Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (XI)
The first
half of the Twentieth Century saw the collapse of the Kingdom-progress
narrative and eventually an attempt was made to re-cast it but this time in
much more specific and deliberate terms. Postmillennialism didn't die but it
took a backseat. However its ethos was perpetuated in the form of Dominionism –
a theological spectrum that was able to penetrate virtually every facet and
faction of the Protestant and Evangelical movements.
Under
the various forms and scenarios of Dominionism, the Kingdom is wedded to the
culture and creation – the post-fall creation we might add. Additionally
there's a monistic framework of 'stewardship', the redemption of culture and
its restoration by which is meant bringing Heaven to Earth or making Heaven
manifest itself on Earth in the cultural and political order.
The
old Postmillennialism largely collapsed and yet over the course of the 20th
century, Evangelicalism via the Dominionist road would more or less take up its
banner in modified form. And so the progress narrative has been retained and
yet it has been honed and re-shaped in the wake of 19th and 20th
century upheavals.
The
New Testament principle of a world that is passing away, a sin cursed world
subject to vanity and decay in which the redeemed look to heaven to be clothed
upon with a resurrected body is largely abhorred and rejected by this camp.
Anyone attempting to teach the New Testament dynamic regarding our posture
toward this age and its vanity was and is immediately decried as being Gnostic
in orientation and cosmology. Dominionism professes to believe in the Edenic Fall
but functionally rejects any school of thought that takes it seriously into theological
and ethical account and contrasts this present evil age with the age to come.
Dominionists falsely identify such tensions and dualities as absolute forms of
'dualism' and therefore Gnostic in orientation even if this isn't the case. In
fact the New Testament itself not only recognises these eschatological tensions
but makes them the basis for not only a great deal of doctrinal formulation but
a system of ethics that places the Church in a state of antithesis and
opposition to the world. Far from redeeming this present age, the Church is
called to bear witness against it, warn of its coming Parousia-doom and to preach
a heavenly Kingdom – a New Heavens and a New Earth.
The
First Reformation exhibited such nature-grace dualism in their understanding
that certain occupations and professions were out of bounds for the Christian.
Not only was statecraft and soldiery forbidden but much in the world of
commerce and the coin was also beyond the pale. Pilgrims, they sought a
heavenly Kingdom and would not compromise in the realm of ethics, nor would they
seek to make money at the expense of others or through fiscal alchemy – a
practice that was amplified in the Renaissance era as usury, banking, stock
exchanges, and insurance came into their own.
Roman
Catholicism held to a sacral order which sanctified the whole of society but
even in this framework Rome retained a degree of nature-grace dualism in their
higher appreciation for the monastic life and the life divorced from the
mundane. Their dualism was not Biblical in that it still affirmed the sacral order
and their anti-worldliness was more deeply rooted in legalistic tradition and
innovation than in Scripture. That said, they still had some concept that there
was a problem with a Christian profession being wed to the sword and/or the
coin.
But
then the Magisterial Reformation came along and laboured to eliminate any hint
of dualism or even duality. In the ancient and medieval Church there were those
heretical groups such as some of the Gnostics and the Cathars that embraced
absolute dualism and yet (contrary to many of today's Christian teachers)
neither Rome nor the folk of the First Reformation embraced this extreme. And
yet as the monistic structures of the Magisterial Reformation (with its
sanctifying of vocation) was recast and fortified in the 20th
century, a new reality emerged. As just mentioned, anything that even hints of
duality has come into question and in many case those that even suggest a
tension are immediately decried as espousing Gnostic ideology.
And
so in this instance (as in several others) the First Reformation while
rejecting Rome finds itself (only by comparison) closer to Rome than to the
ideology of the Magisterial Reformation.
The
Magisterial Reformation openly and vigorously affirms the world and seeks to
appropriate it (or conquer it) and transform it into Zion – into the heavenly
Kingdom of Christ.
While
Rome functionally embraced the same goal, its theology was more nuanced and
subtle and could retain a degree of duality. To be fair we should also
emphasize the Confessional heritage is not monolithic and there are also some
who embrace this model with a reduced and more tempered zeal – or rather a
lessened expectation of success in this age.
And
yet these moderate Dominionists still to some degree retain the monistic
structure. They may speak of Two Kingdoms but what they (Lutheran and Reformed
Confessionalists of this stripe) really mean is a One Kingdom structure with two aspects. The sacralist assumptions remain
but they are dispersed or watered down as it were.
This
is contrasted with the New Testament view – one echoed in the imminence-driven expectations
and ethics of the Early Church and the First Reformation which argues for an
inherent nature-grace dualism as a result of the Fall. This world is sin-cursed
and as a result the people of God look toward heaven – their hope is in the
next life in the age to come. There is an inherent cynicism in this view with
regard to progress and yet there's also a pilgrim-contentment to be found in
the fact that this world is not our home and this order or age is doomed and
set for destruction.
Men
will build their Babels and re-cast and revive the Beast every so often. Let
them. Let the dead bury their dead. Sometimes it will be better, sometimes
worse. But as we're reduced to the fringes of society anyway (if we're
faithful), it makes little difference to us. For both the ancient Church and
the First Reformation this was to embrace the underground, the life in the
catacombs and in the wilds. How often were the faithful referred to as cave and
hole dwellers, worshipping in the woods and in out of the way places? Of course
in the industrial age this might still mean the caves and woods but it can also
mean the catacombs or in the midst of the urban decay where the outcasts and
lower-class citizenry are wont to dwell.
This
is our pilgrim calling and it must be sharply contrasted (in terms of social
theology and ethics) with the world-affirming values of the Magisterial
Sacralists – today expressed in their embrace, emulation and position within
the suburban middle and upper classes.
Likewise
their societal redemption project is given over to a systemic holistic focus on
society – the efficient exploitation of resources and capital – and thus people.
The Sacralist (and later Dominionist) order focuses on constructing a holistic
sanctified society and this was expressed in the university ideal – the
bringing together of various disciplines for a unified purpose.
The
First Reformation was certainly not anti-education. Indeed to the shame of the
Roman Catholic order they strove to bring literacy to their people and
maintained underground schools, scriptoria and in some cases hospitals. The
anti-intellectualist attitude sometimes taken by Fundamentalism reflects
neither the disposition of the New Testament nor the First Reformation but is
instead a (often Nativist or Anti-Cosmopolitan) reactionary social response and
utilised as a protection mechanism – or historically it was in many ways a
stripped down version of Common Sense Realism reacting to everything from
Idealism and Positivism to Pragmatism.
That
said, one can have a robust appreciation for education and knowledge even while
eschewing mainstream academia – not out of a dismissal of knowledge but
understanding that academia (as such) is largely geared to the social project
and it functions as a gateway, regulator, and reinforcement for those would
attain a certain status or standing within it. In other words it is (in the
end) an institution that's largely geared toward feeding the world system and
integrating people within its ranks.
Like
the Early Church, First Reformation and even much of dissident Protestant
history, an embrace of second-class status and the rejection of power and
mammon means that we will (all the more in a technocratic age) be pushed to the
margins. It's not wrong to attend university but to what end? Is it to pursue
good? Is it to pursue a worldly calling that is desired and is believed can
serve some good to the Church? Or is it a case of 'success', status,
respectability and the like? The latter of course must certainly be rejected.
As
society grows more complex a First Reformation ethos must be careful not to
fall into legalistic traps and attempts to arrest temporal-chronological
progression. Cultures change, history is dynamic, and empires rise and fall. We
cannot recreate the past nor should we want to. We must faithful in the time,
place and context in which we are called. And yet the principles elaborated and
lived by the Early Church and the First Reformation are (we believe) in accord
with the New Testament and thus are highly (indeed always) relevant for today's
context.
And
once technology is understood in moral terms and is integrated within the power
structure – our attitude to it needs to be cautious. This is not to say the
Amish are right (and to be fair their posture vis-à-vis technology is
misunderstood by most), but at the same time a selective, questioning and
critical assessment of technology should be the default setting for sojourning
Christians – rather than the quick popular embrace or the eagerness to harness
and utilise technologies for the projection of power – all the more if they
require the exploitation of others or are designed to that end.
As
opposed to the systemic, holistic approach of the heirs of the Magisterial
Reformation which takes a positive and progressivist view with regard to
culture, industry and technology, the First Reformation embraces New Testament simplicity
and qualified primitivism. Viewing itself as a separatist entity within a
larger Beast-driven world the approach to society becomes almost atomistic and
as such there's little interest in defining one's status by the parameters of
the ruling clique. Nor would there be any desire to attain standing and
approval of (or within) that clique.
And if
the ruling order, the Establishment (as it were) is somehow wed to Christianity
the opposition to it must be even more deliberate and overt – something seen in
the First Reformation and its hearty rejection of the Medieval Catholic order.
If we're dissidents vis-à-vis the world, we are all the more when it comes to
the world compromised False Church.
The Magisterial Reformation via Confessionalism came to
represent a re-casting and reiteration of Scholastic Theology and the holistic
Establishment-grounding view it must always be associated with. By the 17th
century European Christendom was in crisis and the open and slightly more
Biblicist orientation of the early Reformation was abandoned and substituted
with a Protestant version of the philosophical theology of the medieval
university. Undoubtedly it was streamlined, de-cluttered and re-tasked but in
the end it represented a re-embrace of the Aristotelian syncretism seen under
Aquinas and others. And it served the same end – the creation of a holistic
system which would govern not only the Church but the larger culture and
political order.
Only through this method could the unity of knowledge be
pursued that was so desperately needed (or rather desired) in the 17th
century context as Protestant leaders sought to forge a new Christendom from
the ashes of the old.
And so (as it was before) the movement's scholars were wed to
the state and to the appropriated state-wed and state-sanctioned universities.
It was all part of a grand project meant to re-shape and re-structure society
upon Protestant lines – or rather Magisterial Protestant Confessionalist lines.
The old cry of Sola Scriptura would
during this era take on a remarkably different meaning – one subordinated to
the Confessions.
To emphasize another aspect of this contrast we should also
point out that the First Reformation had largely rejected the Scholasticism of
the Middle Ages and in contrast to it, retained a Biblicist Supernaturalism.
While Roman Catholicism when compared to Protestantism seems
rather mystical and supernaturalistic ,the truth is Rome's dogmas were buried
in a mire of philosophical formulae and highly elaborated paradigms that sought
to reduce, dissect, and explain its various theological expressions and rites.
The approach was philosophical and academic and could almost be described as
proto-scientific – deduced from a type of supernatural-Idealist framework.
Magisterial-Scholastic Protestantism would by the 17th
century embrace and elaborate its own version of this process and ideal. And in
the Renaissance-Protestant context, the elevation of reason, common sense and a
belief in perspicuity with regard to both Scripture and nature resulted in a
kind of philosophically softened ground that proved fertile for the
epistemological shifts and developments which took place during the Age of
Reason/Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries.
The First Reformation antedates the Renaissance and
established its Biblicist-Supernaturalist principles during the Middle Ages and
perhaps even earlier depending on how one defines such epochs. And thus its
approach to the Scriptures was markedly different from the academic approaches
of the Magisterial epoch and the Scholasticism which came after.
Once again as with the issue of nature-grace dualism, there's
a seeming affinity with Rome but this is only when contrasted with the
Magisterial Reformation. The First Reformation was ancient-medieval in its
epistemology and ethos and for this reason alone Schaff (the progressive
Hegelian historicist) rejects these movements as being virtually
sub-Protestant. They are quaint historical curiosities but irrelevant as they
are effectively medieval as opposed to modern – the latter of which Schaff
seems to equate with Protestantism.
The Biblicism of the First Reformation was determinedly
supernaturalist in its approach to doctrine and thus it transcends many of the
post-systematics debates which are the result of philosophical-epistemological
dilemmas and attempts at epistemic and rational reconciliation. Rationality as
defined by scholastic categories finds hosts of contradictions within the
Scriptures – contradictions that defy reason and experience and thus the
theologians sought to resolve these problems and challenges to the rational and
coherent system they seek to construct – and still do today. In many respects
these debates just continue to repeat through the ages and one wonders if
anything is ever really learned.
To avoid these cycles it behooves us to question their nature
and the assumptions which drive them. We must get off the carousel and re-think
basic questions (prolegomena) about the revelatory-eternality of the Scriptures
and the implications of their supernatural authority. Unlike Rome we know the
Scriptures teach that even our cognition, discernment and ability to intuit and
infer are affected by the Edenic Fall. If our deficient and limited
epistemology is grasped and admitted then the authority found in Divine
revelation is able to take on a new meaning and a more potent authority. Our
call is not to dissect and develop it but to submit to it.
There were some in the Roman tradition that understood this
but found the answer in the Papacy and the 'holy' tradition of the Magisterium.
On the contrary we insist the answer is found with the teaching of the Apostles
– the New Testament and an embrace of its doctrine per se even if its presentation and verbiage seems to defy sense
experience or coherence. On this point Nicholas of Cusa was right in that our
knowledge is at best a type of informed ignorance. Or as some Protestant
thinkers have understood it – we apprehend, but comprehension belongs to God
alone.