Category Archives: RPW

A less prolix discussion on Vestments can be read here. This piece is polemically boring (purtian bashing) until the second-half (smaller font) where vestments and erastianism is touched upon. I am in the midst of a revision, but the important part is the black gown spirit of Protestantism, below…

The Vestment Controversy was truly unfortunate. Initially, it was raised John Hooper, a Henrician exile, who spent time in Zurich where Zwingli earlier entertained the Anabaptists’ iconclastic reign of terror. Hooper found offense to wearing a surplice and cope during ordination. The controversy was temporarily settled by the Lutheran argument of ‘adiaphora’ or ‘things indifferent’. The King’s Privy council generously allowed ministers their individual conscience on the matter. During the same reign of Edward IV, Cramner also reformed the Mass, allowing Bucer (another Swiss reformer) to rewrite it, purging the canon of its so-called sacredotal elements. Yet as soon as some closure was reached on the question of the sacrament, men like Hooper pressed the abolition of vestments, renewing quarrels.

Middle Way Disaster:This method of giving some liberty in controversial matters of ceremony by calling such ‘indifferent’ was perhaps responsible or at least reflected what would be known as the ‘middle way’ of Anglicanism. Dodging proper canonical order perhaps was not wise. What was edifying to one man was superstition to another. Adiaphora and leaving controversy for individual judgment certainly was the origin of numerous, even contradictory rites, within the church of England that men like Hooper took opportunity of, resulting in a disastrous policy?

Liberty granted to English Protestants returning from Marian exile would not satisfy the second generation of Reformers coming from Geneva/Frankfurt. This generation would be led by men like John Knox (as well as Thomas Cartwright in England), who not only introduced Presbyterianism to Scotland but also the full-force of the RPW into the Queen’s Realm, intellectually picking up where Hooper left off but causing greater disorder with calls for active resistance. Open disregard of uniformity acts issued by the crown would mark the difference for second generation reformers who believed they were “obeying God not man”.

Interestingly, the abolition of vestments began as a call for greater simplicity in worship– not a 2nd commandment injunction per sey. The bible was put at odds with the church, and even men like Ridley likened Hooper’s earlier agruments to Anabaptist enthusiasm. A matter apparently as narrow as vestments exploded into a deeper conflict over the power of the crown in the Church, i.e., the Erastian order, and where the crown would not alter worship to suit alleged biblical authority the church was quickly denounced as blasphemous, papist, and tyrannical, deserving violent rebellion. Calvin wrote Hooper telling him such matters were not worth the peace of the Church.  Bucer, along Calvin’s line of advice, called the controversy, “a ground of contention more damaging than anyone has been able to explain.”

Unfortunately, by 1566, the debate took on an impossible tone of vestments being either abject idolatry or a necessary dignity with no middle ground for diplomacy. The English Presbyterian and Seperatist parties drew stark lines. Separatist took their practice of worship underground, holding illegal conventicles and calling themselves the ‘true church’ apart from due authority. These usurptations flowed from a logic borne by John Knox’s theories of active resistance found in his First Blast and Appellation, written in 1558. These doctrines would become foundational to the rise of Presbyterianism in Scotland, culminating in Scotland’s National Covenant and Prayer Book War in 1640.

the Theonomic State: It is not surprising that vestments would provide ‘staging grounds’ for revolutionizing Constantine’s state-church.  Vestments had their origins with Constantine’s establishment of the Church as an Imperial office:

“With the public recognition of the Church in the fourth century all the bishops found themselves enjoying the status of senior imperial officials. They soon came to be preceded, liek their elder colleagues, by lights and incense when they made their official way to church. Like them, too, they wore the dress of the Roman upper classes, made obligatory for imperial officials by Theodosius I. Over the linea, the undergarment, they wore the tunica, and on top of that the casula. These garments developed into the alb, the deacon’s tunicle, and the chasuble. But in the fourth century the clergy were indistinguishable in their dress from any decently attired Roman official. (p. 32, the Orthodox Liturgy)

As the magisterial reformation gave way to ‘free church protestantism’, vestments became contentious symbols of church establishment– therefore drawing ire from anti-monarchists and parlimentarians. It was targeted as much by zeal as by democratic upsurge. However, for Erastians (in my book– a brand of theonomists) the vestment represented the ancient harmony of church and state and was worthy of defense. The arguments in preserving vesting boiled down to the peace of the Christian kingdom. When James I said “no bishop, no crown”, he understood the what was at stake– vestments symbolized England’s church-state alliance, thus the entire Erastian system.

Erastianism before Elizabeth? I believe Erastianism deserve a second look. Erastianism was not invented in England. The first Erastian church goes back as far as Constantine, and theological contributions to Erastianism are more attributed to Theodore Balsamon and Justinian than Hugo Grotius. Erastianism has a very Byzantine development. Moreover, Christianity owes a great debt to Erastian type systems given the great ecumenical councils of the church were all summoned by the Roman Emperor, and at times settled by his intercession. In fact, the Nicene Creed was sealed by Constantine who threw in lot to the Trinitarian party in order to end the controversy. Byzantine Emperors main concern was typically the peace of the realm which the Church ensured via the cura of souls. But sometimes Byzantine emporers fancied themselves theologians, Kings in the line of David, sharing in the sacredotal office as a quasi-priest, offering wisdom, gifts, and blessings to the church. The Eastern Emporers held the following traditional perogratives summed by the Nine Articles of the Council of Stoudios 1380  (p. 307, Emperor and Priest). English Erastianism surely borrowed from the prior example of state-church:

• The emperor had the right to veto the election of an arch-bishop who did not please him.
• He could modify as he saw fit the heirarchy of episcopal sees, make transfers of bishops and, sign of the times, grant bishoprics as benefices.
• He ratified appointments to the chief ecclesiastical offices, that is to the upper ranks of the patriarchal administration.
• He ensured that the boundaries of the dioceses, as established by him, were respected.
• He would free from all patriarchal censure, and if an archon and member of the senate infringed on canon, the patriarch would impose a punishment only through his intermediary, who would represent his role as defender of the Church and the canons.
• He could retain in Constantinople or send back to their diocese bishops who had come or been summoned to Constantinople on important business without the patriarch having a right to object.
• He might demand from every new bishop a promise of loyalty to his person and the empire.
• He could require all the bishops to approve and sign the synodal acts.
• The bishops were obliged to take note of these articles and should not propose for election to an episcopal see anyone who was not a friend of the emperor.

 

Involved here was an elaborate mesh of checks and balances. The Patriarch was elected by the Emperor but from a pool of nominees determined by a metropolitan synod.  Metropolitan sees were really independent of the Emperor and often would be well-springs of criticism. The Emperor’s immunity from patriarchal censure was based upon divine right– soveriegnty was the result of God’s election not man-made constitutions. Yet in order for power to gain legitimacy or ratification, it required submission to law. Yet power was not always so bound, could abrogate law in, say, emergencies or for the higher good, e.g., it possesed an economy.  The relation between church and state were much more fluid than in the West, and the Emperor’s office contained a hint of Priesthood.

Elizabethian Erastianism was not novelty but harkened back to these earlier Byzantine models. If the Pope, or primacy of Peter, no longer possessed unilateral the right or legitimacy to call a Western Council, then, as Luther himself admitted, this same function fell upon the Prince to bring peace. Thus, a move toward the Eastern pattern resulted.

However, the Erastian approach to church/state was not entirely unusual for the West despite the fragmented Germanic Principalities which constituted so-called Empire. Gelasianism was more of a compromise between church and state (i.e., a balance of powers) than clear victory of ecclesial over civil. Even under Gelasianism the King was far from divorced from influence in the Church. The Concordant of Worms, 1122 AD, outlined practical application of Gelsianism (see below). It did not forbid the monarch from presenting nominees from the church or distributing ‘benefices’. Although not specifically listed under the terms of Worms (below), the the Emporer also had a traditional power to declare synods at times of great doctrinal contorversy or clerical disorder (such as the Great Schism of the Anti-Popes, 1415 AD), and this right is assumed in the Concord:

• The elections of the bishops (in Catholic nations) would be done in the ‘presence’ of the monarch.
• In the case of disputed elections the King may decide between the parties after consulting the provincial episcopate.
• The King shall recieve a pledge of loyalty from the Bishop, giving the bishop his (civil) regalia and sceptre.
• The bishop or abbot elect shall perform all the duties that go with the holding of the regalia (his civil functions).

 

The concept of church-state was not necessarily one sphere ruling the other (though the Gelsian model ideally sought an absolute rule of eternal over temporal). Both the West and Eastern Patriarchs crowned and consecrated the Emperors. Both handed the sovereign the sword. Rather what was typical of civil and ecclesial  powers (even in the West) was their homeostasis. Eastern theologians argued the King ruled not just the temporal order but the body too, and, in so far as the church was composed of the physical and earthly, the Emporer had an stake in church affairs. He could not be seperated from the divine anymore than the church could be removed from temporal. This easily went the other way with bishops in both East and West weilding civil powers, usually in relation to land benefices or civil activities related to alms– hospitals, orphanages, hostels, asylums, etc.. (at least this was the point of departure toward princely duties)

In contrast, the modern Free church was marked by an extreme pessimism regarding the Crown’s capacity, wisdom, or right  rule the ‘elect’ or ‘baptized” bodies. The disorder that led to disestablishment was infected with a radical, even Gnostic seperation of flesh and spirit when treating the two realms. The Byzantine, Erastian, and even Gelsian models of church-state (in practice) had very blurred boundaries and functions. Prior to the Free Church’s separatism, differences between church and state spheres were perhaps more theoretical than practical. As noted above, the theocratic systems which emerged were more the result of compromise, tradition, and long contest than clear biblical mandate. Rather than anticipating ‘seperation of church state’, the West more or less followed the Byzantine example. When the English became a national church (erastian), they were returning to an older and well-established pattern. I believe when discussing theonomic or theocratic systems, Erastianism deserves its place. The institution which vestments thus symbolized pointed to 1,200 years of Christian practice and was, albeit occassional messy, more representative of Christianity than the newfangled ‘free church’ model as demanded by Independency.

The Black Regiment: Against the colorful and majestic vestments of the old Erastian church, nonconforming clergy adopted black robes. The Reformation origins of black gowns belong to the Lutherans, first introduced them under Andreas Karlstadt in 1521. Disgruntled by the  hierarchy between laity and clergy, Karlstadt wore an ordinary academic cassock. Not only did this underline the teaching role (shepherdic) of the minister but at the time it was treated as everyday garb, demonstrating an equality between lay and minister that emphasizing the general priesthood. Luther disagreed with Karlstadt’s rejection of vestments as breach of clerical collegiality and church authority. However, the black cossack “stuck” and in 1930 the Augsberg Confession gave it a normative status, making robe along with surplice a standard for the German church. Later this would be known as the “Genevan Garb“, representing the ordained and teaching/academic authority (shepherdic function) of the minister. However, Karlstadt was not satisified and was compelled to further push ‘dialectic’, next doning farmer clothes to press the need for radical egalitarianism in the Church.

The term “Black Regiment” comes from Royalists who disliked the American Revolution, calling those Presbyterian, Congregationalist, and Baptists ministers the “the Black Regiment” due to their robes. Indeed, the black cossack became synomynous with anti-prelacy and even secular republicanism. But even before whiggism, black cassocks became synomynous with non-conformity.

What was interesting about black robes was their liturgical significance. According to the old calendar black robes were worn during pentitential occasions, such as Good Friday, Ember Days, and “requiems”.  Black was the color of death and burial/graves. The last three days of Holy (Painful) Week (Obedience Thursday, Good Friday, and Tomb Saturday) are called the “Tenebræ” meaning ‘darkness’.  In light of the Reformation’s emphasis on repentance and atonement, typifying Reformed liturgies and discipline, the sobriety of ‘black’ was indeed an appropriate color for the Protestant cause.

Despite the ahisticorical rejection of ‘church-state’ by modern-day Protestants, I retain a fond appreciation of the simplicity and sobriety of the black cassock, especially the penitential and preparatory spirit of the Reformation. The black regiment represents the good I take from the dross of Puritanism. Ironically, black robes, though originally intended to make the minister ‘ordinary’ or even ‘folksy’, are today considered very liturgical. Those who don the cassocks in worship now are treated as very “high church”.  But these are only hold-outs. Karlstadt would surely be very happy with the egalitarianism of non-denominational bodies today. Karlstadt anticipated an ecclesial spirit which was more akin to Anabaptism than Lutheranism. Yet another sign that the Anabaptist spirit has eclipsed the older Magesterial intent of Protestantism.

With regard to the BCP, protestant penitentialism introduced our long exhortation, prayer of humble access, words of comfort, the offeratory of congregational sacrfice, decalogue, confession, and litany of supplication. Much of the BCP was therefore cast in this pentitential spirit– a legacy we should not abandon but a healthy distinction, for our good.

I posted a few things about the modern-day gravitation of Presbyterians toward the Baptist/Fundamentalist camp indicating it a surrender of the Reformation. This is not the first writing on the subject. More scholarly authors have written on the same subject. For instance, see The Anabaptist Captivity of the Church. However, this post will mostly deal with Dr. Matthew McMahon’s commentary: The Rise of the Radical Anabaptists from which a few notions cued w/ respect to Reformed Catholic order and worship.

Nonetheless, the the goals of the early reformation, or what might be properly called the Magisterial Reformation, started to give way to a radical-wing in the late 1580’s. I compare this faction within Puritanism to the “Anabaptist Spirit”. I’d like to better define the Anabaptist Spirit which has eventually displaced early Protestantism through various waves of iconoclam and anti-clericalism sometime after the 16th century.

It would be best to define some goals and characteristics of the Magisterial Reformation. First, the goal of early Reformation was not an exclusive return to the sub-apostolic church. Instead, Anglican and Lutheran protestants tended to desire continuity with medieval practices albeit conformed to specific primitive and scriptural rules. Nor were all medieval and Roman customs cast away merely due to periodicity or source. Early protestants viewed themselves as ‘humanist’ Roman Catholics, often explaining their difference with Papacy by late innovations introduced in Italian catholicism.

The saliency of certain medieval practices is of special note. When northern catholic princes dissolved monasteries, it was not the rule of holy life which offended but the specialized and cloistered nature of monks. Instead, reformers were optimistic about sacralizing daily life and society, and thus intended to turn the monastic ideal ‘inside-out’, bringing the breviary into family and occupational livings. This is amplification of the medieval was typical amongst first generation reformers like Luther and Cranmer, having more in common with the precepts of the middle ages than with today’s rationalism.

Monastic-pietism has a long history, dating back to Cluniac reform in the middle ages. It did not wait until Luther to start life. The reforming instincts of Luther and Cranmer were born from the pietism of the medieval church whether the Franciscan friars or Wycliffe’s followers.However, this is only one analogy that builds context for the impulses behind Magisterial Reformation. Nor should the 15th-century concilarism of Constance and Basel be forgotten, advocated by John Major and Jacques Almain just before Luther’s 1519 Appeal to the Nobility. In many ways the Reformation intended to settle questions opened three centuries before the 95 theses was nailed to Wittenberg’s cathedral doors. Below is a brief summary of certain prominent Reformation convictions:

1. The Reformation wanted to restore a more rigorous and accountable discipline for the sake of personal holiness.
Ecclesiastical law and devotional works were intensified to impress piety upon clergy and lay people. The reformation excited a new sense of collective holiness and morals.
2. Early Protestants wanted power shifted away from Rome toward national bishops and princes who were more prominent during the investiture conflicts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This was connected to a renewed hope in concilar governance within the Western Church where lay people represented through their Christian monarchs might have greater say. The organization of the church according to a national principle therefore brought means for integrating ecclesiastical to laity.
3. Nor were original Protestants separatist in their outlook but expected to reconcile differences with the Pope by the advocacy of the Emperor and his convocation of a free general council. English and German divines certainly did not see themselves establishing new churches but expected to continue the old ones by a persuasive appeal to authentic catholic and patristic faith, beginning with Augustine, Jerome, and Ambrose.

Unfortunately, the pressures for Reform sometimes was not well-contained, and zeal occasionally gained the upper-hand. Nonetheless, Protestants and Roman Catholics both persecuted radicals. In fact, the Diets of Speyer and Augsburg (if not Peace of Passau) formally committed Lutherans to the suppression of Anabaptism. It is good to keep in mind how the concilar and aristocratic basis of classical Protestantism basically alienated Radicalism’s penchant for democracy.

Unlike Anabaptists, the engine of church authority for ‘Magisterialists’ was not the people’s congregation but was given to the civil power who mediated the ecclesiastical synod. Calvin himself disparaged democracy in the church. Although strong anti-clerical currents existed within Puritanism, these were usually directed at bishops not rectors. Calvinists typically wanted to strengthen the rectory (aka. presbyters), giving curates great scrutiny over lay people while dominating the worship by moving the sermon to the center of liturgy.

Before views hardened between Anglicans and puritans, early Protestants shared common views on episcopacy, justifying it according to the efficiency in governing national churches vs. single free cities. Moreover, most puritans proved allies with high churchmen on questions of establishment or licencing (traveling) preachers.

Far from abolishing church authority and order, the Reformation wished to restore it in concrete terms under the supervision of the Prince. Often troublesome with assessing ecclesiology is the Protestant treatment of the visible church. Although early Protestants acknowledged predestination as a true and sound doctrine, they somewhat sidestepped its application to the Church, often defining the Church instead as the congregation of the faithful. This might carry a couple meanings. 1. Those not under ecclesiastical discipline, i.e, presumed to be elect until otherwise shown, and, 2. those truly saved, numbered only by the Lord. Suffice to say, the pastoral sense of the phrase was often wisely favored against the less hesitant flattening of election to ecclesiology by Radicals.

First and foremost, visible church was the baptized christian community, and on the instance a particular province, headed by a Prince. This was typical for Protestant polity, and the Augsburg edict said, “the faith of the prince is the faith of the realm”. Original Protestantism consequently offered a remarkably high ecclesiology. And, though Papacy was rejected as a universal/ursurping power, prelacy often continued in Magisterial Protestant countries where the Prince was strong. In Scotland, between 1560-1592 (due to the Leith Concordant), episcopacy co-existed with Presbyterianism, the latter practiced locally.

Some Lutheran principalities also continued the old diocesan bishoprics, and in Sweden episcopacy continued under the King. Thus, many early Protestant countries did not abandon the older catholic polities. The strength of King and State was a defining feature of the later Prussian church, and when German unity began, superintendents were placed over united synods. But in each instance, Protestant bishops understood their office by virtue convention rather than divine right, and usually the influence of secular lords, backed by parliament and royal decree, determined the presence of spiritual ones in the Church, coalitions Anabaptists vehemently rejected.

The problem with church historians is failing to differentiate between early and late Protestant churchmanship. Furthermore, modern evangelicals tend to treat Radicalism as authentic protestantism, but this is no surprise when pundits mistakenly reinforce the idea that early Reformers rejected the entire medieval church. Rather, the Reformation strove to preserve ‘princely order’ in various ways.  Also, in the period 1520-1590, Lutherans desired reconciliation with Rome. This inherent ‘conservatism’ in Reforming movements was the culmination of humanist medieval thought dating back to the 12th and 15th centuries. Thus, early Reformers probably had more in common with Roman Catholics than today’s Evangelical-Free Churchers.

Anabaptist Beliefs:
Radicals were theologically mixed, but they particularly rejected the civil authority in church affairs. Some were anti-trinitarian, some militant, some pacifist. Not only does the diversity of their opinion evade definition, but Anabaptist congregations rarely had enough stability to draft common confessions. Perhaps the best known statement of their beliefs was authored by Michael Sattler– an ex-Benedictine monk and follower of the earlier anabaptist preacher, Conrad Grebel. Sattler wrote a Confession for Schleitheim in 1526 . Its seven articles were:

• Believer-only baptism (credo-baptism) following a credible profession of faith
• Rigorous banning of sinners from church communion. Moral perfectionism.
• Eucharistic bread and wine as symbols only.
• Monastic separation from the world for the congregation, and the boycotting of all established churches and secular life
• Election of pastors by laypeople/congregation with no ecclesiastical officers
• Radical pacifism
• Forbidding oaths, especially civil ones

Getting back to some of the essays written about the invasion of anabaptism into mainline protestantism, McMahon’s Rise of Radical Anabaptists admits Anabaptism originated in Zurich with close ties to Zwingli. However, the remainder of McMahon’s article puts distance between Anabaptists and Reformers, stressing differences on sacrament, creed, and other areas of thought. Nonetheless, McMahon zeroes in on two differences pertinent this essay:

“…the Anabaptist ultimately did not want a reformation of the church-state; rather, they wanted a re-institution of the true church they thought they possessed…”

McMahon says the two most prominent Anabaptist ideas were 1) a ‘reinstitution’ of a church such that it contain converted believers only (the elect), and 2) believer-only baptism. Radicals were dogmatic about opposing Erastianism, and with the rejection of civil magistrates so too the church authority advocated by Reformers. This expectation that the church have no unsaved men departed from earlier catholicism and even what might be called ‘the Reformation consensus’. McMahon rightly calls Anabaptist ecclesiology not church “reform” but “reinstitution” or ‘reinvention’. According to McMahon this was not only the result of poor theology, but it was also revisionist and ahistorical.

Where McMahon’s thesis really gets interesting is the strong affinity 16th-century Anabaptists have to modern-day Fundamentalism and denominations like Baptists. The Schleitheim Articles could practically be an accurate and descriptive confession for any non-denominational congregation today– i.e,  believer-only baptism, free church, sacrament as symbol-only, congregationally driven ministry, and no clerical order. We ought to wonder how different is 16th-century Radicalism from today’s fundies and baptist conventions? Or to put the same question differently, how much did early Protestants have in common with Rome rather than fundamentalist churches today?

Zurich — Mother of Disorder?
The pressure for Reform broke space for Radical sentiment. Generally speaking Reform was led by low clergy and sometimes nobles against bishops and emperor. The zeal for reform could cause heretical elements to spin out. For instance, tracing the genealogy of radical iconoclasm (RPW) to Marian exiles and the 1560 Scottish Covenant, we find a connection to the Swiss cities, mentioned in reference to the example of the “best of continental churches”, mainly Geneva and Zurich. There were also the collegial relationships of the period. For example Swiss cities typically exchanged ministers, and ideas cross pollinated. For example, Calvin presided in Strasbourg before ministering in Geneva. Knox ministered in Frankfurt, then the Anglo exiles in Geneva, and finally Scotland. Ministers tended to follow ethnic-refugee flows– Huguenots fleeing France to Geneva, and English escaping Mary for Frankfurt. A backdraft of exiles from Switzerland to England occurred upon continental Protestant defeat in 1548. Nonetheless, whether reformers stayed or fled, each city was reputed by the gifts of their theologian(s).

Zurich is of particular interest as it was the crucible for later debates on Sacramental realism and, for English concerns, iconoclasm. Ulrich Zwingli was Zurich’s resident theologian. In 1523 Zwingli was Zurich’s moderate, holding a middle ground against radical demands. At this earlier date Zwingli was surprisingly ‘catholic’. His liturgy had not yet touched the canon of the Mass, nor did he abolish catholic imagery. However, the caution of his reform also left him a target for more popular and immediatist leaders. By the next year Zwingli changed his sided with popular zeal, deposing the Mass but also calling for stripping church ornament/images, “Zwingli and his radical colleagues disposed of the relics, raised their ladders against the walls and whitewashed the paintings and decoraions, carted away the statues and ornaments, the gold and silver equipment, the costly vestments and splendidly bound service-books, and closed the organs.” (Liturgies of the Western Church, p. 142. ) Zwingli’s licence given to radicals would prove insufficient to keeping the popular coalition together, and by the end of the year it disintegrated over what became the next contested issue, infant baptism.

“Listed amongst Zwingli’s early collaborators were Felix Manz and Conrad Grebel. Manz and Grebel only broke from Zwingli after Ulrich refused to baptize adults who were sprinkled as infants. Anabaptists wanted ‘believer only’ baptisms, and thus treated infant baptisms as null and void. The danger here for Zwingli, and why he drew a final line with Manz and the other riff-raff, was this would have limited the authority of the church to only a small ring of fanatics. The question of infant baptism would finally force the two parties apart. Manz’s sect would become the notorious ‘Anabaptists’, but until then Anabaptism and Reformed iconoclasm were indistinguishable in the little city of Zurich.

Zwingli would not reinvent the sacrament. Nonetheless, Zurich proved the earliest, if not the epicenter, to radical iconoclasm.

Some Remarks:
The boundaries of communion should be properly based upon actual like-mindedness and common worship. Who is included in the sacrament s to speaks volumes about what denominations we believe are truly part of the visible church. Inter-communion pacts can also indicate how far reformed origins and goals have wandered. I’ve personally experienced a kind of double standard in Presbyterian churches where clergy work overtime to eliminate theocratic sentiment in favor of complete withdrawal from the civil sphere. This process probably started upon the American Revolution where the Magistrate ceased enforcing the first tablet of the decalogue. The WCF changed accordingly, the american version admitting disestablishment,”it is the duty of civil magistrates to protect the Church of our common Lord, without giving the preference to any denomination of Christians above the rest” (WCF 23.3)

Today Presbyterian communion appears to be open to anyone who is “bible believing”. This works out to be anyone who is fundamentalist. Thus, baptists can partake. But too frequently the table is closed to churchmen who have high views of Sacrament, meaning Luther could not even eat at a Presbyterian supper. This ought to be astonishing because Lutherans, Anglicans, and, at least, early Presbyterians are tightly wound together by common history and theology! The problem is modern-day Presbyterianism has moved decisively toward Anabaptism, especially in areas of authority and church discipline. Even Presbyterian historiography seems at a lost to identify with Constantine or Scottish Kings like James I.

My worry for Reformed churches is not merely the impact rapid growth models have upon worship, but how ties with Fundamentalists and other ‘free church’ traditions undermine original Protestantism. Iconoclasm/RPW invited such turmoil in England that establishment was flatly rejected as a means for organizing the church in 19th-century America. We may consider RPW a major culprit, or at least midwife, for Anabaptism’s kidnapping of Reformation. The search for a pure church composed only of the elect gave impetus to centrifugal forces in revivalism. The anti-clericalism behind the sacrament controversies encouraged congregationalism and lay societies. And, these, in turn, left the interpretation of scripture to private judgement, something original protestants abhorred. We might ask, “Given the democratic and revivalistic culture that prevails in America, can neo-Presbyterianism return to its Magisterial roots?”