Leithart's future-end of Protestantism VIII: the reformers were not revolutionaries...

Paragraph Six, "The Future-End of Protestantism":

As we reflect on the future of Protestantism it will not do to say that history is change, that the world is always coming to an end in the straightforward sense that today will become tomorrow. History is not a seamless garment. It has gaps and tears, some quite rough. We know that from our own history. The Reformers reached deep into the Scriptures and the catholic tradition, but they were revolutionary innovators for all that. A world came to an end five hundred years ago, and the Western Church was re- born in an unprecedented form—as Catholic-and- Protestant. New kinds of Christians began to appear for the first time, with new names like "Lutheran" and "Reformed" and "Anglican."

Here we turn to the sixth paragraph of the article in which Dr. Leithart calls us to reflection. But keep in mind that Dr. Leithart's original title for this project was "The End of Protestantism," so the future Dr. Leithart is calling us to reflect on is death. He is calling Protestants to die to our "old habits and ideals," our "old ruts" and our "dead selves." He's not defining those old habits and ideals yet; he's not telling us which ruts we're stuck in. Is it our confession of faith alone and Scripture alone? Is it our faith in "Christ alone" and our clinging to "grace alone" we must forsake? If these are not the ruts Dr. Leithart is calling us to forsake, what are those ruts? What are the old habits and ideals he is calling us to repent of? These are the "alones" or "solas" that have always defined Protestantism over against Roman Catholicism. Surely these are not the "habits," "Ideals," and "ruts" Dr. Leithart is prophesying against?

Then again, maybe I'm wrong? Perhaps it is justification by grace alone, through faith alone that Dr. Leithart wants us to turn away from? Since Dr. Leithart wants Protestantism to end, we must admit there's no better path to take than getting Protestants to abandon the righteousness of Jesus Christ for the Roman Catholic church's good works and sacraments. If the fall of the Church is what's being proposed, there's no better way...

When the Roman Catholic church's Council of Trent cursed those who hope in Jesus Christ Alone for their salvation—His righteous life, death, and resurrection—if their goal was to move from orthodoxy to heresy, from the Apostle Paul to the Judaizers, they got it right. This is the heart of Biblical faith and for that reason nothing is more precious to Protestants than justification by grace alone through faith alone in Christ Alone.

On the other hand, it might be that Dr. Leithart is calling us to retain justification by faith alone and it is only the lesser matters of Protestant faith he is calling us to abandon...

Maybe the Protestant "ideal" Dr. Leithart wants us to abandon is the lesser matter spelled out as the first of Luther's 95 Theses—that the Christian life is a life of repentance? Is this life of repentance commanded by our Lord a "rut" we need the Roman Catholics to liberate us from? Then again, maybe Dr. Leithart is OK with repentance but he believes we need to escape the "habit" of weekly observance of the Lord's Supper, exchanging it for daily Mass? Maybe he sees our denial of the Roman Catholic Mass's perpetual sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus Christ as an old "rut?" Maybe he wants us to switch to transubstantiation? Maybe he wants us to get out of our old rut of opposing lesser Roman Catholic doctrines such as the infallibility of the Pope, the treasury of merit, purgatory, the immaculate conception, priestly chastity, plenary indulgences, the supremacy of tradition over Scripture, works of supererogation, the popes' two-covenant approach to Jewish salvation, Mary as Mediatrix, and infusion?

Maybe he wants us to get out of our old rut opposing sacramentalism? Maybe he believes baptism and the Mass save men. Or maybe he believes baptism and the Lord's Supper aren't the only two sacraments? As he says elsewhere, everything is a sacrament and Dr. Leithart intends to restore to Protestants the other five sacraments of the Roman Catholic church?

"I told you so" isn't generally a way to win friends and influence people, but the Apostle Paul did it once so it must have some spiritual utility. Ten years ago I told my Federal Vision friends to get out of the Federal Vision movement because it was clear to me that the movement was all about sacramentalism and it would lead them to Rome. Scott and Kimberly Hahn, Marcus Grodi, and I did seminary together at Gordon-Conwell and we knew each other well. Which is to say I know the type and Federal Vision men are that type, especially Peter Leithart.

Now ten years after my warning, Federal Vision's chief priest is joined by his acolytes in calling for the end of Protestantism, but I don't hear anyone saying "Tim was right."

But of course I don't really care about that. What bothers me is that no one is saying "Peter Leithart is wrong." Or more, "we were wrong about Federal Vision." Is it not proof enough that Dr. Leithart has written this and Rich Bledsoe has written that? Men at the front of the Federal Vision phalanx and no one is admitting any decade-long culpability?

Should we not take Federal Vision's Trinity House seriously? Should we not take them at their word?

Back to the article. Dr. Leithart is not yet showing his hand. Just a bunch of good cop/bad cop rhetoric using the Sacred Scriptures as his trampoline into big thoughts and high ideals about how very good and hopeful and exciting tearings and scatterings are. Protestantism is to end, he tells us. Protestantism's future is death, but to accomplish that death Dr. Leithart must get us feeling a generalized guilt about being Protestants so we're ready to move on. Thus he trots out ambiguous patter about our need "to die to our old habits and ideals, get out of our old ruts, leave our dead selves behind and take the first step into a genuine future."

This stuff is pathetic and it's hard to imagine how we have arrived at the point that young Reformed pastors give Dr. Leithart the time of day. He is inside the Reformed Church—the Presbyterian Church in America—calling for the end of Protestantism, referring to his own confessional community as an old habit, an old ideal, an old rut, all because we are "dead selves." Keep in mind it's Protestantism he's talking about—not Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy.

His subject is "The Future of Protestantism." "The End of Protestantism." The death of Protestantism.

Next this:

History is not a seamless garment. It has gaps and tears, some quite rough. We know that from our own history. The Reformers reached deep into the Scriptures and the catholic tradition, but they were revolutionary innovators for all that.

Ah yes, Dr. Leithart remembers he's publishing his call for the death of Protestantism in a journal edited and read by the most conservative Roman Catholics in North America. Many of them remember Joseph Cardinal Bernardin's mincing prattle about the necessity of the culture of life being a "seamless garment." And with Pope Frances giving the phrase a second lease on life recently, Dr. Leithart hops on the wagon:

History is not a seamless garment. It has gaps and tears, some quite rough. We know that from our own history. The Reformers reached deep into the Scriptures and the catholic tradition, but they were revolutionary innovators for all that. A world came to an end five hundred years ago, and the Western Church was re- born in an unprecedented form—as Catholic-and- Protestant. New kinds of Christians began to appear for the first time, with new names like "Lutheran" and "Reformed" and "Anglican."

History "has gaps and tears, some quite rough." Then the light tug on the reins—"We" know that from "our own" history. Dr. Leithart uses 'we' and 'our' as gentle reminders that he is one of us. But really? He's a prophet for high culture, higher liturgy, and highest sacramentalism in the service of the death of Protestantism and he wants us to accept him as one of our own?

No, Dr. Leithart, it is not "our history." When you took to the pages of a Roman Catholic journal to call for the death of Protestantism, you lost any credible claim to Protestant history. You may now speak of "our history" when you refer to the documents of the Council of Trent; "our" in that context would refer to you and your Roman Catholic readers. You may speak of "our history" among fellow sociologists when sharing with one another the deep ramblings and dark sayings of Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy. You may speak of "our history" when you discuss among fellow members of the Presbyterian Church in America the minutes of your trial by Pacific Northwest Presbytery.

Still, do not speak of Protestant history as "our history" in my presence. You are not one of us. The Lutherans may own you. The Episcopalians may own you. The Anglicans may own you. The Presbyterian Church in America may own you. And yes, Roman Catholics with a certain interest in sociology and literature are giggling with excitement over you and your Trinity House fellows adore you. But one or two of us see you for what you are—a Johnny Rebel wearing a Union uniform as he calls Union soldiers to throw down their arms.

The Reformers reached deep into the Scriptures and the catholic tradition, but they were revolutionary innovators for all that.

No. Revolutions and reformations are not the same thing. Protestantism is a reformation, not a revolution. I can see why Dr. Leithart would want to equivocate here, supplanting our self-understanding of reform for the Roman Catholic slander of revolt, but let us beware of such slippery tactics. If it is Dr. Leithart's intention to argue that the Reformation wasn't a reformation, but a revolution, he ought to man up and argue it straightforwardly. It shouldn't be an insinuation, but an assertion.

Has Dr. Leithart read the Institutes of John Calvin? I know Federal Vision men have an aversion to systematic theology, but eventually everyone has to stoop to considering two statements of Scripture at one and the same time, and everyone who's given in and done it has blessed God for giving us Calvin's Institutes. Anyhow, the simplest perusal of those Institutes is sufficient to demonstrate that the entire body of evidence produced by the Reformers five centuries ago proved that Rome had departed from not just Scripture, but also the Apostolic tradition and the Early Church Fathers.

Dr. Leithart falsely accuses the Reformers of being "revolutionary innovators," but then a thief thinks everyone steals.

Consider just this one little detail, that across the Institutes, few are quoted as frequently as Bernard of Clairvaux. In other words, in standing against Rome in the sixteenth century, John Calvin exposed her revolutionary innovations by quoting a Church father of the eleventh century. In fact, he quoted Bernard in support of the restoration to the Church of the Biblical doctrine of justification by faith alone.

Meanwhile, Dr. Leithart is quoting a twentieth century sociologist named Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy.