The Lost Soul of American Protestantism

The Lost Soul of American Protestantism

D.G. Hart offers this provocative claim, "confessionalism is the lost soul of American Protestantism in the sense that scholars of American religion have largely ignored." His book The Lost Soul of American Protestantism offers a unique and fresh perspective on Protestant religion in the American culture and public life. The common contemporary dichotomy of American Protestantism between evangelicals (or fundamentalists) and modernists (or liberals) is an eggregious bit of reductionism, argues D.G. Hart. According to Hart, we need to take account of an oft-neglected category—namely confessional Protestants. As R. Laurence Moore writes in the introduction:

Hart is committed to what he calls confessional Protestantism—a neglected and almost defeated tradition in American religious history that he skillfully traces from "Old Line" Presbyterians of the eighteenth century to Missouri Synod Lutherans in the late twentieth century. It is grounded in Luther and Calvin and deeply tied to creeds, clergy, and liturgical ritual.

The Protestant Deformation?

Edmund Burke once proclaimed, "He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper." If there is any modicum of truth to this statement, then Evangelicals and Mainline Protestants could probably stand to bear the scrutiny of non-Protestant Christians. Russell Kirk, a Roman Catholic, (echoing in Irving Babbitt's criticism in quotations,) delves into an examination of Protestantdom's ills:

Obedience, submission to God, is the secret of justice in society and tranquility in life, quite as much as it is in indispensable to eternal salvation.... Protestantism descends through three states: first, the subjection of religion to the charge of civil government; second, the rejection of authority of temporal government, and submission of religion to the control of the faithful; third, individualism, which "leaves religion entirely to the control of the individual, who selects his own creed, or makes a creed to suit himself, devises his own worship and discipline, and submits to no restraints but such as are self-imposed." When this last stage is reached, disintegration of the religious spirit is imminent; for man is not sufficient unto himself, reason unaided cannot sustain faith, and Authority is required to preserve Christianity from degenerating into a congeries of fanatic sects and egotistical professions. Under Protestantism, the sect governs religion, rather than submitting to governance; the congregation bully their ministers and insist upon palatable sermons, flattering to their vanity; Protestantism cannot sustain popular liberty because "it is itself subject to popular control, and must follow in all things the popular will, passion, interest, prejudice, or caprice." 1

If a Protestant observer submits there is a modicum of truth to any of the points of this aforesaid critique, they could counter that is is observable that confessional Protestants at least guard against those identifiable tendencies which are more characteristic of evangelical and mainline Protestants. First, by their system of church governance, confessional Protestants try to put the ramparts around confessional adherence, liturgical practice and theological distinctives thereby avoiding the predicament of having their doctrine blown by the tempest winds. Second, by their emphasis upon the corporate life of the church body, they guard against the deluge of atomization and to-each-his-own Protestantdom that characterizes contemporary Evangelicals and Modernists. Third, Confessional Protestantism can lay claim to possessing an inheritance which Greek Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism is not at all renowned for: namely an open Bible among parishioners and itinerant focus on Gospel. Protestants can always echo Martin Luther's familiar criticisms of medieval Christendom—and the realization that too much emphasis on pomp and ceremony undercuts the Gospel proclamation.

Confessional Protestantism vis-à-vis Pietist Revivalism

Hart is sober-minded and reflective about the observable advantages as well as limitations of confessional Protestantism. He writes, "Although confessionalism in its corporate dimensions may not match pietism's energetic activism (the activities of its individual adherents may be another matter,) it possesses resources for careful reflection about personal and social affairs that avoid the pietist extremes of self-righteousness and moralism" (p. i). But it does not produce the immediate results that pietism promises. Hart writes:

Confessional Protestants resisted revivals in large part because the methods of evangelists and the piety expected of converts were generically Christian—sincerity, zeal and moral life. As a result, revivalism did not respect but in fact undermined the importance of creedal subscription, ordination and liturgical order. In a word, confessionalists opposed revivalism because it spoke a different religious idiom, one that was individualistic, experiential, and perfectionistic, as opposed to corporate, doctrinal, and liturgical idiom of historic Protestantism. Confessionalism is the lost soul of American Protestantism, then, in the sense that pietism, through revivalism, has largely routed it over the course of two and a half centuries. (p. xxiv)

Pietism in its more bizarre incarnations diminished the value of doctrine, and led to unorthodox public expressions of piety, and experential-driven affirmations of spiritual growth. Hart notes, "revivalist piety bordered on vulgarity because it made experiences and emotions of a more intimate nature the norm for settings that were formal and public."

Hart even suggests, "[M]uch of the blame for the self-righteousness and moralism that has characterized American culture can be laid at the feet of a Protestant faith that looks for evidence of geniune religion more in the everyday affairs of citizens and national officials than in the religious observances of believers gathered as the body of Christ." The moralism that pietism evokes led to the temperance movement and dubious tee-totaling crusades for Prohibition of alcohol and wine—which is indicative of an incessant legalism that neither the incarnate Lord nor the disciples embraced. In time's past, vulgar pietism led to abusive, harsh and temperamental parenting passed off as parental discipline, which eventually sparked public outrages that compelled liberal reactionaries to began to question the use of discipline altogether. Pietism in its harsh excesses unwittingly elicits judgmentalism and professed doubts about the salvation of confessed believers. Heyrman writes, pietist "evangelicals drew people away, from the familiar settings of sociability in rural counties—horse races and taverns, barbecues and balls." In turn, they regarded "drinking and joking, gambling and dancing, fiddling and fighting not as amusements but as sinful frivolities that set men and woman on the path to hell" (p. 15.) It is my summation that pietism was foisted upon the American South in the wake of the late War between the States and came down as a heavy jackboot imprint on her wounded religious affections. Legions of impassioned northern religionists—some not even orthodox, but Unitarian Universalists—came down postbellum to set a seemingly more religiously devout people straight after Union troops trampled out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. Pietism's intense moralism, quixotic desire for reform and overwrought moral scruples "puts them at odds with the ways of the tolerant southern society."

Confessional Protestantism: A Critical Assessment

Carl Trueman, the departmental chair of Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, surmises:

Confessional Protestantism has a historic, creedal integrity; it takes history seriously; it refuses to assume that the latest pulp evangelical primer on postmodernism is an adequate basis for ditching the whole of its tradition; and it wants to take seriously what the church has said about the Bible over the centuries. As the work of scholars such as Richard Muller has indicated, confessional Reformed Orthodoxy, for example, has theological moorings in an intelligent interaction with, and appropriation of, the best theological and exegetical work of the patristic and medieval authors, as well as the correctives of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries... In fact, as I repeatedly tell my students, if you hold to Reformed Orthodoxy, you can quite legitimately interact with and appropriate the best theology, West and East, from the Apostolic Fathers down to the present day, in your articulation of a truly catholic orthodoxy.

Confessional Protestants, with their doctrinal rigor, do not neglect the pivotal doctrines of the Reformation, which are brought to the forefront. As a systematic effort to summarize the Bible and define a church's beliefs, creedal confessions narrow the scope of the Christian message in a resolute statement, through the limits of inquiry. One such confession is The Westminster Confession of Faith, which is the accepted confession of Presbyterian faithful throughout the world. Some Baptists still hold to the London Baptist Confession of Faith. Many churches that lack a standard bearer of doctrinal proclamation have innumerable problems. Absent a confession of faith, a dramatic drift or upheaval in a congregation's doctrinal norms and practices will take shape over time. These unwelcomed transitions may follow: an interregum in which a pastor is deceased or departs; or simply the influence of the doctrinal tides and ecclesiastical fads which ebb and flow among outside churches; or when new transplants from sects join a congregation. Such events may lead to drastic wavering in the church's historic teachings over time, and are tantamount to letting doctrine simply blow in the wind. A church needs an anchor, and the confession of faith (by implication, rooted in the Word of God) is that anchor. Hart confesses, "The downside of confessions is that they may be wrong" (p. 107).

Hart elucidates upon the differences separating contemporary confessional Protestants from evangelicals:

Unlike pietism, which thrives on decisions of sovereign individuals who choose to become Christians, confessionalism relies on patterns of inheritance in which the expectation is for believers to come into faith through birth and Christian nurture. For confessional Protestants the norms of the religious group are passed on from one generation to the next, and church membership presumes following the established beliefs and practices of spiritual ancestors. Even converts are expected to adopt the tradition's ways. To be sure, this understanding of Christian faith has encouraged a kind of ethnocentricism that appears to be at odds with evangelistic and missionary efforts of the early Christians who established their faith as a world religion (p. 172).

Thus, confessional Protestants "stress the great importance of participating in the ways of previous generations as embodied in the corporate life and witness of the church" (p. 172) The embrace of confessional Protestantism gives the church body an anchor with which to stand, and not be carried about by the tempest winds of charismatic chaos, the cult of experience, purpose-driven religion, mainline liberalism, postmodernism, prosperity theology, and whatever other two-bit fads come and go. While the ills wrought by non-confessionalism are innumerable, I put this in perspective, and affirm that confessional Protestants need to be weary of any legalistic attachments to the confessional creeds. Granted, the Westminster Confession itself acknowledges its limited scope, and ultimate subordination of the church to the authority of the Word of God—and God himself.

Rethinking the Legacy of Revialism

Hart adroitly illustrates how some of the legacies of Revivalism gave rise to the Pietist movement. He explains, "Confessional Protestants resisted revivals in large part because the methods of evangelists and the piety expected of the converts were generically Christian—sincerity, zeal, and a moral life. As a result, revivalism did not respect but in fact undermined the importance of creedal subscription, ordination, and liturgical order. In a word, Confessionalists opposed revivalism because it spoke a religious idiom, one that was individualistic, experiential, and perfectionistic, as opposed to corporate, doctrinal, and liturgical idiom of historic Protestantism." To be sure, revivalism's legacy was felt in confessional Protestant churches no less as well. It might be said that a prudently-administered mode of revivalism served to temper the excesses of liturgical Christianity without negating corporate and doctrinal correctness amongst the church body. It may be tempting for me to surmise that Hart is downplaying a pivotal aspect of Confessional Protestantism that is integral to its sustenance—namely a tempered embrace of revivalist means that Puritan divines like Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield used to draw converts and invigorate the church body. However, Hart surmises,

The Old Side—New Side controversy, then, foreshadowed the lesson of nineteenth-century American Protestants: for churches and their members to grow they had to use reliable methods of revival. Confessional Protestantism's old measures were not as effective in the environment of the New World as revivalism's novelties (p. 42).

Hence, Hart cautions against a form of revivalism that is anti-credal and otherwise diminishes the corporate life of the church.

The Church's Relation to the World

The pietist's bizarre drift into politics compels many ministers leading up to election day to woo their parishioners into being good Republicans, rather than simply exhorting the congregation (and the Republicans therein) to be good Christians. The modern tendency to "baptize" political party platforms is deep-rooted in the pietist mindset, and was common in the 19th century with American followers of the Whig Party, as was the tactic of making devils of your political adversaries. Pietism's bitter fruits today are felt in tele-evangelist Jerry Falwell's uncanny proclivity for name-dropping indictments about the "ACLU," the "National Organization of Women," and the homosexual lobby. For confessional Christians—including those who acknowledge the reality of the cultural war—taking the petty affairs of the world into the pulpit and making tireless references to the liberal provocateurs ad nauseum comes across as a bit distasteful and monotonous. Moreover, to the outside world, it comes across as judgmentalism at worst, and to the church it embodies a deviation from the focal point of maintaining a sound Christian witness (2 Tim. 2:24-25) while guarding against sin in the church body itself.

One aspect of Hart's affirmation that might not sit well with quite a few Presbyterians is his stance on church-and-state issues and the church's relation to the world. For those confessional Protestants who today see themselves as the faithful remnant of historic Puritanism, Hart stands athwart their cherished traditions—and Kingdom Now theology. Hart in his disdain of 'civil religion' calls for a separation of church-and-state so radical that it might make give a deistic Thomas Jefferson second thoughts. But to be sure, he offers some trenchant critiques on a culture that wraps itself in 'civil religion,' which inculcates nominal Christians utterly neglect their personal spiritual walk while delighting in the civil religion. This much is evident by the revelation of the Republican legislator who supported a resolution in favor of the Ten Commandments, and then could not name all of them when asked.

Closing Salvos

A Christian friend of mine once remarked, "I don't know whether it is a blessing or a curse to live in the Bible Belt." This statement single-handedly sums up my frustrations as well having grown up in the heart of pious evangelical Christendom. I got to bear witness to the gaudy excesses of apocalyptic dispensationalist fundamentalism and the charismatic movement. In my Christian walk, the bittersweet reality hit me that it is easier to please God as a sinner forgiven in Christ than live up to the lofty legalistic expectations of pietists. Still most evangelicals are far less prone to legalism and more to sentimental, contrivances of personal religious experience. What is neglected is doctrine. Trendy clichés abound: "Christ unites. Doctrine divides!" This goes a long way in explaining the lost soul of Protestantism.

Confessional Protestantism perhaps offers me something different in my Christian walk, and it is more complimentary to my spiritual maturation and reflective meditation upon the Gospel promises. And to be sure, it is observable that Reformed intellectuals have to be careful to guard against over-wrought rationalism that diminishes the inherent mystery nature of the faith. But with its emphasis on liturgical practice, orthodox doctrine, sound Christology, and the corporate witness of the church, confessionalism has much to offer. It certainly trumps the misplaced emphasis on emotionalism, experience, and zeal for social activism favored by contemporary evangelical and mainline Protestants. Likewise, the liberating nature of the doctrines of grace and the revealed promises of God is far more comforting to the confessional believer then seeking salvation through sacramental life in the church as the Catholic and Orthodox faith contemplates.

The Christian faith might be dynamic in its development and growth in the life of the believer, but our blessed Savior proclaimed, "It is finished," for good reason. So, we lay the diadam of our salvation on the Crosswork of Christ, and trust that the good work that Almighty God starts in us will be brought to fruition. Soli Deo Gloria!

All things considered, Hart offers a refreshing perspective and critique of the cultural currents in American Protestant religion. He points us to the "lost soul of American Protestantism," which is still bubbling beneath the surface of American religious life, but not readily visible in a morass of experiential religious expression.

1. 1. Kirk, Russell, The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot, 7th ed., (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1985,) p. 246.