Protestantism in the United States is under relentless, sustained attack. An attack so serious that it threatens to sweep Protestantism, as a movement, into the dustbin of history. Unfortunately for the various Protestant Churches, many of their own Theologians are inadvertently providing aid and comfort to the enemy in this struggle. Of course, it doesn't help at all that the men attacking Protestantism so ferociously have been dead for almost 2,000 years.

Growing up in a Pentecostal Church, I learned absolutely nothing in Sunday School about Church history between the close of the Biblical Age and the day Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of a Cathedral. Sola Scriptura was the order of the day. The Bible was the all-sufficient rule of faith.

Fast-forward 20 years, and you find that this is rapidly changing. Protestants are suddenly discovering that Christians existed after A.D. 90, and the Fathers of the Church are back with a vengeance.

Why is this happening? At least partly because so many Protestant Theologians have given up on proving their unique doctrines based on the Bible alone. After decades of yelling Bible quotations at each other, Protestants seem to be anxious to find voices from the early Church to affirm their doctrines in a way that the Bible simply does not and cannot.

Let's look at a concrete example. The clip below is a YWAM missionary who is giving a talk debunking Calvinism and its concept of Election. Like most Evangelicals, this speaker is firmly on the side of Free Will. John Calvin, of course, was heavily influenced by Augustine, Bishop of Hippo. Calvin, in fact, used Augustinian thought as proof that he had not introduced anything new or novel into Christian doctrine.

That puts this speaker in something of a pickle. He could stand there and rely on proof-texts from the Bible to try and discredit both Augustine and Calvin. The only problem is that the other side has its proof texts as well. It is almost impossible to score a knock-out blow against an opponent just on the basis of Biblical quotations. When the New Testament was being written, many disputes over doctrine had not yet arisen. As those disputes came later, the Bible has no direct, irrefutable statements in favor of one side or the other. Trying to rely on the Bible alone quickly leads to an endless battle of Scriptural interpretations that never comes to any kind of real conclusion.

So how does one definitively discredit Augustine, and by extension, John Calvin? Well, one way is to contrast the teaching of Augustine with earlier Christian thinkers and writers. Watch below to see how this Protestant speaker does just that by referencing the teaching of the pre-Augustine Church Fathers:

Bravo! That'll show them. Augustine was a dangerous innovator. He departed from the Faith once delivered to the Saints and taught by Clement, Ignatius, and the other Fathers of the Church in the Apostolic and post-Apostolic Age. The consensus of the Church is against Augustine and Calvin - Free Will is the true Biblical teaching! We know this because it was the teaching of the men who were taught by the Apostles, and who in turn taught this to their own disciples. In fact, these are the very men who collected the books together that now comprise the New Testament. Who better than they to understand such a fundamental teaching?

Great move on this speaker's part. After all, an argument from such authority is quite compelling. Except that, inadvertently, this speaker just made an excellent case for why his entire audience should become Orthodox Christians. This is a classic example of winning the battle while losing the war.

You see, the Fathers of the Church didn't just teach about the nature of salvation. They also taught all kinds of things about baptism, the Eucharist, Church governance, the proper role of scriptural interpretation, Church discipline, and much more. The problem for this Protestant speaker, and others like him, is that they need the Church Fathers to prove a favored point or two, but they can't afford for their listeners to take the Church Fathers too seriously.

Unfortunately for Protestant Theologians, relying on Patristic teaching to prove the validity of some of their doctrines encourages their people to actually start reading and exploring the writings of the Church Fathers for themselves. And once that happens, Protestant believers often find themselves in a profound crisis, as the writings of the Church Fathers relentlessly attack the very foundations of Protestantism. Even a cursory read of early Patristic literature informs a Protestant that the Church of the Fathers had liturgy, was centered on the Eucharist, had hierarchy, and was wholly and completely unlike any Protestant Church.

The truth is that the Protestant Theologians want to selectively pick and choose from the Fathers, just as they pick and choose from the Bible, to support their own doctrinal suppositions. They want to use whatever affirms their teaching, while comfortably ignoring whatever contradicts it. Professional Theologians, with their paychecks securely tied to their parent denominations, seem able to carry out this mental trick fairly easily - retain what you need, ignore the rest.

Average Christians are less able to perform such mental feats. For them, reading the Church Fathers can be a gut-wrenching experience. All the more so since many of them are introduced to the world of Bishops and Councils by their own Theologians in talks such as the one in the video above.

Truly the Protestants are in a conundrum concerning the Fathers. You can't keep ignoring them. Not only is their authority frequently needed to settle doctrinal disputes, but the Fathers are all over Google! Just Google the topic of the Early Christian Church, and you will find yourself up-to-your-ears in early Church Fathers and early Church Councils. In the pre-Internet days, it was possible to pretend these guys didn't exist. But now? Not so much.

Since the topic is now unavoidable, what to say on the subject? That is where the danger really lies. If a Protestant Theologian deals with the Fathers honestly, then many in his flock will undoubtedly want to learn more about them. After learning more, no small number will actually decide to seek out the Church of the Fathers. And if they seek it, they will find it. It's the strange one down the street with the incense, the bells, the icons and the sign out front that says, "Orthodox."

For purposes of this article, I cut down the video to just a section in which the Protestant speaker referred to several of the Church Fathers. To view the complete video, which includes more information about the speaker and YWAM, please click here.

Glen Chancy is the CIO of CorFun , a eServices Company, publisher of Orthodox Biz, Webmaster for the Orthodox Christian Network, and a recognized expert on the Joomla Content Management System. Contact him here.

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 [Church Fathers Relentlessly Attack Protestantism]

Comments (15)

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A Protestant Straw Man?
written by Timothy Furnish, May 19, 2010

Mr. Chancy,
I am a Protestant (Lutheran) with a great respect for Orthodoxy (in fact my primary study Bible is the Orthodox one!). However, your analysis sets up a straw man, then proceeds to burn it: namely, you imply that Calvinistic, Reformed theology is the only Protestant game in town. That is simply untrue. The Lutheran tradition is very much in disagreement with the Reformed about free will, and in fact is closer to the Orthdoox position. Plus, your rhetoric is a bit overheated: Protestantism is nowhere close to being "swept into the dustbin of history." There are at least 400 million Protestants worldwide (far more than Orthdox), and the majority of America's Christians are Protestants. So you might want to tamp down on your triumphalism just a bit.
Finally, and not to be pedantic, but the plural of "thesis" is "thesEs." Luther nailed up 85 THESES.

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The Truth Hurts
written by Chris Polites, May 19, 2010

Mr. Chancy makes excellent points, most of which will try to be answered/ countered tit-for-tat by Protestants who read the article. Why? Because the Truth is difficult to accept unless one is specifically looking for Him, and open to His guidance. Christ is the head of the Church (The Orthodox Church), and the Church is His Body. The search for Truth did not begin with the Bible (the Canon we have listing the books of the Old and New Testaments didn't even exist until hundreds of years after the first disciples died!) The search begins with one asking the question, "If Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, then which Christian Church guards the correct teachings about Jesus?" If there's one Way to Heaven (as Protestants are quick to claim in their prosyletizing), then why is it so hard for them to believe that there is one, true, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church? I was baptised and chrismated as a toddler into the Orthodox faith, but my parents stopped going to our local church when I was 8. From that time until I turned 25, I attended Roman Catholic churches, Baptist churches, Presbyterian churches, non-denominational churches - but it wasn't unitl an Orthodox Army chaplain asked me what "Truth" really is - a worthy question, and quest for all who seek Christ. My search and the Holy Spirit led me back to the Orthodox Church, the keeper, protector, and defender of the True Faith. Protestants absolutely need to understand Church history prior to 1519. And if one wants to be intellectually honest with himself, then one has to study Church history from Pentecost all the way to the Great Schism in 1054 in order to discern between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Church. It's no coincidence that the earliest Church communitities closest to the Holy Land (with the exception of Rome) that one reads about in the New Testament follow the Orthodox Tradition. Four of the five original Patriarchate Sees (the exception being Rome) are still in communion with one another, and practice the same faith as passed down by the disciples. I will close with this - for Orthodox Christians, there is no "either/ or" dilemma between Holy Tradition (The Church living by the Holy Spirit) and Holy Scriptures. This is something many Protestants can't/ won't accept. Both are absolutely essential to the Christian Faith and Life. Mr. Chancey, let us continue to pray for the spread of Orthodoxy in America, so that the Truth may be known to all.

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Orthodox Parishioner
written by Ellie, May 19, 2010

Having been both a member of a Protestant Church and a convert to Orthodoxy, I think far too much time is spent picking at our differences and too little at dwelling on serving our Lord and Savior and living a life of a Christian. Many extremes are incorporated in the body of the Church: those who study and research our Faith; those who struggle to simply provide a roof over the heads of their family and yet are teaching their children AND their fellow workers and neighbors by their Christian example. I see commendable examples of these extremes in both the Orthodox and the Protestant communities.
The need, as I see it, is to compliment each other. Since we all are part of the followers of Christ, we should be able to draw from the strengths of each other thus creating a better world for all.

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Protestantism in the dustbin?
written by Forrest Long, May 19, 2010

As has been said in the past, "Word of my death has been greatly exaggerated!" So true with your assessment of Protestantism. As in Protestantism, I find that converts to the faith can put exuberance over wisdom and I find that to be the case in this article. I have great respect for Orthodoxy and read Orthodox writers regularly, but I fail to see that the fragmented Eastern Orthodox Church is the pristeen upholder of apostolic Christianity. There is much to be put in order in the Orthodox household. As for Protestantism, it is often its own worst enemy and appears in many ways to be in disarray, yet it's historic roots are strong, especially in historic evangelicalism. And I wouldn't write off Calvinism either, even though it is much misunderstood and maligned. There is such a great need for all of the Body of Christ to come together in dialogue, not to discover the lowest common denominator of what we have in common, but the richness of the creeds we share together in the Faith.

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Unhelpful attack
written by Darrin Roush, May 19, 2010

As an Orthodox Christian, but former protestant myself, I find the above approach unhelpful and off-putting in this day and age when we need all the allies we can get. That does't require doctrinal compromise, but I can't help thinking these kinds of articles are simply preaching to the choir and therefore the already "converted." How many (thinking) protestants are going to convert (at least for the right reasons) based on such an approach? This isn't the age of polemics (although I might argue differently when it comes to Islam). A more irenic approach may be more helpful when one considers the cultural context of the US. I, too, am tired of political correctness, but the opposite extreme isn't any better.

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Straw man - not so much
written by Glen Chancy, May 19, 2010

I am a Protestant (Lutheran) with a great respect for Orthodoxy (in fact my primary study Bible is the Orthodox one!).

Awesome, excellent reading!

However, your analysis sets up a straw man, then proceeds to burn it: namely, you imply that Calvinistic, Reformed theology is the only Protestant game in town. That is simply untrue.

Very true, but I didn't mean to imply that at all. The pastor in the video I sampled is actually Evangelical, and a supporter of Free Will, who is attacking Calvinism and its doctrine of election. Right there you have a contrast between two very different systems of soteriology. I did not mean in anyway to imply that Calvinism is the sum total of Protestantism. If I had, then I would not have included the Evangelical Protestant pastor.

This set up was chosen intentionally to show how an Evangelical pastor finds himself suddenly using Clement and Origen (among others) when trying to debunk Calvinism because the scriptures by themselves when deployed in a "proof text mode" do not provide the sufficient rhetorical knockout-blow he needs. The primary thrust of the blog was that Sola Scriptura having lead to a plethora of denominations, Protestant Theologians are increasingly using arguments from Patristic authority to buttress their doctrines. That is a two-edged sword, as you would agree, for Evangelicals or Calvinists whose church lives and Theology are so far from the Fathers.

The Lutheran tradition is very much in disagreement with the Reformed about free will, and in fact is closer to the Orthodox position.

Quite true in the case of Free Will. Lutheranism, however, faces its own Patristic issue. Luther was a magisterial reformer who retained quite a bit of legitimate Catholicism within his church. However, that deposit of truth has been eroded over time so that in modern Lutheran Churches (especially in the U.S.), an average Lutheran in the pews that encountered the Fathers would be almost as shocked as the average Evangelical.

This post has some interesting comparisons between original Lutheranism and the contemporary practice:

http://orrologion.blogspot.com...hurch.html

So the core of Lutheranism may contain a number of similarities with Orthodoxy and Patristic thought, the modern day incarnation will be quite alien to the Church of the Fathers (especially in regards to open communion). Therefore, I think my premise stands with regards to Lutheranism. There will be a tendency to rely on the Fathers for guidance, but that guidance will lead to an older Lutheranism which is very tough to find or to a living community of Orthodox that are often right there in the same town. This process is especially highlighted in the case of Jaroslav Pelikan, the noted Lutheran Theologian, who said at the time of his reception into the Orthodox Church that instead of converting to Orthodoxy he had "returned to it, peeling back the layers of my own belief to reveal the Orthodoxy that was always there."

Plus, your rhetoric is a bit overheated: Protestantism is nowhere close to being "swept into the dustbin of history." There are at least 400 million Protestants worldwide (far more than Orthdox), and the majority of America's Christians are Protestants. So you might want to tamp down on your triumphalism just a bit.

But if I did that, then we should never have known each other. A hundred years or so changes things greatly. Prior to the 16th Century, none of the organizations which these 400 million Protestants belong to even existed. I think that in a 100 or so years, quite a few of them will be out-of-business and the Christian world will be dominated by the Orthodox Church. I don't expect this to happen today, nor tomorrow. But if hundreds of millions of Christians are in "churches" which can not even teach Church history without undermining their own authority - then what kind of future is that? A bleak one. More and more resources are going online. The Da Vinci Code and other fictional works encourage people to learn about the Early Church. Evangelicals are talking about the Fathers for their own doctrinal needs.

All of that feeds a growing interest in authentic Christianity. That interest points either to Rome, to the Orthodox Church, or to an outright rejection of Christianity. It will not lead many to Lutheranism nor to Anglicanism.

Finally, and not to be pedantic, but the plural of "thesis" is "thesEs." Luther nailed up 85 THESES.

Thank you! I have corrected the article.

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Not a problem.
written by Glen Chancy, May 19, 2010

The need, as I see it, is to compliment each other. Since we all are part of the followers of Christ, we should be able to draw from the strengths of each other thus creating a better world for all.

Protestantism is in the middle of a profound crisis. That doesn't mean that there aren't individual Protestants who are nice, godly people. But if my primary idea is right, then the Protestant movement as a whole has a real problem with the Fathers of the Church. That problem, in my opinion, is only going to get bigger and bigger as more Christians independently research. In my former denomination of Pentecostalism, there is active discussion about how doctoral candidates keep converting to Orthodoxy and Catholicism. The greater the educational level in Patristic thought, the greater the chances of losing that person to Rome or Constantinople.

Protestant Theologians recognize that relying on Scripture alone has been unable to maintain unity within Protestantism. It has shattered into tens of thousands of denominations, all yelling Bible quotes at each other. So they get the fact that sola scriptura has failed. Their next step is relying on Patristic authority, but only to a point as there is a huge amount of Patristic teaching that they must ignore if they are to remain Protestant.

That is the fatal problem I am pointing out. Picking and choosing from the writings of a Father is tough to do. You have to say to your people, "This guy is holy! He is a Father of the Church. He is an apostle of an apostle. What he says matters, that is why I am using him in my argument. But, please only believe pages 3 to 5 of his Epistle. Ignore all the other stuff about the Eucharist and Bishops and all that. That's all wrong, even though this guy was an apostle of an apostle and all, he got all that stuff wrong. Please believe what I tell you is correct because it agrees with what I want to teach you!"

I don't see a bright future for that approach.

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Thanks for your comments
written by Glen Chancy, May 19, 2010

As has been said in the past, "Word of my death has been greatly exaggerated!" So true with your assessment of Protestantism. As in Protestantism, I find that converts to the faith can put exuberance over wisdom and I find that to be the case in this article.

Actually, I converted 10 years ago, so this article is not born of irrational exuberance. Let me simply ask - do you believe that Protestants are in a position to deal honestly with the Church Fathers and their teaching as a whole? How do you find the central thesis of the article?

I have great respect for Orthodoxy and read Orthodox writers regularly, but I fail to see that the fragmented Eastern Orthodox Church is the pristeen upholder of apostolic Christianity.

While Orthodoxy within the United States is fragmented into various jurisdictions, I do not at all see Orthodoxy fragmented Theologically. I regularly commune in Greek parish and a parish of the OCA. Doctrinally, the Orthodox are united globally. Protestants? You can't even get members of the Southern Baptist Convention to agree about Election, must less Presbyterians agreeing with Methodists versus Pentecostals. That is division. Administrative details are not.

There is much to be put in order in the Orthodox household. As for Protestantism, it is often its own worst enemy and appears in many ways to be in disarray, yet it's historic roots are strong, especially in historic evangelicalism. And I wouldn't write off Calvinism either, even though it is much misunderstood and maligned.

Not really. The crisis of authority within Protestantism is huge. Various movements arise within Protestant Churches all the time. Splits are routine as groups interpret Bible verses differently and head off to do their own thing. Conventions like the SBA tie themselves up in knots, frequently reversing doctrinal stances. Today we ordain women, tomorrow we don't. Today we are Calvinist, tomorrow we are Free Will. Protestantism is a huge mess.

There is such a great need for all of the Body of Christ to come together in dialogue, not to discover the lowest common denominator of what we have in common, but the richness of the creeds we share together in the Faith.

Actually, that is what this article is about. Protestant Theologians are discovering the Fathers as a source of authority. Their people do so as well. The difference between you and me is that you think that people can discover our common heritage of the Early Church and stay Protestant. Some can. Many can't. Once you get in touch with Apostolic Christianity, it becomes quite clear that any flavor of Protestantism is simply not it.

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Allies against what?
written by Glen Chancy, May 19, 2010

As an Orthodox Christian, but former protestant myself, I find the above approach unhelpful and off-putting in this day and age when we need all the allies we can get.

Allies against what, though? I have heard this many times that we Orthodox need to align with Protestants. But to what end? A political alliance? Some kind of fight against modernity or secularism? I am asking this seriously, because what I see coming out of "alliances" is the Orthodox Church affirming Protestants, but getting little back.

As for being off putting, I hope my article infuriates as many Protestants as possible. I hope they read this article and say, "I'll show that Orthodox guy. I will read the ante-Nicene Fathers and I will show how they were really just like me!" I hope the Protestants get angry and start researching all that they can to show me how stupid and off-base I really am. That would be great.

That does't require doctrinal compromise, but I can't help thinking these kinds of articles are simply preaching to the choir and therefore the already "converted." How many (thinking) protestants are going to convert (at least for the right reasons) based on such an approach? This isn't the age of polemics (although I might argue differently when it comes to Islam). A more irenic approach may be more helpful when one considers the cultural context of the US. I, too, am tired of political correctness, but the opposite extreme isn't any better.

That depends on your point of view. I have one friend who became Orthodox after deciding she wanted to prove Catholic friends wrong with whom she was arguing on Facebook. When she researched the Early Church to have ammunition against her Catholic friends, that led her to the study of Orthodoxy. If someone wants to undertake a study of the Early Church in order to prove to me what a dolt I am, then that is great! By all means, let them research the Fathers in order to prove that they were really Protestant. By all means, let them research the Early Church to prove that it was not at all like Orthodoxy.

The more they are motivated to research, even if the motivation is to prove I'm an ignorant, mean, slime bucket who knows nothing, then the greater their chance of drawing closer to a true understanding of God.

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How dare you!
written by Matthew Dunn, June 22, 2010

How dare you speak the truth! What is wrong with you? Telling the masses on the internet the facts about the Church and expecting them to believe you because it's true and makes good sense, how outrageous!
Seriously...good on you brother.

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