Tuesday, December 21, 2004 AD
Revisionism and Reformation
The Spectator has an interesting interview with Diarmuid MacCulloch, author of a recent history of the Reformation, as well as a highly-regarded biography of Cranmer a few years back, in which he describes the shifts in approach to Reformation history over the past forty years.
The interviewer, Theo Hobson, describes how "Reformation studies ... underwent a revisionist revolution, with the questioning of the Protestant triumphalist narrative". MacCulloch continues:
I also wonder whether the "Protestant triumphalist" view has been somewhat exaggerated and caricatured by the revisionists. Surely a large part of the Reformers' objection to late-medieval Catholicism was precisely that it was lively and vigorous, but with its life and vigour being largely misdirected, into just the sort of picturesque but theologically-unsound activities that Eamon Duffy (a Roman Catholic) finds so persuasive: Masses, altar guilds, the cult of the saints, etc. St Paul's words still seem appropriate here:
This remains a common problem today. Who can doubt that the Episcopal Church, for example, has a great deal of "life and vigour" on its own terms (as seen, for example, in the rich and colourful theatre of Gene Robinson's consecration as bishop)? That's one reason why it's taken so long for conservative Anglicans to rouse themselves to take action against apostasy within that church. And within Lutheranism, the number one argument put forward by proponents of church growth techniques and contemporary forms of worship is that the churches which adopt these practices are more lively and vigorous than those which resist them.
It would be easy to hold fast to the faith once for all delivered to the saints if heterodox churches (and Christians) could be easily identified by their decadence and decay. But the theology of the cross means that very often it is churches that confess the true faith that look unimpressive, apparently lacking life and vigour, whereas the churches that hold to a theology of glory will always win out when assessed on the theology of glory's own terms.
The interviewer, Theo Hobson, describes how "Reformation studies ... underwent a revisionist revolution, with the questioning of the Protestant triumphalist narrative". MacCulloch continues:
That began in the mid-1970s, and it actually emerged from local studies — for example, the work of Christopher Haigh on the Reformation in Lancashire, and I was doing a similar study on Suffolk. The picture was emerging of a very vigorous Catholicism both before and after the Reformation. The old picture of a decaying, corrupt Church was just not right. So there was a rejection of the Protestant triumphalism of historians such as A.G. Dickens.Hobson then observes that, "For a while the pendulum swung the other way, towards an idealisation of pre-Reformation England". I suppose this would be typified by books like Eamon Duffy's The Stripping of the Altars, which is a fascinating book that certainly puts paid to any notion that the old Catholic religion was unpopular and in steep decline. But reading Duffy did put a question in my mind that MacCulloch also raises: if the pre-Reformation church was so great, how come the Reformation happened in the first place?
I think we’ve now moved on a stage - there's a recognition that the Church was complex and rich before the Reformation, and that what came after was also complex and rich. But a big question remained which the revisionists tended to ignore. If this Church was so strong and complex and richly textured, and popular, then how could it fall apart so quickly, which undoubtedly it did? The Reformation becomes much more interesting than in the old account, where the Church was ready to collapse.ISTM that this "complex and rich" account of the Reformation is more convincing than either a "Protestant triumphalist" account of victory over a decaying Catholicism, or the revisionist account of Protestantism forced upon an almost wholly unwilling nation.
I also wonder whether the "Protestant triumphalist" view has been somewhat exaggerated and caricatured by the revisionists. Surely a large part of the Reformers' objection to late-medieval Catholicism was precisely that it was lively and vigorous, but with its life and vigour being largely misdirected, into just the sort of picturesque but theologically-unsound activities that Eamon Duffy (a Roman Catholic) finds so persuasive: Masses, altar guilds, the cult of the saints, etc. St Paul's words still seem appropriate here:
I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God's righteousness.The life and vigour of works-orientated Catholicism is one reason why the Reformers put so much energy (perhaps too much energy in some cases) into "stripping the altars"; perhaps that is also why it took a long time for the public as a whole to catch up, since by and large people couldn't see what the real problem was.
This remains a common problem today. Who can doubt that the Episcopal Church, for example, has a great deal of "life and vigour" on its own terms (as seen, for example, in the rich and colourful theatre of Gene Robinson's consecration as bishop)? That's one reason why it's taken so long for conservative Anglicans to rouse themselves to take action against apostasy within that church. And within Lutheranism, the number one argument put forward by proponents of church growth techniques and contemporary forms of worship is that the churches which adopt these practices are more lively and vigorous than those which resist them.
It would be easy to hold fast to the faith once for all delivered to the saints if heterodox churches (and Christians) could be easily identified by their decadence and decay. But the theology of the cross means that very often it is churches that confess the true faith that look unimpressive, apparently lacking life and vigour, whereas the churches that hold to a theology of glory will always win out when assessed on the theology of glory's own terms.
