Recovering the First Reformation - Toward a Proto-Protestant Narrative of Church History (XIV)
Once again we are reminded of the strange relationship
between separatist Christianity and the forces of secularisation and how the
pluralism generated by the latter leads to a more congenial environment for the
Church than the monistic sacralism of the Constantinian paradigm. Indeed in
addition to the folk of the First Reformation, even the early beleaguered Magisterial
Protestants understood that an environment of pagan or even secular opposition
is preferable than persecution at the hands of a hostile Christendom. Better a Turk than a Habsburg is a lost
sentiment but in light of today's Dominionism and its aspirations it's one we
would do well to reconsider. While I don't think the Dominionists are going to
'win' today's struggle they are nevertheless scoring 'victories' and if they
should win and attain the cultural supremacy they so badly want – the old
phrase will once more have relevance even though the context is very different.
They won't hesitate to use the power of the state to silence Christians who
oppose them and use the Bible to expose their error.
But this social pluralism extends to more than just the
Church's relation to the state and society – the monistic structure of sacralism
affects the very nature of the Church and redefines it and the Kingdom. The
ideal they seek is in fact the bane of the Church – the very thing we are
warned against in the New Testament.
Looking at contemporary Christian circles it seems as if
everyone has been taught and trained to despise social pluralism but they have
failed to understand that to the Early Church, First Reformation and even the
19th century Free Church-Restorationists – it was and remains the
New Testament ideal, the best that can be hoped for in this present evil age.
Even as the Sacralists of both the Roman and Magisterial
Protestant camps lamented the downfall of Christendom throughout the 19th
century, the events provided the context for a revival of some of the First
Reformation's ideals. But a lack of determined opposition also contains
dangers. Compromise and decadence are always lurking in the background and if
these weren't enough, a series of unprecedented challenges would arrive by the
mid-19th century. The Second Wave of Industrial Revolution, the era
of steel and technology, of extraordinary urban growth and mass production
would bring about rapid and profound societal change. The changes were so
pervasive and sudden that intellectuals, political thinkers, ethicists, and
churchmen were all left scrambling in an attempt to deal with all the relevant
questions and challenges. From attempts at rethinking the nature and function
of the Church in the new context, to radical social experiments such as
socialism, the Church wrestled with how to live, function and remain relevant
in a world that seemed to be expanding and changing beyond comprehension.
Church leaders and academics struggled to come up with
answers, ecclesiastical models and a new set of functional ethics for the
industrial age. Both society and the Church were forced to reckon with the hard
realities of urban poverty, broken families and life in a cash-driven economy.
Like it or not the Free Churches and Restorationist movements were sidetracked
by these concerns and the real project of restoring New Testament Christianity
was waylaid.
Even Fundamentalism when challenged regarding the Bible and
the nature of Christianity was not able to stand. In its combat with Liberal
Theology and Modernism, Fundamentalism had in many cases embraced a kind of
Restorationist-Primitivist ethos. For a time many of its churches would come to
embrace apolitical functional pacifism and to reject the ethos of Wall Street
and the temptation of Middle Class life. Participation in civil society was discouraged.
The Fundamentalist churches during this period had a distinct identity but it
was not distinct enough as would be shown when their paradigm was put to the
test.
Dispensationalism which used Fundamentalism as a host, kept
the door ajar for outside influences and a kind of schizophrenia developed
which is still with us today. Their eschatology would take note of events
happening in the world. It was exciting to see God's 'prophetic' will being
accomplished – but due to commitments to America and/or the 'Judeo-Christian'
West, they felt compelled to resist and fight these otherwise upsetting trends
and consequently they re-embraced an ethos not all that different from the 19th
century Postmillennialism they had left behind. In the 20th century
the dog would return to its vomit as Dispensational eschatology would be
(strangely) wed to Dominionist theology and ethics. This synthesis would emerge
in the Evangelical movement.
Fear of Communism and the consequent ultra-zealous embrace of
Capitalism and a concern for the changes taking place in society – trends which
had been at work since the 19th century (but had been amplified
during the 1920's) also motivated these people. Communism was the factor that
led many of them to abandon their pacifism in the face of WWI.
The 1950's deemed conservative by a later generation were
actually revolutionary –the affluence and the new suburban ethic would cast
down old values and set the stage for the great challenges and sweeping changes
of the 1960's which began to seriously break what was left of Fundamentalism.
Out of a desire to be relevant, influential and modern the old fundamentalism
was starting to look like an embarrassing oddity or aberration.
The World Wars tore apart this new industrial world in a series
of conflagrations that defied all historical precedent. The world that emerged
was a different creature. Maps had changed, empires and dynasties were toppled
and the very nature of war and economics had also been transformed. And yet the
break was not severe enough for all tradition to be dispensed with. Indeed many
clung to it even while the old world they knew passed away right before their
eyes. There were new challenges, threats and fears and many, such as the
American Fundamentalists would be swept up by these and transformed into
activist (often reactionary-activist) world-affirming Evangelicals.
Strange as it may sound today, the early Fundamentalists
rejected military service but the first Red Scare of the 1920's deeply affected
them and by the second episode in the 1950's they had been transformed into
flag waving super-patriots eager to take up arms and fight the Cold War.
Fearing communism, they would embrace nationalism and
capitalism and while they professed to be socially conservative they and other
groups wrestled with the question of just when things went bad. When was the
social ideal to be found and how should it be sought once more? The
Evangelicals largely embraced the post-war order when America was at its zenith
and idealised it throughout the rest of the 20th century and into
the 21st.
Crossing the Atlantic, by 1950 Europe was a recovering
wasteland but it was also a Christian wasteland as many not already conquered
by the Enlightenment became functionally secular. They were a people disillusioned
by what the past seventy years had brought in terms of social upheaval and war.
Apart from pockets of Plymouth Brethren and small confessional bodies
associated with the Magisterial Reformation, there was precious little in the
way of anything that even hinted of New Testament Christianity. I of course
omit the strong but rapidly waning Catholic presence which while still
considerable in 1940's Europe would see a precipitous decline over the remainder
of the 20th century. Britain still had a strong Protestant testimony
(mostly found in nonconformist circles) but it was also in serious decline and
the downgrade would continue in earnest during the post-war years leaving
Europe with hardly any viable or vital Christian presence.
Christianity was (it would seem) everywhere but nowhere. The
grand old buildings and the arts testified to a past that (while a glory to
some), the fiery test revealed to be little more than a shell or hollow form.
Europe possessed a small but vibrant Christian community in the
separatist Plymouth Brethren who had re-evangelised the Continent in the 19th
century and yet starting in 1974 these separatists faced a rivalry in the
Lausanne Movement – a vehicle for American style Evangelicalism. While not as Right-wing
as its American variety it has won over many converts and has infiltrated and
corrupted the testimony of the
separatist bodies – teaching them to embrace the consumerist approach to
ecclesiology and to equate political and social activism with piety. Political
security, respectability and influence are this movement's goals. Its real task
is the accumulation of power but in a place like Europe the road is so long
that the real endgame is something that is rarely discussed.
The tragedy here is multi-layered. While the events of
1850-1950 proved disastrous and effectively destroyed the momentum, the movements
and impulses toward returning to First Reformation ideals and doctrines – the
small but vibrant churches of the European post-war era found themselves in a
context that would have afforded such continued reform and the possibility of
Church growth on a Biblicist basis.
But then came the Lausanne Movement and Billy Graham style
American Evangelicalism. This would drive a wedge and while the movement would 'convert'
many and seek to appropriate many from the theologically liberal state-mainline
sectors – it would corrupt this testimony and drive the European churches into
a mindset of world-affirmation and compromise. And to be candid, many of the
conversions just didn't stand. The Graham style evangelism casts a wide lake
but it's only inches deep and quickly dries up – revealing it to be something
of a counterfeit. A puddle might look like a lake but that doesn't make it so.
In the United States, the wealth and prosperity of the war
and post-war years coupled with fears of communism allowed for large-scale
manipulation and Evangelicalism would arise as the unifying force pulling from and
appropriating many erstwhile Fundamentalist and Restorationist-minded sectors –
even while the larger movement had no small effect on the Confessional bodies
which would struggle to hold their ground. Ever trending toward the political
Right, the crises of the 1960's would begin to forge a political unity and end
the politically conservative party divisions that harked back to the Civil War.
And by the 1970s the various movements and regional impulses would unite around
the Republican Party of Richard Nixon. After his administration's disasters and
the failure of the brief Ford era, the movement thought it had found in answer
in Jimmy Carter's 1976 Democratic campaign. He proved a disappointment, a mere
interlude, and the movement finally found its place in the re-cast and more
aggressive Right-wing Republican Party of Reagan in 1980 and after forty years they
have never looked back.
In many respects this rise of Evangelicalism could be
described as a Third Constantinian Shift in that it represents a large-scale
defection on the part of various Restorationist and Fundamentalist groups into
the (then nascent) Dominionist fold of Evangelicalism – arresting the largely
failed and weak 19th and early 20th century attempts to
restore New Testament primitivism. While few if any of these groups expressed a
real and determined appreciation for the First Reformation, their adherence (at
least at points) to the New Testament was steering them in that direction. But
the second half of the 20th century would (in only a couple of
generations) erase all reformist gains and at present the First Reformation
ideal and its expressions are all but dead.
Even the Anabaptist sphere, a historically related defection
of the larger First Reformation movement has slipped into a different mold – Mennonites
embracing Evangelical ideals and liberal theology in some instances,
degenerating into legalism in others. The sad fact that Amish are now appearing
at Trump rallies puts the bankruptcy and vapid nature of their reduced theology
on full display. Their alliance with one such as Trump certainly belies their
claims of adherence to non-resistance.
And yet that wasn't the end of all change for the Evangelical
world. The early 21st century would mark another shift. Various
social crises, the challenges of living in a technological age, the perceived
failures of the Culture War, increasing Right-wing radicalism in opposition to
presidents Clinton and Obama and different reactions to globalisation would
begin to fragment the Evangelical movement and its fragile unity.
This brings us to the crisis of the moment and the appeal to First Reformation principles – why once again even after many centuries the vision of men once burned at the stake needs to be recaptured. Though few will see the revisiting of late medieval dissenting Christianity as germane it is in fact highly relevant as there is a global shift taking place in the larger Protestant world. Those of us committed to New Testament Christianity are going to face a choice and if we don't respond correctly our children and grandchildren will either be swept away as earlier generations have been or they will be forced to rebuild (as it were) the Church from scratch. I don't mean to suggest the Church can be destroyed because it cannot. There are still many Christians to be found but I fear what another generation might bring. And indeed I will grant these developments and judgments are ultimately contained in the will of God. Revelation speaks of a time (or times) in which the testimony of the Church will be silenced as if dead. Though many seem to believe we are on the cusp of a great revival, when weighed vis-à-vis the New Testament, one is compelled to conclude that we are in fact on the cusp of great apostasy and the near elimination of New Testament Christianity. A dark age looms and thus it's time to act – not to arrest this trend but to prepare the remnant Church for a new chapter in Church history.