Protestantism

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Protestantism
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History

• Began as a movement to reform the Roman Catholic
  church in the 16th century

• The declared aim of the original reformers was to
  restore the Christian faith as it had been at its
  beginning, while keeping what they thought
  valuable from the Roman Catholic tradition.

• The four main Protestant traditions that emerged
  from the Reformation were

• Lutheran Known in Europe as Evangelical.

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• Calvinist Reformed

• Anabaptist

• Anglican

• Despite the considerable differences among them
  in doctrine and practice , they agreed in

• Rejecting the authority of the pope / Church

• Emphasizing instead the authority of the Bible
  and the importance of individual faith.

• According to recent figures, there are about 345
  million Protestant in the world in more than
  28,000 denominations

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Luther

• An Augustinian monk and professor of theology at
  the university of Wittenberg, Germany.

• The events usually considered the beginning of
  the Reformation is Martin Luthers publication,
  in 1517, of his Ninety-five Theses attacking the
  indiscriminate sale of indulgences to finance the
  construction of Saint Peters Basilica in Rome.

• Unable to find assurance of salvation in
  traditional Catholic teachings, came to believe
  such assurance was to be found in the doctrine of
  justification by divine grace through faith.

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• He thought Catholic theology had obscured
  salvation by faith by giving equal weight to the
  good works.

• The sale of indulgences was an abuse that
  originated in the mistaken emphasis on works.

• Luther at first intended only to bring about
  reform within the church, but he met with firm
  opposition.

• In refusing to recant his views and demanding to
  be proven wrong by Scripture, he denied the
  authority of the church, and was excommunicated.

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Zwingli

• A more radical reform movement emerged in Zurich,
  Switzerland, under the leadership of the Swiss
  pastor Huldreich Zwingli

• Zwinglis biblical studies led him to the
  conclusion that only what was specifically
  authorized by the Scriptures should be retained
  in the church practice and doctrine.

• Devised a very simple service, and in opposition
  to both Roman Catholicism and Lutheranism, he
  interpreted the Eucharist as a purely symbolic
  ceremony.

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Calvin

• The dominant reformer in the generation after
  Luther and Zwingli.

• A French theologian who settled in Geneva in 1536.

• Wrote the first systematic exposition of
  Protestant theology, set up a democratic
  Presbyterian church government.

• John Knox, his disciple introduced Calvinism into
  Scotland, where it became the established
  Presbyterian church.

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England

• Calvinism also spread to France, where its
  adherents were known as Huguenots and to Holland.

• The Anglican church became the established church
  in England when Henry VIII assumed (1534) the
  ecclesiastical authority over the English church.

• Henrys motive was to annul his marriage to
  Catherine of Aragon rather than to reform church
  doctrine

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• He imposed several laws upholding the major
  tenets of medieval Catholicism.

• Under King Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth, the
  Anglican church developed a distinctly Protestant
  creed, nevertheless retained many of the forms of
  Roman Catholicism.

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Western Atonement

• There was a man who had two sons. The younger
  said to his father, "Father, give me my share of
  the estate." So the father divided his property
  between them. Not long after that, the younger
  son went off to a distant country, squandered all
  he had in wild living, and ended up feeding pigs
  in order to survive. Eventually he returned to
  his father, saying, "Father, I have sinned
  against heaven and you. I am no longer worthy to
  be called your son. Make me one of your hired
  servants." But his father responded "I cannot
  simply forgive you for what you have done, not
  even so much as to make you one of my hired men.
  You have insulted my honour by your wild living.
  Simply to forgive you would be to trivialize sin
  it would be against the moral order of the entire
  universe. For nothing is less tolerable in the
  order of things than for a son to take away the
  honour due to his father and not make recompense
  for what he takes away.

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• Such is the severity of my justice that
  reconciliation will not be made unless the
  penalty is utterly paid. My wrath--my avenging
  justice--must be placated.",
• "But father, please..." the son began to plead.
• "No," the father said, "either you must be
  punished or you must pay back, through hard
  labour for as long as you shall live, the honour
  you stole from me."
• Then the elder brother spoke up. "Father, I will
  pay the debt that he owes and endure your just
  punishment for him. Let me work extra in the
  field on his behalf and thereby placate your
  wrath." And it came to pass that the elder
  brother took on the garb of a servant and
  laboured hard year after year, often long into
  the night, on behalf of his younger brother. And
  finally, when the elder brother died of
  exhaustion, the father's wrath was placated
  against his younger son and they lived happily
  for the remainder of their days.

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Ransom Theory

• Essentially, this theory claimed that Adam and
  Eve sold humanity over to the Devil at the time
  of the Fall hence, justice required that God pay
  the Devil a ransom to free us from the Devil's
  clutches. God, however, tricked the Devil into
  accepting Christ's death as a ransom, for the
  Devil did not realize that Christ could not be
  held in the bonds of death. Once the Devil
  accepted Christ's death as a ransom, this theory
  concluded, justice was satisfied and God was able
  to free us from Satan's grip.

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Debt or Satisfaction theory

• We have contracted a debt of obligation to God
  because of our sin. God, however, could not
  simply forgive our debt. God's honour and the
  order of the universe, require that either we be
  punished or the debt be paid (satisfied). Since
  we could not pay ourselves, this theory goes, God
  the Son paid our debt for us by being perfectly
  obedient to God the Father, even to the point of
  suffering and dying on the Cross. Once this debt
  was satisfied, God was free to shower us with his
  mercy and thereby free us from sin and reconcile
  us to himself, given that we repent and respond
  to his grace.

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Moral Exemplar theory

• Christ's life and death save us by giving us a
  perfect moral example of love, humility, and
  obedience to follow.

• Jesus' life, death, and Resurrection do not play
  a significantly greater role in our salvation
  than that played by John the Baptist, Socrates,
  Mother Teresa or Budda--each of whom in various
  ways provides a good, though not perfect, moral
  example for us to imitate or to draw inspiration
  from.

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Penal Theory

• The Penal theory is actually an updated and
  modified version of the Satisfaction theory
  instead of saying that Christ paid a debt we
  owed, it simply claims instead that Christ took
  the punishment we deserved. According to the
  Penal theory, justice, or the moral order,
  requires that our sin be punished. Christ,
  however, the theory claims, satisfied this demand
  of justice by enduring our punishment for us on
  the Cross, and thus opened the way for God's
  grace in our lives.

• Though historically the latest major theory to
  arrive on the scene, the Penal theory is probably
  the most widely known and influential
  interpretation of the doctrine of the Atonement
  in Western Christianity.

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Orthodoxy s Atonement

• Where Orthodoxy sees chiefly Christ the Victor,
  the late medieval and post-medieval west sees
  chiefly Christ the Victim.

• While Orthodoxy interprets the Crucifixion
  primarily as an act of triumphant victory over
  the power of evil, the west particularly has
  tended rather to think of the Cross in panel and
  juridical terms, as an act of satisfaction or
  substitution designed to propitiate the wrath of
  an angry Father.

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• The early Church Fathers emphasized the Atonement
  as an act of deliverance from death and the
  devil, rather than an act of penal substitution
  to appease or satisfy the just wrath of God the
  Father against mans sin.

• The early Fathers rejected the idea that Christ's
  Sacrifice was either a deal with Satan, or the
  satisfaction of a demand by the Father that
  Someone be punished to appease His wrath against
  man's sin.

• Gregory of Nazianzus wrote To Whom was that
  Blood offered that was shed for us, and why was
  It shed? I mean the precious and famous Blood of
  our God and High Priest and Sacrifice. We were
  detained in bondage by the Evil One, sold under
  sin, and receiving pleasure in exchange for
  wickedness.

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• Now, since a ransom belongs only to him who holds
  in bondage, I ask to whom was this offered, and
  for what cause? If to the Evil One, fie upon the
  outrage! If the robber receives ransom, not only
  from God, but a ransom which consists of God
  Himself, and has such an illustrious payment for
  his tyranny, a payment for whose sake it would
  have been right for him to have left us alone
  altogether. But if to the Father, I ask first,
  how? For it was not by Him that we were being
  oppressed and next, On what principle did the
  Blood of His Only begotten Son delight the
  Father, Who would not receive even Isaac, when he
  was being offered by his father, but changed the
  sacrifice, putting a ram in the place of the
  human victim Gen. 22? Is it not evident that
  the Father accepts Him, but neither asked for Him
  nor demanded Him but on account of the
  Incarnation, and

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• because Humanity must be sanctified by the
  Humanity of God, that He might deliver us
  Himself, and overcome the tyrant, and draw us to
  Himself by the mediation of His Son, Who also
  arranged this to the honour of the Father, Whom
  it is manifest that He obeys in all things.

• The offering of Christ's pure life was necessary
  for us, not for God. God from eternity has loved
  both those whom He knew would be His friends, and
  those whom He knew would be His enemies (Matt.
  543-48). God does not change, It is humanity
  that needs to change on account of our sin, not
  God. While the logic of satisfaction and
  appeasement implies that God is reconciled to us
  by Christ's death, Scripture clearly teaches that
  the purpose of Christ's death is to reconcile us
  to God by defeating the devil and releasing us
  from bondage to sin and death.

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Total Depravity (Calvin)

• Calvin taught that after the Fall, human nature
  became inherently evil

• Original Sin has made mankind "wholly defiled in
  all the faculties and parts of body and soul" and
  "utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite
  to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil"
  (Westminster Confession, VI.24).

• "death passed upon all men, for that all have
  sinned," (Rom. 512) that is, are involved in
  original sin, and polluted by its stain. Hence,
  even infants bringing their condemnation with
  them from their mother's womb, suffer not for
  another's, but for their own defect. For although
  they have not yet produced the fruits of their
  own unrighteousness, they have the seed implanted
  in them.

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Orthodoxy

• For our nature is not only utterly devoid of
  goodness, but so prolific in all kinds of evil,
  that it can never be idle.

• Saint Augustine of Hippo wrote The consideration
  we wish most to urge is the truth of the Catholic
  doctrinethat God is the author of all natures...
  From this every one seesthat every nature, as
  far as it is nature, is good since in one and
  the same thing in which I found something to
  praise, and he found something to blame, if the
  good things are taken away, no nature will
  remain but if the disagreeable things are taken
  away, the nature will remain unimpaired... who
  can doubt that the whole of that which is called
  evil is nothing else than corruption?

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• ... corruption does harm only as displacing the
  natural condition and so, that corruption is not
  nature, but against nature. And if corruption is
  the only evil to be found anywhere, and if
  corruption is not nature, no nature is evil.

• Sin, in the Orthodox Patristic understanding, is
  not an essential part of human nature (what man
  is), but is rather a human energy or activity
  (what man does), an abuse of free will, the
  effects of which include corruption of the body,
  soul, and spirit through bondage to death and the
  devil. We are therefore "by nature children of
  wrath" (Eph. 23) not because our nature is
  essentially evil, but because our nature is
  enslaved to corruption.