Truth Unites - The "Identity Problem" of Protestantism

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

Sometimes Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians claim that Protestantism does not have a positive identity, or a core identity that unites all Protestants. Here I offer a response, drawing from the vision of Philip Schaff. Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

Sometimes people complain that Protestantism has a merely negative identity. It's only constituted by what it's against and not what it's for. Related to that, sometimes people argue that there's no common identity for the different Protestant traditions. There's nothing that they all agree upon except what they critique in the other traditions. And so in this video, I want to offer a response to those concerns. The first half will be my general response. The second half will then flesh that out. by looking at the vision of Protestantism in Philip Schaff, who is a 19th century Protestant historian.

And this will look at five principles of his definition of Protestantism as a way to kind of flesh out the principles that I'm giving and kind of give one historical articulation of this to show this isn't just something I'm making up, but this is a historic Protestant way of thinking. Now, I want to start by just acknowledging that it is true that a lot of Protestant identity is forged in response to what it perceives as errors. And that's just a matter of historical circumstance. And I want to acknowledge, and this will be a theme of this video actually, drawing from Shaft, that many Protestants have gone too far and do have too negative an identity. They're too critical, they're too sectarian, and they have drifted away from Catholicity, and they've lost any sense of Catholicity.

So, you know, that's really important for me to always try to acknowledge that. The purpose of truth unites is not merely to defend Protestantism. It's also to wherever I can encourage a healthier Protestantism. And so in this video, kind of in dialogue with Schaff, I want to offer a vision of what is this positive, enthusiastic affirmation at the core, the life principles of what gives Protestantism, its life, and its energy, and that can even stand hopefully as an invitation, and I hope a generous invitation to the non-Protestant traditions as well. And I would say, at the core, there are two principles, Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura, by faith alone, by the scripture alone. We could widen that out to just the five solas, but the other three aren't as

distinctive, and I like to put the focus upon these. So what you have here is a material concept, Sola Fide and a formal principle, Sola Scripura, that we believe were recovered at the Reformation, an emphasis upon how a sinner is actually translated into a status of righteousness before God through the finished work of Christ on the cross. We believe this is kind of at the heart of the gospel. This is very Pauline, this belief that it's not faith plus works that gets you justification per se. works are necessary, works flow out of a true faith, but the way you are translated into a status of righteousness is faith alone. And we think that's really important.

And that's a positive doctrine that we believe was recovered at the Reformation that we celebrate. But then also with that is the formal principle of Sola Scriptura. This is the more methodological aspect of the Reformation that we believe was recovered. And this is, you know, if you watch my videos, you know a theme of my videos is to protest unfair representations. of Soliscriptura that often happen even among Protestants. Soliscriptura is the doctrine that the Bible alone is the infallible rule for faith and practice for the church. I wish I could just say this over and over sometimes.

So people, I hope people may get tired of hearing me say this, but I say it a lot because I think it needs to be said, because if you listen to the discussion, you realize over and over with monotonous repetition, Soliscriptura is construed as a more ambitious doctrine than what it actually is. It's actually very modest. It is not saying that the Bible is the only authority for doctrine or source for doctrine. It's the only infallible rule. We're saying this is the only yardstick we have to measure things that will never err. It is not the only norm to which you submit and that is not the location where you find every doctrine. So, for example, if you believe that euthanasia is wrong and you're a Protestant, you don't have to find a verse for that. You could make a

case for that from natural law and from the realm of conscience. Similarly, so it's not the source for every doctrine. There's lots of things we believe we don't get from the Bible. It's also not the only authority. It's the only infallible authority. Not every authority is infallible. For example, the umpire at a baseball game has authority to call the pitch a ball or a strike. But he's not infallible. He can make mistakes. There's lots of fallible authorities. We would say creeds, councils, confessions are all authoritative, but they're fallible. My ordination vows are authoritative. Parents have authority. Government has authority. Conscience has authority. There's all kinds of authorities that are fallible. We just say the Bible is the only infallible

authority. So these are two positive identity markers at the core of Protestantism. We're proud of these. We believe they are biblical. We believe they are reasonable and modest. We believe they are edifying and good for the church. We believe they are not without historical precedent. We don't think they just came from, fell from the sky in the 16th century, as people often claim. In my videos, I've talked a lot about John Chrysostom, for example, on justification. His homilies on Romans, I think he's very clear, about as clear as you could hope someone could be, that it's not by faith plus works, rather it's by faith only that justification is received. Augustine, I've talked a lot about Augustine in his view of Soliscriptura, and I think he's as clear as you could hope someone

could be that it's the Bible alone that is infallible, all subsequent post-apostolic productions of the church of any kind, including the highest kinds of councils, plenary councils, are fallible. So we think these have historical precedent. So that's at the core. These two principles, this aspect of the gospel that we think got obscured throughout the medieval era and was then recovered, and this methodological principle of how you avoid a runaway ecclesiology, of how you keep the people of God accountable to the Word of God. I'll come back to that later because I know people don't agree with that. But now, there are other doctrines as well.

So these are just the like two central pillars. But there's other doctrines as well that are positive doctrines that unite virtually. all Protestants, belief in two sacraments, the priesthood of all believers, a shorter Old Testament canon, an emphasis upon preaching in worship, church discipline is one of the marks of the church, and so forth. You can find exceptions maybe here or there, but generally speaking, those are distinctive of all Protestants. And so the difference between Protestantism and the other traditions is not, as it's sometimes framed, as though Protestants are individualists who kind of do whatever they want. Not so. As a Protestant, you are required to affirm Protestant doctrines. And so if you don't

believe in Soloscriptura or Sola Fide, then you're not a Protestant. Or you'd be in some really eccentric position or something like that. And then within that, whatever particular Protestant tradition you're in will have further positive beliefs that are part of your positive identity as a Christian. So the difference is not whether we have required beliefs. The difference is simply how many. And the Protestant concern is that the dogmas and anathemas have stacked up so high in these other traditions, some more than others, that especially in Roman Catholicism, there's so many anathemas, that is that this has just gone way beyond what the apostles actually preached. Here's how C.S. Lewis put this concern in his essay, Christian reunion. He said,

to us, the terrible thing about Rome is the recklessness as we hold with which she has added to the deposit of faith. the tropical fertility, the proliferation of credenda. You see in Protestantism the faith dying out in a desert. We see in Rome the faith smothered in a jungle. I know no way of bridging this gulf. So in Protestantism, there's a smaller set of beliefs, but there's not no beliefs. The concern is how much has been put into that center of you have to believe this.

And we have concern about that. So what I want to do here is flesh out this positive, vision of Protestantism by drawing from Philip Schaff. I would say, I'd like to say that Shaft is to Protestantism, what Cardinal John Henry Newman is to Roman Catholicism. You'll see why, as we go, his vision of church history as this organic process of unfolding. Schaff was able to offer a vision of Protestantism that is inclusive and capacious and generous and ambitious enough to be worthy of allegiance, to be a kind of rallying point, to be winsome, to be not without, not with compromise, it's uncompromising, and yet it can offer real pathways forward,

possible pathways forward toward Catholicity, which I think is what we all want at our best. And I just, I think it's helpful to see someone like Shaft, even though I don't agree with Shaft on every detail, although I admire him tremendously, because many people have only seen more sectarian visions of what Protestantism is. They're simply not aware of people like Schaff. So let me put up a picture of him. He, as I mentioned, 19th century, a German theologian who came to the United States. He taught at Mercer'sburg, at German Reformed Theological Seminary there. He's often associated with the term Mercer'sburg theology, which is associated with both Schaff and his colleague John Nevin. I'll put up a picture of him as well. He's an incredible scholar of the early church

and church history more generally. He wrote an eight-volume history of the Christian Church. He was one of the supervisors of what, probably the standard collection of writings of the church fathers. He's kind of a pioneering type figure in patristics. I always think of people like Shaft as kind of a point that undermine through their very life, you know, the quip from John Henry Newman

that to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant. Or when people quote Ignatius, you know, people will, will, quote Ignatius, oh, Ignatius talks about bishops and he's got a high view of the Eucharist. Therefore, you should cease to be like this is that in and of itself as a problem for Protestantism or something. And it's just helpful to realize these like Protestant stalwarts that we stand on their shoulders. The only reason we can even read Ignatius as we do is because of Protestant scholars like James Usher, who identified the authentic letters of Ignatius or J.B. Lightfoot, who was the, he produced the first

definitive critical edition of writings of the Apostolic Fathers. And Schaff is one of these figures that we owe so much too. Well, Schaff and Nevin together also thought a great deal about what is Protestantism. What's the nature of Protestantism? How do you understand it? It's a really interesting question. This question of kind of identity, ecclesial identity. And the Mercer'sburg theology is one way you can, it's one Protestant option in the 19th century that is distinguishable from others. So Shaft is identifying this way of thinking about Protestantism as distinct from the Anglo-Catholic movement associated with Edward Pusey and Newman before he converted, and also from the old Princeton theologians like Charles Hodge. Schaff's way of thinking about Protestantism is certainly different

from many contemporary evangelicals today. What they argued, they drew their vision of the church out of the incarnation. And so they had a more organic vision of ecclesial transmission and progress, how the true church gets from point A to point B. What we all have to wrestle with is the church does change. Any question of identity has to deal with these questions. This is a metaphysical question, you know, questions of continuity and discontinuity. How does something remain the same even while it changes?

There's an old paradox. If you take like a metaphysics class in college, you'll talk about the, I think it was Perseus's ship where basically you take a ship in a harbor and one by one gradually over, I don't know, let's say 50 years, you replace every single part of the ship slowly so that after 50 years not one physical component of the ship remains, but it's all been done successively. Is it the same ship? It's one of getting into these difficult questions of how does something remain the same while also changing? Well, the same question comes up with the church. How does the church, and Shaft's vision, like Newman,

is of the church as this organic living entity. And Shaft and Nevin built a view of church history that is more generous, had a higher view of the sacraments, much more interesting and much more defensible, I think. So I've been giving, I read this once before, more briefly I read more carefully just recently is the principle of Protestantism. This is translated by Nevin. It's drawn from an 1845 lecture he gave when he was about 12. 25 years old, amazingly, the same year that Cardinal Newman converted to Catholicism.

So I often think of Shaft and Newman is they're great kind of figureheads for two different ways of construing things, because Shaft will talk a lot about doctrinal development, which he totally affirms. He just sees Protestantism as one of those developments. So let me articulate five principles of a kind of Schaffian view of Protestantism, or New Mercer'sburg vision of Protestantism. First is, for Schaff, Protestantism is able to affirm the good in the pre-Reformation Church and in the non-Protestant traditions. So before Protestantism and outside of Protestantism, God is at work, there are Christians, the Holy Spirit is active, and there is the church. The first chapter of this book treats the Reformation in what he calls

its retrospective aspect, and he defines that as it's Catholic. union with the previous history of the church. That's the chapter title. Here's how he starts off. We contemplate the Reformation in its historical conditions. It's Catholic union with the past. This is a vastly important point, which thousands in our day appear to overlook entirely. They see in the 31st of October 1517 it is true the birthday of the evangelical church and find her certificate of baptism in the 95 Theses of Luther. but at the same time cast a deep stain upon the legitimacy of this birth itself by separating it from right relation to the time that went before. In this way, all interest is renounced in the spiritual wealth of the Middle Ages, which however belongs to us of right, as fully at least as it does to the Church of Rome. Now, Shaft made it very clear. He's not calling for a return to Rome.

he regarded the modern church of Rome as having parted with Catholicity. He says they're moving away from Catholicity in their continued development. But he also denied that the present day Roman Catholic and other churches like Eastern Orthodox are completely out of the church. Elsewhere, he said, it is surely an intolerant and narrow imagination to regard the whole Roman and Greek communions so far exceeding us as they do in numbers as out of the church entirely. and only worthy, of course, to be blotted out of history altogether as a gigantic spiritual zero. So the mentality here is not Protestant rather than everything else that came before or everything else that is outside. They could just sweep off everything else off the table and Protestantism in its place.

Rather, he sees Protestantism as the renewal and culmination, and as we'll see, the sort of organic outgrowth of what is rumbling on before. And he cast the reformation as, he says it's a reformation, not a revolution, as in a violent overthrowing, or a restoration as in a mere repetition of what came before. So it's not Protestantism against the rest of the church, nor is it Protestantism as a return to some prior phase of the church. It's Protestantism as a renewal within the church. and as we'll say the organic outgrowth of what came before. So, you know, he speaks of medieval Christianity as the womb of the Reformation.

He talks about, I'll come back to that in a moment. Let me say one second principle that's very related. Shaft says, we are able to acknowledge the bad in Protestantism. He says, quote, respect for the Reformation as a divine work in no way forbids the admission that it included some mixture of error and sin, as where God builds a church, the devil erects a chapel by its side. So the idea is not that Protestantism came along and everything got fixed in the 16th century.

So he's very specific. He's willing to go through, you know, for example, he has a lot where he's talking about the Puritans. And he's saying he really admires the Puritans. He thinks God has used the Puritans, but he thinks in some respects they overreacted to the excesses of the other side and became overly strict and overly hard.

harsh. In the other direction, he criticizes the Oxford movement or the tractarians, the Anglo-Catholics, Edward Pusey, people like that, for being too close to Rome for not reforming enough, for being too rigid and stuck. He's especially critical of American Protestantism for becoming too sectarian, too individualistic, too sort of free-spirited. And Nevin, who wrote an introduction to the book and then translated the book, kind of expresses this as well. He talks about it. I would use the word overreaction to describe the concern here of what many, though not all, Protestants have done. An overreaction. He says, in any reform effort, you have to be so careful to not go too far in the other direction. You have to honor the good as well as reform the bad. He says, ecclesiasticism,

as held by Rome and also by Oxford. That's the Tractarians. Is indeed a terrible error, but it does not follow that the mere negation of ecclesiasticism is the truth. Another term that Shaft uses to describe this worry about an overreaction among many Protestants is subjectivity. Later in the book, Shaft says, as Catholicism toward the close of the Middle Ages settled into a character of hard, stiff objectivity, incompatible with the proper freedom of the individual subject,

so Protestantism has been carried aside in later times into the opposite error of a loose subjectivity, which threatens to subvert all regard for church authority. Then he goes on pages and pages in this book, railing against what he calls the diseases of modern Protestantism. He identifies two, rationalism and sectarianism. Now, it's just interesting. I mean, you could say reading this book that certainly,

I would say the energy shaft directs against Protestant errors is just as much as against non-Protestant errors. He's very concerned about this. At the same time, he is very clear, and Nevin is as well, that the principles for renewal of Protestant churches are within Protestantism itself. They don't think the answer is to go back to Rome or something like that. They think the resources for renewal toward Catholicity are within Protestant. In fact, Soliscriptura is the best pathway to that.

And they also make it clear that they think these Protestant errors are not, necessary or intrinsic to Protestantism. At one point, Schaff says, the sect system like rationalism is a prostitution and caricature of true Protestantism. But he's willing to say that many Protestants have gone too far in the other direction. And I just want to pause on this for a moment. If you're watching this video, tune in with me on this metaphor. I really want to try to be a voice where wherever we can move together, let's say there's a conflict, and you believe that the blame is 95% on the other side and 5% on your side. It is still totally appropriate to own and acknowledge that 5% even if it's 95 to 5, right? And so one of the things we need to do is Protestants,

if we're serious about the unity of the church, if we're serious about Catholicity, is consider where can we acknowledge errors that are either endemic to Protestantism or common temptations? So I've been thinking about that a lot in line with Shaft's vision. Let me give my metaphor. I've come up with this analogy. Suppose that a husband and wife get divorced later in life. They're married for 25 years. They raise kids.

They're empty nesters. And then they're late 50s or early 60s, they get divorced. and as a result of the divorce, it's very bad on both of them. Both are diminished as a result. The wife's house eventually starts kind of falling apart. The bushes near the sidewalk at the front of the house are poking way out into the sidewalk. You ever notice this going on? And so, you know, the husband used to trim them and she just, you know, the air conditioning filters haven't been cleaned in like seven years. Things get broken. They don't get fixed. The Her finances are not good.

She has no savings. Because her husband used to do that kind of stuff. And when you're married for 25 years, you don't learn how to do that. Similarly, the husband is socially awkward, and he doesn't, he's not a good dresser, and he doesn't know how to get gifts for people, and he forgets his grandkids' birthdays, and he's lonely. Both the husband and wife are diminished. Now, recognizing that both sides are worse off because of the split,

doesn't necessarily mean the blame is 50-50. The wife could say, conceivably, my husband was abusive, and I was justified in getting a divorce, but still, we've both gotten worse as a result. The husband could say, my wife had an affair, I was justified in getting a divorce, but we've both been diminished as a result of it. Similarly, the 16th century split that happened

has diminished every, everybody in various ways. A Protestant can say, protest against the claims of the Church of Rome was and is justified, but Protestants have also, in many cases, gone too far, and the overall big-picture net effect has been really bad for both sides. And therefore, coming back together to talk can be a way of enrichment, even where we don't change in or any of our theology. Let me, because some might worry about this.

Let me, I don't think this is compromised, though. Let me make another way of making the point between two Protestant churches. Another way of making a similar point. So it's not the Protestant versus Catholic thing anymore. This is another angle to see the same thing that learning and acknowledgement are not compromised. So imagine two Protestant churches in the same town. One of them is a very high church, liturgical, historically deep church. The other is very low church.

Let's just say, I mean, let's just say it. You know, one is a non-denom, and one is like an Anglican or Lutheran church. And the, now, each church has some strengths. Each church has weaknesses. The temptation of our flesh would be for each church to look at the other and see all their weaknesses, because it's so easy to see their weaknesses, because that's the things we're good at. The low church, the non-denominational church, could look at this high church and say, wow,

they're not very accessible. People come in and have no idea. It's not easy for outsiders to come in. They don't seem as passionate about evangelism. They're not as accessible. They're not having as big of an impact. Maybe they're right about that particular church. So I have to say, I don't want someone to react against this.

I'm not saying this is always how it plays out. But this is one scenario that's realistic. The other church can look down at this non-denominational church and say, wow, they're kind of shallow. So they have lots of people who get baptized and become Christians at this church, but they're not getting catechized as well. They're not being brought into the depths of the faith very much. And there's a lot of dysfunction that results from that. Now, don't read too much into this.

Again, you can have a lot of churches that are very low church that are very deep, and a lot of churches that are very high church that are very dynamic and evangelistic. It's not necessary. But you can understand, hopefully, this is a common scenario. The temptation will be for the low church to look up and say, wow, they do not care about evangelism. And this church to look down here and say, wow, they are so shallow. But what if instead, and wouldn't it be better for Christendom, if each said, what can we learn? We know they make mistakes. We're not tempted toward those mistakes.

There's no point in just piling on. What do they do better that we can learn from? And each would be enriched by the ability to ask that question, at least in addition to the expression of concern. I think a Shafian vision of Protestantism is able to do that with Protestantism and the non-Protestant traditions. Protestants should be humble and should be willing to learn and see ourselves in the mirror and see, wow, there's things we can learn from these other traditions. Also, we can grieve the separations. For example, we might celebrate the doctrinal recoveries that led to the divisions while still lamenting the fact that the divisions themselves are not good. and Shaft is very strong in saying the sectarian spirit in Protestantism that has continued on,

you know, thinking of in the divorce analogy, the husband and wife are both diminished. Protestants have gotten too sectarian. We have gotten too divided. We've lost many, have lost an appreciation for Catholicity. And in his concern about that, Shaft is very pointed. He says, to the man who has any right idea of the church as the communion of saints, This state of things, that is sectarianism, must be a source of deep distress. The loss of all his earthly possessions, the death of his dearest friend, however severely felt,

would be as nothing to him compared with the grief he feels for such division and distraction of the Church of God, the body of Jesus Christ. Not for the price of the whole world with all its treasures could he be induced to appear as the founder of a new sect. That is at the heart of the Protestant spirit at its best. trying to start a new church. There's a protest and there's an expression of concern and unfortunately that has resulted in this massive division, but it's not because there's a desire to start a new church. That's not the thinking, that's not the desire that was not Luther's

heart or mentality or thinking that was not Calvin's, though that is common in many modern-day Protestants. Shaft's vision of Protestantism is able to just acknowledge that and not feel threatened by acknowledging, just put it on the table, say, we got to deal with this. This is a real problem. But the solution is not to leave Protestantism. Okay, that leads to the third point. In Shaft's vision of Protestantism, the glory and strength of Protestantism is as a renewal movement, a kind of dynamic force that is unfolding. It's a more organic vision of church history. This is what I was mentioning earlier. I said I'd come back to. Now, he casts this in Hagellian terms, in terms of, you know, thesis, antithesis, synthesis, and this kind of thing.

But it's not wedded to that, the broader principles. So the idea here is, think of Protestantism as a train that is moving, not a house that is stable or stationary. Protestantism is on route, not arrived. He says Christianity, we say, is organic. This implies, in the nature of the case, development, evolution, progress. He says elsewhere, the church, not less than any of its members has its periods of infancy, youth, manhood, and old age. You can see the comparisons

with Newman, of course. Now, he clarifies he's not, this is not a negation of absolute truth. It's a statement about how the church works itself out in real time. He is not saying the gospel changes. He is not saying the truth changes. He's saying, as the people of God, our life in and understanding of the gospel develops. And he's saying Protestantism is a development in the church's understanding of the gospel. He says Protestantism is the principle of movement of progress in the history of the church. He even identifies Protestantism as something that in a sense predates the 16th century. So he can have sentences like this. Protestantism runs through the entire history of the church and will not cease till she is purged completely

from all ungodly elements. So the key idea here is, and you may not agree with exactly how he's wording that. You know, that is kind of eccentric language at best there. But get the idea here. He's saying Protestantism isn't complete. It is incomplete. Nevin says that if you think Protestantism is complete, you lose your basis for being a Protestant. He says the present state of Protestantism is interimistic. So that's a fun word. Think of the noun interim, something in between. Okay? Interimistic is the adjective of that. Protestantism is intermistic in its present state. In other words, I think what they're trying to say is, we shouldn't look around and say, fantastic, the 16th century reformation happened, now we're all set,

all is well, we're good. Rather, they're saying this protest is a part of a process that continues to unfold unto the end of truth and Catholicity and renewal in the vitality of the gospel. By the way, I'm working on my book right now, thanks to those of you praying for me on that. I thought of a changed title. I'm going to hopefully change the title if the publisher is good with this one. Why Protestantism Makes Sense, and then subtitle, the case for a reforming church. I love that phrase, even though it's less common. I still hope they'll let me use that because a reforming church, that's a great way to get at the essence of Protestantism.

So fourth principle of shaft. What was that renewal? What is that dynamic force? What is this force being unleashed? Well, this is where he goes to Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura as these two principles, the life principles of Protestantism. You know, you've got a material concept contained within the apostolic deposit that had been kind of corroded and glossed over and obscured by the treasury of merit and indulgences and purgatory and the financial abuses and all these

terrible things going on in the medieval Christianity. And then you've got this formal principle by which we remain accountable to that apostolic deposit. Okay. That, That's the nerve center. That's the recovery. That's why Protestantism is an organic development. And so, you know, what the point here is that this is a, this Protestantism has a positive energy, not a negative energy, because of these two affirmations. On justification, he has a lot going through justification. And he's basically saying, you know, what happened in Martin Luther's life when he saw Romans 117 for what it was was a good thing. from the Holy Spirit. He had a breakthrough out of the legalism and superstition and financial manipulation that had come to predominate, and he understood the heart of God for us in the gospel, the free grace of God given to us in the gospel. Now I know that Catholics will want to be

defensive and say, oh, but we believe that too and so forth. But, you know, you could say that and still recognize what I'm saying right now, which is that there's a recovery in the 16th century because things did get bad in the medieval age. And a recovery of assurance of salvation, a recovery of peace of conscience that came back to the laity. And he talks a lot about how that doesn't remove the need for good works. Similarly, with Sola Scriptura, he says, the church recovered an accountability system

by which she could remain under the Word of God. The people of God remain under the Word of God. Of course, Catholics desire for that as well. But Schaff is saying there's a purpose. profession of that at the Council of Trent, where you've got scripture and tradition together as equally comprising the Word of God and the Magisterium and the role of interpreting those. But he says, in actual practice, the scriptures fall behind tradition, as in the case of the material principle, faith falls behind works. Later on, he says, the whole tendency of the Roman Catholic

Church has for its object to subordinate the Bible to tradition, and then to make itself the infallible judge of both, with power to determine at pleasure. what is God's Word and the doctrine of the Church and to anathematize everything that may go beyond its past decisions. And I think, you know, that that's the concern that he has, and I would have as well, that in actual practice, it's the Magisterium that's in the driver's seat, not the Word of God. And that's why you have, you know, I've just done videos on the bodily assumption of Mary and other doctrines. Indulgences in the Treasury of Merit, I just mentioned. I think indulgences in the Treasury of Merit are medieval. they're not even patristic. I think they're medieval.

But, so I don't think there is a real, actual accountability to the Word of God, because you've got all these later developments that get cemented in. So that's his concern. And Schaff addresses all the stock retorts, like, you need an infallible teaching office to discern the canon. He has lots of great responses on all those things. Fifth, and finally, drawing from all of that, Schaff's vision of Protestantism is therefore both uncompromising and yet generous. And it's sort of, to me, a point of a rallying cry of how to move forward within Christendom. One of his theseses in his general summary says,

we may not in the first place surrender anything essential of the positive acquisition secured by the Reformation. So he's saying there's no compromise. We don't budge an inch on Sola Fide or Sola Scripura, but he's also generous. And he's also saying this is where we can come back together. Toward Catholics, he's very generous. He says, we may not exclude the Romanists themselves. Let them go on to treat us as lost heretics. We must still return good for evil. He goes on to say, why not hope for another reformation?

Why not hope for a second reformation within this vast communion that we call the Roman Catholic Church? Not only that, he says we need Catholics. We need to learn from Catholics. He even goes further than I bet many people watching this video would be comfortable with at one point saying, Protestantism cannot be consummated without Catholicism. I think the point is he's saying there that the Reformation will remain unfinished until there is reunion in the truth. Now, a lot of people would just say, criticize him immediately.

But let me just say, look, before you go too far in the other direction, can we appreciate what he's reacting against there, that a lot of Protestants have this mentality of, okay, yeah, we've separated from the Church of Rome, There's all these other divisions that happened before that separation. And so we just kind of hang out in our little Protestant group. And meanwhile, we're dividing with lots of other Protestants. And there's not even a prayer for or a desire of reunion of any kind. There really isn't a desire for Catholicity.

That's too low a value for many Protestants. I think that's what was driving shaft. I think it's helpful just to see his vision. So let me give you a final quote. He's one of the most interesting and pointed moments in the book. He's saying that the needs now in the 19th century are different than they were in the 16th century. And he's basically saying the problem of sectarianism is a bigger problem for us Protestants than the threat of Rome. And he says, Romanism has already drawn and continues to draw still its principal advantage from the pseudo-Protestant sect system as well as from rationalism.

its recent show of new life and power finds here precisely its proper explanation. If then we would contend successfully with Romanism, we must first labor to put away from ourselves the occasions that now lay us open so broadly to its attacks. And then he's making this appeal of let's pursue unity, Catholicity. Now, whatever you think about all of that, I think it's helpful for people to be aware of these historical Protestant visions. Because a lot of people think that a more sectarian Protestant posture is just simply the only way to be Protestant. And I don't think that is.

And I think there's ways, whether you agree with a shaft on every detail or not, there's ways of envisioning Protestantism that are more inclusive and lowercase C Catholic. I think it's really helpful to see that. So hopefully what we've seen in this video is Protestantism does have a common and positive identity. It does have beliefs that are positive celebratory affirmations and that do unite all. or virtually all Protestants. And then drawing from Shaft, when we articulate a positive vision of Protestantism, it's able to be more of a rallying point for going forward. So the five things I've said here is it's more inclusive.

It's not sweeping away everything outside Protestantism. It's more self-critical. It's able to acknowledge the bad in Protestantism. It's more dynamic. It's something that's developing. It's more specific. It has a positive doctrinal concept. and it's more generous.

And I think for those reasons, those who would say Protestantism has no positive identity need to reckon with people like Shaft. And my final appeal would just be to say there is a way to be Protestant for Catholicity, Protestant for the church. And a lot of us, when we look at the more exclusivistic claims of the other non-Protestant traditions, and then all of what we regard as accretions and add-ons that have come about, and we look at the sectarian nature of much Protestantism over here. A lot of us are in line, I am, with the basic heartbeat of Shaft, trying to say, hey, the husband and the wife are both diminished. They've gone too far over there.

They've gone too far over there. We need to pursue something that is healthier. We need to see the weaknesses on both sides, whatever side you're on. You need to have a humble heart to listen to this. the other side. And there needs to be more coming back together. And I believe the best way to do that is within Protestantism for some of the reasons we've gone through in this video. All right, hopefully that's helpful. If nothing else, it's food for thought, you know. And hopefully for those of

us who myself hunger for as much unity as is possible. Unity must be based in truth. We are not interested in unity apart from truth. It must be in Jesus Christ without doctrinal compromise. We want to have as much unity as possible. And for those of us who hunger for that, I think someone like Shaft is someone that's really helpful to engage with. So I encourage you to pick up the book. I'll put a link in the video description. Let me know what you think in the comments.

We'd love to hear your thoughts. Thanks for watching everybody. God bless you.