What Were the Methods Used by Protestants in Order to Develop a Sense of Confessional Identity - Report Example

What Were the Methods Used by Protestants in Order to Develop a Sense of Confessional Identity Distinct from the Catholic Tradition? Introduction As Holder points out, there is no unanimity on the question about what the Reformation is, i.e. whether it should be considered first and foremost a period of time “marked by a religious change”1, the advent of new theology intended rebuild people’s lives “by renewed attention to Christianity’s constituting message, the gospel”2, or “the most disruptive development in European history since the Black Death”3, etc. From a historical point of view, an explosive mix of social, political, military and religious issues led to the earth-shaking upheaval of the Western Church and society during the entire sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries, which started with the so-called “the Lutheran Reform” and ended with the last fusillades of Thirty Years’ War4. Form a theologian’s perspective, however, the confessional differences, which emerged ever since Martin Luther had proclaimed his Ninety-Five Theses concerning indulgences and profoundly transformed the religious landscape5, quite understandably appear the main focus of interest. On the other hand, it is by no means intended to say that those theological differences sprang up and took shape in a vacuum. Moreover, they were preceded by “a continuation of movements that were already active in the earlier centuries”6, as well as accompanied by “a number of dramatic episodes”7, including sectarian upheaval, intolerance, and violence. This paper is aimed at examining the methods Protestants used to develop a sense of confessional identity distinct from Roman Catholicism, as displayed within the major Protestant ecclesiastical and theological traditions. Thus, the paper specifically looks at those traditions – Lutheran, Anabaptists, and Reformed – that could “trace their origins to the European reform movements outside the Roman Catholic Church”8 in the sixteenth century9. The Thorny Road to the Reformation As historians point out, there had been a number of crises in Western Europe during the late mediaeval period, i.e. roughly between 1350 and 150010. Despite being anything but all religious in their essence, these crises were primarily seen in religious context by the people of that time and culture; hence the various agricultural failures, along with their immediate consequences and far-reaching implications, like hunger, malnutrition, widespread diseases, etc., plagues –“literally on biblical proportions”, major wars such as the Hundred Years’ War, and, last but not least, political crises in Church – the Avignon Papacy and the Great Schism11 – were naturally, and perhaps with reason, viewed as a divine judgement on the people for their sins. Insofar as religion had played an overwhelming role in people’s life by then, and faith offered answers to both issues of daily life and afterlife12, the crises in the Church per se might have been seen as sufficient reason for all calamities. The Avignon Papacy, often referred to as the “Babylonian Captivity of the Church”, had taken place in 1309, when the papal court under Clement V was moved from Rome to Avignon, France1314. The resolution of this crisis, however, led directly to the next one, namely the Great Schism, when the cardinals first elected Urban VI and a few months later – having claimed that they were intimidated into doing so by the riotous mob – they left Rome, and elected Clement VII1516. Consequently, two popes, each being elected by the same group of cardinals, claimed the papacy and immediately excommunicated each other, thus rendering the believers – both the laity and clergy – in a state of confusion over who was actually the true bishop of Rome17. With the mutual excommunications, harsh criticism and demands for non-association with the other side so characteristic of that period, which lasted from 1378 to 1417, the prestige of the papacy suffered grave damage18; therefore, a solution was badly needed to resolve the crisis that could potentially shake up the foundations of the Western Church. Since councils were “an ancient tool” of the Church for resolving all-important questions of Christianity, the solution was quite naturally envisaged to come in the form of a council, namely the Council of Pisa called by cardinals from both sides and convened in 140919. Having deposed both Gregory XII of Rome and Benedict XIII of Avignon, the Council of Pisa elected Alexander V as a new pope; on the other hand, since they refused to accept the Council’s decisions, the Council failed to settle the question of authority in the Western Church, but rather made the matter worse, electing a third pope20. However, the Great Schism ended in 1417, when another Council, which was held in the German city of Constance, deposed all three popes and elected Martin V as a new pope, whereas the papacy retained “only a shadow of its former power”21. Additionally, some actions of the higher clergy that were considered in a way scandalous and contrary to common standards of morality, most notably those of Pope Alexander VI – a member of the Borgia family, who was involved in several sexual liaisons, with four children from these “illegitimate unions”, became a focus of increased scrutiny in the pre-Reformation period22. In a nutshell, the popes of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, along with the lower clergy, whose problems such as the abuse of clerical status, the breach of priestly celibacy, etc. were perhaps worse, appeared not always “admirable examples” to the rest of the Christian community23. The Advent of Reform Movements – Theological Methods and Fundamental Beliefs All the above-mentioned abuses and scandalous practices, as combined with ignorance of doctrine and canon law24, eventually brought about the emergence of anticlericalism since many of the laity had seen the clergy as less Christian than themselves; that bias against the clergy, in turn, became a crucial factor, along with one of “the most important technological innovations of the age” – the printing press, in the advent of the reform movements of the sixteenth century2526. Holder points out that humanism was linked to the Renaissance and, with its emphasis on language and history, had set itself apart from the other strands of reformist thought27. This movement in particular sought the “wisdom of the classical period by returning to the sources”, or in other words translating the Greek and Hebrew original versions of the Scriptures, along with translating Greek philosophy into Latin, became its main focus of interest28. This, in turn, led to the concentration on historical context, much emphasis on rhetoric and persuasion, and to a number of discoveries, most notably to the finding that the church had been using mistranslations of the sacred texts for a thousand years2930. The biblical humanists’ methods and ideals also included a denial of the “allegory” approach to reading of Scripture, i.e. the fourfold (quadriga) meaning according to Origen, as well as a denial of the power of tradition, which in some sense had become its own source of authority31. In the realm of theological method, the humanists struggled with scholasticism, whose leading proponents, like St Anselm of Canterbury and St Thomas Aquinas, used logic, rather than historical context “to make sense of the witness and the traditions of the church”32. Eminent humanists were Desiderus Erasmus, Lorenzo Valla, John Colet, Faber Stapulensis, etc. Martin Luther – “a leader of the Augustinian order, vicar over eleven monasteries and professor of Holy Scripture at Wittenberg University”33 – was described as “a bold rough man, and vehement declaimer”34. According to Campbell, at some point between 1512 and 1515, Luther had discovered that the “righteousness of God” – an expression found in the letters of Paul – denotes “righteousness by which God justifies sinners ... on the basis of faith only”; which, in turn, led him to a number of other questions about the accepted teachings, like the church’s role as the mediator of salvation, hence the necessity for priests, the abuses of the practice of confession and sacrament of penance, etc.35 In regard to the latter, Luther issued a series of ninety-five theses in 1517, which inveighed against the abuse of indulgences and called in question their efficacy; later on, his views became even more radical, questioning the teaching authority of popes and the Ecumenical Councils3637. Although Luther was excommunicated in 1521, his ideas gained currency across the Holy Roman Empire so the imperial cities and states were given the right to decide independently on the form of their religious life by an imperial council’s decree issued in 1526; another council, however, called by Emperor Charles V in 1529 decreed against the Reformation, whereas those who protested the council decisions were referred to as “Protestants”; in the next summer, the Protestants, led by Philipp Melanchthon, submitted a confession of faith, known as the Augsburg Confession38, which generally explained the faith and doctrine of the Lutherans39. The centre of the Lutheran theology is the doctrine of justification by grace (sola gratia) through faith (sola fide), “apart from the works of law”, being “oriented to an essentially Pauline appropriation of Israel’s prophetic tradition”40 and grounded in the Pauline understanding of the grace of God41, as properly understood in the context of the distinction between the law and the gospel42. Additionally, Lutheranism include the doctrine of two kingdoms and eschatological hope in Christ; however, the justification by grace through faith, along with two of the means of grace – the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper – illustrate classical Lutheran theology43. From Lutherans’ perspective, their faith is the ancient Christianity of the catholic and apostolic church, “revived and restored at the time of the Lutheran Reformation”44. As Gritsch points out, Lutheran confessions offer a vision of the Catholic Church, based on the ancient ecumenical creeds, without Church’s claim of “universal authority and doctrinal infallibility”45. On the other hand, Lutheranism adopted a dangerous ad hoc method, i.e. the “cuius region eius religio” principle that made secular rulers “emergency bishops” after the Peace of Augsburg, under which those imperial cities and territories that adhered to the Augsburg Confession were granted legal status within the empire46. Anabaptism is thought to have been formed from three sub-traditions, each originating in different geographical region – the Zwinglian humanist tradition from Switzerland, Southern Germany’s mystical-humanist tradition, and sacramentarian-apocalyptic tradition from the Netherlands and northern Germany4748. Having arisen early in the sixteenth century, the Anabaptist movement is considered a “grassroots movement”, which functioned and survived in more or less a “clandestine fashion”, with a “bewildering variety of unique local teachings and practices”49. In Switzerland, the radical path towards church reform included breaking the Lenten fast, disrupting the Mass, removing statues and other images from church sanctuaries, as well as, under the influence of Wilhelm Reublin, Johannes Brotli, Conrad Grebel, and Felix Mantz, the cessation of infant baptism50. Being based on the assumption that baptism should be administered to people “who heard, understood and affirmed the gospel”, Anabaptism saw infants as unfit for baptism since they are not capable of acting or deciding alone51. All in all, Anabaptism lacks “complex or highly formalised theology”, hence they were giving more weight to Christian practice, rather than to doctrinal formulations; although the Bible “constitutes the stated norm of Anabaptist theological formulation”, more recently Anabaptist have acknowledged a role for tradition as well52. The Reformed tradition has its origins in those Swiss reformers who were more radical than Luther, insisting that every Christian practice “should have positive warrant in Scripture”53. In France, the most influential figure of the Reformed movement was John Calvin, whose doctrine influenced the “whole constituency of Reformed Churches”54. The unconditional commitment to the supreme authority of Scripture – as “final direction for the Church with respect to doctrine, discipline and worship” – which is established “fundamentally through the witness of the Holy Spirit55, is characteristic of Calvinist doctrine, hence the theology and theological method of the Reformed tradition. Conclusion Having emerged one from another, the “Protestant” traditions examined above are related historically in their origins56, as stated by Buschart, hence the boundaries between them are rather fuzzy. On the other hand, despite appearing more or less united in their vision of ethics, morality and truth, Protestant traditions further undermined the ability of Christian community – beyond the confines of local Christian communities – to speak authoritatively with one voice57, and thus contributed to the fragmentation of Christianity. Bibliography Bossy, J., “The Social History of Confession in the Age of the Reformation”. 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A History of Lutheranism, 2nd ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2010. Holder, R. W. Crisis and Renewal: The Era of the Reformations. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009. McClendon, M. C. and Joseph P. Ward. “Introduction: Religion, Society, and Self-Fashioning in Post-Reformation England”. In Protestant Identities: Religion, Society, and Self-Fashioning in Post-Reformation England, edited by Muriel C. McClendon, Joseph P. Ward and Michael McDonald, 1 – 18. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999. Revd Rafferty, P. A Short History of the Protestant Reformation: Chiefly Selected from Protestant Authors. Pittsburgh: Johnston & Stockton, 1831. Riviere, J. The Doctrine of the Atonement: A Historical Essay. Translated by Luigi Cappadelta. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd., 1909. Sheppard, James A. Christendom at the Crossroads: The Medieval Era. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005. Sunshine, Glenn S. The Reformation for Armchair Theologians. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005. Thompson, Glen L., trans. The Unaltered Augsburg Confession, A.D. 1530. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Northwestern Publishing House, 2005. Thompson, L. A. A Protestant Theology of Religious Pluralism. Bern: Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, 2009. Read More