Someday, when I’m caught up again, I plan to write a review of
’s book by the same name as this post title and subtitle (The End of Protestantism). The book has been out for nearly a decade, but it stirred up some controversy when it was published in 2016. Regrettably, I only read it recently (and still have a little bit of the book to finish because I had to set it aside for other more urgent reading).
In short, Leithart’s general thesis is that ecclesiastical maps have shifted in the past and they are in the midst of being rearranged even now, and that gives us a fresh opportunity for repentance and reunion. He means for his book to serve as an “exhortation in the interim.” He writes,
Ecclesial maps have changed in the past. They will change again. The church as we know it had to be mapped, and so it is remappable. Edit that: it is not remappable; it is being remapped before our eyes, if we open our eyes to see it. Or, edit again: it has been remapped, while many of us had our heads down and our eyes fixed obsessively on the frequently petty travails of our own denominations. The church is being rearranged, and that opens up fresh opportunities for reunion, fresh opportunities to repent of our divisions and to seek once again to please our Lord Jesus. We are seeing God answer Jesus's prayer before our eyes, and that encourages us to pray and work more fervently. This will require nothing less than death. To please Jesus, we must share his cross by dying to our unfaithful forms of church and churchmanship. We must die to the names we now bear, in hopes of receiving new ones. Reunion demands death because death in union with Jesus is the only path toward resurrection.1
Although it could be argued (as some have) that his project for unity is pie-in-the-sky theology, Leithart is a theologian I greatly respect for a number of reasons, and he lays out his case—albeit controversial and arguable—carefully and without the kind of lowest-common-denominator ecumenism that would make any serious follower of Christ cringe. And Leithart is certainly not alone in his optimism.
Enter Thomas C. Oden and Jens Zimmerman, two theologians I have been reading carefully for nearly a decade now who, in many ways, share a similar view with Leithart. Although Oden’s paleo-orthodoxy and Zimmerman’s Incarnational Humanism have been hugely insightful and strongly convincing, even their theologically-rooted optimistic view for Church unity and cultural secularity are likewise not without important obstacles that need to be navigated.
Research along this theological avenue is a project I hope the Lord allows me time and resources to pursue extensively in my coming years; but, at the moment I want to take the opportunity to briefly respond to a note posted by a Substack writer I enjoy following.
Here is the post:
Mostly, I agree with his position as articulated here and in his followup comments with his readers. But, more importantly, his post provides me with a great opportunity to—again, briefly—elucidate my own position more specifically.
Here is my response:
I whole-heartedly agree that we who adhere to historical traditions of Christianity share sorrow and frustration with many “modern” church practices; and, what passes for “protestant” in the west is neither historical nor biblical. Three cheers for bold and insightful
!!!But instead of “Protestant” I prefer “reformed catholicity” (in the spirit of paleo-orthodoxy). I would further contend that although there is obviously a vast chasm that needs to be mended in order to restore unity, and that chasm is a long way from being healed, it is the real cultural priority.
Leithart reminds us, ‘it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God’ (1 Pet. 4:17). Whether we’re looking at the East/West Schism, the Protestant Reformation, or even the fragmentations of “enlightened modernity,” the divisions and distortions of the Church that I think all sincere Christians lament are not simply historical accidents. They’re the fruit of God’s refining judgment on the household of God.
In the apostolic and classical periods, Christianity was confessed as one Lord, one faith, one baptism (Ephesians 4:5); up through the first seven ecumenical councils, the Church largely maintained that unity. I say largely because obviously there were heresies that drew them to form the councils. Nevertheless, I would argue that human pride and forgetfulness of our catholic (i.e., universal) inheritance have produced the bitter fruit of schism.2
“Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails (even the Bride of Christ?) to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled;” -Hebrews 12:14–15
If my argument is true, then I would assert that our task is not to double down on siloed identities, but to reach back to the Patristics for guidance and entrust ourselves to the Holy Spirit of God while working together to do good (1 Pet. 4:19).
To be clear, I’m not suggesting we achieve unity by erasing our doctrinal distinctives; but we do need to humble ourselves under Christ’s lordship and repent of the sins that fractured the body of Christ. Further, I’m not suggesting we need to “go back in time,” because the church was expected to “grow up into maturity in Christ,” but we do need to seek once again to live as those to whom the faith was once delivered. In this sense, the real cultural priority before us is not the fighting of “culture wars,” but the restoration of Christian unity. Again, I’m not talking about a lowest-common-denominator ecumenism, but a catholicity marked by truth, holiness, humility, and love of God and neighbor.
As it pertains to the most evil aspects of our “cultural warring” (i.e., abortion, homosexual marriage, trans identity, no-fault divorce, etc.), at the very least we ought to do the one without leaving the other undone.
Peter J. Leithart, The End of Protestantism: Pursuing Unity in a Fragmented Church (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group, 2016), 5.
Consider Vincent of Lérin’s (d. c. 445 AD) assertion that true Christianity is “that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all,” is sometimes summarized as “the remembering community.”