Protestants are kin of a mess.
Is it too soon to say that? It’s been 500 years, I think we can call it.
I say that Protestants are a mess not because they are evil or heretics or entirely wrong
but because they’re all over the map. As a Catholic priest, it’s easy for me to see
the genuineness of their faith, how they love Jesus and are committed to living good lives…
but it’s also easy for me to see where many have long betrayed the rich history
of Christ’s Church for impoverished theology and divisive individualism.
Which is why, this Reformation Day, I’ve decided to release two videos—“What
Protestants Get Terribly Wrong”… but also “What I Love About Protestants.”
If you’d prefer the good news first so that you are better able to swallow some tough criticisms,
pause the video and click here. If you prefer your less-than-fulfilling news first,
or you’ve already watched the other video, you’re in the right place.
In fact, I think less-than-fulfilling is the perfect way to put it. When I look at the
Protestant movement, I don’t see evil or heresy or dangerous thoughts… I see incomplete ones. I
see ideas that are good-natured and beginning from a place of truth—they’re just missing something.
When the Protestant Reformation began, many of the reformers decided that it was
unnecessary to build entirely new churches for their movements—they just needed to fit
existing Catholic churches to their needs. What did this mean? Tearing down altars,
throwing away statues, removing paintings, and whitewashing walls. As people entirely
focused on Jesus, there was no need for any of that “extra” stuff, and so they threw it away.
For them, it was all about direct access to Jesus. The only thing that
is ultimately fulling in life is Jesus Christ. He is the only one who can save,
the ultimate mediator between God and creation. And so, what was the point of art? What was the
point of all these “things” that filled the Church? For them, it was nothing more than a
distraction, nothing more than human works that took us away from our primary focus.
In one sense, it’s a noble cause, based in truth. Jesus IS the only one who can save.
Our works of human beauty add nothing to the glory of God. There is something
about noble simplicity that centers us to enter into the mystery of God.
Trust me, we get and affirm that value. Just look at our long tradition of monasticism.
But that is not the only valid tradition—that is not the only way that Jesus mediates his
presence to the world. As Catholics, we recognize the beauty of simplicity,
but we also recognize that Jesus has and continues to mediate himself through the beauty of art:
altars and statues and paintings and all the human elements of beauty add nothing to God…
but they add something to us. In using our senses, in engaging with the world around us,
with each other—God is ALSO able to mediate himself to us.
For me, this is what most Protestants get terribly wrong—this is the fundamental
problem at the core of the movement: in their desire to focus purely and completely on Jesus,
in recognizing him as the ultimate mediator of God’s grace, they have discarded the
many other ways that Jesus chooses to mediate his presence to his people.
Chief among them, obvious to us Catholics, is the sacraments.
Here we have seven rituals, seven mysteries instituted by Jesus,
for physically and substantially encountering God in our lives. More than just mere memorials,
more than just intellectual exercises that teach us and make us feel good, these are visible signs
of invisible grace, opportunities for Jesus’ very self to become manifested in the physical world.
Baptism is not a mere remembrance of Jesus’ call to discipleship—it is a
ritual with water that ACTUALLY cleanses us of sin; confirmation doesn’t just REMIND
us of Pentecost—it uses oil to seal our baptism and enflame us with the Spirit;
Eucharist is more than just a recreation of the last supper—it is an invitation to the ONE and
ONLY last supper, the ONE and ONLY sacrifice on the cross, to physically consume the body, blood,
soul, and divinity of Christ, uniting us with his death and resurrection.
In the sacraments, Jesus chooses to use ordinary objects—water, oil, bread,
wine—to mediate God’s grace to us. It’s not about instruction alone. Not about morality
alone. Not about nice feelings or happy thoughts. It’s about coming face to face with the actual
presence of God in our midst, a taste of the Incarnation itself when Jesus took on flesh.
Since the very beginning, Christians believed in the real presence of Jesus
in the Eucharist. They believed in the saving act of uniting oneself with Jesus in baptism.
This was not just a symbol, not just a cute ritual. Read John 6. Read 1 Corinthians 12,
Romans 6. Jesus instituted these actions as essential ways to grow closer to him.
Moreover, read the 2nd century catechesis called the Didache. Read the writings of St. Ignatius
of Antioch, St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus of Lyon. When we look to the earliest Christians,
the ones who came just after Jesus, the ones who would have known his words and intentions best,
you won’t find a single person who thought that these were mere symbols.
Thus, for 2000 years, the Church has known that God reaches his people through the sacraments.
If your church views them as nothing more than symbols,
if your Church approaches God in Word alone, you are limiting the way Jesus intended to
mediate himself to us and are throwing away what we have known since the beginning.
Can you go directly to Jesus without the sacraments? Of course. But how can you say
that you are going directly to Jesus and obeying his commands when you ignore what he instituted?
For the earliest Christians and throughout history for Catholics,
to cut oneself off from the sacraments was to cut oneself off from Christ himself.
Unfortunately, many Protestants have chosen to ignore what Jesus commanded, throwing away what
Jesus instituted, leading to another loss: the mediation of his presence found in the priesthood.
Again, we’re looking at a tradition that goes all the way back. When God saved his people from
Egypt, did he do so all on his own? Of course not. He used Moses and Aaron to speak to the people,
to make his demands known to Pharaoh, to perform his miracles, and ultimately to reveal his law.
The salvation of the people of Israel from slavery,
their institution as God’s holy people, was ultimately achieved by God and God alone,
but it was carried out through his priests, through his prophets.
So it was with the sacrifices in the Temple, the announcement of prophecies,
and the performance of miracles. God was not so distant from his people that they
could ONLY access him through God’s priests, prophets, and kings, but having them there
made it a whole lot easier to understand, gave assurance that it was being done right.
When the letter to the Hebrews mocks the inability of the temple priests to save their
people it is not mocking the notion of priests in general or a need for mediation—it is saying
that there is only one true priesthood, one true mediator between God and creation, Jesus Christ.
But Jesus did not cease to use mediators himself: in the Gospels he gives the Apostles
the ability to forgive sins, he tells them to celebrate the Lord’s Supper in his name,
gives them authority over unclean spirits,
commissions them to baptize in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
If he intended for his people to go directly to him at all times and never seek intercession
through anyone else, why would he do this? It makes no sense. It’s clear to me and it was
clear to Christians from the very beginning that the Apostles and their successors were
designated and blessed by the Holy Spirit to mediate Christ’s presence to the world.
If your church views the minister as nothing more than a fellow teacher,
no more fit to manifest Christ in the world, you are limiting the way Jesus intended to
mediate himself to us and are throwing away what we have known since the beginning.
Can you go directly to Jesus without a priest? Of course.
But how can you say that you are going directly to Jesus and obeying his commands
when you ignore what he instituted? For the earliest Christians and all throughout
history for Catholics, to cut oneself off from the Apostles that Jesus chose,
to ignore the priesthood that Jesus instituted, was to cut oneself off from Jesus himself.
Sadly, it is this very either/or approach that has led to the situation we are in, as divided as we
are, because it is precisely this problem with mediation that has caused Protestants to throw
away something even greater: the very nature of the Church as one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.
For most Protestants, the Church as an institution is little more than a social club or support
group. It is the place where people gather to learn from one another, to journey together,
and then go about their way—an institution that can be very helpful, but bears no mark
of permanence, no essential quality. It is a human institution meant for this life only.
How very different for Catholics… and really, the long tradition of Christianity.
For the early Christians until now, the Church has always been the living manifestation of
God’s Kingdom here on earth, the light to be revealed to the world. More recently, the
Catholic Church has expressed this as being the “sacrament of salvation”—literally, the visible
sign of God’s invisible grace to the world, the mediation by which Christ encounters creation.
The Church is not just another human institution among many, it is the bride of Christ,
the holy body of believers, comprised of both the living and those in heaven,
that has Christ as its head. There is an eternal quality to it, a divine quality,
a sense that neither death nor the gates of hell will prevail against it.
Just as with the sacraments and priesthood, then, the Church is not some unnecessary add-on,
a distraction from one’s own personal work of salvation—it is the very means
by which Jesus is made manifest in the world, a taste of the heavenly kingdom in our midst.
The Church is not some social club where God-fearing people go—it is the one institution,
founded by Jesus himself, to bind his people as one as they carried out his mission in the world.
Who was it that compiled the scriptures, determining what was inspired and what was
not? Who defined the dogmatic statements of Christ’s humanity and divinity for
proper worship and reverence of all? Who sent missions to foreign lands,
maintained the authenticity of Christ’s teaching when heresies arose, and ensured that future ages
always heard the name of Jesus proclaimed? Surely, it was Jesus, through the Church.
Once again, Jesus could have done it himself. Jesus could have gone directly to his people,
given explicit instructions, dropped the Bible from heaven.
But he didn’t. Just as in the sacraments, just as with the priests,
he chooses to mediate his grace and truth through his created order, through you and me.
If your denomination views the Church as nothing more than a
temporary human institution, something that you shop around for—or worse yet,
start your own— until you find one that fits you best, you are limiting the way Jesus intended
to mediate himself to us and are throwing away what we have known since the beginning.
Can you go directly to Jesus without the Church? Of course. But how can you say
that you are going directly to Jesus and obeying his commands when you ignore what
he instituted? For the earliest Christians and all throughout history for Catholics,
to cut oneself off from the Church was the cut oneself off from Christ himself.
For me, this is what is so disappointing about the Protestant movement. This is
what leaves me so less-than-fulfilled. Why would you leave yourself so short-changed?
Why give your people only part of the truth? How can you say that you
are following Jesus when you ignore what he himself instituted to mediate himself to us?
Seeing this is a supreme disappointment to me and why I believe an irreparable mark will be left on
Christendom for as long as the Protest lasts. Reform of the Church was absolutely necessary
in 16th century but I can’t help but think that Protestants through the baby out with
the bathwater when they tried to clean things up. Look at how much was foolishly let go. Tragic.
Of course, not all is lost. For as disappointed as I am in what so many Protestants have thrown away,
I am thrilled at what they’ve kept and what they can still teach us Catholics.
If you’re interested in the other half the story, here it is.