Rethinking Reform

It used to be my desire to start a reformation. I desperately wanted to be a Luther or a Calvin. So I read their sermons, I studied diligently, I debated theology passionately, and I sought to preach the way they did. I wanted to start a movement that would change history for a millennia. Then something changed, it didn’t change overnight… but gradually I began to change. Part of this process of change began when I started taking classes at Biblical seminary; the rest of it I believe came by the Lord’s patients with a rammy twenty something year old who desperately wanted to understand what He was up to and what He wanted of me. Heck, I even wrote a paper called “My 95 thesis”, but as I began to get a better look at the historicity of the reformation, and stopped trying to make a name for myself in Christendom, I began to realize that I as well as my peers were in a great deal of danger with our attitudes and our understanding of history. As my mind is awakened to this realization, I desperately want to kill all evidences of the hubris and division that such thinking created within me and Christ’s church. A further side affect is my desire to want to choke this same thinking out of the minds of my peers so that our generation will not fall into a horrible ignorant snare. Ironically, by wanting to address this by “choking” I only further affirm the arrogance that I seek to avoid. Therefore, I will compose my observations within the frame of my own story and process of growth, so as not to point fingers and accuse, but to accept my lack of understanding and hope that it helps others in their journey.

I suppose that it would be good to simply list what I have in mind so that I do not wander aimlessly in my composition. I despise how arrogant and affirming I was and still can be in my systematized theology. I hate that I proof texted the word of God in order to belittle other believers for their lack of understanding. I hate that I was so focused on speaking the truth that I forgot love. I hate how bound I was in a modernistic expression of the Christian faith, all the while despising without fairly understanding postmodern thought. I hate that I can remember my goal six years ago and see how far from it I have strayed…

I signed up to attend Lancaster Bible College in the summer of 2004. I didn’t own a bible, I couldn’t have found the gospels, or the letters of Paul, or Deuteronomy without first looking in the table of contents. If you would have asked me to find Genesis, I probably would have Googled Phil Collins and played you some of their music. I told a friend “I just want to know about God and his word, and if I have to pay $60,000 to do it, then it’ll be worth it.” I didn’t know anything those days, except that I loved Christ and wanted to understand further the depths of his love for me. I learned so much those four years at LBC, and I am forever grateful for the men and women who invested in me, and the friendships that I cultivated (and for one heluva wife). It was a great four years of growth and change. There was something left over in my theological training however, that I think I could have done without… a chip on my shoulder and false humility in my heart. I don’t blame my education for those things, they existed within me regardless of whatever training I may have received. I now, as I always will, question the system in which I was trained. I have no axe to grind against LBC, and so I must quickly seek to deviate from this road because it is not my intent nor do I desire to speak one bad word against that institution.

I simply desire to say that I at one time sought Christ as a mystery, as a God who exceeded my abilities of comprehension. I sought Christ with humility because he was beyond me. The more I defined God through the system that was handed to me, the more I was able to find an easy answer for deep perplexing questions, the more I cataloged the Bible as a series of truths rather than a historical narrative of the Lord interacting with and redeeming his people and creation, the more I did these thing, the more I “learned”… the less I adored Christ. What need is there to seek Christ when I can define the hypostatic union, kenosis, point to prophesies in the Old Testament of his birth, earthly ministry, sacrificial death, resurrection, and return. I’m thankful that I learned all of these things, but somehow Christ became an object of study rather than my brother, my friend, my savior, my redeemer, my reconciler, my hope. Now that I have officially gone way off of my train of thought, allow me to bring it back home.

I trace this back to how I once understood the reformation and the ways in which it connected with self-centeredness so prevalent in all of us (it’s funny how we talk about the “me” generation, and how self-centered our culture is… yet we forget to pull the log out of our own eyes!). I saw the reformation and Martin Luther in particular as one man who defeated an entire institution. One man against the evils of a corrupt church so powerful that it served as the ultimate end all be all of authority. I believed that Luther broke away from the Catholic Church, and started a legitimate expression of the Christian faith. Luther was one bad dude against impossible odds who brought down the whole system and changed the world… right? I don’t think so. What Luther did and said needed doing and saying, but what he opened the door for has been devastating in the life of the church. Luther was not just one man creating this reform out of thin air. There were plenty of key players and centuries of history which led to this “perfect storm” if you will. The thing that is hard for me to believe is that Luther, in his opposition, did it within the confines of the church. He submitted to its authority, though he spoke what he knew to be true in spite of the consequences. Even until his death, he considered himself to be a Catholic, and was frustrated with many of the second generation reformers such as Zwingli and the Anabaptists who took Luther’s objections and used them to break away from the Church. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin all sought to correct what was clearly an injustice and abuse of power by the Catholic Church. In so doing however, they swung the pendulum and created a foundation for all of our theology, which we now interpret divorced from its context. So for example, when I look at my text book for Church history written by a “prominent” protestant “scholar”, I will find roughly 100 pages devoted to 1500 years of history (most of it covering the second century… and the events and people just prior to the reformation. Anselm, Aquinas, a Kempis are the entire portion of “Medieval Church”), and the other 150 pages devoted to reformation and post reformation. This understanding of church history sets the bar… and the bar is the reformers.

The second half of this problem can be found within my own brokenness as well as a cultural blunder. Part of my desire to climb the Christian latter of importance had to do with my quest for acceptance and approval. As the Lord has begun to heal that wound, I have been able to see many of its unhealthy manifestations. Couple that with the lie that (we) I somehow bought into and you’ve got yourself a problem. For some reason it was impossible for me to be comfortable wherever I was in ministry, because it wasn’t good enough, and the only thing that would ever be good enough was if I could somehow be a Luther or a Calvin. That means that I had to find a problem somewhere, some injustice, some evil, some wrong that I could set right, and I had to find it in the church. I, in my own brokenness and in my own misunderstanding, have exalted myself above the authority of the community of believers in Christ called the church. If Luther were alive to see the division of the body of Christ known as Protestantism/Evangelicalism, he would weep. How quickly we desert and divide our churches because of preferences. Why do we stand with denominational pride in competition with and opposition to our brothers and sisters? Is Christ divided?

Here and now, in this composition, I lay down my desire to be a reformer. I seek only to be like Christ and in so doing become whatever he has for me. Here and now I resolve only to do that which unifies the body, the bride, that our Lord loves and gave himself up for. In so doing I find peace with God, his church, and myself. Will you join me?

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.