I am leaving Neo-Protestantism for Holy Orthodoxy.
Since I have defended the principles behind Sola Scriptura previously in my work, I owe my readers and supporters an explanation of why I can no longer defend it and what precipitated that change. I have been quite vocal about my Christian faith on this publication, and unapologetically so, as well as the decrepit state of the church in America: it is only proper that I bare my soul on what lead to this change in perspective. I have spent years now examining Orthodoxy’s claims, and roughly twenty years reading the Fathers. This decision is not one made lightly, for this has been a road long traveled.
I, like many Evangelicals and Protestants in modern America, grew up taking the Bible and Christian history for granted. Very little, if anything, is ever taught in our pulpits outside a very small slice of this history. If you are lucky, your pastor’s perspective on Christian history starts in the 15th century, with the time period in between it and the closing pages of the New Testament (NT) being largely a void. Though these events are central to our reception and understanding of the Faith, most American Protestants can not tell you how we got the Bible, what actually happened at the Council of Nicaea, who the Cappadocian Fathers are, or what the Filioque is (let alone why it even matters.)
When I first started my writing career, I was a husband, and now find myself a father: it is this responsibility, more than anything else, that has forced me to concretely answer these issues, as I have an obligation to teach my family the “faith once delivered to the saints.” My guiding principle for all theological questions and inquiries regarding my faith has, and remains, this: I want to believe and I want to teach what the Lord Jesus Christ and His Apostles taught. The question which eventually made this decision unavoidable grew out of something readers of this publication will long recognize: an unabashed acknowledgement of the Biblical and metaphysical reality that Christ is King, and that His kingship ought to be acknowledged by the governments of all peoples — most particularly my own country, the allegedly “Christian” nation of America.
It is that principle and this conviction which compelled me to ask what, in hindsight, seems like a rather obvious question: what is a Christian, and what, or whom, defines that? Like Matt Walsh’s quest to define what a woman is, defining this term in the modern Protestant landscape is sure to engender similar looks of bewilderment.
“Just believe in Jesus” or “Find a church that believes the Bible” sounds reasonable enough until one considers how little that actually tells us. That a Mormon could essentially affirm both of these statements, while understanding them in a completely different way than a Neo-Protestant, serves as a fitting demonstration of the issue at hand. What is the Bible, who defines the boundaries of the Church, who is Jesus Christ, and what constitutes proper belief in Him? It is only after these clarifying questions are posed that all sorts of doctrinal affirmations are asserted alongside the aforementioned Barnum slogans.
The Baptist and the Lutheran both claim to believe “the Bible,” and both adhere to the principle of Sola Scriptura. They nevertheless disagree about whether baptism is a sacrament, whether children should receive it, and what Christians receive at the Lord’s Table — is it a mere memorial, a spiritual communion, or the very flesh and blood of the God-Man? These are the acts by which people normatively enter the Church and participate in the worship of God — more singularly important issues can scarcely be conceived of. If this is not a closed hand issue which determines the boundaries of Christian orthodoxy, what is? And if it is not, on what Scriptural basis can you relegate baptism to a second tier issue? It is here too where the nominal ecumenism of pan-Protestantism falls apart, as the only basis upon which the many Protestant sects ultimately are united is the principle of Sola Scriptura.
In much of American Christianity, we teach our progeny to reject any tradition that conflicts with the Bible, all while making an unspoken exception for one tradition — the Bible. Sola Scriptura is itself a tradition, and by its own standard that tradition is fallible. This means of course that the Canon, the list identifying which books even constitute the Bible, is likewise fallible. Dr. Gavin Ortlund, a prominent Protestant theologian and apologist, defines the Protestant canon as precisely that: “a fallible list of infallible books.” We are teaching our children to adopt a fundamentally skeptical position against Holy Tradition while demanding that they accept one particular tradition as the foundation of their faith.
It is no small wonder why American Christianity is in the state it is in, as we are unwittingly laying the groundwork for our children’s future apostasy. When they discover that the Bible’s contents also came to them through tradition, why should this tradition survive the standard we taught them to apply to all the others? Even a cursory examination of the last three hundred years of Christian history in the West plainly shows us the falsity of this assumption. An appeal to one’s personal and subjective assurances does not answer this problem: indeed, the Mormon or Muslim can make that same appeal.