When one hears about educators, educational reform and the
push for compulsory universal public education one might be tempted to think
about the Progressive Era or in Christian circles the advocates of Social
Gospel.
And yet this impulse while tempered, to some degree
secularised and certainly affected by the age of industry was no novelty. The
idea of compulsion and a push toward an engineered uniform society is as old as
Babel. The Reformation is often touted and celebrated as the foundation of
modern Western Civilisation, the genesis of human rights and modern
representative democracy, its reality and legacy are in fact more complicated.
The Magisterial Reformation clearly represented not only a
continuation of the Sacralist vision of Christendom but clearly believed in the
state's power to compel individuals, shape character, and restrict dissident
thought and speech. While today these impulses are decried by the Christian
Right and Libertarian Protestants as secular, 'liberal', collectivist or
something else, they too are part of the Magisterial Reformation heritage.
The Magisterial Reformation was wed from the beginning to the
state apparatus. It depended on the power of the sword to compel. In this
symbiotic arrangement the state backed councils of clerics and academics who
sought to legislate not only morality but Christianity. While all laws are
moral, the legislation of morality refers to the individual's heart and
sentiments, their internal obedience to the law. How can this be enforced? It's
very difficult but certainly curbing speech and thus thought are part of the
equation. Clearly the Magisterial Reformers embraced this paradigm and were all
too eager to establish and back the apparatus of an authoritarian state.
Protestants by vote and if need be by violence sought to
transform society and create a new Protestant Christendom.
The new vision for society was indeed a kind of gospel. It
was the Gospel of Scripture wed to the state in the form of legislation and the
threat of state-violence.
This 'gospel' was all too often not about the proclamation of
God's grace but forced compulsion toward a moral end. It was a gospel of
self-improvement for the greater good. It included compulsory attendance at the
state church, and in some cases as cited in the article, a state school.
Jumbled and blended together it's clear the popular mind could
not (then or now) separate the Gospel of Scripture from this societal gospel.
Of course the affect of this Sacralism on the Protestant churches would in a
relatively short time become devastating.
The gospel of the Magisterial Reformation pointed to the
Scriptural and Spiritual Gospel but its day-to-day reality and its true legacy
were and are temporal. A temporal gospel for a temporal kingdom. The project of
transformation, changing the kingdoms of the world into the Kingdom of God
failed. An unbiblical paradigm it was doomed from the start.
Protestantism produced a state-enforced social consensus. To
check the depravity of the state, it (through speculative deduction) forged the
doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate. The goal of such an individual or group was
not merely to secure 'rights' but (supposedly) to wield the sword in the name
of righteousness. The whole paradigm and the questions it generates are little
more than an exercise in petitio
principii and have nothing to do with Scriptural exegesis or argument.
The goal was a state-enforced social consensus with all
dissent eliminated. The idea that the Reformation stood for modern Republican
forms of government, human rights and individual free speech and/or freedom of
religion is actually quite laughable.
But the Reformation did succeed in helping to destroy the
Medieval consensus and thus unwitting sowed the seeds for what would become its
own destruction as well.
From its view of the state to its optimism regarding the
state's power to transform one must question if these early Reformers,
especially of the Calvinist branch really and truly believed in the doctrine of
Total Depravity. While some draw a distinction between Total and Utter
Depravity I think a strong case could be made that the Reformers and their
heirs were less than consistent or vigorous when it came to upholding, let
alone applying this doctrine to their views of the state.
Or to put it another way, one might say their commitment to a
Sacral Society overcame and suppressed the application of Total Depravity and
its integration into the whole of their thought.
While defenders might appeal to the Lesser Magistrate as a
doctrine resulting from a grasp of Total Depravity we could instead point to
the larger question of not just an individual magistrate's concern to combat
tyranny but the whole nature of a so-called Christian society.
The idea that through schools, laws and forced Church
attendance a moral Christian society could be made... is to reject Total
Depravity.
Are these not 'means' God employs? If you believe in Total
Depravity you are sceptical of all man-made means and authorities.
The New Testament nowhere enjoins the utilisation of state
compulsion as a means to transform society let alone forge and shape the Body
of Christ. In fact it presents a great deal of data that can only be described
as diametrically opposed to this notion. The New Testament teaches a theology
of means to be sure, but the means are few and are God ordained.
The Magisterial Reformation succeeded in creating a society
of pharisees, a culture with a Christian veneer.
Most of its advocates held and continue to hold to a form of
legalism, viewing the state and its forces of legislative and judicial
compulsion as pedagogic, a preparatory means of driving individuals toward the
Gospel.
While the Mosaic Law served this purpose on a temporary
basis, it was fulfilled and has been abrogated. Nowhere does the New Testament
revive this Redemptive-Historical and typological paradigm and it must be said
in even stronger terms... nowhere is it ever applied to the state.
Appeals to the Old Testament and attempts to draw parallels
with modern so-called Christian states reek of A-Covenantalism, syncretism and
smack of Judaizing heresy.
The Magisterial Reformation was a case of Christendom redivivus, it was not a
reform to or reconstitution of New Testament Christianity. It was a revival and
reform of Constantinianism. Closer to the Scripture than 16th
century Romanism to be sure but still a far cry from the Apostolic teaching
laid down in the New Testament.
It was the Enlightenment that smashed Christendom and has
almost succeeded in phasing it out. While the Enlightenment is in many ways an
explicit rejection of Christianity, the defeat of Magisterial Protestantism and
Sacralist Christianity is not an occasion for sorrow.
What is most troubling is Christendom's continued legacy
within the Church, its present revitalisation (through Worldview teaching and
politicking) and the ways in which revisionist historians (and theologians) have
manipulated its legacy as well as the nature of the period. In many cases they
have tried to re-work the narrative in a way that accommodates contemporary
impulses with regard to money and power. To add to the confusion many
Enlightenment and Classically Liberal ideals have been synthesised with
Christianity and read back into both Magisterial Protestantism and even the
Middle Ages.
Many within the Christian Right and in particular the
Reformed world seem to think that their modern Libertarian and American sensibilities
are one with the Reformation. They would be in for quite a shock were they to
visit 16th century Strasbourg or Geneva. These were authoritarian
projects and had no notion or tolerance for Classical Liberal impulses. In fact
they viewed such notions as expressions of libertinism and heresy.
I also happen to believe that many contemporary Protestant
Sacralists, even while they celebrate Classical Liberalism are at heart
authoritarians and if given unrestricted power would quickly abandon the
Enlightenment principles of liberty they profess to uphold.
The Magisterial Reformation unleashed some forces of good and
it was (in a sense) an era of revitalisation for Biblical Christianity. That
is, despite its many grave and essentially terminal errors.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.