The End Of The Reformation?

March 1, 2010 Posted by David N

The Wallstreet Journal has a story about a congregation of Anglicans in D. C. who are moving back to Rome, but retaining some of the “flavor” of their traditional Episcopalian worship. This is made possible by the Roman Catholic church, which recently began to work actively toward providing an official way for Anglican congregations to “return” to Rome without having to give up all of the Anglican style of worship (including much Book of Common Prayer liturgy) that they were used to.

This has been going on for a while now. What makes this WSJ article of special interest is the comments made by the pastor of this congregation, Father Eric Bergman:

…Father Bergman not only predicts a mass movement toward Rome. He believes Anglican Use may mark the beginning of the end of the Reformation. There will be “a flourishing of this throughout the world,” he says. “Wherever there are Anglicans, there will be people who want to enter Holy Mother Church.” As he told a rapt audience at St. Mary’s, “If we look at histories, heresies run themselves out after about 500 years. I believe we are seeing the last gasp of the Reformation in the mainline Protestant groups.”

First, I would be interested to see the raw data that leads Father Bergman to think that heresies run themselves out after 500 years. Arianism, one of the greatest heresies recognized by all three “branches” of Nicene Christianity, hasn’t gone away after 1700 years. In fact, all of the individual “heresies” that Rome would accuse traditional Protestants of accepting had already existed long before the Reformation (Augustine’s teaching on Predestination, as one clear example), which means we’re already well past the 500-year mark.

Besides that, though, Father Bergman’s comments strike me as extremely myopic and rather pig-headed. The mainline Episcopalian church in America hasn’t been a traditional, confessional body for a long time. In that sense, it isn’t even Protestant to begin with, and so its return to Rome can hardly illustrate the end of Protestantism. Moreover, at least 60% of the world’s Christians live outside of America and Britain, so what American Christians are doing is no longer what sets the standard (not to mention the fact that Episcopalians make up a tiny minority of American “Protestants” anyway).

His comments also overlook the fact that a number of recent statistics have shown that, on the whole, the move of most Christians who convert is away from Rome into a Protestant body, not the other way around. And right now Protestantism is exploding in Africa and China, not Catholicism.

In short, Father Berger has taken his limited experience and made some indefensible claims on the basis of it. But those who remain faithful to the Gospel ought never to be worried or troubled, no matter what “current events” seem to be saying, for the Sovereign God of history will not fail to accomplish His purpose of Redemption!

(HT: Heidelblog)