The “Second Reformation”: Protestant Orthodoxy
A Clarification of Terms
Precisely because the movement that is called “the Reformation” is so complex, the term is used in a number of different senses. A number of “reformations” took place in western Europe at this time, often with different geographical locations and religious agenda. Six main meanings of the term are encountered in the literature: the German reformation, which gave rise to Lutheranism; the Swiss reformation, which gave birth to the Reformed version of Christianity often referred to as “Calvinism”; the “radical Reformation,” often still referred to as “Anabaptism”; the English Reformation, which gave rise to the distinctive form of Christianity often known as “Anglicanism”; the “Catholic Reformation” (sometimes referred to as the “Counter-Reformation”); and the “Second Reformation” within Protestantism. In its broadest sense, the term “Reformation” is used to refer to all these movements.
The term “Protestant” derives from the aftermath of the Diet of Speyer (February 1529), which voted to end the toleration of Lutheranism in Germany. In April of the same year, six German princes and fourteen cities protested against this oppressive measure, defending freedom of conscience and the rights of religious minorities. The term “Protestant” derives from this protest. It is therefore not strictly correct to apply the term “Protestant” to individuals prior to April 1529, or to speak of events prior to that date as constituting “the Protestant Reformation.” The term “evangelical” is often used in the literature to refer to the reforming factions at Wittenberg and elsewhere (for example, in France and Switzerland) prior to this date. Although the word “Protestant” is often used to refer to this earlier period, this use is, strictly speaking, an anachronism.
The German Reformation – Lutheranism
The Lutheran Reformation is particularly associated with the German territories and the pervasive personal influence of one charismatic individual – Martin Luther. Luther was particularly concerned with the doctrine of justification, which formed the central point of his religious thought. The Lutheran Reformation was initially an academic movement, concerned primarily with reforming the teaching of theology at the University of Wittenberg. Wittenberg was an unimportant university and the reforms introduced by Luther and his colleagues within the theology faculty attracted little attention. It was Luther’s personal activities – such as his posting of the famous Ninety-Five Theses, protesting against selling indulgences to raise money for the rebuilding of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome (October 31, 1517) – which attracted considerable interest and brought the ideas in circulation at Wittenberg to the attention of a wider audience.
Strictly speaking, the Lutheran Reformation only began in 1522, when Luther returned to Wittenberg from his enforced isolation in the castle known as the Wartburg. Luther was condemned for “false doctrine” by the Diet of Worms in 1521. Fearing for his life, certain well-placed supporters removed Luther in secrecy to the Wartburg, until the threat to his safety ceased. In his absence, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, one of Luther’s academic colleagues at Wittenberg, began a program of reform at Wittenberg that seemed to degenerate into chaos. Convinced that he was needed if the Reformation was to survive Karlstadt’s ineptitude, Luther emerged from his place of safety and returned to Wittenberg to take charge of the reformation in the city.
At this point, Luther’s program of academic reform changed into a program of reform of church and society. No longer was Luther’s forum of activity the university world of ideas; he now found himself regarded as the leader of a religious, social, and political reforming movement that seemed to some contemporary observers to open the way to a new social and religious order in Europe. In fact, Luther’s program of reform was much more conservative than that associated with his Reformed colleagues, such as Huldrych Zwingli. Furthermore, it met with considerably less success than some anticipated. The movement remained obstinately tied to the German territories and – Scandinavia apart – never gained the foreign power bases, which seemed to be like so many ripe apples, ready to fall into its lap.
Luther’s understanding of the role of the “godly prince” (which effectively ensured that the monarch had control of the church) does not seem to have had the attraction that might have been expected, particularly in the light of the generally republican sentiments of Reformed thinkers such as Calvin. The case of England is particularly illuminating: here, as in the Low Countries, the Protestant theology that gained the ascendancy was Reformed rather than Lutheran, despite the latter’s early influence in the reign of Henry VIII.
The Swiss Reformation – The Reformed Church
The origins of the Swiss Reformation, which brought the Reformed churches (such as the Presbyterians) into being, lie in developments within the Swiss Confederation (Confederatio Helvetica – hence the modern abbreviation “CH” for Switzerland) – in the early sixteenth century. Whereas the German Reformation had its origins primarily in an academic context, the Reformed church owed its origins to a series of attempts to reform the morals and worship of the church (but not necessarily its doctrine) according to a more biblical pattern. It must be emphasized that although Calvin gave this style of Reformation its definitive form, its origins are to be traced back to earlier reformers, such as Huldrych Zwingli and Heinrich Bullinger, based in the leading Swiss city of Zurich.
Although most of the early Reformed theologians, such as Zwingli, had an academic background, their reforming programs were not academic in nature. They were directed toward the church as they found it in Swiss cities such as Zurich, Berne, and Basel. Whereas Luther was convinced that the doctrine of justification was of central significance to his program of social and religious reform, the early Reformed thinkers had relatively little interest in doctrine in general, let alone this specific doctrine. Their reforming program was institutional, social, and ethical, in many ways similar to the demands for reform emanating from the humanist movement.
The consolidation of the Reformed church is generally thought to begin with the stabilization of the Zurich Reformation after Zwingli’s death in battle (1531) under his successor, Heinrich Bullinger, and to end with the emergence of Geneva as its power base, and John Calvin as its leading spokesman, in the 1550s. The gradual shift in power within the Reformed church (initially from Zurich to Berne and subsequently from Berne to Geneva) took place over the period 1520–1560, eventually establishing the city of Geneva, its political system (republicanism), and its religious thinkers (initially Calvin and after his death Theodore Beza) as predominant within the Reformed church. This development was consolidated through the establishment of the Genevan Academy (founded in 1559), at which Reformed pastors were trained. Although Geneva became part of Switzerland in 1815, in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, it was an independent city at the time of the Reformation. This means that the term “Swiss reformation” is being used slightly loosely and anachronistically at this point.
The term “Calvinism” is often used to refer to the religious ideas of the Reformed church. Although still widespread in the literature relating to the Reformation, this practice is now generally discouraged. It is becoming increasingly clear that later sixteenth-century Reformed theology draws on sources other than the ideas of Calvin himself. To refer to later sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Reformed thought as “Calvinist” implies that it is essentially the thought of Calvin – and it is now generally agreed that Calvin’s ideas were modified subtly by his successors. The term “Reformed” is now preferred, whether to refer to those churches (mainly in Switzerland, the Low Countries, and Germany) or religious thinkers (such as Theodore Beza, William Perkins, and John Owen) who based themselves upon Calvin’s celebrated theological textbook, The Institutes of the Christian Religion, or church documents (such as the famous Heidelberg Catechism) based upon it.
The Radical Reformation – Anabaptism
The term “Anabaptist” literally means “someone who baptizes again” and refers to what was perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Anabaptist practice: the insistence that only adults who had made a personal, public profession of faith should be baptized. Anabaptists argued that the New Testament only authorized adult baptism and that infant baptism was an unacceptable later development.
Anabaptism seems to have first arisen in the city of Zurich, in the aftermath of Zwingli’s reforms within the city in the early 1520s. It centered on a group of individuals (such as Conrad Grebel) who argued that Zwingli was not being faithful to his own reforming principles. He preached one thing and practiced another. Although Zwingli professed faithfulness to the sola scriptura, “by Scripture alone,” principle, Grebel argued that he retained a number of practices – including infant baptism, the close link between church and magistracy, and the participation of Christians in warfare – that were not sanctioned or ordained by Scripture. In the hands of such thinkers as Grebel, the sola scriptura principle would be radicalized; reformed Christians would believe and practice only those things explicitly taught in Scripture. Zwingli was alarmed by this, seeing it as a destabilizing development that threatened to cut off the Reformed church at Zurich from its historical roots.
A number of common elements can be discerned within the various strands of the Anabaptist movement: a general distrust of external authority; the rejection of infant baptism in favor of the baptism of adult believers; the common ownership of property; and an emphasis upon pacifism and non-resistance. To take up the third of these points: in 1527, the governments of Zurich, Berne, and St. Gallen accused the Anabaptists of believing “that no true Christian can either give or receive interest or income on a sum of capital, that all temporal goods are free and common, and that all can have full property rights to them.” It is for this reason that Anabaptism is often referred to as the “left wing of the Reformation” (Roland H. Bainton) or the “radical Reformation” (George Hunston Williams). For Williams, the “radical Reformation” was to be contrasted with the “magisterial Reformation,” which he broadly identified with the Lutheran and Reformed movements. These terms are increasingly being accepted within Reformation scholarship and you are likely to encounter them in your reading of more recent studies of the movement.
The English Reformation – Anglicanism
The English reformation took a somewhat different direction than its continental counterpart. Although there was at least some degree of popular pressure for a reform within the church, the leading force for reform within England was Henry VIII, who ascended the throne in 1509. In 1527, Henry took the first steps to dissolve his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. The only child of this marriage, Mary Tudor, was female; Henry wanted a male heir. The pope refused to dissolve or annul the marriage. Henry’s desire to ensure the succession to the English throne appears to have been of decisive importance in seeking an alternative ecclesiastical system within England, which would be amenable to him finding another queen to produce a male heir.
Henry gradually replaced papal authority in England with his own authority. The creation of an English national church was part of this vision. Henry seems not to have been particularly interested in matters of doctrine or theology, preferring to concentrate upon the practicalities of religious and political power. His decision to appoint Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) as Archbishop of Canterbury led to at least some Protestant influences being brought to bear on the English church.
When Henry died in 1547, he was succeeded by his son, Edward VI. Edward was a minor on his accession; as a result, real power was exercised by his advisors, who were generally of a strongly Protestant persuasion. Cranmer, who remained in office as archbishop during Edward’s reign, was able to bring in noticeably Protestant forms of public worship and encouraged leading Protestant thinkers (such as Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr Vermigli) to settle in England and give theological direction to the Reformation. However, Edward died in 1553, leaving the nation in a state of religious flux.
Edward was succeeded by Mary Tudor, who was strongly Catholic in sympathy. She set in motion a series of measures that suppressed Protestantism and restored Catholicism. Some of the measures were deeply unpopular, most notably the public burning of Thomas Cranmer at Oxford in 1556. Cranmer was replaced as Archbishop of Canterbury by Reginald Pole, a moderate Catholic. At the time of her death in 1558, Catholicism had not yet been entirely re-established. When Elizabeth I succeeded to the throne, it was not entirely clear what direction her religious policies might take.
In the event, Elizabeth pursued a complex policy, which seems to have been aimed at appeasing both Protestants and Catholics, while allowing the Queen to have supreme authority in matters of religion. What is usually referred to as “the Elizabethan Settlement” (1558–1559) established the national English church as a reformed episcopal church, having broadly Protestant articles of faith with a more Catholic liturgy. Nobody was really entirely satisfied with the outcome, which was widely seen as a compromise; however, it enabled England to emerge from a period of religious tension and to avoid the serious religious conflicts that were raging elsewhere in Europe at the time.
The Catholic Reformation
This term is often used to refer to the revival within Roman Catholicism in the period following the opening of the Council of Trent in 1545. This Council continued to meet until 1563. In older scholarly works, the movement is often designated the “Counter-Reformation”: as the term suggests, the Roman Catholic church developed means of combating the Protestant Reformation, in order to limit its influence. It is, however, becoming increasingly clear that the Roman Catholic church countered the Reformation partly by reforming itself from within, in order to remove the grounds of legitimate Protestant criticism. In this sense, the movement was a reformation of the Roman Catholic church as much as it was a reaction against the Protestant Reformation.
The same concerns underlying the Protestant Reformation in northern Europe were channeled into the renewal of the Catholic church, particularly in Spain and Italy. The Council of Trent, the foremost component of the Catholic Reformation, clarified Catholic teaching on a number of confusing matters and introduced much-needed reforms in relation to the conduct of the clergy, ecclesiastical discipline, religious education, and missionary activity. The movement for reform within the church was greatly stimulated by the reformation of many of the older religious orders and the establishment of new orders (such as the Jesuits). The more specifically theological aspects of the Catholic Reformation will be considered in relation to its teachings on Scripture and tradition, justification by faith, and the sacraments. As a result of the Catholic Reformation, many of the abuses that originally lay behind the demands for reform – whether these came from humanists or Protestants – were removed.
The “Second Reformation”: Protestant Orthodoxy
Although the first phase of the Reformation is widely seen as representing a renewal and reform of the church through a return to the Bible and the writings of Augustine of Hippo, the post-Reformation period witnessed the development of more systematic approaches to theology that were similar to those developed by scholastic writers such as Thomas Aquinas. The insights of the reformers were codified in a series of systematic presentations of Christian theology. The term “Protestant Orthodoxy” is generally used to refer to the highly systematic statements of both Lutheran and Reformed theology that emerged in the later part of the sixteenth century.
In the period after Calvin’s death a new concern for method – that is, the systematic organization and coherent deduction of ideas – gained momentum. Reformed theologians found themselves having to defend their ideas against both Lutheran and Roman Catholic opponents. Aristotelianism, regarded with a certain degree of suspicion by Calvin, was now adopted as a methodological tool – a way of demonstrating the intellectual consistency and coherence of Calvinism. Many Calvinist writers turned to Aristotle to help give their theology a firmer rational foundation. This did not mean that Aristotle influenced their theological beliefs – for example, in relation to Christology or the doctrine of justification. Aristotle in effect provided an intellectual scaffolding or framework that allowed these theological ideas to be seen as interconnected parts of a greater whole.
The insights of the reformers were consolidated through the development of a series of systematic presentations of Christian theology. This process is often referred to as “confessionalization,” meaning the emergence of forms of Christianity that defined themselves with reference to “Confessions of Faith,” such as the Second Helvetic Confession (1564). As Protestantism grew in strength and expanded into new territories, tensions between the Lutheran and Reformed churches became of increasing significance, eventually rivaling the older tension between Protestantism and Catholicism. The period 1559–1622, characterized by its new emphasis upon doctrine to distinguish between Lutheran, Reformed, and Catholic churches, is generally referred to as the “period of orthodoxy.”
The situation in Germany became complicated during the 1560s and 1570s, as three major Christian denominations became firmly established in the same area: Lutheranism, Calvinism, and Roman Catholicism. All three were under considerable pressure to identify themselves. Lutherans were obliged to explain how they differed from Calvinists, on the one hand, and Roman Catholics, on the other. Doctrine proved the most reliable way of identifying and explaining these differences: “We believe this, but they believe that.”
New forms of scholasticism began to develop within both Protestant and Roman Catholic theological circles, as both sought to demonstrate the rationality and sophistication of their systems. The rise of scholasticism within Lutheran, Calvinist, and Roman Catholic theological circles led to the appearance of substantial works of systematic theology, comparable in many ways to Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae. These works aimed to present sophisticated and comprehensive accounts of these different forms of Christian theology, demonstrating the strengths of their positions and the weaknesses of those of their opponents.
Lutheranism and Calvinism were, in many respects, very similar. They both claimed to be evangelical and rejected more or less the same central aspects of medieval Catholicism, but the political situation in Germany at this time meant that they needed to be able to distinguish themselves from each other. On most points of doctrine, Lutherans and Calvinists were in broad agreement. Yet there was one matter upon which they were radically divided: the doctrine of predestination. The emphasis placed upon the doctrine of predestination by Calvinists in the period 1559–1662 partly reflects the fact that this doctrine most sharply distinguished them from their Lutheran colleagues.