What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church

by Gavin Ortlund

Suppose there is a married couple who, after decades of marriage, while the husband and wife are both around sixty, get a divorce. In the following years, both sides are diminished. The wife’s house starts to fall apart slowly. The bushes in the front yard are poking way out into the sidewalk, the air conditioning filters have not been cleaned or replaced in many years, various appliances break down and don’t get fixed, and so forth. Also, her finances are in bad shape. She has no savings. The husband, by contrast, is socially awkward. He is a bad dresser. He has no idea how to get gifts for people. He forgets the grandkids’ birthdays. He’s lonely. Recognizing that both sides are diminished by the split doesn’t necessarily entail that the blame must be 50/50 or that separation was unjustified. The husband could have been abusive, justifying his wife’s departure; or the wife could have been unfaithful, justifying the husband’s departure—while both sides would still be ultimately diminished by the resulting split. Similarly, a Protestant today can maintain that the Reformation was and is justified while also acknowledging various unfortunate tendencies that have characterized much of Protestantism in its overall development and current state. This is actually quite common amid conflict and breakups, when you think about it. In any kind of relational or institutional rupture, it is rare to find that either party is completely unfazed by the incident—including the party that w...