This morning, I decided to run a few simple numbers looking at the number of per capita visitors to reformedforum.org for each U.S. state. I’ve looked at the numbers by state before, but it’s hard to know if the figures simply reflect the respective populations of those areas. The adjusted data, however, yield some interesting results. Here are the per capita rankings since January 1, 2011:

1. Pennsylvania
2. Mississippi
3. Massachusetts
4. Rhode Island
5. South Carolina
6. California
7. North Carolina
8. Washington
9. Kentucky
10. Alabama
11. Virginia
12. Tennessee
13. Georgia
14. New Jersey
15. New Mexico
16. Nebraska
17. Michigan
18. Illinois
19. Missouri
20. Maryland
21. Indiana
22. Texas
23. Maine
24. Florida
25. Oklahoma
26. Oregon
27. Iowa
28. Ohio
29. Delaware
30. Colorado
31. Kansas
32. Minnesota
33. Alaska
34. Wisconsin
35. Arizona
36. South Dakota
37. Montana
38. Louisiana
39. New York
40. Idaho
41. New Hampshire
42. Vermont
43. Arkansas
44. Wyoming
45. North Dakota
46. Nevada
47. Hawaii
48. West Virginia
49. Connecticut
50. Utah

* The District of Columbia is the number one region in the U.S., but I gather much of the web traffic is generated by people that do not actually live in D.C. Hence, the figure is not representative.

I really ought to write a new preface for this book, which is old already. But the idea I find rather unattractive. For whatever I tried to do, I would always end up trying to justify it for what it was, and reinsert it, insofar as such a thing might be possible, in what is going on today. Perhaps that would be possible, perhaps not, I might do it with varying degrees of success, but it would not be an honest course of action. And above all, that wouldn’t be in keeping with what should be, regarding a book, the preserve of the person who wrote it.

[…]

So speaks the Preface, the first act in which the monarchy of the author is established, a declaration of tyranny: my intention should be your precept; you must bend your reading, your analyses, your criticisms to what I was trying to do, and take note of my modesty: when I speak of the limits of my enterprise, I mean to set a boundary for your freedom, and if I claim that I feel I was not up to the task, it is because I don’t want to leave you the privilege of substituting my book with the fantasy of a different one, close to it, but more beautiful than the book itself. I am the monarch of the things that I have said, and I keep an eminent sovereignty over them; that of my intention, and the meaning that I wished to give to them.

Michel Foucault, History of Madness, ed. Jean Khalfa, trans. Jean Khalfa and Jonathan Murphy (London: Routledge, 2009), xxxvii, xxxviii.

In order to provide for more interaction among our listeners, we have decided to test-run an interactive book club. Tentatively scheduled for Monday, February 6, 2012 at 8pm Eastern, Reformed Forum will host a discussion of John Murray’s Redemption Accomplished and Applied. The format of the club is still nascent, but we hope to live stream the discussion and provide a way for listeners to chat and call-in through Skype or Google+. The discussion will be recorded and released as an episode of Reformed Media Review so those who aren’t able to join live can still participate “asynchronously.”

If you don’t have one already, get a copy of the book, read it by Monday, 2/6, and stay posted for the details on the live stream. And remember: the first rule about book club is that you don’t talk about book club!

photo by infowidget

The idea of an antecedent being, who has antecedent thought and who therefore by His self-contained counsel determines whatsoever comes to pass, is abhorrent to both Barth and Brunner, and has been so at every stage of their thinking. There is no spot along the whole front of their theological opponents that is so constantly made the target of their most vigorous attack as the idea of a self-contained ontological trinity.

This is an important point that also underscores the importance of a proper ecclesiology. The doctrine of the church is often a forgotten subject in evangelicalism. It is often treated last, if treated in any depth at all, and many people think of ecclesiology as a series of arbitrary or pragmatic choices. But ecclesiology is not arbitrary. It must comply with our other doctrines, and other doctrines are in turn influenced by our ecclesiology. Just think of dispensationalism or Roman Catholicism. The ecclesiologies of both groups fit within an entire system and should not be extracted from it.

The doctrine of the church is found in Scripture and in the Reformed confessions. We ought to be mindful of God’s established structure for the governance and care of his people. And so in this post we will look at several introductory features of ecclesiology as found primarily in the Westminster Confession of Faith. Please take the time to look at the Scripture references accompanying the confession. You can find them in the PDF version of the OPC’s publication.

No Ordinary Group

19^th century Presbyterian theologian Stuart Robinson rightly emphasizes that Christ did not come to establish a group like other groups. Jesus wasn’t interested in forming a band of followers or a school like Socrates. Nor did he simply comprise a group, which he would atone for and then leave to manage on their own. Rather, he came “to found a community, to organize a government, and administer therein as a perpetual king.”[1] The church is no ordinary group, but the assembly of those whom God has called to himself. It is Christ’s body. Robinson defines it as follows:

[…] that elect body of men which was contemplated in the covenant of redemption, as constituting the mediatorial kingdom of Christ, and for the sake of which body he undertood the work of salvation.[2]

Christ’s relationship to his church is ultimately mysterious, but we can learn a bit about it by looking at the institution of marriage. The members are connected to each other through a Spiritual, mystical union that is analogously imaged in the relationship between husband and wife. Paul makes this comparison in Ephesians 5. I commend it to you as a helpful place to start when studying ecclesiology.

As we come to explore the basics of Reformed ecclesiology, it’s important to nail down a few terms. There are several qualifications we make when speaking about the church and there are many helpful distinctions we make as well. Let’s look at a few of these.

Characteristics of the Church

We recognize that the Church has four attributes: it is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. These attributes distinguish the Christian Church from other religious bodies and sects. It is one, meaning that ultimately we don’t find two bodies, but a single body. It is holy, that is pure, and set apart in God’s sight for God’s purposes. It is “little c” catholic, meaning “universal.” There are not people groups or regions excluded from the body should they believe in Christ. And finally, it is apostolic, meaning it is founded on the teaching of the apostles (cf. Eph 2:20).

In addition to the attributes, the Church has three chief marks: the preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments, and church discipline. The Belgic Confession chapter 29 enumerates the Reformed understanding of the marks of the church:

The true church can be recognized if it has the following marks: The church engages in the pure preaching of the gospel; it makes use of the pure administration of the sacraments as Christ instituted them; it practices church discipline for correcting faults. In short, it governs itself according to the pure Word of God, rejecting all things contrary to it and holding Jesus Christ as the only Head. By these marks one can be assured of recognizing the true church—and no one ought to be separated from it.[3]

Each of these are helpful when trying to “spot” the true Church? What is a true church? It is where the Word is properly preached, the sacraments administered, and church discipline conducted.

The Visible and Invisible Church

As Reformed believers, we speak of the invisible church simply as the elect. The Westminster Confession of Faith, 25.1 says the following:

WCF 25.1. The catholic or universal church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the Head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.

We call it the invisible church in part because the church is universal. We cannot observe it in its entirety at once. Second, it is not fully realized until Christ returns. Saints have gone home to be with the Lord and others have yet to be saved. We cannot observe them either.[4] Third, we are not the judges of men’s hearts. Men and women profess Christ and we admit them to membership in the visible church, but we cannot judge ultimately whether someone is deceiving themselves or making a false profession of faith.

What then is the role and importance of the visible church? The Westminster Confession of Faith describes the visible church in 25.2:

WCF 25.2. The visible church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law), consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.

The visible church is important then. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God (Rom 10:17). And where does the right preaching of the Word of God occur? In the Church. This is one reason why the Westminster Divines stressed that there is no ordinary possibility of salvation outside the Church. The Church is the location of the means of grace. But at the same time there are members of the visible church who are not members of the invisible church. Moving to 25.3:

WCF 25.3. Unto this catholic visible church Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the world: and doth, by his own presence and Spirit, according to his promise, make them effectual thereunto.

The visible church is where the Word is proclaimed and where the sacraments are administered. It’s been said that there are no lone ranger Christians. The point is that believers are called out of darkness into Christ’s marvelous light and incorporated into a body. They have been given the Holy Spirit who connects them together and gifts them so they can be of service within that body. Therefore, the visible church is not an arbitrary choice for Christians who want to have some social functions to be involved with. It is the assembly of the body of Christ and the location of Christ’s ministry with his people. Once again, the confession emphasizes the corporate nature of the Church:

WCF 26.1. All saints, that are united to Jesus Christ their Head, by his Spirit, and by faith, have fellowship with him in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory: and, being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other’s gifts and graces, and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man.

WCF 26.2. Saints by profession are bound to maintain an holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God, and in performing such other spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification; as also in relieving each other in outward things, according to their several abilities and necessities. Which communion, as God offereth opportunity, is to be extended unto all those who, in every place, call upon the name of the Lord Jesus.

I think we should devote most of our attention to the distinction between historia and ordo salutis. In similar (perhaps more familiar) categories, we speak of redemption accomplished and applied. Dr. Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. has done the Church a tremendous service in his book Resurrection & Redemption.¹ In this work, Gaffin navigates the connection between Christ’s death and resurrection (historia salutis) and the application of that work to believers (ordo salutis). He provides insightful exegesis that demonstrates convincingly that Christ’s resurrection is simultaneously his justification (1 Tim 3:16), adoption (Rom 1:3-4), sanctification (Rom 6:1ff; Acts 20:32), and glorification (1 Cor 15:42ff; 2 Cor 3:17f; 4:4-6).

The fundamental category—the “ground” of it all—is Christ’s person and work, which is neither exclusively forensic nor renovative. From what I gather, it is possible we need further clarification regarding what we mean by forensic. It is a term referring to the procedures of law. It is often used to distinguish the Reformed from the Roman Catholic view of justification. The Reformed argue that justification is entirely extrinsic. It does not make one righteous in themselves, rather Christ’s righteousness is imputed, and justification is the acquittal of guilt on that account. Conversely, Roman Catholics argue that justification imparts grace. It makes the sinner righteous intrinsically.  I gather from my interactions with people on this subject that some prefer to invest the word forensic with the notion of monergistic. I do not find the two synonymous. For instance, regeneration is entirely monergistic, but in no way forensic; it is renovative—a work that changes the subject intrinsically.

I believe we can move forward in this discussion by further exploring what is entailed by Christ’s resurrection, particularly as his justification (1 Tim 3:16). I believe this may help to crystallize Dr. Horton’s concerns in his interview response. We ought to develop the sense in which we may speak of the open declaration of Christ’s righteousness in his resurrection. Specifically, we must detail the way this wonderful truth interfaces with preaching (cf. Rom 10:17). This may clarify how Christ’s justification in historia salutis relates to the believer’s justification in the ordo salutis.

For example, there is a real union with Christ in his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection. As Christ accomplished his work, he accomplishes it for his chosen people. But there is also a real transition from wrath to grace in the life of the sinner saved by grace. There is no point when a declaration can be made to a sinner that their sins have been forgiven until they receive Christ’s imputed righteousness by faith. Christians are not justified in the preaching of the Word. They are justified when God acquits them of their guilt on account of an alien righteousness. To keep with the forensic/legal metaphor, without that righteousness, received by faith, there is no case.

In I Corinthians 11:7ff., Paul does expound the man-woman relationship as an instance of the image-glory pattern. However, he interprets the man(husband)-woman(wife) relationship not as that which itself constitutes man(kind)’s image-likeness to God, but, on the contrary (and excluding that possibility), as simply containing an analogy to the image of God in man. It is not that the man-woman relationship is an image-likeness of intertrinitarian relationships, but that the man-woman relationship mirrors the glory-reflecting relationship of mankind to God in which the image of God in mankind actually does consist. [Meredith Kline, Images of the Spirit (Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1999) 34.]

Kline is responding to several competing interpretations, including that of Karl Barth, who argues that the image of God is found as man and woman considered together. He recasts the discussion in light of his twofold conception of image. There is image-likeness and image-glory. Image-likeness is the reproduction of the original image (the analogue) whereas image-glory is a reflection of the original. Consider Moses’ face reflecting the glory of the Lord. Human reflect God’s glory as analogue images of Him. Similarly, the wife-husband relationship is yet another picture of how Christ relates to his bride—as original glory and glory-reflectors.

I don’t endeavor toward a project of guilt by association, but what does it say for our apologetic when we appeal to a thinker who rejects God’s immutability—arguing that the Trinity evolves and unfolds in an historical process? It’s quite the opposite of Van Til’s approach, in which he bases his entire apologetic on the eternal Triune God who condescends to create and continues as the foundation for all creation. His is truly a Reformed apologetic in great debt to the distinctively Reformed thinkers that preceded it.

Introduction

There is one big point I want to make tonight and then one big question I want to ask and then answer that flows out of the big point. Roman Catholicism underwent a drastic change with Vatican II. Moreover, mainline Protestantism looks strikingly similar to modern Roman Catholicism at points. So as we celebrate Reformation Day, we also need to remember that the Catholic Church today looks very different from what it did 500 years ago. But we should also recognize that Protestantism in general looks very different also. That’s the big point—there have been big changes on both sides of the Reformation.

And so we need to ask if there have been such significant changes between both sides of the historical divide, is the Reformation still significant? I hope to demonstrate to you tonight that yes, the Reformation is just as important today as it was when the Protestants sought to reform the church nearly 500 years ago.

I suppose I could stop here. That’s the entire point! But as I argue for these points and demonstrate to you the historical and doctrinal changes my hope is twofold: 1) that you become just a little bit more aware of modern Roman Catholicism and general Protestantism and 2) that your knowledge of the truths of Reformed theology would grow and your faith would be deepened. And so with that in mind, let’s roll back the timeline to 1517 and look at the basic issues the Reformers had with the Catholic Church.

Reformation Concerns

In 1517, Martin Luther had had enough. He had been considering the Roman Catholic teaching on indulgences and was prepared to the debate them in a scholarly setting. Luther wrote 95 theses on indulgences and promptly nailed them to the door at the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

This sounds like quite a dramatic episode. Could you imagine taking issue with something a friend of yours had done—so that you wrote out 95 points about what they had done and your beef with each of those things? You marched over to your friend’s house and nailed it to his door. Maybe a better present day comparison is posting to someone’s Facebook wall.

Nailing this kind of thing to the Castle Church door wasn’t very dramatic at the time. We like to think it was because it makes for a good story. It makes the history books and the movies about the Reformation exciting. But the truth is, it wasn’t that unusual or dramatic. This was simply a standard way for someone to issue an open challenge to a scholarly debate. Today, he could have simply started a blog and asked people to comment on his 95 posts.

So now that I’ve taken the air out of the tires on this so-called dramatic event, I need to do the same for another common revision of history. Luther did not intend to break from the Catholic Church to start a new Christian body. He initially sought to reform the Church from within. If you’d like to read more about this, I recommend reading The Reformation: How a Monk and a Mallet Changed the World or Martin Luther: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought by Steve Nichols. You can also watch the 2003 movie Luther starring Joseph Fiennes. It has its Hollywood moments, but it’s generally a good retelling.

Whereas Luther’s Reformation was centered on the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone, Calvin sought to Reform even more aspects of doctrine and church life. His more extensive Reformation concerns are neatly encapsulated in an exchange that he had with a Catholic Bishop named Jacopo Sadoleto.

Sadoleto’s and Calvin’s letters illustrate the deep divisions between each side and provide a brief testimony to the very heart of the Reformation. In many ways, Rome did not understand what the Reformation really was about nor did they understand how to deal with it. They actually resorted to some interesting tactics.

Sadoleto sent this letter to the Genevan people while their leaders, William Farel and Calvin, were absent. This is what some armies try to do to undermine the authority of their enemies. Sometimes they’ll drop tracts from the sky to inform the people of their viewpoint. Even our state department uses Twitter to tweet messages in Arabic and Farsi so people in foreign countries have another interpretation of world events and the actions of foreign leaders.

Calvin’s response surely had to have been a wakeup call that a return to Rome was no longer possible. Calvin responded strongly to Sadoleto, but not as strong as Luther. If any of you have ever read the beginning of Luther’s The Bondage of the Will, you’ll know how strongly he could write. Luther wrote to Erasmus, and gave him a backhanded complement, saying that he just couldn’t understand how someone so brilliant could have his theology. Luther said Erasmus was like taking a set of beautiful silver dishes and loading them up with dung.

Calvin didn’t write with that belligerence. And neither did Sadoleto. His letter was was quite irenic. In his response, Calvin centered on two main issues: 1) the reform of worship according to the Word and 2) justification by faith.

For Calvin, the main trajectory of the Reformation was the reform of worship away from the idolatrous practices that had come to infect the Catholic Church. Rome had strayed far and as a result Calvin stressed the need to not go beyond the Word in the practice of ceremonies and other superstitious practices. He advocated this regulative principle because of the controlling and authoritative role of the Word.

Sadoleto, on the other hand, saw the Church as infallible because the Spirit guides and directs her actions and declarations. But Calvin saw the Catholic Church as corrupt, and for him, the true church was subject only to the Word of God because the Spirit works through the Word. This connection demonstrates not only a stark contrast between Calvin’s and Sadoleto’s theology of worship, but points out the vast difference in ecclesiology and church authority.

The second principle issue in Calvin’s reply is justification by faith alone. Calvin dissects Sadoleto’s understanding of justification and shows how he has gone astray. Sadoleto’s justification includes good works wrought by believers. Calvin however, stresses the external righteousness of Christ alone as the sole ground of a believer’s justification. Again, the differences are massive.

Though Calvin points out the vast difference on the issue of justification, the overall concern of his response actually distinguishes his own view of reformation from Luther’s. Luther’s trajectory of reformation was simply bound up with justification by faith, and though Calvin is certainly concerned with this, Calvin is largely concerned with the Spirit’s reforming work though the Word applied particularly to worship.

The content of Sadoleto’s letter betray a lack of understanding about the situation on the part of Sadoleto and Rome. Calvin stressed that the Reformation is not about man’s desires, but about God’s work. Sadoleto’s letter and Calvin’s response together demonstrate the deep divide between Rome and the Reformers and frame the key issues of the tension in both a terse and lucid fashion.

This is what the Reformation was about. As it developed, the divide between the Catholic and Protestant Churches deepened and became more pronounced and the dialogue became more and more heated.

The Counter-Reformation

Catholics didn’t take all of this shuffling lying down. They responded with a counter-Reformation. Some of you may have heard of the Council of Trent. From 1545–1563, Catholic officials met to formulate a response to the Protestant doctrine of justification. If you think about the sweeping changes the Reformers were making and the strong statements being made from both the Protestant and Catholics sides, you’d expect the Catholic establishment to dig in their heals. And that’s exactly what happened during the Council of Trent.

The Council of Trent dealt with a number of issues including the Scriptures, original sin, and the sacraments. But in the sixth session, they dealt specifically with the doctrine of justification. You see there’s something interesting going on at the beginning of the Reformation.

When Luther and other Reformers present the doctrine of justification by grace alone through faith alone, they weren’t necessarily attacking the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. Many Catholic’s didn’t know how to respond to these formulations mainly because they didn’t have an official position that dealt with the Reformer’s concerns.

So the Council of Trent was convened in some measure to provide an official response to these questions. And it says some very bold things in relation to the Reformed doctrine of justification. Here are a few of the more shocking statements.

CANON IV. If any one saith, that man’s free will moved and excited by God, by assenting to God exciting and calling, nowise co-operates towards disposing and preparing itself for obtaining the grace of Justification; that it cannot refuse its consent, if it would, but that, as something inanimate, it does nothing whatever and is merely passive; let him be anathema.

CANON VII. If any one saith, that all works done before Justification, in whatsoever way they be done, are truly sins, or merit the hatred of God; or that the more earnestly one strives to dispose himself for grace, the more grievously he sins: let him be anathema.

CANON IX. If any one saith, that by faith alone the impious is justified; in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to co-operate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, and that it is not in any way necessary, that he be prepared and disposed by the movement of his own will; let him be anathema.

So there you have it. Though Catholicism today is very broad and has many different opinions on things, those are some of the official Church statements on the doctrine of justification coming from the Council of Trent, the Catholic Church’s official response to the Reformation. They are very different from what we teach and subscribe to in our church, for instance in the Westminster Shorter Catechism Question 33, which asks:

What is justification? Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.

But of course, as time marches along, things change.

The Sweeping Influence of Modernism

So grab your DVR remotes and let’s skip forward a few centuries. The Enlightenment happens and many people start to place a huge emphasis on human reason. This rediscovery of man’s natural ability led to a number of different theological positions. We certainly don’t have time to explore all of these developments in philosophy and theology, but I want to focus on one significant movement that has a lot to say about where we are today in terms of Catholicism and the Reformation.

In theology, modernism was a reworking of traditional theological doctrines according to 19th and early 20th century modes of thinking. For our concerns, modernism is part and parcel with liberalism. Whenever we talk about J. Gresham Machen and the founding of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, we use the word “liberalism” quite a bit. Indeed Machen’s most famous book is titled Christianity & Liberalism.

You hear the word “liberalism” and “liberal” a lot even outside the walls of OPC churches. People often speak about ideas that are “liberal” when what they mean is that they stray from biblical teaching. In that sense, much of the Catholic Church, Protestantism, and parts of Evangelicalism are very liberal.

But “liberalism” and “modernism” as a movement in the early 20th century was a specific theological movement that had a number of troubling features. Conservative Presbyterians formulated five fundamentals to be used in addition to the Westminster Standards to try to fight off this advancing liberal theology.

1. The inspiration of the Bible and the inerrancy of Scripture as a result of this.
2. The virgin birth of Christ.
3. The belief that Christ’s death was the atonement for sin.
4. The bodily resurrection of Christ.
5. The historical reality of Christ’s miracles.

Each of these points is extremely important for right doctrine. To reject any one of them means disastrous effects for sound theology. Yet this modernism swayed many and had a great impact on both the Catholic and Protestant Churches.

In our Presbyterian history, the greatest example of the fight against modernism came to a head in 1929. That year, the board at Princeton Seminary decided to reorganize in such a way that the majority of people on the board were modernists. Those opposed to modernism, called fundamentalists, including their de facto leader J. Gresham Machen, broke off from the seminary to found Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.

The battle between fundamentalists and modernists would wage on within the mainline Presbyterian Church until Machen was put on trial and eventually defrocked for setting up a conservative alternative to the denomination’s liberal board of foreign missions. Having already established a conservative seminary, now it was finally time to establish a new denomination. And so on June 11, 1936, Machen and a group of several ministers, elders, and laymen formed the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

I’m sure many of you know this story well. And perhaps others have heard it for the first time recently since we’re celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of our denomination. There are several books on the topic, which I recommend and which you can get from the OPC office or online at opc.org.

It’s easy to think about this history and forget that modernism’s influence was much broader than our Presbyterian circles. What happened to the Catholics as they encountered modernism? I’ll tell you that it was quite an ordeal. Several theologians started to write pieces and teach modernist theology.

Pope Pius X was not at all happy about this. He instituted an anti-modernist oath in 1910 and ordered that “all clergy, pastors, confessors, preachers, religious superiors, and professors in philosophical-theological seminaries.” By doing this, he institutionalized an anti-modernist position that continued until the middle of the 20th century when the requirement to take the oath was repealed.

But since Catholic theologians couldn’t be modernists, did that mean they were fundamentalists? Certainly not—remember, we want to think about modernism and liberalism as specific theological movements during this time period. Even though the Catholic Church was decidedly anti-modernist, they nevertheless moved in a direction much removed from Reformation theology.

Vatican II

We can consider these changes as tremors leading up to a massive earthquake in Catholic doctrine. The Catholic Church underwent significant changes especially in the 1960s. In 1962, Pope John XXIII brought many Catholic officials and theologians together to rethink Catholic doctrine on a number of issues. They underwent a project of aggiornamento, which is an Italian word meaning, “updating.” It’s been said that they wanted to open the windows of the Church to led fresh air in. And so under the leadership of John XXIII and later, Paul VI, the second Vatican Council met from 1962 to 1965 to work out this updating.

The Council produced several documents and dogmatic constitutions that presented new theological constructions that significantly changed the Catholic Church’s official views on a number of issues. To summarize many of these changes in just a few sentences, we can say that there was a general inclusive or ecumenical movement. After Vatican II, the Catholic Church recognized grace in other religions and even in the world in general. A road was now made for the Eastern Church, the Protestants, and even people of other faiths to be included under the massive Catholic umbrella.

The Catholic Church post-Vatican II is incredibly different than the Catholic Church encountered by Martin Luther and John Calvin. If the Catholic Church has changed this much since the Reformation, what does the Protestant side look like?

Protestants Today

Protestantism in general hasn’t fared much better. Though it’s significance in terms of pure numbers is rapidly decreasing, the mainline churches such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Methodist Church, and the Presbyterian Church (USA) remain some of the largest Protestant bodies. The PCUSA in particular reacted against the modernism that plagued Princeton Seminary and many large Christian bodies in the early 20th century. But instead of following Machen in his fight against modernism, they moved in a decidedly Barthian direction.
In 1967, the PCUSA adopted an updated confession that many recognize as a capitulation to the theology of Karl Barth. In his view, the Incarnation is eternal and the Scriptures are not the Word of God in themselves. Rather, they become the Word of God as the Spirit adopts them in an event of revelation. You can spot a Barthian preacher because he will not say from the pulpit “Here now the reading of God’s Word,” but “Listen for the Word of God.”
Barth also taught aberrant views on the doctrine of election, which suggests a doctrine of universalism. And current Barthian scholars not only recognize this universalism in Barth, but even attempt to reconcile it with New Testament teaching.

Reformed apologist and Orthodox Presbyterian minister Cornelius Van Til became one of the principle critics of Barth. He actually wrote two books on the subject. The first, title The New Modernism attempted to show that Barthianism was really just another form of the same errors the liberals made.

His second book was even more explicit in its title. Christianity and Barthianism drew its title directly from Machen’s Christianity & Liberalism in which Machen argued that Liberalism wasn’t just another form of Christianity, but was a different religion altogether. This is where many mainline Protestants have gone. And even today Princeton Seminary remains one of the premier places for Barthian scholarship.

Have you ever watched the news and heard the news anchor refer to Evangelicals in general? They might say more and more evangelicals believe in alternative ways to salvation. Often, we see gross generalizations of Evangelicalism and Protestantism. And being Protestants ourselves, we can often get a bit upset because the general, generic view of Protestantism doesn’t often describe us very well as Orthodox Presbyterians.

Do we, as Reformed Christians consider ourselves under these headings? As part of my PhD studies, I took an external course at the Catholic University of America. My professor, would often bring up Protestant thought on various issues. In terms of his perception, the quintessential Protestant is Wolfhart Pannenberg, who teaches that God essentially becomes a Trinity—that he evolves and unfolds in history to become something he wasn’t at the start. For many others, the prime example of a Reformed theologian is Karl Barth. What does a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church have in common with these figures?

Church historian and OPC elder Darryl G. Hart wrote a book titled Deconstructing Evangelicalism: Conservative Protestantism in the Age of Billy Graham. In this book he argued that the term “Evangelical” is so broad and includes Christian denominations that have such different doctrine that the term itself is basically of no significance. Well, in many ways the same can be said for modern Roman Catholicism. It’s such a large and diverse body of thought that the general label “Catholic” doesn’t always mean that much.

This brings us to ask about the significance of the Reformation today. If the Catholic Church is so broad and Protestantism and Evangelicalism are equally broad—moreover, if the two bodies even overlap at points—where does that leave the Reformation?

Is the Reformation Still Significant?

In 2005, Baker Books published Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom’s book Is the Reformation Over? In that book, the authors ask a good question. Since these two large, general bodies are starting to overlap and merge into one another, is it the case that the Reformation is over? Let’s look at a few key events that have happened over the last couple of decades.

The first big one happened in 1994 when Chuck Colson and Richard John Neuhaus led an effort called Evangelicals and Catholics Together. Their goal was to join together to provide a common witness to the world in the third millennium. The document doesn’t mention any specific points of theology, but takes a sort of lowest common denominator approach of ecumenism.

Another big event was the Joint Declaration on Justification between the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation in 1999. They sought to come to terms on the doctrine that basically caused the Reformation. The declaration says:

The present Joint Declaration has this intention: namely, to show that on the basis of their dialogue the subscribing Lutheran churches and the Roman Catholic Church are now able to articulate a common understanding of our justification by God’s grace through faith in Christ. It does not cover all that either church teaches about justification; it does encompass a consensus on basic truths of the doctrine of justification and shows that the remaining differences in its explication are no longer the occasion for doctrinal condemnations.

This was made possible by the changes that came about through Vatican II. The declaration continues:

By appropriating insights of recent biblical studies and drawing on modern investigations of the history of theology and dogma, the post-Vatican II ecumenical dialogue has led to a notable convergence concerning justification, with the result that this Joint Declaration is able to formulate a consensus on basic truths concerning the doctrine of justification. In light of this consensus, the corresponding doctrinal condemnations of the sixteenth century do not apply to today’s partner.

And later, it attempted to smooth over the Reformation differences by saying that the condemnations of the Council of Trent don’t really apply to the teaching of the Lutherans in this declaration, and that the Lutheran condemnations of Catholic teaching don’t apply here either.

Surely, if Catholics and Martin Luther’s children could come to terms, then the Reformation must be over, right? Well in terms of large and broad categories such as Protestant or Evangelical, I think the Reformation probably is over. But in terms of the true Reformation concern, the Reformed mentality may be small, but it is alive and well.

Conclusion

I titled this lesson “Where are they now? The Reformers and the Catholics After 500 Years.” I think that the doctrines of the 16th century Catholics are still here, but not necessarily in an institutional sense. Vatican II changed things significantly, and the theology found in the Council of Trent has been eclipsed.
And where are the Reformers? Their teaching lives on in churches that seek to be faithful expositors of God’s Word. They live on in the lives of people who confess a truly sovereign God who comes to save those whom are dead in their sins and completely unable to save themselves.

I want to look more at the Reformation’s basic principles tomorrow morning. My hope is that we’ll see how these principles aren’t just stale ideas from 500 years ago. They’re not old notions that don’t apply today. Even though the Catholic Church has changed significantly from the Church it was during the Reformation and that the big Protestant bodies have changed as well, there is a need to fight for the basic truths of the Reformation just as much today as there ever was.