the lie again and require their followers to read (and not understand) a translation whose language was vernacular 394 years ago. This phenomenon recurs over and over in the Church. As far as I can tell, it is the playing out of what Paul said in Ephesians 4:11-16:

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

By saying these things, Paul admits that the Church is immature, susceptible to errors. However, there is a glorious until. He gives us the hope that at some point in the future, the Church will mature and escape her cycle of losing sound doctrine. At that time, after He has thoroughly cleansed her by His Word, Jesus will be able to present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. (Ephesians 5:27). I posit that this process of purification, for some unknown sovereign reason, lay essentially dormant for 1200 years, plunging Europe into the Dark Ages, but was restarted again during the Reformation. The process continues to this day. 1739 was when John Wesley realized that ordination by a bishop was not a requirement to preach the gospel. 1903 was a major year when people started moving the Holy Spirit from being merely a point of doctrine to being an experienced person. I'm not a particular student of history, so I cannot enumerate the major milestones. But this gradual progression will continue until Christ returns: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12) and Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure (1 John 3:2-3).

With this in mind, when I read these word's in the Catechism, I feel sadness that the people in communion with the Bishop of Rome have because of a false sense of security tolerated significant error:

It is this Magisterium's task to preserve God's people from deviations and defections and to guarantee them the objective possibility of professing the true faith without error. Thus, the pastoral duty of the Magisterium is aimed at seeing to it that the People of God abides in the truth that liberates. To fulfill this service, Christ endowed the Church's shepherds with the charism of infallibility in matters of faith and morals. (890)