The Future of Protestantism - Peter Leithart, Fred Sanders, Carl Trueman, and Peter Escalante

I watched the whole thing; but I admit I fell asleep here and there for 5 minutes or so. I think I went back and listened again to the parts I missed.

I am trying to understand Peter Leithart.

He was tried for heresy (it seems, if I understand it rightly, basically, of being accused of aspects of the “Federal Vision” – that infant baptism justifies and regenerates – and aspects of something similar to the New Perspective on Paul that seem to be adding the merit of works for final salvation and not distinquishing between justification and sanctification), within the last couple of years, but was exonerated.

Go to the Aquila Report and search under Peter Leithart and you can find the details.  (There are several other articles there on the heresy trial of P. Leithart.)

But the main prosecutor, Jason Stellman, later became a Roman Catholic. (very ironic)

Leithart seems to say that Roman Catholicism is part of the same body of Christ and the people are brothers and sisters as they were baptized with the same Trinitarian baptism. Leithart seems to be arguing the same kind of thing that Doug Wilson argued in his debate with James White, “Are Roman Catholics our brothers and sisters?” (see at http://www.aomin.org) – Wilson says something like “grab them by their baptism”.

I think Peter Escalante was wrong at 1:28:00 where he says that Francis Turretin said that the RCC was a church, just deformed, but has word and sacrament, etc.

Turretinfan provides evidence to the contrary:

http://turretinfan.blogspot.com/2008/04/real-turretin-on-church-of-rome-in-his.html

No one mentioned directly the anathemas of the Council of Trent on the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

In this video, Leithard emphasizes:
1. Ecumenical meetings, Unity, John 17 – getting together locally to foster unity and discussions with Roman Catholics
2. Seemed to say that Transubstantiation could be an opinion, but not a dogma ( ?? !!!)
3. Liturgy
4. Sacraments
5. Eucharist/Lord’s supper has to be celebrated every week

Carl Trueman said that J. Gresham Machen’s view was that theological liberalism was not Christianity, but that RCC is a distorted form of Christianity; and that the Reformers did not re-baptize anyone who converted from Rome to the Protestant faith.

Trueman was good in emphasizing the Word/Scriptures/preaching/teaching and pastoral implications of helping the average person understand the issues, by not confusing them with too much ecumenism.

They needed to have James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, and John Bugay of Triablogue and John McArthur, R. C. Sproul, and William Webster there to make the discussion more lively.

A very fine Protestant ecclesiology

I am thoroughly enjoying this discussion, and I am thoroughly edified by Peter Escalante's explanations surrounding the Protestant definition of the word "church" here. I believe this goes a long way toward defining a Protestant ecclesiology that makes sense of the Reformation history as well as giving us a way to understand "the Protestant Church" moving forward in our own era.

To get straight to it: the corpus christianum on earth is a multitude, not a single political unity. This is why it can be genuinely transnational without being a multinational corporation or empire, and why it can be the principle of many commonwealths. The visible worship assemblies are actions of the corpus christianum, whereby the heavenly reality of that earthly corpus christianum becomes more iconically focused, so to speak. But as I said, a believer is not “more” in the mystical body on Sunday than on Friday.

As Steven has said, I think the idea you’re getting at is actually the corpus christianum. The important thing to note is that the c.c. as such is temporally a multitude, not a politically or para-politically incorporated institution. It underlies household, State, ministerium and worship assembly, and other civic and social forms.

* * *

Protestantism: of course there many movements in the 16th century, but most historians of the time have little trouble in clearly identifying a Magisterial Reformation, and can do so because it enjoyed a remarkable consensus on the crucial points. “Semper reformanda” does not primarily refer to doctrinal revision- the phrase isn’t doctrina semper reformanda- but rather, means that the Christians can always do more to get their act together. It cannot serve as warrant for ever more speculative theology, or for rejection of classic truths. It’s one thing to say that evangelical doctrine is wrong, but quite another to appeal to the Reformation example as warrant for departing from its principles…

* * *

You say “the institution which we call the Church”. Well, with the Reformers, I would say the Church is primarily the union of believers with Christ, a name for the relation of the Person to the many persons (and as Steven noted, this is straight Luther). The visible assemblies are indispensable, but derivative. The visible worship assembly is not an interposed mediator between a believer and the true Mediator. It is rather birds of a feather flocking together, fixed on the Sun of the Word, and winging on the air of the Spirit. You say you can’t square the Protestant conception with the Biblical metaphors; but you then admit that it probably does square with the evangelical doctrine of the mystical body. What you object to is the evangelical distinction between that one Body, and the many visible assemblies, because, it seems, you wish to entirely conflate them. Such a conflation leads of necessity, by the way, to ecclesiologies such as those of Rome, or Witness Lee. And missing in all your explanations of your position is the classic idea of the corpus christianum…

* * *

On alternatives: I think that there really aren’t that many alternatives, and the clearer one is about principles and the more coherent one’s thought becomes, the more one will find himself tracking with one of the handful of possibilities. I am not speaking of airtight systems; I am speaking of basic configurations of first principle, and there really is a phenomenological typology of these. Anabaptism and Rome really do both conflate the visible assemblies and the mystical body, and thus both, predictably, destroy the corpus christianum; and so on. There is a sort of science of these things.

On conflation: I do know you want to make a distinction. It would be helpful were you to recognize that we do not at all radically separate the visible earthly assemblies and the mystical Body of Christ: they share an identical center, the Word, and they are connected in living persons. The crucial difference, I think, is that we think that the way in the which the mystical Body most basically presents itself in the world is as the corpus christianum, which is a multitude; and that c.c. staffs, as it were, the household, the visible assemblies, and the civic orders and offices. It is not itself a polis; it is rather the principle of many commonwealths.

Already and Not Yet

Protestantism did not destroy Christendom: it simply reconfigured it for the better, with the accidental circumstance of having to adjust for retrenched RC opposition to integral Reform.

This is a comment from a writer named Peter Escalante, in comments on a blog written by Steven Wedgeworth, addressed to Darryl Hart.

Hart was writing in response to an article that Steven wrote on the topic of "Two Kingdoms."

This is one discussion that I think is worth having, and it is worth taking the time to do it well. [Paul Manata at Triablogue is giving it a good shot.] As D.A. Carson and others have noted, one of the key discussions that Protestants need to have in our time is on the topic of Christ and Culture.

This is really an older discussion among groups that that sort of break out along lines that Paul Manata outlined in an "Ordinary Means" podcast, on the topic of: "transformationalists, participators, and withdrawalism."

Much more could be said, but I won't say it, because I'm not really much more than an observer at this point. However, I am an optimist by nature, and I believe there is very much good that will come out of this discussion.

Of course, underpinning it all, is the theology that came out of the Protestant Reformation. My calling, as I see it, is to continue to address what Peter Escalante called the "retrenched RC opposition to integral Reform." That's how this all ties together.