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

by Gavin Ortlund

In another significant older text, Roman Catholic scholar Walter Burghardt writes, “The investigation of patristic documents might well lead the historian to the conclusion: In the first seven or eight centuries no trustworthy historical tradition on Mary’s corporeal Assumption is extant, especially in the West.”12

When Brian Daley asserts that “the fifth century was a time of meteoric rise for the figure of Mary,”14 we cannot help but wonder, where did the meteor come from?

In this way, the complete and unmitigated silence of the early and mid-patristic witness on Mary’s assumption in the context of lists of those believed to be bodily assumed to heaven undermines the plausibility of the idea of a commonly known oral tradition about Mary’s assumption. If such a belief was apostolic and known in the early church, it is scandalous that it would never be referenced by Tertullian, Irenaeus, Methodius, Origen, the Apostolic Constitutions, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine, etc., when their whole goal is to provide examples of who was bodily assumed to heaven.

The fact that the earliest attestation of the bodily assumption comes in a Gnostic text has led many scholars to conclude the assumption is a heterodox intrusion into mainstream Christianity.

All of this combines to make the notion of an oral tradition of Mary’s assumption within the early church, tracing back to the apostles, credible only if one exerts a kind of Herculean effort. Why should anyone accept Mary’s assumption as apostolic when it (1) is completely absent in the church for several centuries, even when one would expect it to come up (for example, in Epiphanius’s search, in lists of those bodily assumed, etc.), (2) seems to originate in heterodox contexts, like The Book of Mary’s Repose, (3) is recognized as tardy when it does finally arise, and (4) comes into view simultaneously with seemingly countless alternative accounts of Mary’s end? The bodily assumption of Mary gives every impression of being a postapostolic accretion that only gradually wormed its way into the piety and imagination of the church.

In this chapter we will uncover the shocking truth that the position anathematized as damnable heresy at an ecumenical council was, essentially, the universal position of the early church. Not only does the veneration of icons manifestly not date back to the first century, the only question is whether it originated in the sixth or seventh century.

“In the Orthodox Church an icon is a sacred image, a window into heaven. An image of another reality, of a person, time and place that is more real than here and now. More than art, icons have an important spiritual role.”8

Since God has taken on human flesh, revelation takes the forms of both word and image. Thus, icons play an essential role in the church, standing alongside Scripture as how God reveals himself to us: “the icon is placed on a level with the Holy Scripture and with the Cross, as one of the forms of revelation and knowledge of God, in which Divine and human will and action become blended.”9 This is why, in Orthodox thinking, the denial of icons is a denial of the truth of the Incarnation.

As God became human, salvation now consists in the opposite, that the human might become god (deification)—not by nature, but by grace.

The iconoclast claim that reverence towards images did not go back to the golden age of the fathers, still less to the apostles, would be judged by impartial historians today to be simply correct. The iconophile view of the history of Christian thought and devotion was virtually a denial of history.14

It was part of the religious common sense of the classical world that images of the gods could and should be made, some of which could and should be the focus of various cultic practices. For presumably many viewers, the cult statue was more than a simple representation, a reminder, a useful focusing tool for worship. Rather, it embodied or mediated the divine, making it in a way really present and therefore engaged with the ritual being performed with it. In short, the kind of idolatry condemned in the Old Testament was ubiquitous in the Roman world, and the Jewish and Christian rejection of it really did mark them off from the religious mainstream.23

aniconic (opposed to the use of images).

The primary concern of the early Christians was the cultic uses of images that were so ubiquitous in the surrounding pagan culture. Their wholesale rejection of such practices formed a distinctive point of contrast between early Christian worship and pagan religious practice.

In response, Origen argues that Christians have their own kinds of statues, altars, and temples, using these terms as metaphors for prayer, Christian virtues, and the Christian body.33

If the incarnation had introduced a change in how the second commandment applies, as John of Damascus would later argue, neither Tertullian nor any Christian in his day evidenced the slightest awareness of that fact.

He proceeds to scorn the practice of relating to a deity through a physical object, comparing it to seeking a human opinion by asking “asses and pigs” what should be done.

It is sometimes said that what the early Christians were opposing was simply the cult images among pagans, and thus did not apply to the appropriate use of images in worship among Christians. But this simply doesn’t square with the evidence. The practice of honoring images is itself regarded as pagan; whenever it is referenced in the early church, it is condemned as such.44 The consistent contrast was not between pagan use of images versus Christian use of images, but pagan use of images versus Christian rejection of images.

If Christians had their own cultic use of images in worship, they could have simply said that. They were perfectly capable of articulating, had they wished to do so, a distinction between bad (pagan) cultic use of images and good (Christian) cultic use of images. Instead, they said that Christians are “those who have rejected all images and statues” (Origen) and have “no acknowledged images” (Octavius) and that “there is no religion wherever there is an image” (Lactantius), and so forth. It is impossible to fathom that such statements could be made if in fact the early Christians were bowing down to images and praying through them to their prototype. It must be emphasized that there is no resistance to these criticisms of cultic images within the church in this period. These various statements we have surveyed generated no controversy. The rejection of cultic use of images is the unanimous, resounding testimony of the ante-Nicene church.

The fourth century was thus a time of seismic changes for the church as she adjusted to what James Breckenridge calls “the mountainous wave of new converts from idolatrous paganism following the Edict of Toleration.”45 At this time art and statuary dramatically increased in churches, and we see the first pictures of Christ and Mary and other saints. As Robin Jensen notes, “Iconic portraits of apostles, saints, and Christ mostly appeared only toward the end of the 4th century.”46 Although portraiture art was still rare and not yet used for veneration or prayer, now there was at least the possibility of new temptations that had been completely unthinkable in the ante-Nicene period.

Do we pray unto them, because through them we pray unto God? This is the chief cause of this insane profanity, that the figure resembling the living person, which induces men to worship it, hath more influence in the minds of these miserable persons, than the evident fact that it is not living, so that it ought to be despised by the living.54

However, it is important to emphasize again that the primary concern with images concerned their cultic use. For many Christians during these centuries, the usage of art for didactic or aesthetic purposes was perfectly acceptable.

Narrative images were never an evident problem and so were accepted from the beginning.

The process by which this practice came into being is not entirely clear, but may have involved the veneration of relics as an intermediate step.

How do we interpret the late arrival of icon veneration in church history? Some seek to present it as a “doctrinal development.” But doctrinal development is too often harnessed as a catchall solution for any contradiction, making the belief system in question essentially unfalsifiable.

The act of bowing down to images and praying through it is itself forbidden. Nowhere do we read: “Thou shalt not bow down to images—unless, of course, you are merely venerating them. Then it is fine!” There is not a single example of bowing down to images for any purpose that is portrayed positively in Scripture or the early church. The distinction between worship and veneration in this context is an innovation, later employed to justify a practice that had already come into being.

In actual practice, it is impossible to tell the difference between a person who is bowing before a nonliving object in veneration, and a person who is doing so in idolatrous worship. Imagine a man lying prostrate before a statue of Mary, praying for forgiveness. Or imagine a woman lighting candles and kneeling before an icon of her favorite saint, offering respect and seeking blessing and guidance through his intercessions. Would any Christian in the first five hundred years of church history, observing such activities, not conclude it was idolatry? In the heart of the person engaging in such activity, is it not easy for feelings of loyalty and hope and affection and trust to arise that should be reserved for God? Given the dire mentality of Scripture regarding idolatry, why are such practices not regarded with greater concern?

There is simply no biblical basis for icon veneration. Rather, it gives every appearance of being an intrusion of idolatry into the life of God’s people, as so often happens throughout redemptive history. Perhaps because it lacks any biblical foundation, icon veneration is often framed as an implication of the goodness of creation, as well as of incarnation. This has the rhetorical advantage of making the iconoclast concern sound like Gnosticism or an aversion to physicality.89 But it is a misdirection: Both sides fully agree on the goodness of creation and the nature of the incarnation. From neither of these principles does it logically follow that it is permissible to bow down to nonliving objects in an act of religious devotion.

This is not a case of doctrinal development, but doctrinal U-turn: The seventh ecumenical council reversed the view of the early church on the veneration of icons.

Unfortunately, traditions that consider Nicaea II to represent infallible teaching cannot reform its teaching. It is, by definition, irreformable. The Protestant tradition, by contrast, offers us a pathway of meaningful return to the practice and theology of the early church, as well as to that of later contexts like the Council of Frankfurt. It also allows us to obey the second commandment. Further, it obligates no anathemas. Therefore, it is the Protestant position on icon veneration that is not only deep in history, but biblical and catholic.

Protestantism is the most catholic and the most biblical of all the major streams of Christianity. For a Protestant need not believe in dogmas that seem obviously untruthful (like the assumption of Mary) or adhere to practices that seem obviously nonapostolic (like the veneration of icons)—but a Protestant also need not anathematize as unchristian those who inhabit traditions that do adhere to such beliefs and practices (the depth of Protestant concern about them notwithstanding).

The great, shining glory of Protestantism—that which stands out above all else, perhaps—is its radical focus on the simplicity of the gospel. Protestantism is relentlessly and structurally focused on the all-sufficiency of the person and work of Christ himself.

First, take your time. The issues that separate the different Christian traditions are complicated. There is no way to arrive at an adequate understanding of the major differences in a few weeks or months. It takes study, reflection, prayer, and a deeply existential investment in the search for truth—and there are no shortcuts for this process.

“When you are not sure what to do, don’t do anything.”

It is easy, especially in the context of a change, to study the professional theologians of another tradition while relying on your anecdotal experiences in your own tradition.

We must be careful not to assume that we understand the best arguments for a particular tradition just because we grew up in it. Consider this analogy: The fact that someone grew up in a democracy does not mean they understand the historical reasons why democracy came to be or the best arguments for why it is so valuable. So it is with churches.