by Brad East, Public Discourse
To be sure, there remain some true-believing via media Protestants who are morally and theologically conservative and continue to attempt to strike the balance between high and low. But whatever their future, they will not be resuming their place at the commanding heights of the culture.
American Protestantism is in a bad way. At least, depending on how you define the term “Protestant.”
For many of us, it means “not Catholic.” If we’ve done our church history homework, or pay attention to online theological debates, maybe we mentally add “or Orthodox.” But baked into the name is a protest and that nominal fist is raised squarely at Rome.
There was a time when the umbrella term did some work. Protestants included the heirs of Martin Luther, of John Calvin, of Thomas Cranmer, even of Menno Simons. Later there were break-offs and dissenters—including pietists (Lutherans who cared about the heart), Puritans (Anglicans who cared about the heart), Baptists (one-time Puritans who cared about the heart), and Methodists (are you sensing a pattern?)—but the family, however extended, was still recognizable.
Aside from a small number of exceptions, you could generally count on Protestants to claim the full heritage of the Reformation as their own. They did so by confessing the creed, ascribing supreme authority to the Bible, ordaining their pastors to the ministry of word and sacrament, and (most of the time) baptizing their babies. Fractiousness was less about the program and more about fidelity of execution. If the Protestant revolution was above all a revolution of the heart, then any time the emphasis shifted to the head, to codified doctrines and calcified institutions, it was only a matter of time before new reformers would arise to lay claim to the original vision and start the whole process over again.
This pattern is common to all revolutions and proved reliably cyclical for successive generations of Protestant believers.