A Review of What It Means to Be Protestant
Reams have been written on why Evangelical Protestants swim the Tiber or Bosphorus. Think pieces abound concerning why the increasingly religious youngsters are going everywhere besides Protestantism for religion. But sociological laments don’t provide an apologetic for Protestantism itself. Gavin Ortlund sets out in What It Means to Be Protestant (Zondervan, 2024) (WIMTBP) to just that. An “accidental apologist” on YouTube, as he puts it, Ortlund wants Protestants to “understand their own tradition—especially before they consider leaving it.” To which we should all say, Amen!
To inspire this understanding, Ortlund begins by arguing that Protestantism is, in fact, the most universal (i.e., catholic) of the three factions in view. He proceeds by ably defending the two of the solas, fide and scriptura, followed by a critique of Papal supremacy and infallibility and apostolic succession as the basis of the same. The final section provides historical and doctrinal “case studies” against the assumption of Mary and icon veneration.
Ortlund’s book is a great refresher on basic apologetical points, especially for laymen. I was reminded recently teaching Sunday school of two things: 1) how many evangelical converts were cradle Catholics, and 2) how ill-equipped to combat Catholic claims evangelicals really are. Ortlund’s writing is clear and, perhaps best for these purposes, does not attempt to be exhaustive. He never allows himself to get off in the weeds. The basic things evangelicals need to know to confidently engage their Catholic friends—at least the dying breed of cradle Catholics—are found here.
Another benefit for evangelical readers: Ortlund makes a concerted effort to be historical, implicitly (and explicitly). Ortlund is at his best when demonstrating how historically recent Catholic doctrines like Papal supremacy and infallibility, and apostolic succession really are. (Albeit, he comparatively neglects the Papal claim to universality.) Ortlund’s use of early church sources like Cyprian, Ignatius, Clement, and Jerome should supply the Protestant position with pedigree and confidence. I was also glad to see his inclusion of clear-eyed Catholics like Francis Sullivan and Brian Tierney on these subjects.
Ortlund’s best chapter is the ninth, “Protestantism as Retrieval.” I have not read Ortlund’s Theological Retrieval for Evangelicals, but I imagine a lengthier treatment of similar themes can be found there.
In WIMTBP, Catholics are not allowed to get away with cheap shots, namely, pointing to wild contemporary practices as proof positive that the Reformation was errant. This is not only good apologetic strategy for Protestants, but a right handling of history. John Locke, for example, cannot be responsible for some sort of “trajectory” or later use of his ideas of, say, toleration that extend beyond what he intended or could have imagined. The same must apply to the Reformers, albeit there is an issue here for Ortlund and his Baptist convictions and semper reformanda outlook, but that does not defeat the principle in view. Abuse does not negate use. Ortlund could have added examples of megachurch style, very evangelical expressions of Catholicism that abound today in America, or the conversion of cathedrals into indoor theme parks to make the point as well. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander and all that. I would have liked to see the veneer of unity in modern Catholicism questioned, too. But we will not criticize Ortlund for not writing the book we wanted, or at least not too much.
In any case, the “retrieval” chapter is most helpful in the section on what it means to be deep in history (149-155), which charts a course between assessing tradition according to what has captured “maintstream” endorsement (“majority depth”) and what is oldest or most proximately apostolic (“ancient depth”). Ortlund argues that whatever is accepted as a majority position should be checked by what the ancient position was. This is useful insofar as it goes. Errors can become mainstream, but ancient positions received development too. There has to be a balance struck. The factor of time and momentum can cut both ways.
The reader would have benefitted from Ortlund grappling with this interplay further. His chosen illustrative examples fall flat. That Augustine would be considered a “sexist” today or that Thomas Aquinas addressed slavery as “a less-than-ideal but permissible social arrangement” (153) communicates only that modern ethical assumptions must triumph over pre-modern ones (i.e., “problematic views”). If ancient defeats majority, does modern defeat ancient? If nothing else, Ortlund’s section on history will push Protestants to think through these things and appropriately complicates the issue, as history should.
Overall, WIMTBP will equip Protestants for debates and conversations of this type with their Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox counterparts. The most common objections to Protestantism are presented well and standard responses supplied. But now, as with any good book review, criticisms are in order. There are aspects of Ortlund’s approach that hamper the Protestant apology.
Mercersburg Mania
Ortlund’s framing of Protestantism from the beginning is somewhat odd. Philip Schaff, and to a lesser extent, John Williamson Nevin, are singularly relied on to provide the Protestant identity, the “principle of Protestantism,” as they called it.
Of course, Mercersburg was quirky and not wrong about everything, but this particular use from Ortlund to define Protestantism is strange and somewhat self-defeating (4-20). Doubtless, given the aim and scope of WIMTBP, Schaff and Nevin were chosen in part because of their ecumenism, though Ortlund himself makes no indication of sharing their high sacramentology. Schaff and Nevin were also big critics of basically all the socio-ecclesial elements of revivalism and frontier spirituality that were a boon to Methodist and Baptist expansion and growth.
It may also be that Mercersburg and its “High-Church Calvinism,” as D.G. Hart phrased it in his biography of Nevin, has made a bit of a comeback amongst the retrieval crowd in the past few years. Whatever the reason for this choice, again, it is an odd one. Primarily odd because Ortlund employs Schaff for a position the latter did not hold, the distinction between visible and invisible church. Meaning, that visible (or institutional) unity need not correspond to invisible unity. Schaff and Nevin opposed the invisible church idea in no uncertain terms.
For them, some sort of ideal church exists within the presently fractured visible church that is waiting to emerge inside of history. New developments would “cease only when the Ideal Church and the actual Church shall have become fully and forever one.” (See Nevin, The Mercersburg Theology (1966), 62). The church is always the same in essence, but constantly evolving. (There is some of this in Charles Porterfield Krauth’s The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology). So, there is no true and apostate church tracking along schismatic, Protestant-Catholic lines. Everything will eventually be resolved inside of time. This is distinguishable from the very Protestant view found in J. Gresham Machen that the Roman church is a true church insofar as it remains Trinitarian, but gravely errant in its doctrine. The magisterial Reformers said the same when they were forced to defend their own baptism and ordination.
This is all very much nineteenth century German historicism undergirding Schaff and Nevin’s conception of the church in time. Charles Hodge famously accused Nevin and Schaff of Hegelianism and Schleiermacherian tendencies, and this was not conjecture. The romantic theory of historical progress animated the organic flow of the church in history. God was the “primal Truth,” but his Providence manifested in dialectic, with the Spirit of Christ guiding the church to unity toward a “divine principle of life” inaugurated by the incarnation.
The Reformation, then, was simply a necessary, cleansing occurrence within the grand dialectic that would inevitably create a new synthesis once fully reconciled to the antithesis, raising the church to a “higher state.” Outward forms are annihilated periodically, but the substance remains. The Reformation was justifiable on this historic basis, only because the promise of future reunification was there—schism is an intricate part of the unfolding of history. Rome needed to recognize the purification introduced by Protestantism and Protestants needed to recognize catholicity; American Protestantism was hampered by its primitivism and anti-Catholicism. On this reading, the blame for disunity is spread around equally. Anyone resistant to the conditions for reunification is standing athwart progress, and all good Protestants should to the future reunification (synthesis) of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
Cardinal Newman’s theory of development was not so different from all this—though Schaff and Nevin critiqued the Oxford Movement too—a fact which frustrates Ortlund’s attempts to grapple with Newman’s famous historical maxim (To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant) later in the book. Indeed, in the end, to be deep in history on Schaff’s account, is to cease to be either Roman Catholic or Protestant.
It is not clear that Ortlund understands or intends all the Mercersburg baggage, but it does coincide well with his first appeal, namely, that Protestantism is good because it is truly catholic, truly ecumenical. But again, his correct account of the Protestant claim that the “visible church coheres within multiple institutions,” or that “Protestantism denies the claim that any one institutional hierarchy constitutes the ‘one true church,’” (22) is at odds with Schaff and Nevin who recognized no such distinction. Indeed, it was only a matter of time before institutional unity returned. The Hegelianism and Romanticism inherent in Mercersburg theology does not detract from Schaff’s work on the fathers or from their recovery of a higher sacramentology. But the Mercersburg theory of church (and world) history (i.e., evolutionary and dynamic) is a problematic inclusion here when defining the Protestant identity as Ortlund does. Again, why not follow Cardinal Newman? Nevin himself almost did.
It should be said that whilst Ortlund leans heavily on the Reformation’s retrieval of church doctrine sitting behind late medieval innovations, he does not lapse into the simplistic Mercersburg impulse to base all of Protestantism’s legitimacy on continuity with the “ancient church.” Nor does his definition of “catholicity” quite line up with Schaff’s or Nevin’s. (For more on the latter, see Peter Leithart’s excellent essay on Nevin from 2020.) But it is noteworthy that one of Ortlund’s primary criticisms of the medieval Catholic church is its persecution, specifically of Jan Hus (45-56). Nevin too criticized Roman Catholicism almost singularly on this basis. Fair enough, but a weak spot in Ortlund’s treatment of the issue is his summary dismissal of punishment of heretics without demonstrating his case. Ortlund never addresses the religious role of the magistrate recovered by the Reformers; he equivocates between Roman Church’s ecclesial exercise of the same.
Ortlund’s own Protestant historic sources are dominated by Luther, Calvin, Turretin, Jewel, and Bavinck. All good, all continental, except Jewel. (His employment of Cyprian, Clement, Augustine, and the rest to answer Catholic objections is expected and also good. Ortlund’s book, Augustine’s Doctrine of Creation, is excellent, in my view.) Notable here is the absence of English non-conformist and Puritan literature. This too is a Mercersburg tendency and an oversight for an American Protestant so much of which has been conditioned by English Puritanism regardless of how badly Schaff and Nevin understood such things, which is to say, barely at all. Too much should not be made of Ortlund’s chosen sources. What he actually says is more important, but said sources are not detached from or irrelevant to things said.
Semper Reformanda?
WIMTBP appeals repeatedly to the semper reformanda mantra as a central component of Protestantism. This, of course, is not a phrase or ideal found in sixteenth or seventeenth century Protestant theologians. The idea of a “further reformation” was present in seventeenth century England but stood only for a narrow liturgical reform in that context. There was also the so-called “Second Reformation” which, as Richard Muller has pointed out, embraced something of a further reform effort geared toward moral reform. Margo Todd has treated this same trend in England.
It was Karl Barth that provided the phrase that a truly reformed church is always reforming according to the Word of God. Barth’s slogan has come to stand for exactly what Ortlund intends, namely, that the true church is marked by its capacity for infinite change or adaptation (149). Usually, this idea, if adopted, has led to Protestants looking progressively less like the magisterial Reformers themselves who were, among other things, inherently and rightly suspicious of innovation. Confessionalism is, or has been, an antidote to the semper reformanda attitude, but that requires landing the Protestant plane somewhere, something Ortlund does not do, as we will see momentarily. Semper reformanda is a faulty, rather ahistorical basis for Protestantism.
Is Theology Enough?
Even if Catholics admit that Protestant positions are defensible in the abstract, this does not address the occurrence of the Reformation itself.
It is currently in vogue, and maybe always has been, for Catholic intellectuals to blame Protestants less for errant doctrine than for splitting the western church and, thereby, the tale goes, unleashing all the ills of modernity. The only thing dumber than saying that, say, Baptist ecclesial voluntarism caused transgenderism is blaming Luther’s (supposed) metaphysical voluntarism for atomizing the world. The Mercersburg historicism is not going to satisfy either side. In that case, conversion to Rome isn’t really a bad thing. Maybe the post-Protestant converts are more in step with Providence. Who knows?
Implicit in Ortlund’s approach is also an understanding of Protestantism through the lens of its critics or competition. As a matter of chronology, this is somewhat inescapable. A protest defines itself by what it is against, and an elenctic approach suits the apologetic purposes of the book and is a practice that Protestant theologians have long approved. But I do wonder whether the act of negation and refutation is the best case for remaining Protestant.
Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy have been successful in recent years because they offer a positive and attractive vision for the whole of life, not just an ostensibly superior liturgical aesthetic. Protestantism can and should provide that, but until it does, the bleeding may not cease. Since, as Aaron Renn has pointed out, a lot of the draw of Catholicism is social rather than purely theological, Protestant apologists need to start thinking along these lines as well. In other words, young people in particular are seeking the transcendent and historical mooring, but also communal rootedness. For the ambitious and industrious, this impulse pursues a community that provides mobility and action, status and social-civic participation, and public credibility. From what I’ve seen, Protestant apologists haven’t even begun to grapple with these dynamics. Said dynamics may not be properly theological, but they are, like it or not, part of the equation, one for which Catholics seem to more readily account.
The claim to historic continuity is also part of the attraction of Rome and Constantinople. Ortlund implicitly debunks a seamless narrative on this front but doesn’t make a full-throated case. In other words, even as he defends Protestantism from charges of illegitimacy from Roman Catholics, he does not return fire in the same way that our theological forbears would have. Ortlund’s tact corresponds to modernity itself. I will not say that recovering Protestant confidence in America requires the same vehemence of the Know Nothing Party, but it does, it seems to me, require more gumption. D.G. Hart’s Still Protesting offered a bit more of that. (See also Hart’s Calvinism: A History.)
But neither book, even that of the cantankerous Hart, quite inspires the level of grit and confidence needed. Why don’t American Protestants, in particular, have a bit of a chip on their shoulder about the real Great Replacement? (Of course, the Protestant established failed to learn what the British aristocracy had, namely, to paraphrase Tocqueville, learning that it needed to “stoop to conquer.”) After all, it is not just great systematic theologies that our forbears built.
Ironically, Protestants in the west currently suffer from a lack of assurance. Another irony: it is the incumbent leadership class of Evangelicalism that continually stifles the recovery of Protestant confidence and self-assertiveness. The maximal ecumenism of liberal Protestantism really did win the day, but I digress.
While Ortlund’s book is very useful for engaging typical Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theological talking points, I am not sure it scratches the itch people drifting eastward have. But then, this is not exactly something anyone has figured out yet, nor what Ortlund was aiming at.
Ortlund’s apology will educate Protestants on the tenuous position of Papal authority, the assumption of Mary, and the like, it will supply people with good reasons for not adopting those dogmas, and it will fast track the layman in sourcing his case.
But I am not sure it is enough to stop the bleeding, or the quips from fiery Catholic converts and the very online Ortho Bros. Perhaps, what is most debatable about Ortlund’s book is its premise: that the exodus from Protestantism in the west is primarily about theological arguments and historical accuracy in the first place. Again, I am not at all sure this is the case. As Carl Trueman wrote in The Real Scandal of the Evangelical Mind,
“No wonder some evangelicals have thrown up their hands in despair and returned to Rome. Evangelicalism today simply does not provide the authority and identity of the Roman Catholic Church, and the situation looks to become worse ahead.”
Evangelicals (the merely Protestant) will not gain authority and identity that produces convert retention if it does not incorporate the aforementioned social dynamics. But it will also continue to suffer from lack of particularity and self-definition. Fluid, non-sectarian ecumenism is not the answer. In negative world, the Catholic Church, even as it has routinely suffered from reputational damage via public scandal, fairs better because it offers claims to universal authority coupled with exclusionary demands. This is an inherently elite—not to say correct—position. (Or, at least, it used to offer that.)
Benjamin Rush, writing in the late eighteenth century, encouraged parents to give their children Christian educations, but not just any Christianity. Rather, that of their own historic and familial tradition. This, he said, would provide surer footing. This leads us to another problem with Ortlund’s book.
Nothing in Particular
Whilst Ortlund does a fine job defending some of the basics for a mere Protestantism, he declines to drive home the case for any particular Protestantism including his own. He says so from the beginning, so this is intentional. No Baptist theologian is quoted or cited except Timothy George from his Theology of the Reformers. Nor are Baptist confessions mentioned while the Thirty-nine Articles, Augsburg Confession, and others are. This isn’t good or bad, just noteworthy. Overall, the book is well-sourced.
Ortlund admits that a unified testimony on particular doctrines throughout church history carry significant weight, and rightly refers to Anabaptism as a “radical” stream of the Reformation, but he never talks about his own sacramentology or ecclesiology for that matter.
If Protestants are to regain self-confidence, rootedness, and theological chops, they must lean into a particular expression of their Protestantism. I do not gather that Ortlund necessarily disagrees with this, but had I been asked what else should be included in the book, I would have recommended a defense of his own particular tradition toward the end more as a demonstration of his case. No one converts to or practices generic Protestantism, not really.
Recalling what C.S. Lewis said about traditions in Mere Christianity is helpful to apprehensive, anxious Protestants stuck in that unmoored, non-denominational limbo that induces flight to Rome in so many. The younger generation is especially, maybe historically, anxious and noncommittal. They must be encouraged to exit the hallway and enter a room at some point. “The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in. For that purpose, the worst of the rooms (whichever that may be) is, I think, preferable.” Ortlund never pushes the reader into a room. Most Protestants need that push, but especially the one’s flirting with Rome and the East.
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