For the most part I appreciate Jordan Cooper and the work he does. Despite my many differences with him on questions of doctrine and Scriptural interpretation, I appreciate his spirit and the careful and conscientious way in which he approaches theological questions. In terms of being an ambassador for Confessional Lutheranism, there is no one better that I'm aware of.
However on this point concerning the uniqueness of the Lutheran Reformation and the way he frames it as a 'Traditional' or 'Conservative' Reformation as opposed to being 'Radical', I must disagree. But the debate itself is interesting and informative.
Cooper is responding to Roman Catholic charges that the Reformation led to endless division and ultimately led to the downfall of Western Christendom and the rise of the world we know today.
The Catholic position makes many assumptions which I will not grant in that it was not a representation of Biblical Christianity to begin with, but an expression of apostasy and degeneration. That said, the Magisterial Reformation was not (as is often claimed) a great revival or back to the Bible movement - a return to apostolic Christianity.
There is much to appreciated in the Reformation, but in reality it created as many problems as it solved and in some cases its partial reforms only led to centuries of strife and confusion that are with the Church even today.
Some Protestants celebrate the role of the individual and individual's conscience in the Reformation and tie this narrative in to the later individualism that would emerge with the Enlightenment and democracy. These types of conflations just add to the confusion. While there might be a hint of truth to it in sociological terms, it is bad theology and represents a departure from the New Testament.
That said, many of the debates in Churchly circles are often minimalist in that they fail to take into account the sociological impact of the Reformation - something that often went in directions the Reformers would have neither envisioned or endorsed. Certainly the German Peasant's Revolt 1524-25 comes to mind. Luther never saw it coming and was appalled, and while the reasons for the uprising were diverse and multi-faceted, the role religion played and the challenge by Luther to the standing order cannot be disputed. The same is true of later ideologies which emerged as well as the various permutations that helped to create our modern society.
Cooper wants to argue that Luther's call to reform was conservative as opposed to radical - as seen with the Calvinists (to some extent) and certainly with the Anabaptists who rejected the order in its entirety.
Luther wanted to retain as much as possible. His primary focus was in terms of the gospel. That's true enough.
And yet from a Catholic and historical standpoint, his rejection of the papacy was fundamentally radical and constituted a frontal assault on the Roman Catholic Church. It was anything but a conservative call to reform.
Cooper turns to an interesting if somewhat backhanded way of framing the issue - he wants to say the Roman Catholic Church wasn't really 'Roman' Catholic in 1517.
When did the Catholic Church become the Roman Catholic Church? It's an issue I've repeatedly touched on over the years. In some respects the Roman Catholic Church can be traced back to the Dark Ages - to the times of Leo (d.461) and Gregory I (d.604). In other respects the Roman Catholic Church centered on the papacy (the Bishop of Rome) as a unifying and authoritative factor did not truly emerge until the Gregorian Reform of the 11th century - a period that led to the so-called Imperial Papacy, a time in which popes could topple thrones, launch the Inquisition, and call crusades.
It's hard to argue that by this period the Roman Catholic Church was not in its full bloom so to speak.
And yet Magisterial Protestants regularly resort to the Trent Argument - insisting that much of what makes Roman Catholicism did not actually emerge until the Council of Trent (1545-1563). Trent is associated with both the Counter-Reformation and (for some) the Catholic Reformation. Because of Protestantism and the claims of the various Reformation groups, Rome had to respond and provide clarification. Protestants disingenuously present some of these points as novelty - Trent's rejection of Sola Fide for example. This is misleading. They try and argue that Sola Fide was within the pale of orthodoxy prior to Trent because Rome had never formally denied it. If Sola Fide is the article by which the Church stands or falls - by that definition Rome could still be called a viable Church up until the time of Trent when it formally rejected it. At that point (when it anathematized Sola Fide) Rome ceased to be a true Church.
This argument is completely misleading.
Rome never denied Sola Fide prior to Trent because no one had ever taught it before. They had no reason to deny it. Had it arisen in the 12th or 14th century, it would have caused controversy and led to its rejection. I think few serious scholars would deny this.
Lutherans are unwilling to say (in a way some Reformed and all Anabaptists are willing to state) that Rome by the 1500's was apostate. It was a false Church.
For Lutherans, this casts their entire narrative into doubt for they would have to justify that their practices (extra-Scriptural traditions) can be rooted in God-given authority. If the charism is removed from the Roman Church during the Middle Ages, then their practices cannot be said to be blessed by the Holy Spirit and the larger concept of Catholicity (rooted in tradition) is thrown into doubt. I contend their looking for the charism and catholicity in the wrong place.
The crisis in Western Protestantism (largely generated and driven by Evangelicalism) has pushed Lutherans closer to High Church traditionalism and Rome. Indeed I always remember by Missouri-Synod (LCMS) friend saying back in the 1990's that he would attend a Roman Catholic mass before he would attend a Baptist church. I can understand where he's coming from - to a point.
That said, the Lutheran argument rests on a rather flimsy historical argument.
The real battle today is within the Reformed and Evangelical sphere - which sometimes overlap as seen with New Calvinism.
The Culture Wars and indeed the cultural crisis is driving many to look back to historical precedent and many have found that Protestantism stands on somewhat shaky ground and that by contrast the Middle Ages seem pretty solid in terms of a stable and coherent Christian order. I think this is also wishful and romantic thinking. The more one looks into the Middle Ages, the more one discovers just how unstable and often fragmented those centuries really were. And the Gregorian Reform in its attempt to create a unified order in some respects actually engendered a crisis that led to great instability in the 13th and 14th centuries - culminating in the Avignon Papacy, the Great Schism, the Inquisition, and the Hussite Wars. And amid these crises we witness the emergence of what we call the Renaissance.
And further we might note that it was essentially the Gregorian Reform that finally broke apart the longstanding tensions between Rome and Constantinople with the final schism of 1054 - the other Great Schism.
For Protestants looking for a Christian order, Rome and Constantinople look attractive and not a few make the move - or some to a lesser degree leave the Reformed or Evangelical spheres for something like Anglicanism or Lutheranism. There is certainly a great upheaval taking place.
Older Protestants (at least in Reformed circles) were more willing to embrace the narrative of the Constantinian Shift and the notion that the Church began its rapid decline into apostasy way back in the 4th century. However the narratives that the Magisterial Reformation somehow recaptured the Early Church have been found wanting and increasingly the politically minded don't find it satisfying as they look with great longing toward figures such as Constantine, Theodosius, Alfred, Charlemagne, Charles Martel, and the Crusaders. If that's their notion of Christian culture, then they must celebrate the Constantinian Shift (as they do, or do so by denying it) and then find a way to reconcile the fact that for over 1,000 years the 'Church' was nothing like the Protestantism they stand for and shares very few of its distinctives. They've painted themselves into a corner.
That said, I would still argue (along with the Anabaptists and Restorationists but on a different basis) that the narrative of apostasy is essentially correct. The problem isn't with the Constantinian Shift, but with the Magisterial Reformation and its claims - particularly its modern and increasingly ecumenical claims.
In addition to the problems surrounding Constantine and Trent, the most disturbing aspect of Cooper's argument is to be found in his narrative concerning Evangelicalism and the Radical Reformation. Lutheran and Reformed Confessionalists love to target the Anabaptists and Pietists and blame them for everything, for all the problems that exist today. The modern disaster of Evangelicalism is (by their reckoning) an outgrowth of Anabaptist and Pietist theology.
This is to ignore the fact that the Puritans were in many ways a Pietist group within Reformed Christianity - a point some Theonomists have recognized and a point some dispute due to their political activism. The thing is, Pietism itself is a very broad label that includes divers groups of people. The quietist-separatist introspective stereotype is true in some cases but more often than not, these people were social activists engaged in humanitarian projects and often economic enterprise. They were combatting the low-bar worldly Christianity of the state churches. And yet many were vigorous in terms of social engagement focused on social reform and progress.
From my vantage point, their myopic lack of connection between money, economic growth, and politics often led to their own dissolution.
Methodism is another group that constitutes a type of Pietist movement which emerged within Anglicanism. The same aforementioned issues also apply, and in reality I think much of modern Evangelicalism and certainly the Charismatic movement finds its genesis within Methodism.
But contrary to Cooper, Evangelicalism rose not from Anabaptism or even directly from Pietism, but from the bosom of the Magisterial Reformation itself. It drew from Lutheran and Reformed influence as well as (already stated) Methodism. It is there we find the most extensive influence of conversionist theology in the Anglo-American world as well as concepts such as the second work of grace. Methodists were hardly the retire from society types.
We might add that Baptistic theology blended nicely with the rise of individualism and the Enlightenment and with its democratic impulse and new economics. America proved the most fertile ground with its rugged do-it-yourself individualism, anti-institutionalism, pragmatism, and again a market-based approach to most issues - even regarding ecclesiastical and ethical questions. The latter point dovetails with the utilitarian ethics of capitalism. These social factors along with the intellectual milieu of 19th century America (and its optimism) all contributed to the formation of contemporary Evangelicalism. Lutheran Pietists had some influence to be sure but the Anabaptists working quietly on their farms had nothing to do with it and by the 19th century were not even a factor in mainstream religious thought. Cooper is guilty of a straw man argument on this point. The truth is simply more complicated and raises many more questions - some of which are uncomfortable for the Magisterial Confessionalist tradition.
As far as the question of Charismatic utterance, prophets, and the like - Well, I'm afraid I remember all too well (back in the 1990's) being rather shocked to discover that many of the Reformers (that I so admired) and those in subsequent generations were affected by this kind of thinking. The Reformed, Lutherans, and Anabaptists all had their share of would-be prophets and visionaries. This too demands a moment of pause and reflection concerning the narratives surrounding the Magisterial Reformation and its understanding of Sola Scriptura. And on the latter point, Cooper's argument against 'Solo' vs. 'Sola' Scriptura is as wanting as those made in Reformed circles.
He wants to argue that a proper Sola Scriptura view incorporates the larger ecclesiastical tradition and Confessions.
But that tradition was formed on the basis of the Charism argument - a point Lutherans will often make. God did not abandon His Church they argue. The Holy Spirit guided the tradition. Detractors will say that God did no abandon His Church but it survived in a dissident form in opposition to large-scale and mainstream apostasy.
Regardless, the Charism was understood to rest in the hands of the Magisterium which over time became defined as those in fellowship with the Bishop of Rome. This was certainly the case long before Trent or Vatican I. As stated, it's really the time of the Gregorian Reform and the schism with the East that the Magisterium doctrine becomes centered on the Bishop of Rome and those in fellowship with him.
And this Holy or Great Tradition argument all but collapses when one considers the selective and self-serving way in which Magisterial Protestants approach the Seven Ecumenical Councils - despite their own claims of Charism.
Luther rejected the Magisterium and the Papacy but wanted to retain the tradition. Again, on what basis? How is this conservative? To Roman Catholics this marks a radical break, all the more when the traditions are weighed not by the Magisterium but on the basis of schismatics determining whether or not they think they are valid by means of a naked read of the Scripture. And in many cases Lutherans keep the forms even while redefining their meaning - one thinks of the cult of saints and the church calendar for example.
The argument that Sola Scriptura is not 'Solo' Scriptura but one built within and on the framework of tradition (handed down by the Magisterium) is not Sola Scriptura at all but the Prima Scriptura position found in Anglicanism. Scripture sets some boundaries (perhaps) but it is not the foundation on which their understanding of ecclesiology and catholicity is built. It is but one of the foundation stones among several others.
Whichever way you look at it, the argument regarding the conservative nature of the Lutheran Reformation does not stand. It only has meaning when it's contrasted with something like the Anabaptist movement - at which point Lutherans like Cooper spend as much time assaulting a straw man as anything historically valid. The same is true of Pietism.
The Counter-Reformation was devastating and unfortunately it led to the virtual eradication of First Reformation movements such as the Waldenses and much of Hussitism. The latter at times destroyed itself. The Utraquists survived until the Thirty Years War and of course the Bohemian Brethren barely survived until their merger with 18th century Lutheran Pietism under the auspices of Zinzendorf.
Life was never easy for such dissidents but a review of this period always saddens me as I think of my travels throughout southern Austria and what is today Slovenia. These areas were crawling with Waldenses in the centuries prior to the Magisterial Reformation. No doubt due to their presence there was a significant popular embrace of the Reformation and yet because of the nature of the Magisterial Reformation many princes were involved. Over and over again one encounters old castles that were centers of Reformation activity such as Bible printing and the like. The Counter-Reformation wiped them all out and those people that survived and migrated became Lutherans and Reformed and in many cases needed sponsorship and security in Protestant lands. It's not hard to imagine how in a generation or two their descendants abandoned some of the key principles of the First Reformation and embraced the distinctives as wells as the ethical and social postures of the mainstream Protestant bodies. This is perhaps one of the most bitter aspects of the Magisterial Reformation. It kindled a fire within Roman Catholicism that led them down a path of aggression toward dissidents - a far more aggressive plan of eradication than had been seen in ages past. It was a kind of holocaust, especially in Bohemia during the Thirty Years War. The Reformers weren't directly responsible but the radical and revolutionary nature of their movement turned the European social order on its head.
Cooper has concocted a self-serving narrative. It reminds me of the endless attempts by American conservatives to distance the American and French Revolutions. There are points to be made but because they have an agenda and axe to grind in order to defend their validity and assail their enemies, the end result of such narratives is less than true and misleading. So it was here with the Reformation.
See also:
https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2026/07/sola-scriptura-and-spectrum-of.html