Michael – this reminds me of some work a friend of mine did while working on a missiology degree at Asbury. He’s from Costa Rica and did a thesis on indigenous folk religion there. It’s an amalgam of catholicism and indian/folk traditions. I bring this up because a similar evolution may be occuring in the mountains of E KY and elsewhere? Is the growth of a Pentacostal/ Holiness/ Charismatic religion a kind of indigenous folk religion?

Whoever mentioned crushing people with the law needs to read N.T. Wright or anyone else from the last 30 years. That is part of the problem – people HAVE heard that message ad nauseum. It is in the DNA of America. We need the Nicene Creed.

I think, however, that I do understand a little better after this- which was what I wanted even more than your “answers” to some of the very questions that brought me to where I am, I suppose.

Peace.

The evolution of Protestantism is a pain. If I could be reborn and choose to be a Catholic, I would in a minute. I truly wish that would have been a choice for me. But I was born into Protestantism, with every man a pope and every man a Bible authority. I can’t defend it, because I am too much a part of it.

THere may be no reason for Protestantism, but I’m 49 and I have made the existential choice to stay where I am, a little “c” catholic.

Maybe someone else can be more helpful. Sorry again.

I am saying: In light of the gaps closing, the Protestants spinning off into liberalism or pseudo-Christianity, and the healing of the ancient schism of East and West, why is it important to cling to the Reformation banner? You published this post on Reformation Day, and it was obviously not without reason. How is the Reformation still living and growing?

These are my two IM pieces on my own relationship to ROman catholicism.

I’m not an apologist for Protestantism vs the RCC. If you’ve read my work, then you are aware that I don’t have any ax to grind with Catholicism and I’m not the person to draw into an RCC/Protestant debate.

You have not addressed what I wrote about, and what Joel has hinted at: Is the Protestant Reformation still alive? Luther’s original complaints are nearly all non-issues as far as the RCC is concerned, now. And as the gap between “East” and “West” also has more bridges built, where does that leave Protestants? When if Rome takes back a portion of Anglicanism (which seems likely with the Traditonal Anglican Communion), what will that mean? Descendents of the Protestant Reformation will be able to say, “You can come back now, it’s fine.”

Theologically, what really divides us all is soteriology. Old-school RCC soteriology (be a member in good standing or suffer eternal, etc., etc.) is dying off in that church, Greek soteriology is gaining respect in the West (a whole new vocabulary is being built and rebuilt!), Lutherans/Anglicans/RC/Orthodox are able to talk to each other, etc. Calvinism is really the “lone gunman,” here. And its numbers are shrinking. And if Calvin is wrong, there is no Reformed church- it is entirely based on the viability of that soteriology.

The political/cultural/logistical conditions that allowed the first major schisms in Christianity are fading, and there people- young and old- who see hope for a newly unified Catholic Orthodoxy in Christianity. (Truly, this would be a great witness!) The Reformed ideal really is radically incommensurable with this, all because of the influence of one man and his followers against the majority of Nicene Christian thinkers. Is the Reformed church a sect? This is a difficult question for me to ask, some of the thinkers I most admire have been Reformed- though I have learned it has been largely non-standard Reform thinkers I have admired.

As someone who has been reading your site for years and who respects you immensely, I really want to know your answer to these questions: What does Protestantism have left to fight for? and, what is the defense for the ‘peculiarity’ of the Reformed church?

Is there anybody who hasn’t heard about salvation by grace, for Christ’s sake, though faith? Not the uestion. The question is how many understand their own need for it in a culture in which most preaching is a moralistic exercise in egocetric works righteousness. Instead of crushing people witht he Law, and so preparing the way for the Gospel, American folk religion flatters our fallen natures by teaching us how to pull ourselves up by our spiritual bootstraps.

What is unbiblical about Pentecostal worship? Leaving aside the unbiblical notion that God has promised to reveal Himself apart from the external Word, there is the relentless focus on me, my feelings, my emotions, how much I love Jesus, and how much I am doing, or am going to do, this, that , or the other thing. Reformation worship centers on God, on His Word, and on what Christ has done.

You can’t motivate people to do evangelism through guilt. Evangelism is about gratitude. But of course, the American “gospel” gives us precious little to be grateful for, being all about what I am supposed to do.

Don’t lose heart because you’re encountering precisely the reaction Christ did, and predicted that His faithful followers would. A servant is not greater than his Master. In the Kingdom of God, success is counted in faithfulness, not numbers. Now, if the world were gobbling up everything you did or said and packing the pews on Sunday, then would be the time to worry.

I don’t quite know why you are talking about style. The point is, of course, content. The content of hymns, choruses, litrugy etc must be the content of the Bible’s presentation of God of Jesus Christ revealed in the Gospel.