I recently finished a research paper on something that has fascinated me for a long time: the countless number of Protestant churches in the United States. I’ve always wondered how all these different churches came about. I knew that Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, but how did that evolve to Bob’s Bible church down the street? All the Protestants I have talked to through the years have been surprisingly uninterested in this question, and look for any Christian, non-Catholic church when they seek to join a different faith-community. I finally have some answers.
Although Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation in Germany, Protestantism has flourished in the US much more than in Europe. Why is this so? Well, America has provided the perfect conditions for Luther’s notion of sola scriptura to be taken to its extreme. The New World offered everybody from Europe a chance to start anew, a clean slate for any political, economic, or religious undertaking. For those seeking religious freedom, there was no entrenched religious institution to destroy before starting a new one. The remarkable ease with which one could splinter off a religious group and create a new one was too tempting for many Protestants in America.
The political structure and democracy of the United States has also helped to shape the extreme nature of Protestantism in America. For example, when the leaders of the Restoration Movement broke with the Presbyterians of Kentucky, they called the move their “Declaration of Independence”. These founders of what would later be known as The Disciples, Christian Churches, and Churches of Christ thought that July 4, 1776 was a day of equal importance to the Jewish Passover. The American passion for political liberty spilled over into passion for religious liberty, especially regarding personal interpretation of Sacred Scripture. Hierarchies were generally disdained. The reformation battle cry of “the Bible alone” became a Protestant battle cry with a more distinctly American appeal – “no creed but the Bible!”. Because of these factors, the number of Protestant churches in this country could ultimately be as many as the number of Christians. Ironically, not even Luther himself would have approved of this end result.
Sadly, I have found that the Protestant Christians in this process see this as a good thing; they see it as Christianity recreating and purifying itself. I don’t see how they reconcile the fact that Christ wanted us to be one in the Faith. . It also harms evangelization efforts to non-Christians in the United States - I can’t imagine how confusing this looks for an outsider looking in. Let us continue to pray for Christian unity, and engage in more Catholic-Protestant ecumenical efforts in this country.
Breaking from Rome is never the answer, no matter how bad things get, because we believe in Christ and He wanted it this way.
In Christ,
Daniel
Daniel, Good article. I have a question regarding your statement "Ironically, not even Luther himself would have approved of this end result." I know this is not a quote, but I was wondering what sources led you to that conclusion. This would certainly help me in discussions with fellow Christians. Thank you, Mark.
Mark,
Here is a quote from Luther that may shed some light on where Daniel is coming from. I'm sure he can provide you with his own specifics though.
"This one will not hear of Baptism, and that one denies the sacrament, another puts a world between this and the last day: some teach that Christ is not God, some say this, some say that: there are as many sects and creeds as there are heads. No yokel is so rude but when he has dreams and fancies, he thinks himself inspired by the Holy Ghost and must be a prophet."
De Wette III, 61. quoted in O'Hare, THE FACTS ABOUT LUTHER, 208.
Thanks Mark for the comment, and Matthew for the quote. As the quote shows, Luther was not happy with just any interpretation of the Bible, but thought his own was the correct one.
A historical example:
When the Anabaptists came to Wittenburg in 1521 and introduced things like: not preparing for the Eucharist with confession, destroying statues and paintings in churches, inspiring monks to leave their convents, and students to leave their studies to become preachers of the "new Gospel", Luther attacked the daring innovators and drove their leader, the Archdeacon Carlstadt, out of the city. (Taken from p. 428 of Fr. John Laux's "Church History", an excellent book).
I hope that helps.
Daniel
Danny,
Thank you for the insights on the multiplication of denominations within Protestantism. If "Sola Scriptura" often understood as the means by which this division occurs, and if you say American Politics gave this division opportunity to happen, then like a detective investigating a murder - one could reasonably turn one's attention to the motive behind such dizzying divisions.
Why would God's people want to splinter endlessly? Even if Sola Scriptura and American Politics makes splintering easy - why the desire to do so?
I provide the following personal conjecture: by rejecting the intercessory power of Saints, one necessarily rejects an opportunity to participate in the communion of saints.
We need turn our attention only to other posts on this blog to see this sentiment: Why should I ask someone for something when God can provide it for me? Mary's contribution to our salvation is worthless and useless because if she had said no, God could have used someone else.
When my children come to me with simple requests (pouring a glass of milk for example) I often direct them to an older sibling. When the younger child receives help from an older sibling, does this weaken the relationship between me and my children? No, but it does strengthen the relationship between my children.
So it is in God's family, when his children help one another - the relationship between them grows stronger. When they do not, the relationship suffers.
When my younger child receives help from an older child, I instruct the younger child to express gratitude by saying "thank you". Does the younger child then retort: "now way will I thank my older brother, if he weren't here then you would have poured me the milk"? The younger child knows that gratitude is due to whoever helps them - even if someone else could have and would have done it. Common courtesy.
But when we remove this common courtesy from our spiritual life, when we do not give thanks to Mary the Mother of God for bringing forth the Word made Flesh, we poison our notion of gratitude. How long before such ingratitude towards the Blessed Mother spills over into our relationships with our fellow Church-goers?
I speculate that without this deep sense of gratitude towards Our Blessed Mother and to the Saints in heaven (who do us only good), our gratitude towards our Christian brethren (who sometimes wrong us) grows weak and our love for one another grows weak. And so perishes our desire to remain in communion with one another. And so we have the third cause of endless division in American Protestantism.
Perhaps this is why champions of Christian Unity such as Pope John XXIII, and Pope John Paul II have surprisingly insisted on promoting devotions to Our Lady and the Saints despite common wisdom suggesting that we drop such practices in our search for Christian unity.
Does ingratitude cause deep divisions and internal wounds exist in the Roman Catholic Church as well? Of course, but we must note that such ingratitude happens despite and not because of Roman Catholic Church teaching. The same cannot be said of the streams of Protestantism which elevate ingratitude to the level of doctrine.
Now to be fair, not all streams of Protestantism deny the intercessory power and value of the Saints. Anglicanism comes to mind as a counter-example. But in this case, despite its other problems (which appear strongly correlated with their early adoption of contraception), the Anglican Communion seems to have done better than the Evangelical and Anabaptist streams in the "unity" area.
It might be interesting to classify Christian groups according to their stance on "saintly intercession" and then look at how many members they have and how many denominations they have.
I seem to recall that someone posting that Anglican and Lutheran Communions made up 80% of Protestant membership but less than 1% of the number of denominations. I can't recall if Luther rejected the intercessory power of saints, however, my knowledge of Lutheranism is pretty weak.
That's an excellent insight on the communion of saints, Burnt. Thank you. You have helped clarify for me seeing them as a necessity rather than an enrichment, something I'll keep in mind next time I discuss this with a Protestant.
I'm not sure what the official position of the Lutheran Church is on the intercession of saints. I had a hard time finding it online. It would definitely be interesting to see if there is a correlation between the rejection of this doctrine and the number of splits a sect has had. But with the dizzying rate at which new Protestant churches begin (and fail) in this country, it would unfortunately be impossible to track empirically.
Thanks again.
Daniel
Burnt,
I very much appreciate your above posting - excellent, in my opinion. Communing with Christians of past ages increases our respect for and loyaly toward Saints' beliefs and traditions. Protestant churches in the U.S. separate at alarming rates, which is a major reason for my attending an Anglican church - and flirting with Roman Catholicism. Your milk analogy was good. God wants us to study our Christian history to understand his wisdom and patience. I'm reading Scott Hahn's book "Home Sweet Rome" and very much enjoy the common "Mary" hurdles. Why are some Protestants so convinced that Mary does not hear are prayers of intercession? How do they know this?
Best,
Michael O.
Burnt,
Your August 16 milk analogy brings to the forefront the main problem with prayer to the saints, however. Do you think dead Christians can perform miracles here on earth? One sibling can request milk for another, but can one sibling pour the milk as well? This is where Catholics become misguided -- they begin to believe that the Saints in heaven are not merely praying for us, but are physically involved in our lives, like the Greek gods. Catholics praise the name of Mary when someone is cured from cancer, or thank Saint Joseph when one's son returns safely from a trip. Who should be praised and thanked? Prayer to the Saints is good, I think; but, unfortunately, that path leads to Greek-style god worship - every Saint is assigned a sector of life and is directly responsible for our lives in that category of life. The Church doesn't seem to care about this issue, as its members see their grace and redemption in individual Saints, not in Christ - the Virgin of Guadalupe, for example. This is a major reason why the Reformation's intellectuals were so enthusiastic about a more fundamental Christianity.
Michael O.
Michael O, if asking a dead saint to pray for me is an abomination which leads to panthiesm, why is asking a live saint any better? Why don't the Reformation individuals condemn the practice of praying for each other altogether?
Turning this around, if live saints can pray for me (Job, Exodus, and Acts contain examples where intercession seems to save another or work a miracle), and their prayers can have effect in some mysterious and miraculous and edifying way - why should their death make their prayers into an abomination?
Now if someone were to argue that the saints could not hear me and that such prayers were useless - I would accept it for the time being if it were at least accepted that the attempt at intercession were not an abomination - only a waste of time.
To get to your original question, I think that asking a dead saint to pray for me is as effective and as praiseworthy as asking a live saint to pray for me. I'm willing to leave the effectiveness debate for another day while we sort out the accusation of pantheism / idolatry.
And while we're on the subject of pantheism, one might note that the communion of Saints acknowledges Our Lord as Supreme Head over all things. This is quite unlike the pantheon of Greek Gods where the separate Gods were supreme in their own domain - with no Supreme Head over all things.
Zeus was the mightiest of Greek God's but Poseidon held final sway over the Oceans. Zeus was not head of the Ocean and thus not Supreme Head over all things. A saint of good ocean weather would still acknowledge Our Lord as Supreme Head over all things.
A quick cat-call re prayer and physical help: it seems to me that, given the "advantageous position" that they're in, dead saints (not really being dead at all--in fact, far more alive than we are) who "pray" do so in the full-blown presence of God. Their prayers are far more violently effective than any of the "physical" help that we receive here below. Prayer "up there" is an activity compared to which any activity down here below pales in comparison. Heaven--and everything that happens there--is more, not less real than what happens in this life. Now, I don't know what their prayers look like, or how their effectiveness can be quantitatively measured, but surely we must assume that their behavior--the correspondence between what they pray for and what they do--is far beyond ours, at any rate prior to our meeting with God. To put it another way: we might receive a miracle here and there throughout our lives, but for them (living or dead), they don't know anything other than, they are incapable of anything other than Miracle. That's all they know, that's all they know how to do, praise be to God. Their prayer is doing, and their doing is prayer. I don't think they'd understand a distinction between the two (just as we have to work to unite the two).
Benny here:
As we have nerves that send messages to the brain so we have saints and angels that send messages to God.How much we pray,fast,and sacrifice,depends on how strong and clear the message is when it gets to God.Also depends on how many of these nerves (saints,angels,and the blessed family of Jesus) send the same message for you.
So if you want to be heard you want the strongest signal possible.Which would be Our Lord Jesus,but you have to be in a State of Grace in order for this nerve to send a message to God,for he is God.That's why we have to be in the Church which is his body in order for God to hear us through his nerves.Which is Jesus, the Mother and step Father of Jesus,the apostles,the saints and the angels of God.They hear our prayers and offer them up to God for us.
If you are not in the body of Christ,which is the church,then God will not hear you;for "nobody cometh unto the Father but by me" (words of Jesus).That is why there is no salvation outside of the Catholic Church,for these people have no forgiveness of their sins without the absolution of a preist.
Hebrews 5:1 For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in the things that appertain to God, that he may offer up gifts and sacrifices for sins:
Hebrews 5:2 Who can have compassion on them that are ignorant and that err: because he himself also is compassed with infirmity.
Hebrews 5:3 And therefore he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins.
Hebrews 5:4 Neither doth any man take the honour to himself, but he that is called by God, as Aaron was.
These scripures here plainly state that a person cannot confess their sins straight to God,but that a priest taken from among men and ordained must offer up the sacrifices and gifts for our sins. This priest should be in a state of grace before he preforms these actions,which is one reason why all priests must also confess theirs sins to one another.John 20:20 And when he had said this, he shewed them his hands and his side. The disciples therefore were glad, when they saw the Lord.
John 20:21 He said therefore to them again: Peace be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also send you.
John 20:22 When he had said this, he breathed on them; and he said to them: Receive ye the Holy Ghost.
John 20:23 Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them: and whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.