History and Beauty
I will address some of the more doctrinal problems of these churches later in the series. But I wanted to address the issue of history and beauty because I think it’s a major factor for why some evangelicals convert. I commend the fact that history and beauty characterize the churches of Rome and the East. Even if the history is sometimes misleading and the beauty gaudy, they do in fact appreciate these things. Conversely, my home team, the evangelicals, in many circles, have certainly neglected them. History and beauty are good things, but these factors alone are not reason enough to convert if it involves compromise with truth. Those compromises will be discussed later in the series. For now I simply want to say that by being truly catholic, a Reformed Catholic, one can still have beauty and history, and have them in a richer sense than Rome or the East.
By history and beauty I mean the extravagant liturgies, beautiful churches, traditional worship and teachings, and the rootedness and respect for the history of the Church. This has a certain allure and for good reason. Many evangelical churches create a culture which does not appreciate them. This has produced a generation of evangelicals who are starving for them. Subsequently, they become more apt to convert since their own tradition lacks traditional and beautiful forms of worship and fails to teach their people the history of the Church.
But Rome and the East do not monopolizes these things. Whatever is good, true, and beautiful in Rome and the East also belongs to Protestants, to Reformed Catholics. And whatever is good, true, and beautiful in the Protestant tradition can also be claimed by Reformed Catholics, if we are thinking in terms of moving beyond the term Protestant. In this way we are not restricted to one sect of the church, but claim the whole Church, and the entirety of her beauty and her history.
I want to spend the rest of the post, sharing resources, examples, and an approach to beauty and history that will hopefully be useful in pointing evangelicals, who are interested in such things, in the right direction.
Liturgy
Protestants have beautiful forms of worship.
The classical Anglican tradition is thoroughly reformed and the Book of Common Prayer has provided generations of Christians with a rich liturgical experience. The liturgy emphasizes our depravity and need for confession, repentance, and the forgiveness of sins. The word of God is read and preached. The Psalms are sung. The Eucharist is celebrated. No lasers. No hip pastors with cool Nikes. No rock show. Jane Austen, C. S. Lewis, and T. S. Eliot were formed by this liturgical tradition. Eliot identified as Anglo-Catholic, but also described his religious views as, “a Catholic cast of mind, a Calvinist heritage, and a Puritanical temperament.” This is more generous to the Reformed branch of the Church than I’ve witnessed from many modern Anglo-Catholics. Point being, we have a liturgical soil which produced Pride and Prejudice, Till We Have Faces, and The Four Quartets. This isn’t to say there is always a direct connection between traditional liturgies and good art. But it does show that the Protestant tradition has produced good art. And that if there is some connection to a more sacramental liturgy and good art, we have the fruits of that.
The Lutheran churches also have traditional forms of worship. They’ve been one of the least iconoclastic tribes in Protestantism, and have maintained some beautiful liturgies. Their divine service setting three, for example. One unfamiliar with the inside baseball of liturgics might not be able to tell the difference between this and a Roman Catholic service. But the theology and teaching can be solidly Protestant, or solidly evangelical catholic. It certainly comes from a thoughtful and orthodox heritage.
In the Presbyterian world, there has been a renewal of liturgical worship. Much of this, it appears to me, has been influenced by Lutheran forms of worship. I have gained a lot from this movement, and consider some of the main figures to be very helpful in thinking biblically about worship, maintaining and loving our reformed heritage, and yet not being slavishly bound to it.
Jeffrey Meyers’ book The Lord’s Service: The Grace of Covenant Renewal Worship is a great book for any pastor looking to reform their worship on Sunday morning. Rather than simply re-appropriating traditional liturgies for tradition sake, he shows how covenant renewal worship is Biblically derived. Of course, most traditional liturgies are Biblically derived, but some are more rooted in Scripture than others, and errors can crowd out a clear Biblical atmosphere over time. So, we always have to be ready to trim the hedges and pull out the weeds. Peter Leithart and James Jordan at The Theopolis Institute do good work in this area. James Jordan’s The Sociology of the Church, Through New Eyes, and Rite Reasons articles are great. Our own worship service at Saint Athanasius Church resembles something like the covenant renewal service Jeffrey Meyers’ outlines in his book, with the addition of a time for orderly prophecy and speaking in tongues as prescribed in 1 Corinthians 14.
I find some Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox liturgies to be far too ornate, repetitive, gaudy, and perhaps idolatrous. These issues will be addressed later. But for now, my own aesthetic preferences are along the lines of the kind worship one sees in some Anglican and Lutheran churches, and especially the kind of worship being crafted by Meyers, Jordan, and Leithart.
There is a kind of liturgical snobbery that can be cultivated in any circle that is really into liturgy, to include some Protestants. Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy can produce an aggressively hostile approach to anything which deviates from their preferred form of worship. Much of that comes from a disordered prioritization of liturgical “orthodoxy.” I put orthodoxy in quotes because the New Testament is not overly concerned with the things Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox are. They can become overly scrupulous about the minutiae of liturgical formulas and rituals, while neglecting the weightier matters of the law.
I think the evangelical instinct which maintains a lot of freedom in worship is a right one, despite evangelical errors. We want to be Biblical first and foremost in our worship. And so there may be great things we can recover from the worship in the East from late antiquity, or from the Medieval Church. But one is not inherently in sin if they choose to use guitars and a drum set in worship, either. Furthermore, while congregational worship on the Lord’s Day is important, and we ought to keep it reverent and not neglect it, we have to always keep in mind that our worship is primarily how we live our lives. That a life lived in selfless sacrifice and love is our spiritual act of worship. We are temples of the Holy Spirit and our lives throughout the whole week is our liturgy. Liturgical snobbery de-prioritizes this ultimate expression of worship, and prioritizes concentrated reverent ceremony and ritual. We ought to have both, rightly ordered.
Beautiful Churches
Protestants have beautiful churches.
The Washington National Cathedral of Saint Peter is Episcopalian. The Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City is Episcopalian. Memorial Presbyterian Church in St. Augustine, FL is surprisingly beautiful. I was recently in Fort Wayne, IN, and visited St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, which is generally beautiful, but especially its interior and altar.
If we prioritize our bodies as temples that are beautified with faith and good works, we should be able to healthily construct buildings that are ornamented in rich symbolism and beauty. If a life lived in holiness instills a sense of awe and wonder to the outside world, then our buildings ought to do the same. Of course, just as faithful lives can instill a sense of hostility and even murder, so can a building which richly symbolizes the Christian faith. Just as some of our enemies would want to put us to death and destroy our bodily temples, they also would want to destroy the buildings which symbolize our spiritual acts of worship. Just as our lives reflect what we believe, our material creations do the same. You cannot eradicate the “mannishness of man” to borrow a phrase from Francis Schaeffer. Even when you try to not be symbolic and artful in your creations, you are making symbols and statements about who you are and what you believe. Man has a God-given desire to create, to build, to beautify. I don’t believe the abuses of Rome in the Middle Ages are enough to remain in a Puritan mode of life. Perhaps it was necessary that many of us engaged in such emphatic iconoclasm, but I think we can rehabilitate our thinking and affections, such that rightly ordered love will be able to bring internal spirituality together with earthy, beautiful, architecture and art.
God was not indifferent to the outward expressions of worship in the ancient Church. “You shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty. So you shall speak to all who are gifted artisans, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make Aaron’s garments, to consecrate him, that he may minister to Me as priest.” (Exodus 28:2-3) God instructs Moses to make vestments for the Aaron. Why? For glory and for beauty. God is concerned with the heart, but He is also not indifferent to external beauty. He desires it in worship.
The tabernacle had its own kind of glory, which then progressed into greater external glory with Solomon’s temple. And of course, the temple God makes for Himself is the building up of the Church in the New Covenant.
“Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:19-21)
So, we are the House of God, but we also create spaces of worship, and just as the Lord instructed the worship to be internally and externally beautiful in the Old Covenant, we can apply that principle to our New Covenant worship, too. It’s okay if we worship with the saints in our homes or in cathedrals. But my hope is that we will have churches over all the earth that surpass the external glory of Solomon’s Temple, the Hagia Sophia, and the Cathedral of Notre Dame. It may be argued that the Hagia Sophia and the cathedrals of the Middle Ages did surpass the glory of Solomon’s Temple. But I hope for a future where we even surpass the glory of these. This, I believe will happen, when the saints truly live out the beauty of holiness.
History
Protestants have history.
John Henry Newman once said that “to be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.” And many people do convert to Rome or the East when they begin to read the Early Church Fathers. However, it has been my experience, and many others, that the deeper I go into history, the more I love Protestantism. I can appreciate the truths of Thomas Aquinas and John Chrysostom just as much as I can appreciate the truths of John Calvin and Thomas Cranmer. One can love the richness of all Church history, both East and West, appropriating the good and discarding the bad, with an eye on staying faithful to Christ and His Apostles and Prophets as written in Scripture. This is the Protestant Principle and as such we become truly catholic and truly orthodox.
The Reformers were not right on everything, and they did depart from corruptions they perceived in the Church. Mostly true corruptions, sometimes not. But they were not seeking to depart from historical rootedness. They were seeking to be Biblical first, and recover the truths of the Church in all of her past, especially the Early Fathers. When you read John Calvin, for example, he is always supplementing his arguments with quotations from the Early Fathers. Sometimes it is favorable, sometimes it’s a critique. But he does so with an eye on Scripture as his standard.
The Caroline Divines in England also had an appreciation for the Early Fathers. Sometimes too much and too uncritical. But this tendency to remain historically rooted in the Anglican Church has always been there. The non-Jurors outside of England had an affinity for certain Eastern liturgical practices, like the epiclesis. The calling down of the Holy Spirit on the bread and wine. The Oxford Movement, though Romanizing in many ways, was a renewal and appreciation for the Early Fathers. Newman converted to Rome. But others like John Keble and Edward Pusey did not. They also were not correct in everything, but I think we can appreciate their practice of personal holiness, zeal for mission and charity work to the poor in the slums in London, and love of pre-Reformation riches.
There has been and continues to be very good work by Protestants who appreciate the catholicity of the Church. The Davenant Institute and The Calvinist International are excellent resources from a Protestant or Reformed Catholic perspective. Angels in the Architecture is a small collection of easy to read essays by Douglas Wilson and Douglas Jones that touches on these things. The Principle of Protestantism by Philip Schaff is excellent, as is Mercersburg theology in general. James Jordan’s Through New Eyes and Peter Leithart’s The End of Protestantism approach these issues with a Postmillennial optimism that makes my heart sing. Jordan Cooper is a Lutheran pastor who addresses issues of history and the Early Fathers on occasion. Ryan Reeves, who I believe is a reformed Anglican, has a history series on YouTube which is a great introduction to Church history. There are way too many great resources to list here. But they exist in droves, and I have found them more stimulating and true than Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox resources.
History is not static. The Church progresses in her holiness, understanding, and sanctification, just as individuals do. We can look back on our history and love it. But the glory of the Middle Ages is not the same as the glory of the Reformation. The glory of the Early Fathers is not going to be the glory we are attaining now and in the future. These are all peculiar glories to those moments in history and have brought us to where we are now. And the glory we will attain in the future, even before the resurrection, will be even greater glory than those. So, I think it’s a mistake to look at history and want to return to it uncritically as if specific historical moments were in every way greater than what we have now, or that just because someone is ancient they were never mistaken. The Spirit of the Lord has been building and transforming His bride for a long time. And so we can reach far back into history and love the goodness attained therein, but then we use that, learn from it, and reach forward to an ever increasing expansion and glory of the Kingdom.
Paul says,
“Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” (2 Corinthians 3:17-18) Instead of saying from glory to glory, some translations say “ever-increasing glory.” This is talking about us, about God’s people, about the Church. We are being transformed into the image of the Lord from glory to glory.
James Jordan ends Through New Eyes with an illustration of our present time by comparing it to the time of Samuel. The Ark was at Kiriath-jearim. The Tabernacle was at Nob. The High Priest was out in the field with David. And a wicked king ruled Israel. A great time to despair and embrace defeat. A great time to forget the miraculous things the Lord had done in the past, and not hope for anything greater to happen in the future. But what was coming? Solomon’s Temple and prosperous reign. Who could have envisioned a unified Israel under the rule of Solomon and the glory of His Temple? God picks up the dead fragments of Israel’s history and resurrects them into something new and better. I agree with Jordan that we are in a similar moment in history. And it is myopic to think that Rome, the East, Lutherans, Reformed, Charismatics, or the historical traditions of any of these tribes have all the answers. They don’t. You don’t. Rome and the East certainly don’t. You search the pages of history and think that in them you have eternal life, but it is they that bear witness to Christ. The Person of Christ, living and active through His Holy Spirit in His Church. Reviving her. Transforming her. Redeeming her.
Conclusion
Francis Bacon once said, “A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.” Jesse Nigro, editor of The North American Anglican, puts a clever twist on this and says, “A little history inclineth man’s mind to Romanism, but depth in history bringeth men’s minds about to Protestantism.” To be deep in history is to cease to be sectarian like Rome or the East. To be deep in history is to realize the Spirit of God is not contained in these tidy boxes of, in many cases, misleading history.
The rootless evangelical has reason to desire historic rootedness. We all want to know our ancestry. If we are faithful, we all desire to honor our father and our mother, to include Mother Church. And I have found that well-informed Protestants have a rich history which is honest with the facts and messiness of it all. We don’t need to adopt false narratives or turn our brains off to appreciate history. The saints of the past were men, too. If they saw the way they’re venerated by some of the men and women in the Roman and Eastern churches, and even many Protestant churches, they would lift them off the intellectual ground they have prostrated themselves on, and say with Saint Peter, “Stand up; I too am a man.” (Acts 10:26) We don’t need to discard sober-mindedness about history in order to appreciate history. And we don’t need to discard our immediate history for the sake of ancient history. It is all ours, because we are in Christ, and to quote Abraham Kuyper, “There is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry, Mine!”
Feller of Trees 