Pro and Con testantism

It is time to come clean. I must confess to indulging myself; I take a perverse delight in etymology (you can keep a secret I hope). Perhaps my attraction to linguistics goes back to my tongue-speaking Charismatic youth in the 1970s, having prayed oft in a tongue not understanded by myself. Oh, but how I love etymology; if it could be bottled I fear I would drink too much.

The etymology of the word "Protestant" clearly demonstrates St. Paul's point about the need for interpretation. Protestant is, most certainly, a word spoken in an unknown tongue that cannot edify the Church without the addition of five words with the understanding. Speaking this word into modern ears, without the gift (though not necessarily the χάρισμα) of interpretation, cannot be done decently and in order. Doesn't Protestant mean un-Catholic? Doesn't it mean "protest?"

One of the ironies of etymology is that sometimes, over centuries, a word may be used to mean or imply the very opposite of its root. When people today say (using it in the fashionable way) "protest," my vicious addiction to etymology provokes me to respond: "They ought to say Contest." This is what happens when an addiction dominates you, and you cannot break free of it. A sober man could just accept that "protest" means you are against it, perhaps the way that Professor Wagstaff summed up what some might call the quintessential protestant attitude:

I do not care what they say
It makes no difference anyway.
Whatever it is, I'm against it.
No matter what it is or who commenced it;
I'm against it.

The habit of etymology, from which I cannot escape, sees the irony, recognizes horsefeathers for what they are, and protests loud and clear: That is not the way of the Protestant, but rather of the Contestant. You bet your life it is.

One of our critics, urging us to fore swear our Anglican patrimony and denounce our Fathers in favor of the Tiberian path, asked the hypothetical question: "what are you protesting?" My answer is, "I protest the Gospel." I certainly do not contest it. You see ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, dogs and cats, Jews and Greeks, pro means you are for it, and con means you are against it. To protest something in law was to sign a declaration of affirmation, that you were for the matter in a given document, or that you verified it, whatever the matter may be. I am for the Gospel, and for the Testaments of Scripture. This is pro-testamentism.

The Reformers of the 16th century used the word "Protestant" to declare that they believed in the Scriptures, and that they sought to be more Catholic than the Papists who obscured the Scriptures, failed to proclaim their meaning, and hid the Gospel under centuries of superstitious rubble. The phrase "more Catholic than the pope" may sound like an unfriendly challenge, a red flag waved in the face of a bull. But, the whole purpose of being a Protestant (and I believe the English did it best, by far) was exactly that: To be more Catholic than the pope and his religion.

Today we are more polite and ecumenical, and so are the people on the other side. The current Pope, Benedict XVI, the noblest German of them all, whose works I have long respected since the days when we called him Cardinal Ratzinger, is one of the finest Protestants to be published in modern times. Clearly he favors the Gospel and the Scripture just as we do (I wish I could say the same about his rather large denomination). Because he is such a Protestant, it is not easy to be more Catholic than he is.

I hope this gift of interpretation will help many to gain a historical perspective, opening that strange tongue we call English, and the language of that foreign country we call the past. The problem with too many Anglicans in our Continuing churches is the very opposite of the lady in Hamlet: "The lady doth protest too much." We protest too little.

Tongues and interpretation of tongues

Understanding the times in which the English Reformers lived is necessary for an intelligent discussion of Anglicanism. Nothing better demonstrates this fact than the effort of Roman Catholic readers, of late, who have sought to straighten us out. What becomes clear in a hurry is that they cannot understand the perspective of the 16th and 17th century Church of England, and that is partly because their own people have taught them to look back at history knowing only modern definitions and concepts. (Neither does it help when an Anglican bishop, alas a Continuing Church bishop, displays the same ignorance while dismissing his own patrimony as a failed experiment of 450 years. With all due respect and with sadness, I find that statement appalling.)

When the polemicists and self-appointed apologists for Rome seek to straighten us out, they sometimes begin by revealing a fascinating presumption that we are uninformed; that we are ignorant and, in the words of one of their wordiest writers with the least to say, "don't get it." They presume that if only we understood, we would leap into the Tiber and swim merrily. They think that their church believes and practices everything exactly the same today as they did in the 16th century with the exception of vernacular vs. Latin. They believe that where Anglicanism deviates from the practices of Rome it is the Anglicans who came up with something new. How little they realize that we are the ones who have preserved many older Catholic practices that they have abandoned. In fact, our own Fr. Matthew Kirby wrote an excellent article that shows the many ways in which Anglicanism has been in the lead, and Rome has followed our example, and come around to our beliefs or practices on various matters. Is that because the Infallible Church realized the heretics were right? It is more likely that they recognized the truth, the Catholic truth, of our practices and teaching.

It is even more troubling that some Anglicans often learn from the RC apologists, and so abandon their Anglican patrimony due to ignorance and misinformation. Afterward, they testify about their wonderful conversion, and begin to argue against Anglican teaching based on a completely flawed understanding of what it is. They appear to have authority as ex-Anglicans, but in fact reveal that they never had an Anglican mind in the first place.

Let us take our Article XIX as an example, once again, of flawed understanding on the part of some modern readers who cannot appreciate the perspective of those who wrote this, originally in 1553.

XIX. Of the Church.
The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure word of God is preached and the sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred: so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith.

So too, they misunderstand Article XXI:

XXI. Of the authority of General Councils.General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of princes. And when they be gathered together, forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and word of God, they may err and sometime have erred, even in things pertaining to God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture

The most common mistake is failing to recall what was in the works when these Articles were being written (and forgetting that several ancient councils were rejected by the Universal Church). They forget that Rome was at that time holding the Council of Trent, and that the Church of England had no idea what would emerge. The reason these two Articles appeared was to remind the people of England that their Faith need not be shaken by any error that could come from a council limited only to the west, lacking the consent of the Universal Church, run by fallible men.

In their view the Church of Rome had erred, not only in a few ancient examples such as E.J. Bicknell recorded ("The latter section justifies the breach with Rome by denying her infallibility. As she has erred in the past, so she may err again at the Council of Trent. The allusion is to such events as the acceptance of by Pope Liberius of an Arian creed, the acquittal of Pelagius by Pope Zosimus and the lapse of Pope Honorius into Monothelitism."1) Also, she had erred in more recent times by allowing the false doctrines that caused the famous heresy of Indulgences being sold for money, offering salvation by means that even Simon Magus had never imagined. No hearty repentance and true faith was required, just the sound made when the coin in the coffer rings. These included the following:

XXII. Of Purgatory.The Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory, Pardons, worshipping and adoration as well of Images as of Relics, and also Invocation of Saint, is a fond thing vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture; but rather repugnant to the word of God.

Frankly, the errors of more recent times included the requirment of celibacy in the priesthood, which thing contradicts scripture (I Timothy 3:2,12, Titus 1:6).

The programmed response even of many Anglicans is this: "That's probably unwise, but not error. It is not a matter of teaching." True enough, the Church of Rome has no doctrine of clerical celibacy. Nonetheless, this error of polity evolved from a larger error: That any idea could be good for the Church even if it flies in the face of Scripture; that the "Apostolic See" could have greater wisdom than the Apostles. This cannot be a proper exercise of Right Reason. The compounded problems that come from requiring celibacy of priests cannot be hidden; they are obvious to everyone who is willing to see facts.

XXXII. Of the Marriage of Priests.Bishops, Priests, and Deacons are not commanded by God's laws either to vow the estate of single life or to abstain from marriage. Therefore it is lawful also for them, as for all other Christian men, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to godliness.

The Reformers were rather clear in why they saw the Church of Rome as having erred in the past.

But, to the modern polemicists Article XIX automatically appears to deny the Infallibility of the Church. The Article does not deny the Infalliblity of the Church at all, but rather states facts of history. Neither does it say the churches are any less the Church for having erred. What is clear is that they saw the Church of Rome, that is the Church in Rome itself, as a particlular church that needed to submit, like everyone else, to the mind of the Universal Church. It was the practice of Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, (the last real ABC) to use the word "antiquity" where others use "Tradition." Indeed, the Scriptures and the Tradition are ancient, and the mind of the Universal Church as expressed in Antiquity carries authority to which every later generation must bow. When there was only One visible Church able to meet in Ecumenical Council (during the first millennium) it established doctrine and polity against which Rome was creating innovations and new doctrines, making a claim to have the power to create dogmas unknown to the Fathers (considering that no one had yet imagined the 1870 doctrine of Papal Infallibility, it is irrelevant to anything that was intended by writers in the Elizabethan era).

From the perspective of the Reformers in the Elizabethan era Rome was no longer fully Catholic in doctrine and practice, having abandoned Antiquity and the mind of the Universal Church, and was transgressing by its new and innovative doctrines, no matter how logically deduced. It fell to Hooker to do in greater detail what the writers of the various Articles did simply and briefly. That was to explain why Protestantism (as they used the word) was the only way to restore the Catholic Faith corrupted by Rome, and at the same time to defend the Church of England against other Protestantisms that also created new doctrines with innovations every bit as troublesome as those of Rome. For this reason the Articles imitate a Lutheran format, and show in the process a strong contrast and disagreement with the extremes of Lutheranism; and also the Articles make use of the vocabulary employed by Calvinists in order to correct the extremes and outright errors of Calvinism.

What is also misunderstood in modern times is that the theological terminology of the English Reformers, and the issues raised in their works, makes use of langauge and arguments that had been generally considered within the boundaries of acceptable thoughts and beliefs by many Catholics for centuries. For example, the opening of Article VI has caused some to make the accusation Sola Scriptura!

VI. Of the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation.
Holy Scriptures containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.

It is not clear what they think sola scriptura means, except that they presume it is a rejection of the authority of Tradition (as indeed it does mean to some fundamentalists these days). But, as Fr. Laurence Wells has pointed out, the problem with the phrase is that no one ever explains what they mean by "Scripture alone." That is, alone for what exactly? In the Article we see that, assuming they had the phrase in mind at all (since they never actually used it), it would have been that the "scriptures [alone] containeth all things necessary to salvation."

And, though they never used the phrase sola scritpura or "scripture alone," if they had used it they would have considered it to be a very Catholic concept. As I have demonstrated before, it was not the Continental Reformers who came up with the phrase, but St. Thomas Aquinas.2 And, that alone indicates that they would have meant the phrase, had they used it, to be understood in a manner wholly consistent with the Tradition.3

The problem our critics have, and that some of our own who are weak in the faith have, is that they read every olde thing with the a modern mind. They cannot even understand what was meant by the words "Catholic" and "Protestant." How much less can they begin to put themselves into the world of the 16th century. If they want to read and understand the formularies of Anglicanism they may need the gift of tongues and of the interpretation of tongues.

At least they might allow Anglican teachers to interpret.

1) E.J. Bicknell, The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England.

2) St. Thomas Aquinas wrote: Notandum autem, quod cum multi scriberent de catholica veritate, haec est differentia, quia illi, qui scripserunt canonicam Scripturam, sicut Evangelistic et Apostoli, et alii huiusmodi, ita constanter eam asserunt quod nihil dubitandum relinquunt. Et ideo dicit Et scimus quia verum est testimonium eius; Gal. I, 9: Si quis vobis evangelizaverit praeter id quod accepistis, anathema sit. Cuius ratio est, quia sola canonica scriptura est regula fidei. Alii autem sic edisserunt de veritate, quod nolunt sibi credi nisi in his quae ver dicunt. Thomas's commentary on John's Gospel, Super Evangelium S. Ioannis Lectura, ed. P. Raphaelis Cai, O.P., Editio V revisa (Romae: Marietti E ditori Ltd., 1952) n. 2656, p. 488.

Translated into English: ""It should be noted that though many might write concerning Catholic truth, there is this difference that those who wrote the canonical Scripture, the Evangelists and Apostles, and the like, so constantly assert it that they leave no room for doubt. That is what he means when he says 'we know his witness is true.' Galatians 1:9, "If anyone preach a gospel to you other than that which you have received, let him be anathema!" The reason is that canonical Scripture alone is a measure of faith. Others however so wrote of the truth that they should not be believed save insofar as they say true things." (St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John 21)

3) Most likey they avoided the phrase so as not to promote the excesses of Lutherans and Calvinists.

Councils, Scripture and Catholic Faith

Article XXI. Of the authority of General Councils.ENERAL Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of princes. And when they be gathered together, forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and word of God, they may err and sometime have erred, even in things pertaining to God. Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture.

This Article has been used as ammunition by Polemicists who think that it provides the "aha!" factor. They have decided that it proves that Anglicanism is built on a false foundation, because these C of E Reformers were obviously rejecting the authority of Ecumenical Councils. And, despite the fact that the See of Rome recognizes the full validity of the holy orders in oriental "Non-Chalcedonian" churches, the aforesaid polemicists derive from their assumption further "proof" of Anglican Absolute Nullity and Utterly Voidness. As much as it may seem desirable, at times, to restore the Elizabethan penalties upon "papists"- strictly for these polemicists (and my mother-in-law), but no one else- it would seem a bit difficult to enforce them. So, I guess we'll just have to use apologetics instead. Oh well.

First of all, it is self-evident that councils are not infallible unless ratified by the Universal Church, something rendered impossible after Nicea II due to the Great Schism between the two "One True Churches." Some councils in the first Millennium finished their work, only to have it either rejected immediately, or accepted only briefly before being finally rejected. These facts of history are well-known, and need no further elaboration. Some councils were considered authoritative in a few regions, but never accepted by the majority of the Church, and so they are not Ecumenical Councils.

Also self-evident is this simple fact: "And when they be gathered together, forasmuch as they be an assembly of men, whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and word of God, they may err and sometime have erred, even in things pertaining to God." Indeed, no Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox has any basis for disagreeing with this. Why, after all, were some councils not received by the Church? What about the Arian Council in 341?

Also self-evident is this fact: "Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of Holy Scripture." This is self-evident because the Ecumenical Councils arrived at their conclusions by this very method, examination of holy scripture; and because they received Ecumenical status on this basis also.

VIII. Of the Three Creeds.HE three Creeds, Nicene Creed, Athanasius' Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed; for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.

Because these Articles invoke the authority of scripture, the polemicists (or self-appointed apologists for Rome- of the sort who seem never to have read the Catechism of the Catholic Church) find what they think is more ammunition against Anglicans, and more proof of just how absolutely null and utterly void we, your clergy, really are. After all, this must prove that our Church is a sola scriptura sect, because we invoke the authority of the same Bible concerning which Rome has said, "these books have God as their Author"1. Of course, when the pope says it, then it's Catholic. When the English Reformers said it, it was Protestant. The significance of this distinction is not by any means self-evident.

The problem with their argument is what I have stated above. The Conciliar method was examination of the contents of Scripture. The method of universal ratification leading to Ecumenical status for a Council was also based on careful examination of scripture. The Holy Catholic Church in the first millennium was far more Berean 2 than our polemicist friends appreciate.

In addition to things that are self-evident, the term sola scriptura was well-known before the Reformation. It came from St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274): Quia sola canonica scriptura est regula fidei. ("The reason is that only canonical Scripture is a measure of faith"). 3 The English Reformers kept this principle alive, and deduced from it those words known to every traditional Anglican: "Holy Scriptures containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation." This is in Article VI. Of the sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for Salvation.

It is true that the Universal Church infallibly interprets scripture, in fact, has infallibly interpreted scripture. This does not mean that the Church gives us a complete commentary verse by verse. It means that whenever interpretations contradict the clear teaching of the Church, those interpretations are to be rejected. A very-very-modern Evangelical concept of sola scriptura, on the other hand, is wrong; that is, subjecting the scriptures to private interpretation. That is because some people do not understand that the Bible is not only the Word of God, but is also the Book of the Church. God wrote these books, so to speak, with human instruments. The scriptures came first through the prophets of Israel and then through the Church of the Apostles. The Church knows what its book means.

The idea expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas is what the English Reformers meant by the words quoted above from Article VI. It is a Protestant concept by the terms of their day and age, which is why it is a Catholic concept. Perhaps defining the words "Catholic" and "Protestant" should be required of anyone who uses them as labels, who paints with them using a large brush.

The Thirty-Nine Articles were established in 1563. What was happening at that time? The Council of Trent was still a matter of "current events" rather than history. Article XXI explained why the Church of England was not participating (that is, from the English perspective), and why no one should be troubled by anything Trent would require of Christians. The Article did not reject "the Church with her authority," to use Richard Hooker's phrase. It taught the people of England that their consciences need not be troubled, nor their beliefs dictated, by any council that could not prove its conclusions from scripture (the degree to which the Council of Trent may or may not be in agreement with scripture is a topic for another day).

XIX. Of the Church.HE visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure word of God is preached and the sacraments be duly ministered according to Christ's ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same. As the Church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch have erred: so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and manner of ceremonies, but also in matters of faith.

This Article deals with facts of history as well, stating that each of these churches had erred at some point, for example, the Monothelitism professed by the Patriarch of Constantinople in the time of St. Maximus the Confessor. Primarily, the Article refers to the Arian heresy, if only because emperors, especially Valens, forced it on the people, creating a new round of persecution. St. Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, was forced into exile several times. In fact, the Bishop of Rome was appointed by Arian emperors in those years.

In a fiction novel called Father Elijah, 4 an apostate cardinal has a conversation with the pope. In it the pope tells this errant cardinal that it was the "Petrine Charism" that saved the Church from the Arian heresy. This is fiction within fiction, because the facts do not support it; it is worth mentioning because it is the popular mythology of some Roman Catholics. It was not the Bishop of Rome who saved the Church from the Arian heresy, whether he had "the Petrine Charism"or not. The first Ecumenical Council of Nicea was called by Constantine because he was aware of strife, and wanted to maintain peace; and it was also due to the urging of Archbishop Alexander of Alexandria. The Bishop of Rome did not call the Council, and he was not present at it either. With the other Patriarchs, he did ratify it after it was completed. Later, when Arianism gained the sympathy of emperors, the See of Rome was officially Arian.

Of course, just as with the condemnation of Pope Honorius I for heresy (Monthelitism) at the Third [Ecumenical] Council of Constantinople (680 AD), we are told that this doesn't count as a strike against papal infallibility. Fine. I will not argue that point. I will instead argue that what the Church of England set forth in the Articles does not amount to a rejection of the Faith of the Church, does not invalidate our claim to belong to the Holy Catholic Church, does not render our orders "absolutely null and utterly void," and does not replace Catholic faith with Protestant innovation.

These Articles were written to defend, clarify, and teach the Catholic Faith as all former generations of the Church, and the Fathers of the Church, defended, clarified and taught it.


1. Dominus Iesus
2. Acts 17:10,11
3. Notandum autem, quod cum multi scriberent de catholica veritate, haec est differentia, quia illi, qui scripserunt canonicam Scripturam, sicut Evangelistic et Apostoli, et alii huiusmodi, ita constanter eam asserunt quod nihil dubitandum relinquunt. Et ideo dicit Et scimus quia verum est testimonium eius; Gal. I, 9: Si quis vobis evangelizaverit praeter id quod accepistis, anathema sit. Cuius ratio est, quia sola canonica scriptura est regula fidei. Alii autem sic edisserunt de veritate, quod nolunt sibi credi nisi in his quae ver dicunt. Thomas's commentary on John's Gospel, Super Evangelium S. Ioannis Lectura, ed. P. Raphaelis Cai, O.P., Editio V revisa (Romae: Marietti E ditori Ltd., 1952) n. 2656, p. 488.

"It should be noted that though many might write concerning Catholic truth, there is this difference that those who wrote the canonical Scripture, the Evangelists and Apostles, and the like, so constantly assert it that they leave no room for doubt. That is what he means when he says 'we know his witness is true.' Galatians 1:9, "If anyone preach a gospel to you other than that which you have received, let him be anathema!" The reason is that only canonical Scripture is a measure of faith. Others however so wrote of the truth that they should not be believed save insofar as they say true things." (St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Gospel of John 21)

4. Michael D. O'Brien, Father Elijah, 1996 San Francisco, Ignatius Press

Putting the “P” back in “Anglican”

I know that you’re thinking, well some of you: “This Fr. Hart wants to make Protestants out of us. After all, since he does not want to swim the Tiber he must have descended to some sort of Low Churchmanship. We all know that the opposite of 'Catholic' must be 'Protestant,' mustn’t it? The opposite of 'Papalist' must be 'Puritan.'” Ah, but what if I am really so Catholic that I believe that the opposite of "Tridentine" must be "Patristic?"

Perhaps, just perhaps, some of the self-proclaimed Anglo-Papalists need to think about something. Maybe the definition of “Catholic” should be based on its Credal use, as we use it in the Book of Common Prayer where either the Apostle’s Creed or the Creed called Nicene are part of all the major services (Article VIII). Combined with that other Creed, Quicunque Vult, or the Creed of St. Athanasius, we say we believe the Catholic Church and the Catholic Faith.

Frankly, the effort to embrace and continue the Catholic Faith was the motivation for embracing Protestantism in the time of the Reformation- or, rather, the Reformations. We believe that the efforts on the Continent of Europe threw away the baby with the bathwater, which is why Anglicans early on debated with Calvinists and Lutherans, sometimes more vigorously than with Rome. Anglicans debated as well with Puritans in England and Scottish Presbyterians.

What we find in the second wave of English secession was a very conservative and anti-innovative mind prevailing against new ideas that had formed only in recent centuries, during which their fathers had lost sight of the Patristic and Scriptural teaching of the ancient Church. It prevailed, as well, against the innovations of Puritans and other inventive Protestantisms. This via media was always a true course that avoided the errors of many extremes, not just two. It rejected the innovations of Rome, and strove against such a Reformation as Mr. Knox had up in Scotland. This was not a compromise in the modern sense. It was not simply the legislation of Parliament either. It was the result of what the bishops of the Church of England contended for throughout the times of monarchs stretching from Elizabeth I to Charles II, especially strong after the Restoration.

This effort, and what was achieved, is not appreciated by too many people calling themselves Anglo-Papalists. All too often I find that such people are quite sincere, but only know their own Anglican heritage based on the opinions presented to them by Roman Catholic polemicists instead of having actually read and learned from old Anglican sources. They take a position not due to deeply held Catholic convictions, but due to a combination of ignorance about Anglican doctrine and history with superficially held Tridentine affectations. For, when Tridentine sentiments become genuine conviction, the conscience impels one to the only logical course of action without delay.

What is truly Catholic in content was not defined at so recent and innovative a Council as Trent, and certainly not in later councils at the Vatican. It was defined in seven Ecumenical Councils (Affirmation of St. Louis), and more so in the Scriptures as embraced in every time and place where the Church was built upon the foundation of Apostles and Prophets, Christ Jesus Himself the chief cornerstone.

I would indeed place the “P” of Protestantism back in “Anglicanism” to the via media degree required to make it truly Patristic, and so truly Scriptural and truly Catholic.

Protestantisms and Platypuses

Hank Hannegraaff is a Christian radio talk show host who has defined "the Protestant Faith" as sola scriptura, sola fide and (exactly as he put it) sola Christi. (That last sola is, of course, simply Christian; it is not specifically Protestant.) By this odd definition definition Anglican Traditionalists are not Protestants, since we hold only to the clearly intended meaning of the last sola, as do the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox. We do not hold to the kind of new subjective "private interpretation" kind of sola scritpura that Mr. Hannegraf undersatands, though we hold to scriptura as the Word of God that can be understood only within the Catholic Tradition. After all, the Bible is the book of the Church, and God used His people to write it and recognize it. Along with the Papal Encyclical Dominus Iesus, we join the Roman Catholics in the simple proclamation about the scriptures that "these books have God as their author." But, sola scriptura removes the scriptures from the only context in which they can be understood truly and rightly. Sola fide is, in his world of revised definitions, impossible for one reason: It does not exist, except in the very frightening way described by the words of Saint James: "Even so faith, if it hath not works is dead being alone." ( Jas. 2:17 ) As Saint Paul tells us: "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." ( I Cor. 13:13)

But, is Hank Hannegraaff's definition of "the Protestant Faith" to be taken as, well, definitive? What, in heaven's name, is Protestantism? Our host, Albion Land, asked this question in an earlier blog, only to receive this predictably bull in a china shop remark from the Reformed Catholicism blog: "What made me laugh was the fact that they were surprised to be called 'Protestant' by Roman Catholics. But in fact, Anglo-Catholics–no matter how close they feel to the theology of Rome–are Protestants and it is this fact that makes part of their position so untenable from a Reformation perspective." Of course, had they read what he actually wrote just a bit more carefully, they may have saved themselves the embarrassment of, once again, completely mis-stating the position of Anglo-Catholics.

The question is, how does one arrive at the conclusion that our blog is a Protestant blog? Within Anglicanism the words "Protestant" and "Catholic" are used often to mean "High" or "Low", by which measurement we are not Protestants. But, from the perspective of a Roman Catholic we are Protestant because we are Western Christians who are non-papal. However, from Hank Hannegraaff's perspective we are not Protestants because we reject two of his solas- as defined by ultra modern Evangelicals that is. Perhaps the real problem is trying to define the word "Protestant."

What hath a Pentecostal in common with a Presbyterian? What hath a Baptist in common with a High Church Lutheran? What hath a Reformed Episcopalian in common with a "religious" atheist who supports "gay" marriage and rejects the Incarnation completely? The answer is, they are all Protestants. What hath a Fundamentalist in common with a student of Higher Criticism? What hath a High Churchman in Anglicanism in common with a Quaker? What hath Jerusalem in common with Athens?

I replied to the Reformed Catholicism blogger as follows: "A valid question was raised about the usage and definition of a word so widely applicable as to mean everything from anything to nothing." I meant that exactly as I stated it. Since Billy Graham the Evangelist and John Spong the "Christian" Atheist are both Protestants, the word has nothing to do with articles of Faith. We are left with a very reduced product, a definition in strictly negative terms, and lacking the beauty of apophaticism: "Some kind of Western Christian (from real to sort of) who is not a Roman Catholic." There is no Creed for Protestants, but rather an anti-creed: "I do not believe in Universal Jurisdiction and Papal Infallibility." Of course, a Hindu can say that too. Well, along with the Hindu, we can say this anti-Creed; and along with Pentecostals, Baptists and Methodists this makes us Protestant. However, we can say this with an Orthodox Christian, but he is not a Protestant though he shares this one point of unbelief as a belief. It boils down to this: "Protestant" is hardly a useful term, and one that we can dispense with. It says nothing about what we do believe.

Now, to our Reformed Catholicism blogger friends and to the more militant Roman Catholics in Blogger land, we Anglican Catholics are quite a puzzle indeed. The same problem exists for strict Darwinists when they attempt to place a Duck-billed Platypuse into an existing paradigm. It lays eggs and has a beak, so it must be a bird. But, it is furry and nurses its young, so it must be a mammal. It lays eggs but has no wings, so it is a reptile. But reptiles have no fur. Why don't we just eliminate all of the platypuses for convenience? Failing that, let us make fun of them all for being so obviously stupid that they cannot admit that they are birds, or planes or superman, or a whatever the hell they are.

Never liked platypuses anyway.

A Protestant Blog?

I was checking out my sitemeter tonight and came across a link to the comment below on a website called Catholic Answers Forums. I would like to thank the poster for the epithet of "good", but am not quite sure how he came to conclude that The Continuum is a protestant blog. Perhaps he will see this post, and comment. It should generate some good discussion.


Re: Here is the typical Amercan, Protestant "blog"

You want to see some good Protestant blogs, although they may not grab a hold of the title? Take a look at these:

http://www.titusonenine.classicalanglican.net/

http://descant.classicalanglican.net/

http://www.anglicancontinuum.blogspot.com/
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Protestant/Former Episcopal Church