If one believes that Catholic Church was "hopeless" at the time of the Reformation, could one make a case for there being other groups that "carried the torch" through the "darkness" of the Middle Ages?
Personally, I don't think so. The well-known "Trail of Blood", for example, has to embrace incredibly heretical (by the standards of Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox!) sects in order to maintain continuity. I see no means by which to establish a claim of a "pure" church, "untainted" by popery.
So how does one solve the obvious problem, from a reformed standpoint? Quite simply by realizing that the truth never "died": while the Church had many problems, and was in need of reform, vital truths lived on, though they may have been limited to individuals. I can gather a number of individuals, mostly monks, whom one might easily consider "semi-evangelical": but still very much within the Church. Were there any that espoused fully Protestant ideas? Probably not- and one must be careful not to strain the beliefs of medieval individuals so as to make them "Reformed".
I thought I'd return to this historical question that is revived repeatedly by responding to your previous remarks and, incidentally, hijack the thread back to the original topic.
Cleburne:
If one believes that Catholic Church was "hopeless" at the time of the Reformation, could one make a case for there being other groups that "carried the torch" through the "darkness" of the Middle Ages? Personally, I don't think so. The well-known "Trail of Blood", for example, has to embrace incredibly heretical (by the standards of Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox!) sects in order to maintain continuity. I see no means by which to establish a claim of a "pure" church, "untainted" by popery.
Jael:
So you believe that Rome was the true church? She just went bad over time?
MarMema:
In 988 Orthodoxy was brought to Russia by Prince Vladimir, where it flourished. The years of 1350-1550 were the culmination, considered the "golden age of Orthodoxy" in Russia.
Jael:
I couldn't consider them [the Church Fathers and their immediate heirs as part of the "true Church"]
as such. Doctrinally speaking, or in any way, I don't see Rome as ever being a part of Biblical Christianity.
First off, I've looked, as have many others, for any completely unbroken line of Christian descent that is completely outside the Roman church. One can make a case for the Piedmontese churches as a missionary outreach of the Palestinian churches but that hardly seems a complete explanation. I have concluded that this is probably the wrong way to approach it. I think the case can be argued for a sort of unbroken succession but that ultimately, it is not satisfactory for a number of reasons.
Let's try to frame this entire matter a little differently instead and we see another more nuanced view emerges.
In the early years of the Roman church, in fact for centuries, the Roman bishop was not a pope in the modern sense. In fact, the real notion of a pope took about a thousand years to develop and for papal successors to establish their power. Priestly celibacy was not enforced for a thousand years. Mariolatry, in the modern sense, simply did not exist until relatively modern times. The Eucharist, while always a doctrine, did not receive the same emphasis as it does in modern times.
The point I'm making is that the church of Rome was far less apostate in the early centuries than the modern version. It was entirely possible for a good Christian to be, incidentally, a Roman Catholic.
We might keep in mind that the ordinary believer in most churches knew no more of theology or the Bible than most any Protestant child of age 10 knows today. And yet, just as I believe that that child, if they know Christ, will go to heaven if they die today, so I can have no great reason to deny that I could never meet any of those simple peasant Christians of the Middle Ages in heaven, merely because they attended an RC church which was probably the only religious organization they had ever even heard of. Other people may make pronouncement on their fate. Being a Calvinist, I am content to let God sort that out. Personally, I'm hoping He's more merciful on theological purity than many of His most devoted spokesmen throughout history.
We have to keep in mind that the ancient peoples did not have universal literacy or modern communications. For the average believer, it was quite difficult to be informed as to the opinions of the hierarchy and the pope because they couldn't read and there were not enough communications to ensure the message got out to the hinterlands.
The gross materialism of the Roman hierarchy became undeniable even to its loyal adherents in the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries. And yet, corrupt as it was, I have few doubts that within the church of Rome, there were faithful priests and ordinary Christians whose lives were untouched by the scandals of the hierarchy and the friars and the church/state politics. I would be hardpressed to say that I consider it would be impossible to meet some of them in Heaven. Certainly, many ordinary believers and village priests, isolated as they were, were far better Christians than any member of their corrupt medieval hierarchy.
It is always possible that some defects in doctrine are not a bar to salvation. Perhaps OPie would favor us with some discussion on the traditional Protestant views on the "fatal heresies" of the Roman church as opposed to merely their mistaken doctrines. It's an interesting topic to consider and certainly an issue every Protestant has to accommodate.
I think that Protestantism must dismiss itself entirely if it completely repudiates any trace of Roman heritage. After all, Protestants must be "protesting" something and that something is/was the Roman hierarchy's corruption of simple Christian worship and ordinances.
When you look closely, it is a very interesting question. If we throw out everything from the church of Rome, we have to abandon Augustine and his views on sovereignty, the foundation of Calvin's later works. And we'd have to throw out Erasmus who created the Textus Receptus version of Greek text which became the basis of all the great Protestant bibles. (Erasmus was a Roman Catholic priest but died with Protestant friends without last rites.) I just wanted to give a few examples of what I'm talking about.
God looks on the heart, I think, and on how He can lead His children to do His will. Theology is secondary because without a loving heart that is lead by God as its sovereign, all that theology will neither save nor damn a single soul.
And so, you will likely say, how then can we determine exactly where Rome went truly sour. I would say that their theology is so unbiblical and their practices so worldly and pleasing to the world, that in the end, we have to judge them by their fruit. And yet, it is true that many ordinary RCs are better Christians than their hierarchies, certainly many of them tower morally over some of their priests.
In the end, a Protestant has to stand as fully and firmly upon the Word of God and only that. We can't claim all of Christian history to support us. We claim only the Word and our best understanding and reading of it. And perhaps, that is what God is after. His Word to remain true but for it to be the opening into our lives, a lamp to our feet and a light to our paths. But that light that shines from the Word is for
each of us, as God reveals His will in each believer's life.
There is in the Protestant tradition a flavor of individualism that cannot be matched by the far more corporate identity of members of the Roman church. And Calvinists are the great individualists of Protestantism, if not of all time. Well, I'll stop before I digress entirely though it is a wonderful political and historical topic.
The politically relevant theological and historical upshot of all this discussion:
- You'll notice that my "nuanced historical approach" allows me to include any of the Church Fathers or any early Christian authority without any problems but without being bound to any hierarchical obedience. No need to cede all that territory to the Orthodox or Roman churches.
- Also, I can, as a Calvinist, make as large a claim as I wish upon Augustine's teachings on the sovereignty of God but still ignore his other teachings which supported Rome. And I can latch onto countless others who held positions within the Roman church (like Erasmus writing the Textus Receptus) with no problems at all.
- I can also avoid any necessity of consigning millions of ordinary RC believers in history to hell. I can leave that to God and hope for the best. My harsh views on the Roman hierarchy (and their likely eternal destination) remains, of course, unaltered. They are, as they have always been, without excuse.
Dang, I'm getting to be one slippery Protestant. But, as OPie might tell you, the problem is that this argument starts to place us on a slippery slope theologically. And so, the strength of this more "flexible" view is also its greatest weakness. And I'm annoyed to find myself more "ecumenical" than I once was. But then, I also have a certain admiration for the aggressiveness of my local RC bishop so you have fair warning; theologically he's dead wrong but he at least scares all the right people.
</immolation exercise>