Can a Protestant be a conservative? Not the Rush Limbaugh/George W. Bush kind of conservative but an authentic, thoughtful traditionalist conservative. The kind of conservative that would bear a Russell Kirk seal of authenticity?
Before you simply write off the question as silly, please consider the big picture. Consider the results of the Protestant Reformation from a political/cultural standpoint. Whatever Luther or Calvin may have intended, the result was the fracturing of Christendom and the rise modernist nation-state and the secularization of the culture. Conservative Roman Catholic apologists never tire of pointing out the cultural tragedy of the Reformation. How do we respond?
Having spent a great deal of time thinking about the problem, I wish to start outlining my conclusions. I will do so in separate posts. However, please take this as an opportunity to address the question for yourself and let me know what you think.
“The Protestant and Catholic Reformations of the sixteenth century both were reactions against the excesses of the Renaissance. For that intellectual and artistic and social movement called the Renaissance amounted, often, to a denial of the Christian understanding of the human condition. The Renaissance exalted man’s egoism, in defiance of Christian teachings of humility, charity, and community. The Renaissance glorified in fleshly pleasures. . . . [and] accepted the craft ‘power politics’ of Machiavelli, as distinguished from the Christian political theories of justice and freedom and order that had prevailed from the time of Gregory the Great to the time of Dante”–Russell Kirk, Roots of American Order, 230.
He can be an Old Whig, etymologically at least.
Thomas Boston set a tough standard for legitimate divisions in the Church:
Those who reject communion in the ordinances of Christ with a true church, and separate from her, because of corruptions in her, while in the meantime they might keep communion with her without sin, are guilty of schism and sinful separation: this I think will not be denied, for if our thus keeping communion be not our sin, it must be our duty; surely it is not left indifferent.
So if Boston is right, the question is: Could the Reformers keep communion with the Church of Rome without sin?
Prior to Trent many in Italy (e.g. Contarini) held more or less evangelical beliefs about salvation but refused to join the Reformers in separating from the Roman Church.
They faced a hard choice as their beliefs came to be condemned. Vermigli, Pole, and Carnesecchi exemplify the three paths they could take.
Vermigli realized that his beliefs were in conflict with his Church, but also refused to give up what he understood as the gospel, and so left Italy to join the Reformers.
Pole submitted to the doctrinal definitions of his Church, even when these went against his earlier convictions about salvation, believing that obedience to Christ required his acquiescing.
Carnesecchi and others like him, men Calvin called Nicodemists, conformed to the Roman Church while privately holding on to certain condemned beliefs.
Dermot Fenlon’s Heresy and Obedience makes for fascinating reading on these issues.
Here is Jerome Zanchi’s testimony about himself and the other Reformers:
And it is certain, the Roman Church, which flourished in the days of the ancient Fathers, was then extolled so much by them, and styled the holy Church, and the Mother of the Churches, for no other cause than for that it held steadfastly the doctrine received from the Apostles, when the most part of the rest had departed from it. But in these days what doctrine and what worship they profess, and how much they have in many particulars degenerated, is sufficiently known: Wherefore we again protest that we have separated from the present Roman Church only upon inducement from the word of God, and in obedience to the command of God therein; and in that respect deemed it most necessary to depart from the idolatries of this most corrupted Roman Church, that we may no longer continue in apostasy from the Catholic and Apostolic Church, but at length return into her bosom. For we have not forsaken the Roman Church generally and in all regards, but only in those things wherein she is fallen from the Apostolic Church and from herself, the ancient and pure Church. Nor have we departed from her with any other mind, than of returning to her, and renewing communion in her congregations, in case she would reform and resume her former purity. Which that it may come to pass, we pray unto the Lord Jesus with our whole souls. For what can be more desirable to every pious man, than that where we were born again by Baptism, there also to live unto the last? So it be in the Lord. I Jerome Zachius, with my whole family, wish that this be witnessed to the whole Church of Christ, to all eternity.
Those who reject communion in the ordinances of Christ with a [/b]true church[/b],
Ah, but would Mr. Boston recognise the RC Church as a “true church”?
Let me be clear that my question is not about the theological propriety of the Reformation. Although, even theologically we must admit that the Reformation was, in a sense, a failure. Luther’s attempt to reform the Church led to a fracturing of the body of Christ. Neither Luther or anyone else could have foreseen how the radicals would be unleashed unto the multiplication of divisions.
However, my point is not theological but cultural. Can a movement which shaped the modern world by the transforming act of will. Luther standing contra mundum, contra tradition, contra all authority save that of his own conscience. I am not implying anything negative in what I am saying, but it raises the question- how can the Reformation Protestants ever champion the authority of forms as norms? How can they be defenders of tradition even when their tradition is to be anti-traditional?
I am aware of the history of the tension. I am aware that confessional documents of the Reformation churches provided the institutionalized authority and tradition to govern its members. Yet, it does not change the fact that every “conservative” body will have its Roger Williams whose conscience demands he stand against the tradition in favor of his personal reading of the Holy Writ.
I am fully confident that the Reformed can make good liberals, good libertarians, and even good Old Whigs but can they ever be good conservatives? (If conservative is defined by a defense of authority, form, and tradition.)
I’m not sure theological and cultural or political propriety can in the end be separated. There are different kingdoms, different spheres, but the same persons inhabit each.
Is the authority of God to be identified absolutely with any authority of earth? What if an otherwise legitimate (i.e. divinely sanctioned) authority among men acts ultra vires by demanding an obedience not due to anyone save God?
If the Reformers did not have the option to obey God and obey men, then their choice was made for them. Even those who sat in Moses’ seat could not require unconditional submission.
Conservatives must uphold both legitimate authority and the dignity of the individual. That makes for a tension that is often messy and must be resolved with prudence.
In an individualistic climate conservatives will naturally oppose the prevailing mores in support of the standing forms of authority. But when the climate verges on the totalitarian, the reverse will happen. In both cases it’s prudence that operates.
To be sure, there are many things not worth dying for in defiance of the powers that be. Conservatives have a sense of the proportion of things, and they resist the temptation to draw inflexible lines when they don’t have to. Usually it is possible to find a way out that lets the individual respect authority while still serving God.
But is this possible in all cases? Would St Athanasius and Maximus the Confessor make good conservatives?
Or for that mater, the early Christians who would pray for the Emperor but refused to burn incense to him?
Conservatism is not an ism. It’s a disposition rooted in sophrosyne and respectful, indeed reflective of particular historical circumstances. Our circumstances in the Christian West include a measure of respect for the authority of individual conscience. This is part of the tradition we are out to conserve.
As the song goes, “You’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything.” The challenge lies in knowing when and where to take a stand, when and where to yield. It’s prudence or common sense that must determine this, and conservatives know that there are limits to how far common sense can be codified as precepts and injunctions to be followed in all cases.
“[B]ut can they {Reformationals} ever be good conservatives? (If conservative is defined by a defense of authority, form, and tradition.)
No, nor should we be. We are conservative as to truth not form.
Bill,
Thanks for raising that question. I’m still unsettled over the definition of what it means to be a conservative. If conservatism is merely a defense of the status quo, then we Protestants have a problem (and one on which we might do well to dialogue with Alasdair McIntyre). It also explains the inevitable failure of the conservative status quo (like Bill Kauffman recently suggested, standing athwart things is a good way to get neutered).
If the conservative disposition is essentially a distrust of hegemony and ideology, perhaps we have something a little more tenable. And along these lines, the Reformation — at least at its outset — was essentially a conservative movement (as useless a descriptor as that might be).
Davey,
I agree completely but am left unsatisfied. The history of Protestantism is a history of Protestantism has been the history of the rights of the individual conscience tearing down the standards of the community. One need only look at the American Main Line denominations, or to consider the path of American Evangelicalism.
Is there something in our Protestant DNA that leads us, again and again, down the path of liberalism? Not only theological but cultural and political as well?
Kudos to Bill for raising the question. There’s no doubt that Rome warned disaster and social chaos would follow the Reformation; there’s no doubt that the popes opposed modernism prior to and more firmly than anyone else (the same is true of abortion); and there’s also no doubt that (political) liberalism accompanied the decline of faith in the West. Protestants are vulnerable to this criticism to the degree they uncritically accept the patrimony of the Enlightenment (reason, equality, freedom).
It would be good to see Reformation apologists/ neo-confessionalists attempt to deal with the problem. The charge is especially compelling in light of the fact that every modern error has its religious analogue in the Protestant system.
Rationalistic reason corresponds with sola scriptura. The individual regenerate mind immediately apprehends that the Bible is the word of God, not because any church says so. The individual then becomes a competent judge to perceive what is “expressly set down in Scripture” and to draw deductions “by good and necessary consequence” about all “necessary things” pertaining to “God’s glory” and “man’s salvation, faith, and life.” And, the liberty of conscience principle implies that no individual should be coerced to submit his judgment to the collective wisdom of the church (possibly because no collective wisdom is accessible).
Political equality corresponds to the Priesthood of all Believers, with a suppression or radical flattening of hierarchy in ecclesiastical order. There may be offices in the church but they are representational, i.e., temporary and not capable of being hierarchically arranged.
Finally, political freedom corresponds to blurred distinctions between ruler and ruled, and the deterioration of the force of law in ecclesiastical society. Apparently, the Kingdom of God is a representative democracy that propounds no rule beyond what is already recognized at the lowest level of competence. And, the lowest common denominator keeps getting lower.
These conclusions are corroborated by the fact that Roman apologists and Whig interpreters basically agree, one side praising, the other decrying the results.
Furthermore, in light of these sociopolitical-religious correspondences, the Hartian disjunction between civic and Christian virtue appears as a bold admission that the very things thought to be good for the church turn out to be bad—very bad—for civil society.
Iohannes counsels prudence in deciding when authoritarianism should be counteracted with individual rights and when to assert authority when individualism gets out of hand. He is in basic agreement with “igasx” that Protestants are concerned about conserving truth, not form. No earthly authority can be absolutely identified with divine authority, because all earthly authorities have commanded disobedience to God at one time or another. As a result, earthly institutions, offices, and laws are shown to be infinitely malleable in form (having no inherent nature) as the dialectic of authority versus freedom works itself out in history.
There is a rationalistic presupposition at work here: i.e., no concrete arrangement is stable because occasional exceptions exist. The examples are endless. No visible church is indefectible because some churches have fallen away. No ecclesiastical pronouncement compels the conscience because some ecclesiastical pronouncements have been fallible. No office exists by divine right because some office-bearers have turned out to be scoundrels. No sacrament works ex opere operato because not all the baptized persevere. No human work can please God because sin is never entirely overcome in this life.
This is the strand in Protestant DNA that Bill is wondering about. It is the tendency that always urges the exception against the rule, the extenuating circumstance against the law, the short-term solution against long-term stability.
As Bradley pointed out, self-exaltation is older than Protestantism. But it is even older than the Renaissance; it goes back to the Garden of Eden.
Liberal political and ecclesiastical arrangement is institutionalized rebellion. It is “conservative” in the sense that the American Revolution which purported to restore the constitutional rights of Englishmen (abstracted from English society) was conservative. The Declaration actually reveals the radical character of the Revolution because it proposes natural rights abstracted from historic revelation. Such “conservatism” discerns no permanence in the world flux because the rule of heaven is never actualized in history.
We have been told that we are gods. (Only gods possess an absolute right to life, liberty, and happiness.) We are constantly encouraged to think we are mature enough to seize power and rule ourselves as we see fit—that no rulers exist that are better placed than we ourselves. The freedom we acquire for ourselves turns out to be illusory however, and instead, we become more and more entangled in tyrannies we ourselves devise.
There is a rationalistic presupposition at work here: i.e., no concrete arrangement is stable because occasional exceptions exist.
On the contrary, the gist of my comments was that occasional exceptions need not undermine ordinary stability provided that prudence, balance, a sense of proportion is operative. All principles are liable to abuse. Conservatives know this, and hence the importance of a level head in the application of ideas. Protestant principles break down when the exception is made the rule. The same holds true with most any principles. It is the part of wisdom to identify the rare, true exceptions amidst many things, perhaps unpleasant, but normal and bearable.
Again, abusus non tollit usum, and to everything there is a season. A strong case can be made that the problem for us lies not with the Refomers’ principles, but with how subsequent generations have redeployed them in the wrong circumstances. Today’s cultural and religious anarchy is not the only lens through which to see the Reformation. For a fair picture, Luther should also be viewed against the backdrop of the conciliar movement and earlier scenes in the Christian tradition. The question about Maximus the Confessor, which I borrowed from someone else, was not tongue-in-cheek. The saint’s words here (scroll down) look rather like Luther’s. Indeed, they look like the words of the Cameronians–whose fault, according to Macpherson, “really was not in theory but in practice.” Boston reproved them for standing firm and aloof when, without sin, they could, and therefore should, have yielded. Though I am happily RP, I think Boston was right. But it remains to ask, Can Protestants thus yield to Rome? I think not, which is why I brought up the examples of Vermigli, Pole, and Carnesecchi.
Mr Matthews,
As I read the gospels I find that a large portion of those texts are a polemic of the great rationalist, Jesus of Nazareth, against the hegemony of the Pharisees.
In the end whether it be the hegemony of the Pharisees or a Liberal hegemony or a Romanist hegemony or the current fad in some Reformed circles to produce a Reformed hegemony they all seek to abort the conscience, diminish it’s sanctity, for the false security in human authority.
I suppose taking a long term view of history and it’s ebbs and flows it’s not all that surprising that the current zeitgeist looks approvingly at a hegemonic disposition.