Here I Stand

This coming Sunday is Reformation Day – the anniversary of Martin Luther’s posting of his 95 theses to the cathedral door in Wittenberg. This event is generally held to mark the start of the Reformation. (So, kill two birds with one stone by sending your kids trick-or-treating dressed as Luther and Calvin.)

I’m not sure how many Protestant churches actually observe Reformation Day, but I personally find myself somewhat ambivalent about it. I have very little taste for Protestant triumphalism and prefer to see myself as a “small-c” catholic – someone who adheres to the ecumenical Creeds of Christendom and the Great Tradition.

On top of that, one of my best friends is a serious practicing Roman Catholic, and I am not the least bit inclined to see him as being in league with the Antichrist. At best, I can see the Reformation as a kind of regrettable necessity, a sundering of the body of Christ that begs to be healed.

Moreover, I wonder how many Protestants still see their separation from Rome in terms of grand theological differences. How many of us, if asked, could articulate the Protestant and Catholic views on justification or infused grace? In fact, the Lutheran World Federation signed a Joint Declaration on Justification with the Roman Catholic Church that concluded that the doctrine of justification need no longer be church dividing.

If that’s right (and there are elements within the Lutheran churches that dispute the Joint Declaration), then what do Lutherans in particular (I’ll let other Protestants speak for themselves) take to be the justification (pardon the expression) for the continued divisions in the Church? I’m assuming here that reunion of the churches is a self-evident good, and that if we are to remain separate from Rome we ought to have good reasons.

Rather than attempt to speak for an entire tradition, I’ll offer some of my own reasons for not swimming the Tiber, some more substantial than others. I hope these are all offered (and will be received!) in a spirit of charity, as serious intellectual and spiritual differences rather than as an attempt to score debating points.

Authority and Ecclesiology



This may be the biggest sticking point between modern-day Protestants and Roman Catholics. It’s interesting to speculate what Luther might have thought if he could’ve foreseen the splintering of the Church into hundreds of denominations, a splintering that often appeals to his principles for its legitimacy. Be that as it may, there seems to be a fundamental division between Christians who see the Bible as their primary authority for faith and life, and those who rely on the interpretive statements of a magisterium. Sola scriptura has been called the “formal principle” of the Reformation; it continues to condition many of the substantive theological judgments Protestants make.

For most Protestants, the local congregation is sufficient in itself for the Church to be present. The universal church is the invisible collection of all believers, past and present, living and dead. It doesn’t have an institutional expression per se. As Timothy George puts it “the invisible church emerges into visibility in the local congregation” when the Word is rightly preached and the Sacraments and rightly administered.

I can’t help but think that this relatively non-hierarchical and decentralized ecclesiology is closer to the spirit of the New Testament. Despite its risks, the image of a group of believers coming together, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, to understand the revelation vouchsafed to us in Scripture seems to me to comport better with that spirit than a sharp division between clergy and laity with a centralized authority.

This is not to say that a magisterial authority doesn’t have its advantages. The fact that the RCC has been able to maintain steadfast adherence to the historic beliefs and practices of the universal Church in the face of various modernist and skeptical assaults should give any but the most revisionist-minded Protestant pause. And the fact that many Protestants have unofficially adopted Pope John Paul II as the highest profile defender of orthodoxy in the contemporary world is itself revealing.

Still, The notion of an infallible papacy seems too much like a kind of epistemological bootstrapping – of asserting the existence of such an authority because it would be really nice if we had one! Which is not to say that Protestants should ignore the rich tradition of biblical interpretation from the Church Fathers to the present. We should strive to be truly catholic by adhering to “that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all,” but with Scripture always remaining the touchstone.

Women’s Ordination

Our congregation has two pastors – a man and a woman. Each week they alternate duties at worship, with one preaching and the other officiating at the Eucharist. It has never occurred to me that when I receive the sacrament from our female pastor that it is somehow “invalid,” or that she is any less capable of faithfully preaching the Word. I realize that this is by itself not an argument. I think this intuition, though, is grounded in the Lutheran view of grace. Grace is, according to Lutherans, God’s work from first to last. It is in no sense a work that we perform; we are purely receptive. Thus, I can find no theological footing for the notion that the celebrant must be a man in order for Grace to be really present.

Birth Control

Though apparently many American Catholics disregard their Church’s teaching on artificial birth control, it remains a serious bone of contention between Catholics and Protestants. In part this is because if this teaching is false, it calls into question the authority of the papacy as an infallible guide to faith and morals.

For my part, I can discern no morally significant difference between preventing pregnancy by abstaining (i.e. “Natural Family Planning”) and preventing pregnancy by means of (non-abortive) artificial birth control. I can sympathize with those who argue that the prevalence of artificial birth control has had socially deleterious effects, but for better or for worse it’s here to stay, and there’s no reason that should prevent Christian couples from making responsible use of birth control.

Marian Devotion and Dogmas



Next to the question of authority, this may be the place where Protestants find the most to disagree with our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters. Though certain Anglicans have maintained a strain of Marian devotion, the vast majority of Protestants regard it as unnecessary at best, and idolatrous at worst.

I personally have no problem with devotion to Mary and the Saints and would be happy to leave it as adiaphoria – an accepted practice not binding on Christian conscience about which we can disagree. However, the issue of the Marian dogmas is another matter. The doctrines of the Immaculate Conception (not to be confused with the Virgin Birth!), the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, and her Bodily Assumption into Heaven, while widespread in the ancient Church, should not, in my view, have the status of required doctrine. This is because of the lack of attestation in Scripture and their (seemingly) peripheral relation to the central truths of Revelation (as expressed in, say, the Apostle’s Creed).

These don’t exhaust my disagreements with the RCC, but they’re probably the most significant. I hope I have presented the Roman Catholic teachings that I disagree with in a clear and fair light and that my Catholic readers (if any) will correct me if I haven’t. And I hope I’ve offered an understandable (if not fully persuasive!) account of why, barring a deeper understanding of the requirements of Christian life, I remain (if somewhat uneasily) camped at Wittenberg rather than Rome.