CHRISTIAN RENAISSANCE: WHY THERE NEVER WAS A REFORMATION

We use the term all the time and we speak endlessly of the theology that created it and that then flowed from it as if it actually existed and accomplished something. But it is a fantasy. There never was a Reformation, there are no Reformed Churches, and Reformed theology is a fiction. This misnomer is now a deadly trap that those who wish to pursue the kingdom of God must recognise as such if they wish to avoid another forty years in the wilderness.

Well, you may think I am about to jump ship and become a Roman Catholic, but nothing could be further from the truth. My point is that the Roman Church was not reformed, and has never been reformed. It is true that due to the rise of nation States it has less power today than it had in the sixteenth century, but it is just as corrupt doctrinally and morally today as it was in the sixteenth century, indeed even more corrupt in some ways.

What we call the Reformation was not a Reformation at all. It was an Exodus. The Reformers never reformed the Roman Church. Not one Reformer achieved such a reformation. And if one had, Protestants would not recognise him as a Reformer at all. Misuse of words and terms can be a great snare. The Reformers did not reform any Church. If they had done so there would exist today a Reformed Roman Catholic Church. No such Church exists. Rather they left the Roman Church, or were thrown out of it, and they then started again. They built a new Church altogether.

The correct term for what the Reformers did is Ecclesial Renaissance, i.e. a new birth of the Church. They did not reform the Church, they left the Roman Catholic Church and their work led to the rebirth of the Christian Church in a new form. Unfortunately the word renaissance is used for the Humanist Renaissance that preceded what we call he Reformation and so its use to describe the work of the Reformers is likely to cause confusion, although in some respects the Reformation was part of the Renaissance, and other respects not so. Nevertheless, the term Ecclesial Renaissance is the correct description of the great work that the Reformers accomplished.

Now, you may well say, it was not the Church the Reformers were trying to reform but the Christian faith. That would be in principle a valid argument if it were true, and then the word Reformation would be used properly. But that was not the case. It was the Church that the Reformers set out to reform. But this was a failure, and it was a complete failure. What they did was to abandon the old wineskin. In other words, it was not the wine that was the problem. There was nothing wrong with the wine. It did not need reformation. The existence of many people who desired to reform the Church prior to the Reformation shows that the Christian faith was alive and well. The problem was the wineskin, not the wine, and it was the wineskin that the Reformers abandoned because they were unable to reform it.

In this they were following the teaching of Jesus, whether they recognised it or not. The wineskin had become useless. Sure, they wanted Reformation, and they wanted to reform the Church of Rome, but that is not what God gave them.  New wineskins were needed. I am not denying of course that the Reformers did a great work. They did. What I am saying is that the mistaken idea that they reformed the Church has lead us astray into the belief that we must reform the modern apostate Protestant Church. But Reformation is not the answer. The Protestant Church is unreformable, not because God cannot reform it—of course he can—but because God does not reform apostate Churches. If the salt has lost its saltiness it is fit for what? To be reformed? No! It is fit for nothing except to be thrown out. I did not say this. The Lord Jesus Christ said it, just as he said that old wineskins are useless in holding the new wine and that new wineskins are necessary. And it appears now that God has thrown out the Protestant Church wineskin, which is salt that has lost its saltiness.

Do not take my word for it. Look at history. Which Churches, once they had lost their saltiness, once they had become useless and were no more than cracked old wineskins, once they were apostate, has God ever reformed? Not the Greek Orthodox Church. Not the Nestorian Church—which, incidentally, was in its heyday one of the greatest missionary Churches that the world has ever seen, but by the time of Kubilai Kahn was utterly useless to Kubilai in his desire to Christianise his empire. Not the Roman Church or Orthodox Russian Church, nor the Coptic Church. Which Churches, and when, did God ever reform once this level of corruption and apostasy had set in? None that I know of. Maybe God has reformed one and I am just displaying my ignorance. If so, please tell me, and I will join it immediately. Please disabuse me of my ignorance. Ignorance is of no use to me. Please put me out of my misery. Nothing would please me more or be of greater relief to me in my calling. I have looked for such a Church for many years. I am not talking about finding a perfect Church so please do not quote that hackneyed and useless old phrase about never finding a perfect Church—it is the feeble mantra of every tin-pot pope that is desperate to hold on to his idolatrous tyranny. Such statements are sheer stupidity and if they had any value they would render the work of the Reformers useless. Remember I am not denying that the work that the Reformers did was necessary and vital. It was. What I am denying is that it was a Reformation of the Church.

It seems incontestable to me now that although God can reform apostate Churches, he does not do so. God has never reformed an apostate Church. “If the salt has lost its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be reformed.” Is that what Jesus really said? Of course not. He said: “If the salt has lost its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?”—in other words it cannot be made salty again—“It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot” (Mt. 5:13). Either we believe the words of Jesus or we do not. God does not reform apostate Churches. He starts again. The new wine must have new wineskins if it is not to be wasted. Not only the Bible but history as well teaches this lesson. The Protestant Church has gone the way of the rest. It is unreformable because God does not reform apostate Churches.

The Reformation was not a Reformation of anything. It was an Exodus and a new beginning, a rebirth of the Church. We do not need any more Reformations. They are useless because God does not deal in Church Reformations, He deals in new beginnings, new births, renaissance. We need an Exodus and a new beginning, a Christian Renaissance. But this renaissance needs to be much wider and more exhaustive than a mere ecclesial renaissance. It must be nothing less than the birth of a new Christian social order.

Of course, I am not interested in arguing about mere words. I have used the term Reformation all my Christian life. But I must now reform my thinking about this according to God’s word (I am speaking here of reforming my thinking, not the Church—God does reform individuals, but even that is a new beginning, a new birth: “if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new”—2 Cor. 5:17. But the point is that God does not reform Churches). The problem here is that words and terms can and do mislead us. Ill-considered language can lead us astray in our understanding. We must therefore subject our minds, our very thinking process, to the word of God so that we think properly. Scripture tells us that the Holy Spirit works through the renewing of the mind. We must therefore be disciplined in our thinking according to what Scripture teaches. And Scripture does not teach Reformation. It teaches Exodus. There have been no Reformations in the history of the Church, only Exoduses and new beginnings.

But there is an even greater danger waiting for us here than merely being led astray in our language and thinking, namely, that at least for a great many Christians the real reason they refuse to leave Egypt is that they have made an idol out of it and they prefer idolatry to liberty, because as John Owen so aptly put it, the Church is the greatest idol that ever was in the world.

The Reformation never happened. The Reformers wanted it, desperately, but they did not get it. They asked God for a stone, but he gave them bread instead (Mt. 7:9). “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” (Mt. 7:11). We need an Exodus not a Reformation, and we need to pray for an Exodus not a Reformation, because God will not give us a Reformation and we need to pray according to Scripture and God’s will.

But here is the important point: in our generation there has never been a better time to start on this new beginning, this Exodus and conquest of the promised land, than the present, since God, in his grace and mercy, has given us the an excellent opportunity to make this necessary change by shutting down these dreadful Churches, these temples of heresy and apostasy. This is perhaps, and certainly potentially, the greatest silver lining in the whole lockdown cloud. The time has come for Christians to gird up their loins, start on a new Exodus into the promised land, and reclaim their citizenship of the kingdom of God from those who have sought to dispossess them of it for so long. Reform will not take us where we need to be and should be. It will merely trap us in the past, a past that will repeat the paralysis, cowardice and failure that characterised the Church in the twentieth century. We must leave Egypt, leave the house of slavery, and pursue the freedom under God that the Lord Jesus Christ has promised us.

There is no doubt plenty in this article that you can wilfully misrepresent wildly and shoot me down in flames for. By all means enjoy yourself, I have come to expect nothing less. But remember, when all the argy-bargy is over you will still be in an unreformable Church with only one biblical and historically proven way out, and you will still be faced with the same choice: either idolatry or Exodus. The kingdom of God cannot be reached through the Reformation of apostate Churches. It can be reached only through Exodus and conquest, new birth, renaissance. We are not called to reform Egypt (the corrupt and apostate Church structures of the past), but to conquer the promised land (i.e. disciple the nations). When we do that, and when we seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, the nations of the earth shall come to us and say: “Teach us the way of the Lord” (Isaiah 2:1–4), and all the nations will become the disciples of Jesus Christ (Mt. 28:19 cf. Rev. 11:15).