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

by Gavin Ortlund

This simply means that the ultimate ground on which we receive the Scripture is inherent in it, rather than external to it. For there is no higher authority the Word of God could rest upon than the Spirit speaking through it. If you think you do have to possess infallibility to discern infallibility, you have a continual regress, because now you need infallibility to receive and interpret the infallible teachings of your church.

Of course particular local churches would receive and obey apostolic traditions in the first century (as well as apostolic teaching in other forms). That would be true for every first-century apostolic church. This happened during the apostolic era, while Scripture was still being written. These traditions do not exist as an infallible rule for the church today—

Furthermore, while erroneous private judgment is a real danger, another danger is far worse: erroneous ecclesiastical judgments. It is one thing to be able to err; it is another to be yoked to error. This is what sola Scriptura seeks to guard against.

Democracy is clumsy, but it’s better than tyranny. And for Protestants, it is nothing less than tyranny when churches require belief in indulgences, or the assumption of Mary, or the veneration of icons, or many other points of doctrine that we have no reason to believe are apostolic.

Protestants require specific beliefs as well. Bad shot from Ortlund.

This is why biblical arguments for the papacy typically focus on Peter, not the idea of an ongoing Petrine office. In so doing, they assume succession rather than trying to establish it. But this is problematic. Peter’s office as an apostle was unique. The idea of a successive office stemming from Peter and imbued with his authority cannot merely be asserted. It needs to be demonstrated.

All the way in the seventh century, Isidore of Seville similarly claimed, “the other apostles also became equal sharers with Peter in honor and authority.”6 This view was not rare: I regard it as close to a consensus among the church fathers that the other apostles did not relate to Peter as one possessing greater authority over them and to whom they were subject.

Now, to be clear, the early Roman church did enjoy a kind of primacy. Rome was the capital of the Empire, it was the place of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul, and the early Roman church was a flagship church and bastion of orthodoxy for several centuries. So it’s not hard to go back and find positive statements about the primacy, stature, and significance of Rome and her bishops. The problem is that primacy doesn’t necessarily entail supremacy and infallibility, the specific qualities Vatican I asserted were characteristic of church history. Yet people stretch the data to make it seem like it does.

Papal infallibility is generally seen as explicitly emerging only in the thirteenth century, and even then, it remains enormously controversial for several centuries (such that it was not adopted at the Council of Trent).

People often try to find examples of papal infallibility earlier in church history, but such efforts typically conflate infallibility per se with other qualities like papal indefectibility (i.e., not being subject to failure or flaw), papal immunity (i.e., not being subject to judgment from temporal authorities), or the general centrality, necessity, or importance of the bishop of Rome. But these are all distinct categories. For example, preservation from error in teaching is not the same as preservation from death or protection from the judgment of temporal authorities. There are also frequent conflations of personal versus ecclesial infallibility and/or infallibility in the preservation of tradition versus infallibility in the promulgation of dogma. But again, these are clearly distinct. The idea that one man can infallibly pronounce a dogma simply isn’t present in the first millennium of church history.

Back in the year 1868, the Anglican scholar J. B. Lightfoot (who was himself a bishop) opened his discussion of Philippians 1:1 with the acknowledgement, “It is a fact now generally recognized by theologians of all shades of opinion, that in the language of the New Testament the same office in the Church is called indifferently ‘bishop’ (episkopos) and ‘elder’ or ‘presbyter’ (presbyteros).”6

Sullivan is by no means unusual in articulating this view. Even those who defend episcopal church government typically argue that it is a gradual development guided by the Holy Spirit, not a structure extending back to the apostles. For example, the Roman Catholic scholar Raymond Brown acknowledges that “the presbyter-bishops described in the NT were not in any traceable way the successors of the Twelve apostles.” Thus, he argues that “the affirmation that the episcopate was divinely established or established by Christ himself can be defended in the nuanced sense that the episcopate gradually emerged in a Church that stemmed from Christ and that this emergence was (in the eyes of faith) guided by the Holy Spirit.”8

“They appointed the first fruits [of their labours], having first proved them by the Spirit, to be bishops and deacons of those who should afterwards believe.”12 Clement interprets the constitution of these two offices—bishops and deacons—as the fulfillment of prophecy.13 Later in his letter, Clement uses the terms bishop and presbyter interchangeably.

The first testimony of the emergence of a clear distinction between the office of bishop and that of presbyter is found in the letters of Ignatius, who staunchly affirms the authority of bishops. However, Ignatius has no conception of apostolic succession: He nowhere speaks of bishops as successors of the apostles, but instead identifies the presbyters as “in the place of assembly of the apostles.”19 He also characterizes bishops as having a congregational rather than diocesan jurisdiction. As Herman Bavinck summarizes, “In the writings of Ignatius, the episcopal idea is still at the beginning of its development. The bishop, here, is not the bearer of tradition, nor a New Testament priest, nor an apostolic succession. . . . He is an office-bearer in a local church and has no authority outside of it.”20

He might have no idea of apostolic succession, but there is no doubt he saw the bishops as having some kind of apostolic authority.

“It is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in the Church—those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the apostles.”21 Irenaeus and Tertullian functioned in a highly polemical context, striving to protect orthodox teaching over and against Gnostic and other heretical groups that had arisen. For them, a recognition of succession of public office from the apostles was a means of protecting the succession of the true faith over and against Gnostic claims of private revelation.

Important context.

thinks Clement was the first bishop, ordained by Peter.23 Irenaeus, by contrast, states the Roman episcopate began with Linus, who was appointed not by Peter specifically, but by Peter and Paul as apostles: “The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate.”24

Good point here. Do catholics claim to know the exact succession line?

Thus, in significant fourth-century church orders texts (manuals of disciplinary and liturgical rules for the church) one still finds the requirement that bishops be elected by the entire congregation. For example, canon 2 of the Canons of Hippolytus stipulates: “Let the bishop be ordained after he has been chosen by all the people.”27 Similarly, the Apostolic Constitutions stipulates that “a bishop to be ordained is to be . . . chosen by the whole people.”28 It then describes the people being gathered by the leaders of the church to be asked for their consent on the basis of the nominated bishop’s character. After the nominated bishop is asked a series of questions, it states, “and if they agree the third time that he is worthy, let them all be demanded their vote; and when they all give it willingly, let them be heard.”29

Of course, one could simply argue that Jerome is wrong (though one would then have to posit where he would get such a theory, particularly since Jerome is one of the most erudite historians and scholars in the early church). But it is significant that Jerome’s proposal accords with the unanimous testimony of the evidence from the time in question. This makes it extremely difficult to avoid the conclusion that apostolic succession, as Jerome teaches, is “custom” rather than jure divino.

But even more basically, apart from the question of how Christ is present in the bread and wine, the Protestants were concerned with all manner of abusive and negligent practices in the administration of the Eucharist in the late medieval Western church. Jewel, for example, railed against the wanton buying and selling of masses, the parading about and venerating of the consecrated host (and the pomp associated with it), the extremely infrequent partaking of the elements by the laity, and the withholding of the wine from the laity and giving of the bread only.24 Such practices, Jewel maintained, amounted to clear departure from patristic precedent and resulted in a starvation of the laity from a regular and full experience of feasting on Christ.

Some Protestants devoted their entire theological careers to exploring patristic and medieval texts, developing ever more nuanced accounts of the slow development of the church’s faith and practice throughout history. The Lutherans were particularly sophisticated in this effort. It was in relation to such attempts that the words patristics and patrology arose in their technical meanings from within the Lutheran tradition in the seventeenth century.28 It is unfortunate that this historical approach is less common among Protestants today, and part of the implicit goal of this book is to retrieve this more catholic and historical way of envisioning Protestantism.

Second, the Protestants were not arguing that, by the late medieval era, the church had died and needed resurrection. This is a common caricature. Consistently the Reformers affirmed the opposite—that God had faithfully preserved his church, even in the darkest times. Calvin, for example, denied the charge that Protestants believed the true church had fallen away: “Surely the church of Christ has lived and will live so long as Christ reigns at the right hand of his Father. It is sustained by his hand; defended by his protection; and is kept safe through his power. . . . Against this church we have no quarrel.”29 All Calvin maintained is that the true church is not discerned by outward magnificence and is not identified with the Roman Catholic hierarchy.30 Luther held the same view, as we have already seen. The Reformers disagreed on many points, but on this point, they were all united. The church never died. Jesus had faithfully preserved her for every nanosecond of church history. We may call this Protestant doctrine “the preservation of the church.”31

Now, let us suppose for the sake of argument that all the Protestants were wrong. Calvin, Jewel, Gerhard, Turretin, and the rest misread the fathers. In that circumstance, what would be necessary is a careful investigation of the historical evidence to demonstrate how the Protestants erred in their historical claim. What obviously will not suffice is jubilant quotations of Newman, as though simply repeating “to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant” settled the matter. Instead, we must patiently work through the historical data.

Many critics of Protestantism will immediately dismiss the interpretation of the Reformation as a historical retrieval and a removal of accretions because of the general sense of historical shallowness in many contemporary Protestant churches. This brings up a point that represents a theme of this book: We must distinguish between particular contemporary expressions of Protestantism versus Protestantism as such. Too often a criticism of the former is construed as a necessary rejection of the latter.

Not even protestants know what the Reformation claims.

When in dialogue with non-Protestant friends, I often press this definition of Protestantism as the removal of accretions in pursuit of catholicity. Sometimes the response is, “But Protestantism has accretions, too!” This I happily concede. Accretions are inevitable. In an imperfect world, the intrusion of errors will be a constant possibility and frequent occurrence. The difference is that Protestant accretions are not enshrined within allegedly infallible teaching.

To be clear, Protestants do not regard “majority depth” as insignificant or unimportant. On the contrary, it is a behemoth, a force to be reckoned with. But they do maintain that what is finally decisive is the original teaching of the apostles, and that there are practices and beliefs that occasionally become mainstream despite departing from apostolic teaching.

The problem here is that all sides claim the correct interpretation of the apostolic teaching.

Augustine likewise held many other views most of us would find sexist today, such as the claim that, if it were not for the purpose of procreation, another man would have been a far more suitable companion to Adam in the Garden of Eden: “how much more agreeably, after all, for conviviality and conversation, would two male friends live together on equal terms than man and wife?”41

Kinda gay, Augustine.

One website associated with this movement notes that “well over 8 million priests, religious and lay faithful and over 800 Cardinals and Bishops from more than 180 countries have sent petitions to recent popes in favor of the solemn definition: the Mother of Jesus is Spiritual Mother of all humanity in her three maternal roles as Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix of all graces and Advocate.”1 Whatever happens, Mariology is undeniably a live, critical area of ecumenical concern.

Damn!

In his book chronicling the history of the popes, the Roman Catholic historian Eamon Duffy notes, “the definition embarrassed many Roman Catholic theologians, since it was unsupported in scripture and was unknown in the early Church.”4 In response to this challenge, there have been waves of scholarly efforts to find information about Mary’s ultimate fate. Yet many Roman Catholic scholars concede that such efforts have produced no historical or biblical foundation for the assumption of Mary. In his book on Mary, Duffy puts it more plainly: “there is, clearly, no historical evidence whatever for it (unless one counts the negative evidence of the lack of postmortem relics of the Virgin).”5

Roman Catholic scholar Ludwig Ott put it in his older work, often considered the definitive work summarizing Roman Catholic dogma: “the idea of the bodily assumption of Mary is first expressed in certain transitus-narratives of the fifth and sixth centuries. . . . The first Church author to speak of the bodily assumption of Mary, in association with an apocryphal transitus B.M.V., is St. Gregory of Tours.”11 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

Levering notes that other significant Roman Catholic theologians, such as John Henry Newman, likewise avoid efforts at historical reconstruction from these legends.17 Levering instead argues that Mary’s assumption could have been unknown to the apostles but taught by the Holy Spirit “in the Church beginning in the late fifth century as part of unfolding and developing the deposit of faith.”18

Saying the HS taught is is not wrong, but we can apply that to all doctrine.

The holy virgin may have died and been buried—her falling asleep was with honor, her death in purity, her crown in virginity. Or she may have been put to death—as the scripture says, “And a sword shall pierce through her soul”—her fame is among the martyrs and her holy body, by which light rose on the world, [rests] amid blessings. Or she may have remained alive, for God is not incapable of doing whatever he wills. No one knows her end. But we must not honor the saints to excess; we must honor their Master.21

A quite sober-minded description.

For what this sect has to say is complete nonsense and, as it were, an old wives’ tale. Which scripture has spoken of it? Which prophet permitted the worship of a man, let alone a woman? The vessel is choice but a woman, and by nature no different [from others]. Like the bodies of the saints, however, she has been held in honor for her character and understanding. And if I should say anything more in her praise, [she is] like Elijah, who was virgin from his mother’s womb, always remained so, and was taken up and has not seen death. She is like John who leaned on the Lord’s breast, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” She is like St. Thecla; and Mary is still more honored than she, because of the providence vouchsafed her.27 But here Epiphanius is simply comparing Mary to Elijah, John, and Thecla on account of their being honored for character and understanding. The reference to Elijah’s bodily assumption is illustrative of these qualities; it does not apply to Mary any more than the comparable facts mentioned about Thecla or John. In other words, we can no more insist that Mary was “taken up” like Elijah than that she “leaned on the Lord’s breast” like John. In each case, the relative clause is simply illustrating the superlative godliness of each figure. Such a reading makes sense since an assumption is not the common thread between the three figures (Thecla, for example, was not assumed); instead, the common thread is honor and godliness.

Any comparison to Elijah refers to miracles or being taken alive to heaven. Bad take from Ortlund.

If Epiphanius had intended in this sentence to convey that Mary was assumed to heaven, he has surely chosen the most oblique and cryptic imaginable way to do it. Remember, Epiphanius has just told us in the immediately preceding chapter that no one knows Mary’s end. So why should we accept that here, immediately after, he would offer a kind of veiled affirmation of Mary’s assumption to heaven, smuggled into this relative clause describing Elijah? Such an effort seems to reflect the contemporary dogmatic need, not a fair-minded interest in Epiphanius’s meaning.

This makes more sense.

Of course Jesus’s ascension to heaven is frequently discussed as well. Yet nowhere, in the entire massive stretch of time represented by these church fathers, do we find in the church the slightest hint of a bodily assumption of Mary.

If Mary was as important in the early church as she is in Roman Catholic theology, is it really plausible that so many church fathers would discuss bodily assumptions to heaven and simply fail to mention that it happened to the most important creature?

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.

In essence, this passage is describing a persecution of the church, not an assumption of Mary. That is why interpreting the woman as Mary has no precedent in the church until around the time people begin to wonder about Mary’s ultimate fate. As Shoemaker observes, “Although this exegesis would subsequently become quite popular and has endured even to this day, there is no evidence of its existence before Epiphanius. On the contrary the early church unanimously identified this apocalyptic woman with the church.”91 Even after the rise of belief in the assumption of Mary, many did not even think to detect such a notion in Revelation 12.

The reality is this: The major non-Protestant churches have embraced a historical innovation, whereas the Protestant resistance reflects the ancient (“deep”) faith of the Christian church.

Ortlund presents a good case, but why would different traditions from different places adopt Mary's assumption?

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the theology of icons is grounded in the incarnation of Christ, who is the image of the Father. 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. Icons also constitute a point of contact for the human response to divine revelation. As God became human, salvation now consists in the opposite, that the human might become god (deification)—not by nature, but by grace. This divine glory is reflected in the transfiguration of Christ.10 Icons function as a point of access to this realm of divine light and glory; they transmit to us the transfigured state of the saints. “The icon is not a representation of the Deity, but an indication of the participation of a given person in Divine life.”11 In this manner, icons become a means of striving after deification ourselves: “the icon is both the way and the means; it is prayer itself.”12

This is a very strong case for icon "veneration".

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition, the theology of icons is grounded in the incarnation of Christ, who is the image of the Father. 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. Icons also constitute a point of contact for the human response to divine revelation. As God became human, salvation now consists in the opposite, that the human might become god (deification)—not by nature, but by grace. This divine glory is reflected in the transfiguration of Christ.10 Icons function as a point of access to this realm of divine light and glory; they transmit to us the transfigured state of the saints. “The icon is not a representation of the Deity, but an indication of the participation of a given person in Divine life.”11 In this manner, icons become a means of striving after deification ourselves: “the icon is both the way and the means; it is prayer itself.”12

This is actually a beautiful argument for icon veneration.

For example, in the fictional dialogue written by the North African apologist Marcus Minucius Felix (d. c. 250) entitled Octavius, Christians were criticized for lacking images in worship: “Why do they endeavour with such pains to conceal and to cloak whatever they worship? . . . Why have they no altars, no temples, no acknowledged images?”28 This would be an odd question to ask if the early Christians actually did use images in the context of worship.

Can it be that you have forgotten that passage in which God lays down the law that no likeness should be made either of what is in heaven or what is in the earth beneath? Have you ever heard anything of the kind either yourself in church or from another person? Are not such things banished and excluded from churches all over the world, and is it not common knowledge that such practices are not permitted to us alone?47 It is evident that Eusebius regards avoiding images of Christ to be common knowledge among Christians, since (according to him) it is the universal Christian practice in obedience to the second commandment.

The reaction among the Carolingian theologians in the West sheds light on Nicaea II. Around 790, Theodulf of Orleans produced his Opus Caroli, hundreds of pages of scathing critique of the practice of venerating icons. In 794, Charlemagne convoked the Council of Frankfurt, which was also strongly critical of Nicaea II and refused to call it an ecumenical council. But the council adopted a more moderate position than Hieria. The essential Western position was that figural art is acceptable for decorative or commemorative purposes, but it should not be worshipped or bowed to; and it ought to be neither destroyed nor mandated.70 This final point, what Thomas Noble calls their “principled indifference,” was a particular point of emphasis in Frankish theology. What was so reprehensible about Nicaea II, to the Western mind, was its insistence on the necessity of venerating icons, at the risk of anathema. As Theodulf put it, “It is one thing to have (images) for fear of oblivion and another to have them for love of ornament; one thing for will, another for need.”71

The Western position seems reasonable.

One expression of idolatry that is expressly forbidden in Scripture involves bowing down to images. This is the concern of the second commandment (Ex. 20:4–6) and is reiterated in many other passages (for example, Lev. 26:1). The basis for this concern is the invisibility of the true God, as distinct from false gods (Deut. 4:15–18). Hence, one quality that distinguishes the good kings of Judah like Hezekiah or Josiah is their iconoclasm—though even during their reigns cultic objects are usually not fully removed. A representative example is Josiah’s activity in 2 Kings 23:15: “the altar at Bethel, the high place erected by Jeroboam the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, that altar with the high place he pulled down and burned, reducing it to dust. He also burned the Asherah.” This is portrayed positively in the text; many more such examples could be adduced. As Humphreys puts it, “The Hebrew Bible is stridently, repeatedly, unavoidably anti-idolatry, and pro-idol destruction.”87

This is a very bad argument. Of course every christian is an iconoclast when it comes to Baal, but we would have bowed to Moses serpent, and to the ark.

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?

Good point.

What does all this ultimately yield? Simply put, if you are going to be a Christian of some kind or another, it makes the most sense to be a Protestant. This is the position that enables you to embrace the fullness of the church while simultaneously holding fast to the New Testament’s witness to the apostolic deposit. This is the position, in other words, that enables you to fulfill both the obligations of love and unity, on the one hand, and the obligations of conscience and truth, on the other. 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).

To put it in gaming terms, Protestantism is like your basic class. You can then specialize in Reformed, Catholic or Orthodox. Jokes aside, Protestantism does seem to have its own accretions, namely, Perseverance of the Saints, Limited Atonement and Sola Fide.

How we decide which church to join is a decision that can and should be brought under Proverbs 3:5–6, like all important decisions in our lives: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

This bothers me. There should not be different churches for me to choose.