Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (III)
Nevin imposes a theological paradigm and metanarrative on his
reading of Church History but ignores the fact that the New Testament
repeatedly and forcefully warns of apostasy and appeals to the Old Testament as
a pattern which is replete with examples of corruption, defection and
compromise. In other words the Scriptures all but told us to expect this course
in terms of the history of the Church and yet Nevin's progression paradigm has
no room for it.
Additionally the New Testament Church is given the status of being
sojourners and pilgrims – akin to the patriarchal wanderers and later exiles of
the Old Testament. When Christ comes will he find faith on the Earth? The warnings
regarding the narrow way, the threat of removed candlesticks and the literally
scores of admonitions and exhortations to persevere preclude any notion of
cultural transformation let alone the compromising cultural appropriation that
became Christendom.
And even were Nevin to ignore my suggested read of 2
Thessalonians 2, he nevertheless must reckon with the man of sin and his
idolatrous claims – and the preterist argument which is employed as a
convenient means of dealing with New Testament eschatology cannot reckon with
the passage or relegate its application to the Neronic epoch.
Reading through Schaff's biased eyes, Nevin declares the
dissenters represent 'bad stuff' – revealing that his historiography cannot
accommodate the Biblical theme of a faithful remnant standing firm in the face
of apostasy, let alone the idea that the Church is a body of martyrs –
seemingly defeated by the world, or that the Church's call in this age is to
endure hatred and persecution.
No, Nevin glories in the Church of power and wealth, the Church
that shapes civilisations – the Church that loses its identity and becomes
indistinguishable from the world, the Church of the apostasy as the New
Testament would reckon it.
Nevin mistreats and mishandles patristic polemics and echoes
many of the manipulations of pagan Roman apologists. While there is a
demonstrable connection between the Reformation and the sundering and
fragmentation of the unifying epistemology of Roman Catholic Christendom, Nevin
once again falls into the trap of projecting 19th century
developments and attitudes on to the past. It's an exercise every historian
rightly utilises but the more careful historians will restrain the impulse and
temper it – as it can run amok. The Orthodox world has fallen into this as well
blaming all their woes and the woes of the modern world on the Latin West, the
legacy of the papacy and Scholasticism. Would that history were that simple.
As Nevin nears the end of his polemic I think he touches on a
point that demands further reflection and that is the relationship of the
Puritan-Confessionalist ecclesiology with that of the Ecumenical Councils. Some
Restorationist groups have rejected them in
toto as a phenomenon of Constantinianism – and they have a point.
The Confessionalist view usually posits that they accept the
first four councils – Nicaea, Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon which took
place between the years 325-451. However, this is not entirely true as
Protestants do not simply accept the rulings of the councils but rather embrace
only their Christological and Trinitarian rulings – which itself presents a
puzzle as to the binding authority of these bodies and the creeds and canons
they produced. The Protestant acceptance of them seems arbitrary and it's
pretty difficult to make a case that they have binding authority when much that
was taught and declared by these councils is not accepted. What argument can be
given that the authority would only extend to issues concerning Theology-proper
and Christology? Again, the criteria are at best subjective and frankly
self-serving.
You can forgive Nevin if he acts as if this position is
trying to have its cake and eat it too.
But in the end, Nevin's Early
Christianity argument fails on multiple fronts. If there's an elephant in
the room it's the presence of Constantine – and the fact that Nevin conveniently
ignores him and his transformative impact on the Church.
Ultimately Nevin is blind to his own narrative which is just
as arbitrary and de-coupled from Scripture as that of the Magisterial
Protestants he is criticising. His advocacy of Protestantism based on the
principle of development is an argument built on sand, a subjective philosophically
rooted narrative imposed on the chronological data.
And yet Nevin's view of Rome and the general course of Church
history (while not framed in those exact terms) is today's Evangelical norm –
Rome was and is valid and in terms of the culture war against humanistic
secularism, the modern Evangelical finds an ally in Rome. No one would have
guessed that the ecumenical movement would bear fruit – not on a foundation of
theological liberalism and the quest for the lowest common denominator – but in
Dominionism and the prioritisation of so-called Christian culture. The unity of
today's Neo-Christendom movement (comprised of both Evangelicals and Catholics)
is not born of the Spirit or even of theological liberalism but out of zeal for
politics.
Another alternative to both the Puritan narrative of restored
primitivism as well as the Roman Catholic and Mercersburg narratives was found
in the Whig histories of figures like JA Wylie (1808-1890).
A modification of what Nevin calls the Puritan View, in reality it is an outlook that incorporates
Nevin's progressive view as well – the Whig approach reckons Rome as apostate,
glories in the testimony of medieval dissent and yet anachronistically and
often dishonestly transforms these groups into Magisterial-Confessional
Protestants. Unlike Nevin, the Whig view argues Protestantism is reconstituted New
Testament Christianity but like Nevin it incorporates a progress principle that
views Roman Christendom as aberrant and degenerate and argues for a Protestant
Christendom that embraces the development of political ideas such as classical
liberalism (often in a nationalist as opposed to throne and altar form) as well
as science, industry and modernist economics. In other words Protestantism
wasn't just about Reforming the Church but moving civilisation into a new and
advanced phase.*
An alternative but not unrelated view is found in Landmarkism
which in some respects enshrines many of the impulses and proclivities of the
Whig era and yet identifies the Church in the narrowest of terms. A historical
argument, the historiography in the case of Landmarkism is so narrow as to
become a-historical, even fantastical and romantic.
Rising in the 19th century, Landmarkism would find
its ultimate expression in the 1931 publication The Trail of Blood. The pamphlet is still occasionally on the book
table in some Fundamentalist churches. The argument is fairly simple. Until the
Reformation and the appearance of Baptist ecclesiastical bodies, the True
Church was comprised of dissident groups that resisted Rome. What unified them?
They were Baptists – advocates of believer's baptism by immersion.
Landmarkism makes the Baptist position (or sole distinctive)
that of believer's baptism by immersion into the very gospel – the mark of the
True Church. However its adherents often claim other gospel elements as being
unique or distinctive to the Baptist camp – which is simply not true.
Believer's baptism by immersion is in fact the only Baptist distinctive.
In addition the many groups it cites as part of its Baptist
chain or succession were not baptistic in doctrine.
The Waldensians were not baptists. This is fairly easily
proven from the record. Neither were the Novatians or Donatists. None of them
advocated believer's baptism on the basis that it's the 'first sign of
obedience' nor did they mandate or even practice immersion. The aforementioned
groups and many others (such as the Lollards and various Hussite groups) were
convinced paedobaptists – believing their children to be members of the Church.
Many Baptists fall into a simple trap and confuse re-baptism
with the Baptist principle of Believer's
Baptism. Did the Donatists for example re-baptise converts? Yes, they did.
But they didn't do so on the basis of rejecting paedobaptism. Rather they
viewed Roman Catholic baptism as invalid – regardless of the age or mode.
That's a very different thing and rooted in a different ecclesiology than what
is found in Baptist sacramentology (or lack thereof).
Other groups such as the Paulicians and Albigenses were of
dubious orthodoxy – and their practices regarding baptism were not based on
Scripture. I think a case can be made that the Paulicians were subject to
misrepresentation by Orthodox historians and may not have been the
Gnostic-Manichaean types they are accused of being – but that still doesn't
make them into Baptists.
Modern Confessionalists have their narratives as well. Rome
was the True Church until she formally denied Justification by Faith Alone at
Trent in 1563. Never mind the fact that Rome had never taught the doctrine but
she (apparently) remained in good standing until she formally denied it. Thus
at that moment a spiritual transference occurred with the Protestant Churches
taking up the sceptre (as it were) and becoming the True Church. I've also
written elsewhere about some of the problems with the Confessionalist narrative
because it too is rooted in a progressive theology and yet once that principle
is established the argument that the progression necessarily stops in the 15th
or 16th century doesn't prove very convincing – it seems contrived,
arbitrary and rather convenient. In other words they embrace a progressive
orthodoxy until the point of their movement. Then everything must stop and
never change. That's rather convenient, even a bit slippery. But unlike them or
the liberals who argue for continued progression the ethos of the First
Reformation would instead argue the whole idea of progression is itself
wrong-headed and prone to abuse – a point that will be revisited in later
essays in this series.
When Confessionalists speak of proto-Protestantism, the usual
(and often derisive) assumption is some form of Landmarkism is at work. Some
speak of forerunners to the Reformation such as Wycliffe and Hus – and
strangely enough Savonarola and yet they are viewed as curiosities or mere rumblings
of distant thunder – the Magisterial Reformation being the real and salient
event.
To focus too much on these groups as a means to establish an anti-Catholic remnant narrative strikes
many as falling into the kind of simplistic romantic whitewash of history that
you find with Landmarkism – poor historiography wed to poor theology.
Landmarkism needs to be dispensed with on multiple fronts as
baptism is not an organising principle for a remnant ecclesiology. EH Broadbent
attempts an alternative form in The
Pilgrim Church but as I've written elsewhere, the work is deficient on many
fronts. It too falls into historical error, in some cases erroneously reporting
the history and theology of some groups, in other cases falling into glaring
omissions. His read is through Plymouth Brethren eyes and while the book
certainly has some high points, it doesn't quite manage to put it all together.
There is another organising principle that many seem to have
missed but it's one that needs to be revisited and God willing we shall explore
it anon.
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*Many emphasize and even celebrate the connections between
the Reformation heritage and the rise of Classical Liberalism. While some have
certainly overplayed this argument, there are connections – but interestingly
they're not connected to the New Testament but to the Magisterial Reformation's
Renaissance context and heritage – a connection many Confessionalists and
Evangelicals would rather not make. I would go further and argue that the
Renaissance exploration of philosophy and the epoch's crisis over epistemology
played a part in driving the Calvinist and Lutheran movements into the
re-embrace of Scholasticism during the late 16th and early 17th
century. Obviously many in those camps would strongly dispute this.