MAiD for Protestantism: A Reply to Brad East

Brad East believes Protestantism “is on life support.” From reading his analysis, I can’t quite discern if he wants to save the patient or kill it.

I would like to save the patient. To do so will require that we interrogate East’s claims. Certain aspects of his evaluation are helpful; others are misguided. A tongue-in-cheek subtitle for his recent essay in First Things might be “Medical Assistance in Dying for Protestantism.” First, he offers a terminal diagnosis; then, he subtly urges us to pull the plug. In this essay, I’d like to offer a gentle critique and rejoinder to his prognosis of Protestant decline.

The best place to start is with East’s depiction of the Sunday morning worship options in his hometown. Many readers will resonate with his lament:

I live in west Texas, in a blood-red county with a church on every corner. If you asked me to find a bona fide representative of magisterial Protestantism on a given Sunday morning, I wouldn’t have a clue where to start. Mine is a landscape without Protestantism: You can go high and you can go low—most people in my town go low—but you will struggle to find a single congregation in line with the Reformation vision… [instead, you’ll find] a weekly concert and a preacher in jeans, with screens on every wall and sacraments nowhere to be found.

That’s true in my city too. And probably yours. “A weekly concert, a preacher in jeans, and screens on every wall” is a sadly accurate summary of the worship experience at many “evangelical” churches. We who embrace a more robust Protestant heritage find ourselves on the margins in American Christianity.

In light of this reality, East asserts that we are living in “a world without Protestantism,” and to substantiate his point he divides Christianity into three major camps.

First there is the “catholic” tribe (small ‘c’) which encompasses Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches. These traditions “are led by bishops and ordained priests… [they] hand on tradition, petition the saints, venerate icons, and baptize their babies.” According to East’s reading of 2011 Pew Research Center data, they account for two-thirds of global Christianity.

Then there’s the “mere evangelical” tribe, into which East lumps Pentecostals, low-church charismatics, nondenominational churches, and biblicist/restorationist movements. This constellation makes up another 20-25% of global Christianity. The unifying features of this group include mass evangelism, an emphasis on personal conversion, a “no creed but the Bible” approach to authority, and “spontaneous expressions of faith, devotion, and worship.”

The third camp is classic Protestantism: the religion of the magisterial Reformers of the sixteenth century. Luther and Calvin and their comrades steered a “middle way” between the pomp and pride of Rome and the reactive populism of the Anabaptists. They embraced a liturgical worship form that included creeds and confessions; they ordained ministers; they practiced baptism and communion as sacraments (not mere symbols); they affirmed the validity of the early church councils; and they baptized infants. Currently, their heirs “make up 10 percent of the global Church at most… perhaps ninety-five out of one hundred Christians in the world already inhabit a world without Protestantism.”

Presumably, East wishes to see the Protestant tribe increase. But he admits the momentum seems to be moving in the other direction. The historic Reformation traditions “increasingly resemble their evangelical neighbors. How many Baptist congregations recite the Creed? How often do Presbyterians celebrate the Lord’s Supper?” Rather than spurring “mere evangelicals” toward a fuller expression of the Protestant vision, magisterial Protestant traditions have instead been democratized by low-church evangelicalism. The classic Protestant “middle way—neither Roman nor Anabaptist, both traditional and Reformed—has vanished.”

I share East’s desire to see the Reformation heritage thrive and prosper. So I set out twenty years ago to plant a church in service of that vision. Of course, one local church will not revive Protestantism. But we must start somewhere. The Protestant tradition can only be revived by renewing existing churches or planting new ones. I chose the second path.

My journey to historic Protestant convictions was a gradual one. I was raised in “mere evangelicalism” of the dispensationalist/fundamentalist variety. The Holy Spirit used that tribe to draw me to Christ and form me in faith. During college, I was introduced to the broader stream of classic Protestant spirituality. I started devouring church history; I pursued a degree from a Reformed seminary; I flirted with Rome and Canterbury before staking my claim with Luther and Calvin and their counterparts. Luther’s Commentary on Galatians opened my eyes to the glorious freedom of the gospel. Calvin’s Institutes awakened my devotion and stirred my affections in ways I didn’t know were possible. Discovering the riches of the Protestant tradition didn’t change the evangelical Christian faith I grew up with; it deepened and matured it. I encountered the same gospel, the same Bible, the same Jesus, the same glorious salvation. All of it was just fuller and richer and weightier than I had known. And it stirred a more fervent love for God in my soul.

I was quite confident the same sort of “gospel awakening” would happen for others when they encountered the Reformers’ vision of the grace and glory of God. So I set out to plant a church ordered toward that end. After being duly ordained and commissioned by the elders of my existing church (a dispensational “Bible church” with Wesleyan/holiness roots), I gathered a small core team around the vision of a liturgical, creedal, Reformational, confessional approach to worship and mission.

If you were to attend Coram Deo Church today, you’d notice the via media of the Reformers on full display. Our worship is liturgical, explicitly patterned on worship forms from Geneva and Heidelberg. (Jonathan Gibson and Mark Earngey’s excellent book Reformation Worship has been a key resource.) We observe the Lord’s Supper every week, grounded in Calvin’s doctrine of real presence. We profess the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds regularly; we affirm the validity of the early church councils; we ordain pastors to gospel ministry after rigorous doctrinal and ethical examination. We are credobaptist in our practice, but we welcome Reformed paedobaptists to membership and fellowship.

The people who make up Coram Deo Church reflect the efficacy of this “middle way.” Perhaps one-third of our congregation grew up nominally Catholic and have been born again to vibrant faith in Christ through the preaching of the gospel. Another third are former low-church evangelicals who came to us already converted, but then discovered the richness of the Protestant heritage through our ministry. The final third is split between religious-but-not-converted churchgoers and unchurched skeptics in search of meaning and hope.

Like any church, we have our own problems and weaknesses and idiosyncrasies. But I imagine East would judge a church like Coram Deo to be a step in the right direction. If such a church existed in Abilene, Texas, I suspect he would choose it over “a weekly concert and a preacher in jeans, with screens on every wall and sacraments nowhere to be found.” So it’s strange to me that his vision of Protestant renewal explicitly rules out churches like ours—or any church planting at all.

East writes:

Even where desire is present, participation in a tradition cannot be reverse-engineered. The movements that emerged from the magisterial Reformation were and are living liturgical and doctrinal traditions, embodied in institutions, confessions, and practices. A start-up church founded seven years ago by a twentysomething fresh out of seminary cannot “become” a part of such a tradition, however much the head pastor may admire the writings and theology of, say, the Lutheran scholastics.

Though I’m no longer a twentysomething and our church is about to enter its third decade, these words still hit a bit close to home. But setting personal slights aside, I wish to address the strange unfounded assertions hiding in this paragraph.

“Participation in a tradition cannot be reverse-engineered.” That’s true to a point, of course. Traditions develop as history moves forward; they don’t take shape retroactively. But traditions also require renewal, revival, and re-contextualization. When existing “institutions, confessions, and practices” grow corrupt or moribund, new movements arise within the tradition to give fresh expression to its vital core. This is how we got Lutheran Pietism, English Puritanism, and American Methodism. It’s also how we got magisterial Protestantism in the first place.

The medieval catholic “liturgical and doctrinal tradition, embodied in institutions, confessions, and practices” had become corrupt with accretions. The Reformers’ attempt to rectify it resulted in excommunication and censure. Unfazed, they continued to claim that their liturgy and practice, not Rome’s, preserved the true heritage of the apostolic era. They understood that “tradition” is not merely reflected in concrete institutions. It’s also reflected in continuity with the message, ministry, and motivation of the gospel.

The “start-up churches” founded by Luther and Calvin “became” part of the catholic tradition, not through institutional continuity, but through spiritual and doctrinal continuity. Likewise, “start-up churches” today—even those founded by twentysomethings fresh out of seminary—can become part of the magisterial Protestant tradition through spiritual and doctrinal conformity with the Protestant vision.

To say otherwise is to make exactly the same mistake the medieval popes did. If participation in a tradition requires institutional continuity, then corruption in the institutions will always prevent reformation in the tradition. That’s what birthed the Protestant tradition in the first place, and it’s the same dilemma that confronts Protestant churches today. If the only path forward is to reform existing congregations from the inside, we can look to the mainline to see why that recipe often fails.

My grandfather and grandmother came to saving faith in Christ in their early thirties. In their rural town on the South Dakota prairie, options were limited: you could be Catholic, Lutheran, or Methodist. They chose the Methodist church and immediately became agents of gospel renewal in the sleepy little congregation. A few years later, the denomination sent along a new pastor who espoused all the liberal theological fads of the 1950s. He told my grandparents in no uncertain terms that their orthodox convictions were unwelcome. Grieved and perplexed, committed to the veracity of Scripture and having nowhere else to go, my grandparents started a small Bible study in their living room. It eventually became Community Bible Church, which stands to this day at the corner of Washington Avenue and State Highway 16. 

My grandparents tried to renew Protestantism from within one of its “living liturgical and doctrinal traditions.” In the end, they could only be faithful to Protestant convictions about sin, Scripture, and salvation by “reverse-engineering” participation in the broader tradition. This was not their choice; it was the only path left to them by the institutional gatekeepers. And their story has been repeated a thousand times over, in every Protestant communion from Anglican to Presbyterian. East may wish that the renewal of Protestantism was as easy as “participating in a tradition.” But it’s often the tradition—in its institutional, organizational expression—that needs renewing. I celebrate those who are working for renewal from within. But church history shows us that sometimes renewal comes from the margins; and sometimes it requires building new institutions. That’s why church-planting is crucial to Protestant renewal.

I came out of “mere evangelicalism” and into magisterial Protestantism. I assume that’s the sort of movement East would be pleased to see more of. And if that’s the case, we should welcome new churches to “reverse-engineer” participation in the Protestant tradition. The church I planted embraces a “magisterial Protestant” identity, albeit through an English Baptist lineage. I want that tribe to increase. I would welcome a world in which new church plants embraced historic liturgy and weekly communion rather than a weekly concert and a preacher in jeans.

Having profitably read much of East’s work, I’m still perplexed about the ecclesial project he’s seeking to advance. He seems to imagine a Protestantism that never was nor ever shall be; and his overall prescription seems to be for Protestants to become more Roman Catholic. He closes his essay on “Goldilocks Protestantism” with this rather pessimistic prediction from a Princeton Seminary professor:

If current rates of decline in membership continue, all that will be left by mid-century will be Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and non-denominational evangelical churches. . . . The churches of the Reformation will have passed from the scene—and with their demise, there will be no obvious institutional bearers of the message of the Reformation. 

If we define the “institutional bearers of the message of the Reformation” as “existing mainline Protestant congregations,” perhaps the professor has a point. But the good news for those of us who love the Reformation is that its message has never been dependent on a set of “institutional bearers.” The glorious truths of sola Scriptura, sola gratia, solus Christus, sola fide, and soli Deo gloria are preached, lived, tasted, and sung in church plants throughout the world every Sunday. They may not be Anglican or Presbyterian or Methodist; but they’re recognizably, self-consciously, convictionally Protestant. 

We are not, in fact, living in a world without Protestantism. At least not yet. By God’s grace, it’s possible that the Protestant tradition’s best days lie ahead.