Why I Am a Protestant

While I appreciate both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, I am a convinced Protestant. Here’s why.

“We’re different. We’re Catholic,” my best friend’s brother said. I had spent the night at Ryan’s house, where we played video games and traded baseball cards. His brother wore a different kind of cross necklace, with a human figure on it. As an evangelical Protestant, I had usually seen the cross alone, symbolizing the death of Jesus. So this one was strange to me. “What’s that?” I asked. He explained that it was a crucifix, and he wore it because his family was Roman Catholic. Since he and Ryan were students at the evangelical Christian school where we all attended, he probably felt the difference from most of our classmates. “We’re different. We’re Catholic,” he said. I didn’t know exactly what that meant then, but I have learned a lot about it since. I learned that on October 31, 1517, Martin Luther posted a list of 95 “theses” about the Church and her doctrine on the door of the church in Wittenberg, Germany. He “protested” some of the problems he saw, calling for “reform.” Thus began the “Protestant Reformation.”

While Roman Catholics look at October 31 as a dark, divisive day (think along the lines of Pearl Harbor), Protestants look at it like a day of liberation (think D-Day). Protestants celebrate October 31st. Some celebrate it as Reformation Day, rather than Halloween, dressing up like important Reformers from the 1500s. While that is (as the kids say) a little “extra” for my liking, I still appreciate and celebrate the Reformation and its beginning. The Reformation branched the third great tradition of the Christian church. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches had split in 1054AD. The Protestant Reformation branched from the Roman Catholic church in the 1500s. While I appreciate both the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, I am a convinced Protestant. Here’s why.

I Am Not A Protestant Because I Reject Tradition

I cherish the two hundred decades of the church’s theological riches. I confess the ancient creeds, like the Nicene Creed (doctrine of the Trinity) and the Chalcedonian definition of Christ. I honor theologians sometimes claimed by Eastern Orthodoxy (such as Athanasius, the Cappadocians, John of Damascus) and Roman Catholicism (such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas). These “doctors of the church” belong to the heritage of historic Protestants as much as anyone. Moreover, Protestants share critical doctrinal beliefs with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Specifically, again, the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of Christ. I also think Protestants can learn the value of institutions, and institutional stability and legacy from these branches of the Christian tree.

So I don’t reject the tradition of the church or the heritage of our theological riches. Instead, I reject two claims. First, I reject a traditionalism that elevates the teaching or practices of the church beyond its biblical scope. Second, I reject an institutionalism, and a claim that Roman Catholicism (or Eastern Orthodoxy) can trace its lineage as the “true” and ancient church. I believe all streams of Christianity can inherit the historical truth of the last twenty centuries of theology and ministry. This goes to the first reason I am a Protestant.

I Am a Protestant Because God Preserves His People by Faith

Roman Catholic and Eastern Churches claim an institutional connection to the ancient church. I think we can question this claim’s validity. But even if it were valid, it would not prove the authority of that church. Instead, God preserves his people and his church by faith. When John the baptizer prepared the way for Jesus, he told the people of Israel: “Produce fruit consistent with repentance. And don’t presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God is able to raise up children for Abraham from these stones” (Matthew 3:8-9).

This point repeats over and again in the New Testament. God does not preserve his people through biological legacy or institutional correspondence. God preserves his people by raising them from spiritual death so that they follow him in faith. “A person is not a Jew who is one outwardly, and true circumcision is not something visible in the flesh. On the contrary, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is of the heart—by the Spirit, not the letter. That person’s praise is not from people but from God” (Romans 2:28-29). Even if Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox churches had a direct, institutional lineage back to the apostles, that lineage would not validate or elevate them over Protestant churches. Faith in God’s word and love for God validates a church. That goes to the next reason I am a Protestant.

I Am a Protestant Because of the Bible

I went back through some of my old tweets to figure out what I’ve said about being Protestant. A theme recurs: I reject the Roman Catholic claim that the Pope rules the church. Protestant theology recaptured the sole and ultimate place of authority for the church: the Word of God. Only the Bible can steer the church through the shaky seas of our world. The Bible interprets itself and we can trust the Bible. We can never raise human authority to equality with divine authority, for two reasons.

First, human authority is temporary. Notice how Isaiah contrasts the withering life of humanity compared to the remaining power of God’s word.

All humanity is grass,
and all its goodness is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flowers fade
when the breath of the Lord blows on them;
indeed, the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flowers fade,
but the word of our God remains forever.
(Isaiah 40:6-8)

Second, human authority is fallible. Sin has distorted human understanding. People don’t understand like they should. Or they do understand and misuse their understanding, abusing their authority. Jesus himself knew this: “Jesus, however, would not entrust himself to them, since he knew them all and because he did not need anyone to testify about man; for he himself knew what was in man” (John 2:28-29). I am a Protestant because the Bible alone has the authority of God himself.

I Am a Protestant Because of Grace

Martin Luther rediscovered grace. Grace beats at the heart of the Reformation and Protestant theology. Both Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox teaching bake human works into the cake of salvation. The Bible, though, teaches that God saves people apart from works. Works come after salvation. Notice the order of things in one of the most important texts on salvation by grace through faith: “You are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift—not from works, so that no one can boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do” (Ephesians 2:8-10). Works follows after faith which follows after grace, the gift of salvation in Christ. As a friend texted me today:

The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof Grace—bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the Gospel—after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps—suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started . . . . Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, not the flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.
(Robert Farrar Capon)

Protestant theology reminded the world about grace. I am a Protestant because I want to drink grace straight, without water, ice, or ginger ale.

I Am a Protestant Because of Jesus

Jesus is it. Jesus is everything. I don’t want Jesus to share the center stage with the institutional and traditional trappings of the Roman and Eastern churches. Specifically, both traditions elevate Mary, the mother of Jesus, beyond the status Scripture gives to her. Eastern Orthodox Christians venerate the “Theotokos,” the image or “icon” or Mary. “Theotokos” comes from the ancient creed, written in Chalcedon in 451AD, meaning “mother of God” or “God-bearer.” That definition says that Jesus was “born of the virgin Mary, the mother of God.” This phrase should tell us much more about Jesus than about Mary. Jesus is God. But Mary has been put in a place of primacy in the theology and the practice of many Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox believers. Often when I hear these well-meaning folks talk, they seem much more excited about Mary than Jesus. They seem to revere Mary more than her divine Son. Mary here receives honor to the point of worship. I can’t get beyond this, because only God deserves worship. I am a Protestant because Jesus is everything.

Conclusion

You might notice that my reasons for being Protestant echo the historic “solas” of the Reformation. As the Protestant churches worked to reform theology and worship, they taught five “solas.” “Sola” is Latin for “alone” or “only” (you can see this in our word “solo”).

Sola fide. Only faith.
Sola Scriptura. Only Scripture.
Sola gratia. Only grace.
Solus Christus. Only Christ.

That brings us to the fifth “only” and the final and ultimate reason I am a Protestant: soli Deo gloria—”glory only to God.” By centralizing faith, Scripture, grace, and Jesus, the Protestant Reformation recentralized God. I am a Protestant for the glory of God.

Soli Deo gloria.