Standing firm

In an influential book, Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom ask Is the Reformation over?

They do not provide a one-word answer to the question, but their reply seems to consist of three elements. First, they believe that Rome has changed, resulting in extensive agreement with Protestants. Second, they find that there remain Reformation differences that have not been resolved. But, third, despite these differences, the gap has narrowed to such an extent that the anathemas of the Reformation can be withdrawn and replaced by fraternal acceptance.

Their evidence

The book is journalistic in style and paints with a broad, impressionistic brush. Much of it is simply descriptive, but some of the descriptions are questionable. For example, finding a focus on ‘the essential work’ of the cross and resurrection in John Paul II’s book, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, hardly counts as finding convergence with evangelicalism. We need only ask: the cross of which Christ? The Christ of the gospel? Or Christ the purchaser of merit that the church can dispense? That Christ is not evangelical, yet his cross is still central in some way. More doctrinal nuance is required to establish genuine agreement in these descriptive sections.

Too often in the examples of hostility to Rome the book tells the story of men who sound like aggressive hicks and rednecks. The great tradition of sophisticated and calm Protestant polemics found in the work of the Lutheran Martin Chemnitz or the Reformed Francis Turretin is not engaged by the book. Instead we have the burning of the Charleston Convent by a Protestant mob in 1835. The book is more responsive to the world of visceral popular hostility to Rome than to sophisticated theological disagreement.

Other parts of Noll and Nystrom’s narrative are on much firmer ground and constitute undeniable evidence that there has been a dramatic change in evangelical-Roman Catholic relations. Interestingly, some of the examples overlap with those used by Iain Murray in his book Evangelicalism Divided, a work critical of this kind of development. No one can deny that the changes have occurred; the difference concerns the view that we should take of them.

Persistent disagreements

When Noll and Nystrom get to the substance of their argument, they claim that the hostility still prevalent in the 1950s was mistaken, because Rome is not monolithic and because it has changed. Given this, it is surprising that they allow that a number of the key disagreements remain, including disagreements over ‘the authority of the church, the importance of Peter and his successors, the infallibility of the pope, and the veneration of Mary’. This is puzzling: with such serious disagreements recognised it is hard to see sufficient convergence.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

Noll and Nystrom’s discussion of the 1994 Catechism of the Catholic Church in Chapter 5 embodies their two-fold approach. Thus they respond atomistically to the text, isolating for approval large elements, while still finding ‘irreconcilable’ differences. They are even prepared to produce a figure, estimating that evangelicals can agree with two-thirds of the Catechism. The difficulty with this approach is that the Catechism cannot be treated as a series of distinct elements to which we can respond individually. In responding to the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, especially as defined within a single authoritative text like the Catechism, we need to respond as a whole. Noll and Nystrom rightly choose the text because it forms such a single authoritative account. This is how it must be treated.

The doctrine of justification

At the heart of Noll and Nystrom’s argument for convergence lies their assessment of Rome’s position on the doctrine of justification. They believe that both groups can agree that ‘salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ’. Note the missing ‘alones’ here, hardly indicative of genuine agreement. Nevertheless, given belief in salvation by grace through faith, Noll and Nystrom think that we can ‘welcome each other as brothers and sisters of the family created by God’s grace’. They argue that if justification were the definitive article of the Reformation, it would indeed be over. This is not because this dispute has been settled: ‘It is unlikely that any group of Catholics and evangelicals will come up with a united statement of forensic justification’. Rather, it is because the ‘debate on the exact definition of justification may not be as important as it seems’. In support, they cite J.I. Packer’s defence of signing the second Evangelicals and Catholics Together statement: ‘What brings salvation, after all, is not any theory about faith in Christ, justification, and the church, but faith itself in Christ himself’.

This last point demands closer attention. In a sense, the point that no doctrine justifies is both true and important. It is Christ who justifies. Most Protestants have allowed that someone might believe the truth and yet express it wrongly, and still be justified. This insight may help us understand some individuals who seem strangely self-contradictory in their attitude to Christ, but it is irrelevant to our assessment of the Roman Catholic Church as a church. It is one thing to think that an individual Roman Catholic is saved despite his doctrinal formulations. It is quite different to argue that because such a distinction between head and heart is possible we should roll back the Reformation. Someone who means what he says, who actually trusts for his justification in his works done by the Spirit as he says he does, cannot be justified. It is one thing for someone to be confused and not to know himself, to misrepresent his deepest beliefs in his doctrinal expressions. That is a real consequence of the internal malfunction of fallen human beings. But it is altogether different for a church persistently to teach people that they can trust in the merit of works done in the Spirit for eternal life, as Rome did at the Council of Trent, and as it still does. I suspect that this confusion of the individual and the ecclesial is the common source of enthusiasm for ecumenism among evangelicals: reflections arising from experiences of individuals are projected onto the level of church-wide relationships.

The psychology of ecumenism

Much of the impulse for ecumenism comes from a sense of increasing isolation. Timothy George speaks of an ‘ecumenism of the trenches’. Noll and Nystrom themselves are clearly motivated by a desire to find friends in the face of common enemies. This is hardly an adequate way of gauging the future of the Reformation. It is identity with the gospel not comparative proximity to it that is the proper basis of unity. We need to stand firm, confident that the gates of Hades cannot prevail against the church, no matter what enemies she has.

Closer to home

Theologically, the Reformation is not over. It is relevant on the ground when we are pressed to join local ecumenical activities, and it is relevant at the level of denominations. We see its relevance in the text of the conservative Anglican Jerusalem Declaration, to which many evangelicals are committed through various movements. The Declaration uses the very same words to describe justification as Noll and Nystrom use to describe agreement with Rome: ‘We have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ’. The glaring omission of the ‘alones’ can hardly be accidental. The issue is clearly close to home. Is our insistence on the Reformation to be sacrificed when we feel the enemy of liberalism pressing at the gates? In practice, is the Reformation over?

This article is a condensed version of Garry Williams’s contribution to the 2010 Westminster Conference Papers and appears with the author’s permission.

Copies of the Papers, entitled Standing Firm, can be ordered at £7.00 (inc. postage and packing) from: The Rev. J.F. Harris, Conference Secretary, 8 Back Knowl Road, Mirfield, West Yorkshire, WF14 9SA.

Garry Williams on standing firm for the Reformation