Covenantide

Author: SJ Hatch

Why Do We Need Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms?

As I sat down in the pew waiting for the funeral service to begin, I noticed a laminated page in the rack in front of me, providing a statement of the church’s beliefs in the basics of the Christian faith. It was neither extensive nor fancy and could be easily overlooked, but as I examined it I realized it was the positive result of a controversy that racked the church years before. When I first moved to Northern Virginia, I had attended that very church, a conservative church in a mainline denomination. Because the church was large, the denominational hierarchy insisted it have an assistant pastor and nominated an individual who had previously been an Army chaplain. As he began to teach, however, the lay leaders of the church detected something was off. Looking into the matter, they discovered that he denied the divinity of Jesus Christ, denied the virgin birth, denied the resurrection, and held to New Age ideas; his seminary degree, in fact, was from a New Age organization. Even by the most generous allowances, his views on the Christian faith could only be described as heretical. The discovery touched off a months-long struggle in the church, ultimately successful, to have him removed. For me, I long had misgivings about the direction the denomination was going, and this case moved me to break with the denomination for good. That particular church learned the hard way the importance in being up front about what it confessed about the Christian faith.

The denomination that I grew up in and which I broke with did not use creeds, confessions, or catechisms. Thus, when I came to the Reformed tradition, I thought it enormously useful to have a short summary of the faith with proof texts that one could look up to see where we found various doctrines in the Bible. Not everyone, however, shares my appreciation for these symbols, as they are formally called. Some dismiss them outright saying, “No creed but Christ” and “No confession but the Bible.” Others, perhaps willing to accept creeds, confessions, and catechisms out of tradition, have a general uneasiness and reticence about it, as if using them would supplant Scripture. To be sure, such symbols are constraining. It is one thing to take a handful of verses and say this is my opinion as to what the Bible says; it is quite another to say that this is what the church’s established, collective understanding is on what Scripture teaches. Such constraint, however, can be a good thing. It keeps pastors, teachers, and individuals from making the Bible say whatever they want it to say. Moreover, as we move into a world characterized by rising paganism, honesty toward our neighbor and integrity toward our Lord should compel us to be clear and forthright about the faith we profess as Christians. Creeds, confessions, and catechisms are vital toward those ends. What follows in the remainder of this essay is a brief introduction to what creeds, confessions, and catechisms are and why we should use them.

I. What Are Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms?

A creed is a short summary statement of what a church believes about the main contours of the faith. The most famous creeds in the Christian faith are the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. Both of these creeds go back to the ancient Christian church, at least to the fourth century AD, and in the case of the Apostle’s Creed, possibly as early as the second century. These creeds are often recited by congregations in the context of the worship service.

A confession is similar to a creed, but more extensive, typically covering a number of different doctrines outlining in more detail the system of faith. The Reformation period produced a number of confessions, as the Reformers sought to explain to the peoples of Europe what their views really were, so as to correct popular misunderstandings and to demonstrate the truthfulness and Scriptural basis of what they were holding to and defending. The most well-known confessions are the Augsburg Confession (1530), the Belgic Confession (1561) and the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646).

A catechism is a set of material used in instruction, typically in a question-and-answer format. To catechize (from the Greek verb katecheo) simply means to instruct (and is so used in Luke 1:4, Acts 18:25, 21:21 & 24, Rom. 2:18, 1 Cor. 14:19, and Gal. 6:6). A catechumen is one who is being instructed in the doctrines of the Faith before being admitted to the Lord’s Supper. Catechesis is the act of instructing people in the catechism. Within Reformed circles, the best-known catechisms are the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) and the Westminster Longer and Shorter Catechisms (1647).

All confessional Christian denominations throughout the history of the church have produced catechisms. In the early church (before Constantine legalized Christianity in AD 313), adult initiates into the faith had to engage in a period of study and preparation before they could become baptized. These catechumens were admitted to worship, but were not allowed to take communion until they were baptized. This period could last two or three years and was a time for the church to teach the individual, assess his or her understanding of the faith, and evaluate the person’s character and commitment to walking in the faith. This system broke down after Constantine legalized Christianity, since there were too many people to go through such a rigorous process. In the Middle Ages, with a population that was largely illiterate, the church basically expected Christians to have “implicit faith” in the reliability of the church’s teachings. Just before the Reformation, the church wanted to raise the level of religious instruction among the laity and summaries of church teaching started to make a limited comeback, coming to full flowering in the Reformation. In the past century, however, the use of creeds, confessions, and catechisms has fallen off, as Christians have eschewed a doctrinal content to their faith in general.

II. Are They Really Biblical?

The short answer is yes. In Scripture itself, we have the earliest recorded creed in Deuteronomy 6:4-5: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself recites this creed in a dispute with the Pharisees (Matt. 22:37). The Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:1-17 and Deut. 5:6-21)—literally the Ten Words—also was treated as a creed. In 1 Corinthians 15:3-6, the Apostle Paul gives a summary confession of the faith he had taught the Corinthians: “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: after that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.”

In addition, summaries of the faith would have been necessary for people throughout most of church history, since it would not be until the invention of the printing press that people would be able to possess their own portable copy of the Scriptures. Thus, in Ephesians 4:5 Paul speaks of “one faith” and a few verses later he talks about coming into the unity of “the faith,” with the implication that there is one true set of beliefs that Christians were to hold to. Similarly, in his epistle Jude the Apostle says, “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3), again indicating there was a set of beliefs which had been handed down and which comprised the essentials of the Christian faith. Other texts certainly could be added to these.

Concerns about creeds, confessions, and catechisms do not supplant the primacy of Scripture, and no one in the Reformed tradition who has taken a high view of these summaries has advocated that they should take precedent over Scripture. Experience has shown that those churches which are seriously confessional also put more emphasis on Scripture, not less. Conversely, churches that abandon confessionalism or let it become merely pro forma tend to abandon Scripture. The Westminster Standards do not aspire to supplant Scripture. Note this from the Confession of Faith (WCF 1.10):

The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture (Matt. 22:29, 31; Eph. 2:20; Acts 28:25; 1 John 4:1-6).

Creeds, confessions, and catechisms, thus, are a summary of Scripture, not a replacement for it. It should be noted as an aside, that this self-limiting trait of the Confession contrasts with the claims of many popular preachers or teachers who claim that their interpretation of the Bible is definitive or even on par with the Scriptures. Such claims are, more often than not, accompanied by abusive treatment towards those who disagree. As Carl Trueman puts it,

Despite claims to the contrary, the Christian world is not divided between those who have creeds and confessions and those who just have the Bible. It is actually divided between those who have creeds and confessions and write them down in a public form, open to public scrutiny and correction, and those who have them and do not write them down. …In fact, and somewhat ironically, it is those who do not express their confession in the form of a written document who are in danger of elevating their tradition above Scripture in such a way that it can never be controlled by the latter.[1]

III. Why Should We Embrace Confessional Standards?

Within the contemporary conservative Reformed community, the major doctrinal standards are the Westminster Standards (the Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms) and the Three Forms of Unity (the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Canons of Dort). Several reasons can be adduced for using creeds, confessions, and catechisms, but three in particular are worth considering.

A. They Are Important in Building Up God’s People in Christ

As the Christian West returns to a pre-Christian pagan culture, and Christian churches are racked by scandal, it may be useful for churches to return to a more rigorous and more doctrinal approach to spiritual formation. To build people up in the faith, they need to have a framework for reading and understanding Scripture, as well as categories for applying the truths of Scripture to life, both individually and corporately. Such understanding provides the core for knowing who we are and what we stand for, that enables us to engage non-Christians evangelistically and apologetically.

It may sound spiritual to say that all we need is the Bible, but the Bible comprises sixty-six books written over 1,500 years in a variety of literary genres, and most printed editions of the Bible are close to two thousand pages. This can be daunting to absorb and difficult to understand. Nevertheless, can be intelligible even to ordinary people. As the Westminster Confession of Faith 1.7 says,

All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all (2 Pet. 3:16): yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them. (Ps. 119:105, 130; Deut. 29:29; 30:10-14; Acts 17:11)

Reading through the different books of the Bible shows the progressive unfolding of God’s plan, and this gives meaning to our lives by setting the overarching narrative context in which we live. Systematic doctrines complement this. Because the doctrines of the faith draw from all of Scripture, they help maintain consistency in understanding the biblical narrative. As a comprehensive and yet concise summary of the core doctrines of the faith, the confessional Standards are a starting point for grappling with the totality of Scripture.

Doctrine not only provides a framework for understanding Scripture, but enables us to relate our faith to the different facets of our lives. Over the last several decades, Christians have become increasingly interested in the notion of “worldview,” recognizing that our faith should inform all aspects of our Christian walk and life. The literature promoting a biblical world and life view is extensive, and yet for all that has been published, we face greater biblical illiteracy now than we have in previous centuries. In centuries past, a Christian world and life view did not come into being in the West because of academic studies mechanically merging philosophy with Christian theology. Rather, it came about organically as Christian pastors and teachers thought deeply about the Scriptures and formulated their reflections into a theology that was confessed in the life of the church. There was a unity of thought and action, of heart and mind. Thus, recovering the confessional standards can help us recreate a Christian world and life view. The doctrines articulated in the confessional standards embody rich theology in pastoral expression, and give us a vocabulary and categories that we can then use for making sense of and engaging the world around us.

Because the confessional standards are a summary of the Christian faith, if you were asked by others outside the faith to explain what you believe, then you could use them to provide a response. You would not need to invent a response out of whole cloth, as the standards reflect the best understanding of the church through time. The standards can also be important in helping newcomers know if our church is where they are to be. There should be truth in advertising, so to speak. In this regard, the confessional standards not only help define what we believe, but also who we are in Christ. That said, that does put a burden on us to make our practice of faith and grace to be consistent with our profession of faith and grace. If outsiders know where we stand doctrinally and if we are not consistent with what we profess, they will see that too, to our shame.

B. They Protect God’s People

One cannot tell what is counterfeit if one does not know in the first place what is true. The Standards make accessible to the average layperson the sum of the Scripture’s teaching about the Christian faith as understood by the collective received wisdom of Christian teachers through the ages. This democratic aspect often goes unnoticed, even by laypeople. It gives the laypeople the same standards as their elders and teachers and allows the laypeople to hold their elders and teachers accountable to the truth. To diminish the Standards makes congregants dependent on whatever interpretations their elders and teachers present. That would not be appreciably different from the notion of “implicit faith” that the medieval Catholic Church required and which the Protestant Reformers rejected. In American religious history, liberalism has historically crept into churches by first dismissing catechisms and other creedal standards, and then by undercutting or dismissing the Scriptures proper. Church leaders then impose on a congregation what amount to private judgments that are at odds with both Scripture and the doctrines of the faith historically understood. Those who object to the imposition of such judgments are then often ostracized and alienated as rebellious, mean-spirited, and/or unloving.

This underscores a more basic point. Building people up in the doctrines of the faith is not a matter of making smarter sinners. False teaching hurts people. This is seen best in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Paul’s sarcasm, angry words, and harsh tone to his letter are not the result of a desire to make the doctrine of justification nice and neat, but because the Galatians were trading love for each other for pride and self-accomplishment. Paul acknowledged that he had personally seen and benefited from their love for each other and their grace (Gal. 4:12-20), and he was livid that false teachers took that from them in ways that caused them to attack and undermine each other. As we are seeing in a number of denominations today, false teaching is causing pastors to become abusive, congregants to feel persecuted, and churches to split—much of which ends up in the secular courts to sort out. To stand for the truth may entail costs now, but to not grow in or stand for the truth will entail much higher spiritual, relational, and emotional costs later.

C. They Enable Us Bear with Each Other in Love and Truth

These days, Christians from different denominations often partner together in the workplace or in social witness and as a result there is a concern that identifying doctrinal distinctives could undermine such cooperation. The first thing that needs to be addressed in answering this concern is the fundamental question of whether we really do have fellowship if we have radically different views on matters that we will not talk about. If we are not taking seriously what another believes, then are we taking that person seriously enough to really love them? It would be a like a husband and wife having deep-rooted disagreements that they will not air because they do not want to “harm” their marriage. As has been often shown, the fact that such views are suppressed results in eating away the marriage in the long run.

It should be admitted that while there are people in every denomination who are self-appointed “heresy hunters,” they reflect more of a twisting of a legitimate interest in doctrine rather than the natural expression of it. Creeds, confessions, and catechisms in fact do help promote peace between denominations and even unity. In particular, we can more clearly discern what we have in common and more precisely define where we disagree so as to not overstate or minimize our differences. In addition, we can put our differences into the proper context. Some doctrines, in fact, are more important than others—our understanding of the natures of Christ, for example, are more important than our understanding of the different millennial views in Revelation chapter 20. It is partly to bring the English, Scottish, and Irish people together in the 1640s that the English Parliament sought to devise the Westminster Standards in the first place.

Within churches, unity in doctrinal essentials contributes to bearing with one another. If we know that we and those with whom we disagree are united in the essentials then we know that we need to keep our disagreements on the secondary issues in perspective. Where there is doctrinal fuzziness, then there is fundamental uncertainty in what it may be that we do have in common. In such cases, disagreements are more—not less—likely to become personalized, rending the church asunder. Lack of clarity on what doctrines are key and how they have been rightly understood through the years leads to fighting over secondary issues that become proxies for fundamental issues. Moreover, if we are not transparent about what we believe, then how transparent will we be about other things? One can see the ugly fruits of schism that have come about in the mainline churches that are the result of personal opinions and agendas stepping into the void of doctrinal indifference and fuzziness. It has often been said that fences make for good neighborliness; in a similar way, confessional standards can foster love for our fellow Christians by establishing boundaries.

IV. Conclusion

The confessional standards do not supplant Scripture, but are an important resource in our spiritual formation as Christians. They give us a framework through which to consistently understand Scripture, are foundational for establishing a Christian world and life view, and enable us to define our identity in Christ, especially in the midst of our increasingly darkening culture. They establish limits on the authority of our church leaders, unite us to fellow believers, and enable us to better love one another by helping us to discern what is core in our beliefs from what is peripheral. Our forebears in the faith were willing to stake their lives on these truths and these symbols have stood the test of time. In a day and age when contrary views are all too easily dismissed as one’s “personal opinion” there is comfort in knowing that one is not alone in either our day or in the stream of history in holding to the truths summarized by the standards.

V. Recommended Resources

On confessionalism:

R. Scott Clark, Recovering the Reformed Confession (Phillipsburg NJ: P&R Publishing, 2008)

Samuel Miller, “The Utility and Importance of Creeds and Confessions” (Philadelphia PA: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1839) [Typeset and reprinted by A Press, Greenville SC, 1991]

J. I. Packer and Gary A. Parrett, Grounded in the Gospel; Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Books, 2010)

Carl Trueman, The Creedal Imperative (Wheaton IL: Crossway, 2012)

Carl Trueman, “Why Christians Need Confessions” (Willow Grove PA: Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 2013)

On Creeds and Confessions:

Chad Van Dixhoorn, Creeds, Confessions, & Catechisms; A Reader’s Edition (Wheaton IL: Crossway, 2022)

Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom, vols. 1-3 (Grand Rapids MI: Baker Books reprinted 1983)

James T. Dennison,ed. Reformed Confessions of the 16^th and 17^th Centuries in English Translation, vols. 1-4 (Grand Rapids MI: Reformation Heritage Books)

[1] Carl R. Trueman, Why Christians Need Confessions (Willow Grove PA: The Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 2013), 3.

January 1, 2023
The Sack of Belgium, August 1914

Some historical incidents are significant not so much for what happened in them but for how they shed light on the convergence of disparate trends of a given period. One such event is how the German public responded to Britain’s declaration of war on Germany on August 4, 1914 for violating Belgium’s neutrality.

Ruins of the Catholic University Library in Louvain, Belgium

In the summer of 2013, my wife and I had occasion to visit Kansas City, Missouri, where the National World War I Museum is located. The museum, constructed in 2006, is the only one in the United States dedicated solely to the First World War and is exceedingly well done. If one should have the opportunity to be in Kansas City, it is well worth a visit. In anticipation of visiting the Museum, I began reading Barbara Tuchman’s classic work on the outbreak of the First World War, The Guns of August. Tuchman’s book covers the period from just before outbreak of the War until the First Battle of the Marne, which stalled the German offensive in the West in the fall of 1914 and shifted fighting to the trench-bound stalemate that would characterize the next three and a half years of the war.

The British Decision to Enter World War I

Historians say World War I began because of the interlocking system of alliances that became activated as a result of the assassination of Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serbian terrorist in June 1914. That is true as far as it goes, but it gives the impression that the system was reflexively mechanical. Tuchman illustrates there was actual decision-making involved on the part of statesmen and it was not a foregone conclusion that treaty arrangements would always be honored. For its part, Britain’s decision to go to war was not automatically the result of its Entente with France, but hinged on Belgium’s neutrality.

Belgian neutrality had been written into the Treaty of London in 1839 when Belgium was recognized as independent from the United Netherlands. At the time, with memories of the Napoleonic wars still lingering, the thinking of the major powers was that the neutrality of the Low Countries would facilitate European peace by placing a roadblock across the major invasion corridor between France and Central Europe. The British retained that strategic assessment into 1914, but Germany discarded it out of arrogance and expediency. The Germans assessed that in any European conflagration they could not afford to fight both Russia and France simultaneously. Accordingly, since they knew that the Russians took longer to mobilize their military to full strength, the Germans calculated that a quick thrust against the French—which they successfully pulled off in the six-week Franco-Prussian War of 1871—would knock the French out of the war and allow them to concentrate against the Russians. Invading through Belgium was the quickest way to accomplish that goal and keeping the British out was a necessary corollary in order to keep them from reinforcing the French. Germany’s declaration of war on Russia on August 1, 1914, brought France into war with Germany because of France’s treaty commitments to Russia and because Germany refused to guarantee Belgium’s neutrality. After Germany invaded Belgium on August 3, the German Foreign Minister tried to persuade the British not to intervene, at one point sarcastically saying that the treaty guaranteeing Belgium’s neutrality was merely a “scrap of paper” not worth Britain to go to war over. The British disagreed.

Tuchman describes the popular German reaction that followed:

As he [Sir Edward Goschen, the British Ambassador to Germany] was leaving [the German Foreign Ministry], two men in a press car of the Berliner Tageblatt drove through the streets throwing out flyers which announced—somewhat prematurely, as the ultimatum did not expire until midnight—Britain’s declaration of war. Coming after Italy’s defection, this last act of ‘treason,’ this latest desertion, this one further addition to their enemies infuriated the Germans, a large number of whom immediately became transformed into a howling mob which occupied itself for the next hour in stoning all the windows of the British Embassy. England became overnight the hated enemy; ‘Rassen-verrat!’ (race treason) the favorite hate slogan.The Guns of August, p. 154

“Race Treason” and Evolution

What is worth noting here is not the anger the German mob had toward the British—that much was a given in the situation—but the particular epithet they used: race treason. It is easy to gloss over this and miss the significance of what this means. As far as Tuchman records, the Germans did not use that term when the Italians days earlier had reneged on their treaty commitments to Germany under the terms of the Central Alliance. This term was specific to the British. The epithet shows a couple of things: first, that on a popular level the Germans were viewing international relations in racial terms; and second, they saw a kind of racial hierarchy that placed the British on a par with themselves. In their view, the British betrayed some implicit racial solidarity in siding with the French rather than staying neutral. Such thinking is both curious and, from post-World War II perspective, seemingly out of place chronologically. One might have expected such ideas from the Nazis in the Second World War. It is surprising, therefore, to hear them from the Germans at the beginning of the First World War.

In retrospect, perhaps it should not be so surprising. As Richard Weikart soberly and extensively documents in his book, From Darwin to Hitler; Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, German intellectuals in the half century before the outbreak of the First World War were forward-leaning in embracing Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, not only on seemingly scientific grounds but also in terms of working out the implications of those ideas in a range of fields. Indeed, Darwin himself in 1868 viewed the warm reception his ideas were receiving in Germany—the leading center of education in Europe at that time—as a hopeful sign that his ideas would gain lasting traction [Weikert, 10]. The appropriation of Darwinian evolution by German intellectuals did not remain limited to the sphere of biology. The implication of evolutionary theory that life was not inherently valuable—contrary to the traditional Jewish and Christian understanding—prompted a rethinking of the basis for ethics, with many of the strongest proponents for evolutionary ethics also being equally strong critics of traditional Christian morality. From the field of ethics, Darwinian evolution subsequently spread to engage the field of sociology, as evidenced by the increasing advocacy of eugenic approaches to public health during this time. By the turn of the 20^th century, German intellectuals were trying to apply evolutionary theory to explanations of international relations as well, even to include the idea of racial struggle and extermination as a natural part of international conflict. [Weikert, 164-206]. While “Social Darwinism” was by no means limited to Germany during this time, Weikart demonstrates it did receive deeper and wider acceptance there than elsewhere in the West.

Execution of Civilians in Blegny, 1914

The fact that ordinary Germans were thinking in categories of race by 1914 shows that these ideas were not limited to intellectual journals and the academy. Indeed, the devaluation of life, the repudiation of traditional Judeo-Christian morality, and the acceptance of the idea of racial struggle no doubt played into the atrocities the Germans committed after invading Belgium. According to Tuchman, upon entering Belgium, German forces began a deliberate policy of Schrecklichkeit (terror) aimed at instilling fear in the population to make them quiescent. What this meant varied from place to place within Belgium. There were summary executions of scores of civilians, especially civic leaders, on the pretext that the victims had been engaged in a conspiracy to foster guerrilla resistance. On a larger scale, the Germans burned some villages to the ground and killed hundreds of people as reprisals to purported sniper attacks on the German troops. The most infamous example occurred on August 25, 1914, when the Germans burned the town of Louvain, a town of no military significance but which housed a library with irreplaceable medieval manuscripts and artifacts. And, then, of course, there was Germany’s use of unrestricted submarine warfare against any shipping, neutral or otherwise, which the Germans suspected of supporting the Allies. While such atrocities pale in comparison with those which the Germans did in the Second World War, they nevertheless were considered barbaric at the time.

On August 5, 1914, a few days after the war began, German Chief of Staff Helmut von Moltke summarized the German attitude towards such atrocities when he said, “Our advance in Belgium is certainly brutal, but we are fighting for our lives and all who get in the way must take the consequences.” [Tuchman, 199] Here, too, is a curious comment. Moltke’s comment implied that the war was an existential one for Germany, and Tuchman quotes several other German leaders who seemed to have similar views. While Germany did not start the war, Germany’s wholehearted backing of the Austro-Hungarians did and Germany was clearly the dominant partner in the alliance. Germany, therefore, can legitimately be considered the aggressor in the conflict. Moreover, in no way was its national existence at stake, especially when Moltke was speaking. So from a military, political, and strategic perspective this does not make sense. It does, however, fit with understandings of racial struggle and race war which were circulating in Germany prior to the outbreak of the War.

The Desertion of the German Church

Given the contemporary conflicts between conservative Christianity and Darwinian evolutionists, it is reasonable to ask where the German Church was in all this. Although I will not claim to be an expert on the German Church my sense is that German Protestants effectively made themselves irrelevant over the course of the 19^th century. By the start of that century, Pietism was strongly entrenched in German Lutheranism, and this created a theological climate that de-emphasized doctrine and the institutional church in favor of personal holiness and devotion to Christ. Emerging at the same time was a growing movement toward critical theology, rooted in Enlightenment Rationalism. This movement questioned the reliability and historicity of the Scriptures, and, interestingly enough, comfortably co-existed with Pietism—after all, one could question the truth of the Scriptures because all that really mattered was to still have a heart for Jesus. Immanuel Kant’s revolution in philosophy and Friedrich Schleiermacher’s liberalism also contributed to the marginalization of the German Church. Kant divided the realm of knowledge into the phenomenal and the noumenal, the former being the realm of concrete things and the latter being the world of aesthetics and values. Religion was relegated to the latter and not considered able to speak to the former. For Christianity, a faith rooted in the historicity of God’s working in the world, this was a severe blow. In addition, in his book, On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers in 1799, Schleiermacher redefined the Christian faith largely to categories of moralism and feeling. The confluence of all these trends meant that the Church was reduced to little more than a sterile conveyor of private piety and public morals. The culturalized Christianity that resulted was criticized by the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, damned by the atheist Frederich Nietzsche, and unable to present either a challenge or an alternative to the new ideas sweeping Germany. Into the void left by the Church entered German Romanticism, a glorification of Germany’s pagan past, and new “scientific” theories like Darwinism. Melded with an insecure nationalism and bolstered by the cultural achievements of German intellectuals, Germans were convinced of their own superiority. Spiritually speaking, they succumbed to blindness and idolatry.

Germany’s sense of racial superiority, its atrocities in Belgium and in the waters of the Atlantic, along with the overall horrendous death toll of the First World War, help explain why the Allies were so punitive in the peace they forged at Versailles in 1919. The reparations were intended in part to break the spirit of militarism in Germany. Ironically, Versailles was punitive enough to make the Germans feel humiliated but did little to change attitudes within the country. The idolatry was given life by the fact that Germans did not feel defeated in the war even though their political leaders knew they had been. In the spring of 1918, Germany launched a series of offensives that actually gained them ground, but having expended their reserves, they could not hold what they had. Allied counteroffensives in the summer and fall of 1918 caused Germany’s defeat and led to the armistice on November 11, 1918. Within Germany, however, domestic propaganda highlighted the successes of the spring but did not explain the failures of the summer and fall. This fostered a sense among many Germans that they had been “stabbed in the back.” In the aftermath of Versailles, Adolf Hitler, a corporal in the German Army during the Great War, synthesized his own version of racial identity from the intellectual theories extant before and during the war and combined it with the feelings of betrayal stemming from the end of the war. This noxious mixture would form the core of Nazi ideology and that idolatry would only be broken by Germany’s total defeat in the Second World War. Thus, World War I was not the prequel to World War II. Rather, World War II is probably best seen as the conclusion of World War I, the two World Wars being Europe’s second Thirty Years War. It would take Germany’s total destruction in the Second World War and its division through the Cold War to really effect a change in Germany. The Germany of today, thankfully, is not the Germany of 1913.

A Lesson for Today?

What does this mean for us today as American Christians? While this historical vignette is interesting for how it pulls together many intellectual strands, it is not merely of antiquarian interest. Nor is this merely another data point about the dehumanizing effects of evolutionary ideas, although it is that. Weikert, in both the book already mentioned and in his follow-on book, Hitler’s Ethic; The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress, is careful to note that the connection between Darwinism and Nazi ideology was not necessarily a straight line. Given that, it would probably be misleading to assert that the acceptance of evolution in today’s society will inevitably lead to fascist ideology. There were additional factors that contributed to the development of fascism in Germany specific to that time and place. All that said, however, what this vignette does highlight is the self-inflicted failure of the Church. A Church that eschews doctrine, that rejects Scripture as authoritative or historically reliable, that relegates itself to private piety and mere moralism while looking to be acceptable to its cultural despisers, is a Church that will be incapable of resisting idolatry. If idolatry is to be opposed, then orthodoxy must be defended, even if that is unpopular. And idolatry needs to be called what it is. Relevance is not resistance. This is a sobering lesson for us as Christians today, as we face some of these same pressures. Our Lord said, “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” (Matt. 5:13)

May we not lose our saltiness.

December 26, 2022
On the Feast of the Nativity

Leo the Great, the bishop of Rome (i.e., the Pope) from AD 440-461, gave a series of sermons during his administration on the Feast of the Nativity (i.e., Christmas). The Christian church at the time was wrestling through the issue of understanding how Christ could be both fully man and fully God, producing what came to be known as the Definition of Chalcedon in AD 451. Leo’s Christmas sermons were not simple pietistic homilies on the Baby Jesus in the manager. Instead, they combined deep theological reflection with rich devotion to teach people the mystery of Christ’s human and divine natures. The sermon below is the third of his Christmas sermons.

On the Feast of the Nativity, III.

I. The truths of the Incarnation never suffer from being repeated

The things which are connected with the mystery of to-day’s solemn feast are well known to you, dearly-beloved, and have frequently been heard: but as yonder visible light affords pleasure to eyes that are unimpaired, so to sound hearts does the Saviour’s nativity give eternal joy; and we must not keep silent about it, though we cannot treat of it as we ought. For we believe that what Isaiah says, “who shall declare his generation?” applies not only to that mystery, whereby the Son of God is co-eternal with the Father, but also to this birth whereby “the Word became flesh.” And so, God, the Son of God, equal and of the same nature from the Father and with the Father, Creator and Lord of the Universe, Who is completely present everywhere, and completely exceeds all things, in the due course of time, which runs by His own disposal, chose for Himself this day on which to be born of the blessed virgin Mary for the salvation of the world, without loss of the mother’s honour. For her virginity was violated neither at the conception nor at the birth: “that it might be fulfilled,” as the Evangelist says, “which was spoken by the Lord through Isaiah the prophet, saying, behold the virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which is interpreted, God with us.” For this wondrous child-bearing of the holy Virgin produced in her offspring one person which was truly human and truly Divine, because neither substance so retained their properties that there could be any division of persons in them; nor was the creature taken into partnership with its Creator in such a way that the One was the in-dweller, and the other the dwelling; but so that the one nature was blended with the other. And although the nature which is taken is one, and that which takes is another, yet these two diverse natures come together into such close union that it is one and the same Son who says both that, as true Man, “He is less than the Father,” and that, as true God, “He is equal with the Father.”

II. The Arians could not comprehend the union of God and man

This union, dearly beloved, whereby the Creator is joined to the creature, Arian blindness could not see with the eyes of intelligence, but, not believing that the Only-begotten of God was of the same glory and substance with the Father, spoke of the Son’s Godhead as inferior, drawing its arguments from those words which are to be referred to the “form of a slave,” in respect of which, in order to show that it belongs to no other or different person in Himself, the same Son of God with the same form, says, “The Father is greater than I,” just as He says with the same form, “I and my Father are one.” For in “the form of a slave,” which He took at the end of the ages for our restoration, He is inferior to the Father: but in the form of God, in which He was before the ages, He is equal to the Father. In His human humiliation He was “made of a woman, made under the Law:” in His Divine majesty He abides the Word of God, “through whom all things were made.” Accordingly, He Who in the form of God made man, in the form of a slave was made man. For both natures retain their own proper character without loss: and as the form of God did not do away with the form of a slave, so the form of a slave did not impair the form of God. And so, the mystery of power united to weakness, in respect of the same human nature, allows the Son to be called inferior to the Father: but the Godhead, which is One in the Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, excludes all notion of inequality. For the eternity of the Trinity has nothing temporal, nothing dissimilar in nature: Its will is one, Its substance identical, Its power equal, and yet there are not three Gods, but one God; because it is a true and inseparable unity, where there can be no diversity. Thus, in the whole and perfect nature of true man was true God born, complete in what was His own, complete in what was ours. And by “ours” we mean what the Creator formed in us from the beginning, and what He undertook to repair. For what the deceiver brought in, and man deceived committed, had no trace in the Saviour; nor because He partook of man’s weaknesses, did He therefore share our faults. He took the form of a slave without stain of sin, increasing the human and not diminishing the divine: for that “emptying of Himself,” whereby the Invisible made Himself visible, was the bending down of pity, not the failing of power.

III. The Incarnation was necessary to the taking away of sin

In order therefore that we might be called to eternal bliss from our original bond and from earthly errors, He came down Himself to us to Whom we could not ascend, because, although there was in many the love of truth, yet the variety of our shifting opinions was deceived by the craft of misleading demons, and man’s ignorance was dragged into diverse and conflicting notions by a falsely-called science. But to remove this mockery, whereby men’s minds were taken captive to serve the arrogant devil, the teaching of the Law was not sufficient, nor could our nature be restored merely by the Prophets’ exhortations; but the reality of redemption had to be added to moral injunctions, and our fundamentally corrupt origin had to be re-born afresh. A Victim had to be offered for our atonement Who should be both a partner of our race and free from our contamination, so that this design of God whereby it pleased Him to take away the sin of the world in the Nativity and Passion of Jesus Christ, might reach to all generations: and that we should not be disturbed but rather strengthened by these mysteries, which vary with the character of the times, since the Faith, whereby we live, has at no time suffered variation.

IV. The blessings of the Incarnation stretch backwards as well as reach forward

Accordingly, let those men cease their complaints who with disloyal murmurs speak against the dispensations of God, and babble about the lateness of the Lord’s Nativity as if that, which was fulfilled in the last age of the world, had no bearing upon the times that are past. For the Incarnation of the Word did but contribute to the doing of that which was done: and the mystery of man’s salvation was never in the remotest age at a standstill. What the apostles foretold, that the prophets announced: nor was that fulfilled too late which has always been believed. But the Wisdom and Goodness of God made us more receptive of His call by thus delaying the work which brought salvation: so that what through so many ages had been foretold by many signs, many utterances, and many mysteries, might not be doubtful in these days of the Gospel: and that the Saviour’s nativity, which was to exceed all wonders and all the measure of human knowledge, might engender in us a Faith so much the firmer, as the foretelling of it had been ancient and oft-repeated. And so, it was no new counsel, no tardy pity whereby God took thought for men: but from the constitution of the world He ordained one and the same Cause of Salvation for all. For the grace of God, by which the whole body of the saints is ever justified, was augmented, not begun, when Christ was born: and this mystery of God’s great love, wherewith the whole world is now filled, was so effectively presignified that those who believed that promise obtained no less than they, who were the actual recipients.

V. The coming of Christ in our flesh corresponds with our becoming members of His body

Wherefore, since the loving-kindness is manifest, dearly beloved, wherewith all the riches of Divine goodness are showered on us, whose call to eternal life has been assisted not only by the profitable examples of those who went before, but also by the visible and bodily appearing of the Truth Itself, we are bound to keep the day of the Lord’s Nativity with no slothful nor carnal joy. And we shall each keep it worthily and thoroughly, if we remember of what Body we are members, and to what a Head we are joined, lest anyone as an ill-fitting joint cohere not with the rest of the sacred building. Consider, dearly beloved, and by the illumination of the Holy Spirit thoughtfully bear in mind Who it was that received us into Himself, and that we have received in us: since, as the Lord Jesus became our flesh by being born, so we also became His body by being reborn. Therefore, are we both members of Christ, and the temple of the Holy Ghost: and for this reason the blessed Apostle says, “Glorify and carry God in your body:” for while suggesting to us the standard of His own gentleness and humility, He fills us with that power whereby He redeemed us, as the Lord Himself promises: “come unto Me all ye who labour and are heavy-laden, and I will refresh you. Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls.” Let us then take the yoke, that is not heavy nor irksome, of the Truth that rules us, and let us imitate His humility, to Whose glory we wish to be conformed: He Himself helping us and leading us to His promises, Who, according to His great mercy, is powerful to blot out our sins, and to perfect His gifts in us, Jesus Christ our Lord, Who lives and reigns for ever and ever. Amen.

December 25, 2022
The Real Crisis Facing American Christianity

[Author’s Note – In previous years, I have used Reformation Sunday as an opportunity to talk about where the Christian church is at and tie that back in some way to the Reformation. This talk continues that practice and was delivered to the adult Sunday School class of Christ Presbyterian Church Burke on Sunday, October, 30, 2022.]

We are bombarded daily with messages from the “outrage” machine of the regular and social media. But what is the real crisis? Is it the Far Right, looking to seize political control and curb immigrants and other minorities in support of some nostalgic vision of White Christian America? Is it the expanding influence of the Woke-ist Left, fronting an LGBTQ agenda and Critical Race Theory? The media tries to push people in either of those directions. I think, however, that for us as Christians, however, the real problem is more subtle and long-term: we are losing our “saltiness.” Here I am drawing on our Lord’s words in His Sermon on the Mount when He said, “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men” (Matt. 5:13 NKJV). Salt is a preservative. When it fails to be salty, it fails to preserve. The American church today is becoming largely irrelevant, and the strife we see in our society today in no small measure because of this. This is the real crisis of our day.

The Church in Decline

Demographic trendlines do not make popular headlines but are disturbing, nonetheless. The Pew Research Center for Religion in America found in 2007 that about 78% of Americans self-identified as Christian; in a follow-up study in 2014 that number was down to about 70%, or roughly a 1% drop every year. As of 2020, Pew assessed that only about 64% of Americans self-identified as Christian, continuing about the same rate of decline. Those that are leaving the faith generally are not converting to another religion; rather, they are joining the ranks of the religiously unaffiliated or what Pew calls the “nones.” That grouping now makes up about one-third of American society. For perspective, in the early 1990s, about 1 in 10 people would have said they were religiously unaffiliated; now it is about 1 in 3. If current trends continue, by the mid-2030s less than half of all Americans will consider themselves Christian. That will considerably change the social dynamics in the US. Indeed, it already has, as people look to activist politics, libertine sex, and social causes to fill the “God gap.”

If current trends continue, by the mid-2030s less than half of all Americans will consider themselves Christian. That will considerably change the social dynamics in the US. Indeed, it already has, as people look to activist politics, libertine sex, and social causes to fill the “God gap.” This decline almost certainly will accelerate in the next 15 years.

This decline almost certainly will accelerate in the next 15 years, since the youngest generation, Generation Z, is also the least religious and the influence of secularism will strengthen as their grandparents and great-grandparents pass away. Also, although the decline is hitting all Christian denominations, it is hitting the Roman Catholic Church and mainline Protestantism particularly hard. Some mainline denominations will literally cease to exist within a couple of decades because they are not bringing into adherents to the faith through either births or conversion, while their congregants are aging and dying. The median age in the Episcopal Church USA, for example, is about 69 and with no growth the church will largely die off within the next 25 years. Although we as conservatives disagree with the mainline churches theologically, the implosion of the mainline churches will be negative for us as well; it means there will be culturally less of a moderating influence between us and secularists, especially since those leaving the faith are often leaving with an animus toward it.

The decline also is geographic. The 2018 General Social Survey found that 50% of all people in the United States who attend church at least once a month live in the South. One might be tempted to think that Christians should just form a Christian redoubt in the South, but the problem with that is that Christianity in the South is in danger of becoming merely a cultural marker, a handmaiden to a social and cultural identity, rather than a deeply held set of beliefs. The North went through this phase roughly a century ago and that manifested itself in efforts to publicly ally Protestantism and political power through such things as putting “In God We Trust” on our coinage or having mandatory prayer in schools. Such, actions, however, failed to arrest the decline of the church in the North. Years ago, a friend of mine from Texas once said, “We don’t care how y’all did it up North.” I understand the sentiment, but the fact of the matter is that Christians in the South had better care how things happened up North because the South is heading in the same direction. The destination is unbelief.

Most worrisome, the decline of American Christianity is manifested in a hollowing out of belief even among those who profess to be Christian. Ligonier Ministries and Lifeway have been doing their “State of Theology” survey since 2014 and this year’s results are particularly disheartening. A majority of Christians—to include Evangelicals—believe that people are born innocent and basically good by nature. This fundamentally contradicts the Bible’s characterization of people as being under a divine curse, lost in sin, and without hope except for salvation through the work of Christ. In addition, a majority of Christians—again including Evangelicals—believe that God accepts the worship of all religions, and that He is not absolute but is learning and adapting to different circumstances. Moreover, while they affirm the truthfulness of the Trinity, they also believe Jesus is a created being; that He is not necessarily God, and that the Holy Spirit is a force, not a personal being.

These things are not esoteric doctrines on which Christians may agree to disagree; they have been core tenets of the faith throughout the history of the church, the denial of which marked people as being definitively outside the faith. This puts into perspective the conflicts we see around us: why do we think God will somehow be pleased with our stance on social justice or traditional sexuality when we are both fundamentally misrepresenting who God has revealed Himself to be and denying the direness of our own condition? God does not need us, and we are not doing Him any favors as if He ought to be grateful to us for even giving Him the pitiful amount of attention that we do. That God is allowing American Christianity to decline as it has reflects His judgment on the church. We must always remember His sovereignty in the circumstances; this is not happening outside His purview. He is sifting the church and pruning it. Cultural Christianity is dying off, just as God allowed the unbelieving generation of Israel to die off in the Wilderness.

Why do we think God will somehow be pleased with our stance on social justice or traditional sexuality when we are both fundamentally misrepresenting who God has revealed Himself to be and denying the direness of our own condition? God does not need us, and we are not doing Him any favors as if He ought to be grateful to us for even giving Him the pitiful amount of attention that we do.

The Underlying Drivers

I grew up in northern New England, as cultural Christianity there was fading, and the spiritual shadows were lengthening. Within the United States, northern New England is now the most secular part of the country, surpassing even the Pacific northwest. Church buildings that were the vestiges of the old Puritanism, were even then being repurposed to become performing arts centers, nightclubs, billiards halls, and sandwich shops as congregations died. New England led the broader decline the nation more broadly is experiencing. As a result of this decline and my own experiences with the mainline church and with evangelicalism, I have wrestled since the late 1980s with the question of how the Christian church in this country has gotten to such a bad place. My own disillusionment led me at one point in the early 1990s to consider converting to Eastern Orthodoxy, but God in His providence showed me the problems with that tradition as well. So, in reflecting on this, then how did we get here and how do we move forward?

The answers to how we have gotten here are complex and books have literally been written on the matter. I will not be able to do justice to all of that here. After I turned away from thinking about converting to Eastern Orthodoxy, I read two books that in many ways still sets my thinking on these questions: Michael Horton’s Made in America; The Shaping of Modern American Evangelicalism and J. I. Packer’s A Quest for Godliness; The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life. Horton enabled me to see the negative impact that the Second Great Awakening had on much of American Protestantism, and this theme has been laid out in a more scholarly manner by Daryl Hart and others. Packer helped me to realize that the Protestantism that we see now is not reflective of the richness and depth of our Puritan forebears. Incumbent upon us today is the need to take a hard look at our own shortcomings in American Protestantism and to recover the richness of the faith as articulated by the Reformers and the Puritans.

As I have thought about it over the years, there were five key characteristics of American Protestantism that were crystalized in the Second Great Awakening of the first half of the nineteenth century and that underpin the problems that are coming to a head today: pragmatism; superficiality; sentimentalism; moralism; and a desire for social influence. Let me discuss each of these in turn.

There are five key characteristics of American Protestantism that were crystalized in the Second Great Awakening of the first half of the nineteenth century and that underpin the problems that are coming to a head today: pragmatism, superficiality, sentimentalism, moralism, and a desire for social influence.

First, Americans are a pragmatic people. Pragmatism has a connotation of “getting things done” but philosophically it means “whatever works in getting the desired results.” As Americans our embrace of pragmatism stems from our frontier origins, and in many ways is not inherently bad: we have been able to build a large, stable, dynamic, and prosperous country through being pragmatic.

Pragmatism, however, is not always a good thing, especially when applied to the church. The revivalism of the Second Great Awakening put a great deal of emphasis on techniques that could be employed to manipulate people into “making a decision for Jesus,” and that mentality persists to this day. If you use ABC techniques then you should get XYZ results. Like the Revivalists of old, our pragmatic sensibilities are most visibly manifest in how we use worship to evangelistically “reach people” for Christ. I remember talking to a Russian Baptist years ago who had translated for American evangelicals who came to the Soviet Union when it started opening up in the late 1980s. He observed that the Americans would come in with a laundry list of things they would need for event, including a specific number of cards for people to indicate that they are making a commitment to Christ because they could expect X number of conversions. At first this Russian wondered how Americans could know how many people would be converted; did the Americans have some special anointing of the Holy Spirit? The more that he worked with the Americans, the more he came to see that this was simply American pragmatism in action.

Second, such pragmatism leads to superficiality. One can see this in the fixation on “decisions for Christ” over continuing discipleship, since the former is more easily measurable than the latter. It is also manifested in pressure upon pastors and teachers to show specific tangible implications from whatever the preach or teach. This encourages a superficial use of the Bible, either for atomized, biblicist proof-texting or for moralistic stories. To be sure, our preaching and teaching should be something that we can apply to our lives but we as Americans love the multi-step plans toward self-improvement. Biblical truth is not always easily reducible to such multi-step plans. It will, however, over time reshape understanding of the reality in which we live and the ends for which we desire Ironically, the superficiality of pragmatism can make us more open to bad theologies if it looks like these will provide a better payoff or be more “sophisticated” and “scientific.” This is the route through which much modernist theology and philosophy has been absorbed into seemingly conservative and evangelical churches.

Third, just as ironic, pragmatism can also led to a pietistic sentimentalism. Historically, the Rationalism that came out of eighteenth-century Europe yielded to the Romantic era in Europe and the Transcendental movement in America. It becomes appealing because it is perceived as a counterbalance to the calculating aspects of pragmatism. In reality, however, it is spirituality without the constraints of doctrine. Although the focus may start out on Christ, such spirituality is open to any number of influences, regardless of whether they are good or bad. In our day, we ten to think of the counter cultural New Age movement of the 1960s, but when one looks the first half of the 1800s, while the Second Great Awakening was underway, there were a number of comparable aberrant spiritualist movements that sprung up.

Fourth, and not surprisingly given the revivalist mentality that the came with the Second Great Awakening, there is a strongly moralistic strain in American Protestantism. On a personal level, I have seen this on multiple occasions when people give their testimonies. There is implicit pressure to show how Christ has made a dramatic difference in your life, just as one would in giving testimonials endorsing products: “I tried Jesus, and this is how radical a difference He made.” Many Christians who did not have a dramatic conversion experience feel they have to apologize for growing up in a godly Christian family. They should not have to feel that way; growing up in a Christian family should be preferred, rather than the exception.

Such moralism exists on a corporate scale as well. Because America was such a young nation, there were few real institutions early on. Thus, after people became converted at revival meetings, there was not only reform in their own personal lives but a desire to build up their communities as well. Going hand-in-hand with revivalism were reform movements for abolishing slavery, for fostering temperance regarding alcohol, and for improving the conditions of the poor and needy, among other things. To be sure, personal and corporate moral reform are indeed good things, and they have made a positive difference for Americans and American society. The danger has come in the continual temptation to make them ends in themselves. Our moralism and pragmatism lead us to believe in the perfectibility of ourselves and society and that is a subtext in our social and political dialogue.

Lastly, past successes have created an expectation that the church should have broad and high social influence in society, ostensibly in the name of the Gospel but really beyond propagating the Gospel. That, in turn, creates pressure to accommodate the culture in varying ways, so as to gain influence or at least not lose social and political influence. Even within our own denomination there are pressures of this type and that is proving corrosive of a faithful and orthodox witness to the truth.

Returning to the Reformation

Much more can be said, but I want to come back to how we move forward in light of all this, and especially, what difference the Reformation makes. In light of these trends, conservative Christians are inclined toward three ways of dealing with the situation we now face: reconstruction, Romanism, or revival.

By “reconstruction” I mean efforts to restore the prominence of Christianity in America, typically by leveraging the power of the Federal Government. This sentiment explains the desperation and political activism of so many conservative Christians today. Over the past 10-15 years, I have repeated, well-meaning calls for Christians to “wake up” before everything is lost and get the right politicians in office now. I am frankly doubtful that this will work. I lack confidence in any politician to know how to turn the clock back, let alone to do it competently, and moreover, the demographic trends are not going to be reversed by legislation. In many ways, the situation we now face is akin to the failed last-ditch efforts one reads about in 2 Kings to stave the impending invasion of the Babylonians. If the decline of the American church is a judgment of God, then it is already too late. Rather, we need to repent of our desire for influence and replace it with a simple desire for faithfulness to the Lord.

In terms of “Romanism,” there has been a trend over the last few decades of many Protestants thinking that the Roman Catholic Church is a bastion of conservatism that is withstanding the onslaught of secularism and the New Paganism. Rome cultivates that image, and Catholic theologians like to charge that the secularism of our day is the result of the Reformation shattering a united Christendom. I know of one an ordained pastor in the PCA church I used to attend who “crossed the Tiber” because he thought Protestantism lacked the theological and intellectual ability to deal with the challenges of public life. I know of young people raised in conservative evangelical homes who have done likewise.

This is wrong on multiple levels. Roman Catholic theologians are as diverse in their views as those in Protestantism. Among the laity, the State of Theology survey shows that attitudes among Roman Catholics are generally consistent with or more liberal than even mainline Protestants. The decline of self-identified Christians in the Catholic Church is greater than that of mainline churches, according to the Pew Research. Catholic nostalgia for “Christendom” is only sustainable by willful ignorance of actual history; when one looks at the real historical record, “Christendom” was never as united or spiritual as people would like to think of it as being. Moreover, while the Reformation did contribute to the rise of secularism in Europe, a stronger argument can be made that Roman Catholic efforts to maintain political authority in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries did much more than Protestantism to engender an atheistic backlash, especially in the events surrounding the French Revolution.

The default mode for many evangelical Protestants is that we need to “have a revival.” No doubt, a revival of the Gospel would be most welcome these days. But if, as I have outlined here, part of the problem underlying the decline of American Christianity stems from the pragmatism and associated effects of the Second Great Awakening, then doubling down on revivalism is not going to be an effective part of the solution. Even insofar as revivalism worked in the past, it is clear that the marginal gains have been diminishing over time. Techniques cannot bring about true revival; only God can.

So, where does that leave us? Actually, I think the time is propitious to reset the foundations of American Protestantism by returning to the richness of the truths recovered by the Reformers and their Puritan descendants. This is what Packer pointed out in his book and his work on the Puritans. What I mean by this is more than simply affirmation of the solas of the Reformation (sola Scriptura, solus Christus, sola gratia, sola fide, soli Deo gloria). Those are important, to be sure, but the Reformation is not reducible to the five solas. Much more was going on in the Reformation that has lasting significance.

The time is propitious to reset the foundations of American Protestantism by returning to the richness of the truths recovered by the Reformers and their Puritan descendants.

Take, for example, the priority that the Reformers and their immediate successors placed on Scripture. It would be wrong to think that the pre-Reformation Catholic Church did not use Scripture at all. They did use it, but because of limitations of books at the time, much of their understanding of Scripture relied upon compilations of quotes from Scripture on specific topics. In some respects, current biblicist approaches to Scripture are not that far removed from this pre-Reformation approach. The revival of learning that came in with the Renaissance, however, prompted a drive to get back to the original sources in the original languages. As church historian Richard A. Muller notes, this led in the Reformation to a revolution in how the Scriptures were interpreted, with far more extensive exegetical work, seeing the Scriptures as a unified whole rather than an atomized collection of verses and passages. Such deep exegesis resulted in the Reformed understanding of what we now call covenant theology.

Covenant theology is a distinctive of Reformed theology that captures the epic of God’s redemptive work. There is a longing today for some kind of grand epic bigger than oneself, and that can be seen in the immense popularity of the Star Wars movies, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the Middle Earth fantasies of J. R. R. Tolkien and even the Narnia series of C. S. Lewis. For too many people, Protestantism has simply been reduced to “getting saved” and “being a good moral person.” For a people looking for how their lives have meaning in the broader sweep of the world, this reductionism is not enough. Such meaning and purpose, however, can be found in God’s covenantal work. Moreover, the covenantal nature of Scripture not only unifies the Old and New Testaments, but also brings into clear focus all aspects of theology and the Christian life. And, unlike the popular epics of today, it has the added benefit of being true. Reformation covenant theology runs counter to the superficiality of contemporary American Protestantism.

Another example of the richness that can be recovered from the Reformation regards worship. By focusing on just the solas of the Reformation it is easy to lose sight of how much energy, effort, and polemic was put in to reforming worship. Today, people criticize Reformed worship as being too plain, yet its plainness is not a bug, but a feature. Prior to the Reformation, Catholic worship exacerbated the distance between the laity and God. The ornateness of the ritual, especially the serving of the Eucharist, was intended to overawe worshipers. The distance between medieval Catholicism and modern megachurches is not as great as one might assume. Both are motivated by a spirit of what man thinks should be offered up, rather than what God has asked for. Worship is a production. In Scripture, however, God spends much time specifying to His people how He is to be worshiped, but man’s sensibility is much like that of Cain’s—God gets what we want to offer, not what He has asked for. Reformed worship not only reverses this, so as to be better pleasing to God, but its simplicity facilitates spiritual formation and communion, and draws us nearer to God. For a people burned out on the constant pursuit of the “next big thing” such simplicity may well seem refreshing.

A final example can be seen in the Reformed understanding of the nature of the church itself. The Catholic Church asserted obedience to an ecclesiastical hierarchy that was accountable to no one but itself, and such power opened the door for abuse. In our own day, we see individual celebrity pastors or ministries, while not operating on the scale that the Catholic Church did then or does now, nevertheless have engaged in spiritual abuse themselves, having no authority outside of the church to check their power. The Reformers, however, worked out an understanding of church government that built in graduated courts to diffuse and limit such power and to provide necessary accountability. The Reformers also envisioned a different role for the minister. In the Catholic understanding, the priest was largely the dispenser of the sacrament. For modern churches, the minister is supposed to be the charismatic master of ceremonies for the worship “event.” In the Reformed understanding, the minister is the steward of God’s Word and the pastor of God’s people. That is a far more significant role in the spiritual formation of God’s people.

The current situation facing today’s church is undeniably bad and unlikely to be reversed quickly, but it is not beyond recovery. A key lesson from the Reformation is that the situation the church faced prior to the Reformation was also bad, but through the Reformation God revitalized His church. Recovering the truths of the Reformation is not going to be a simple multi-step solution that our reflexive pragmatism looks for. It will take time and effort, and may seem “inefficient” by the world’s standards. But returning to the model presented by our forebears in the Reformed tradition will provide a more secure, stable foundation than what we have been dealing with, and that is something to be pursued. The Reformers embraced the motto, “Post Tenebras, Lux”—”After darkness, light.” That is a motto worthy for our time as well.

November 6, 2022