Sacramentalism and the "Reformation Crisis"

Here I am, finally posting again. My computer was sick for about a week after Summer Conference, and I didn't feel like typing out long posts from the library. Thanks to my good friend Matlock, though, my darling Toshiba is back in action, and I feel obligated to provide you all with a post.

Today has been the first day I've felt fully justified in doing my summer research. Don't get me wrong- I am overjoyed to spend half my summer in Tulsa, getting paid to read books. But the actual research sort of seemed like an afterthought, an excuse to do the other things. That all changed at my meeting with Dr. Bowlin today; for the first time I feel energized to do work, stimulated by academic pursuit.

Since my research this summer is on Luther's view of baptism, Dr. Bowlin started me off on Heiko Oberman's seminal biography Luther: Man Between God and the Devil. In the course of our discussion today we spent time struggling with the idea of the radical existential crisis of the Reformation: how can one be certain of redemption? We talked about the sacramentalism of Catholicism, where participation in the sacraments ensures inclusion in God's people. Easy enough, for those who accept the transmission of grace through the Eucharist, confession, etc.

Funnily enough, Luther did not reject the sacraments per se- baptism was at least partially regenerative, and he accepted real presence in the Eucharist. These two served as assurances of redemption, along with the church.

Flash forward to modern times. Strained through the Anabaptist and Reformed traditions, not to mention old fashioned American individualism, the sacraments have in one form or another lost their efficacious nature. Modern American Evangelical Protestantism (now that's a string of adjectives) focuses almost exclusively on the believer's inner life; faith becomes only individual, not corporate. But individual activity cannot solve the existential crisis- doubts remain. For one in the sacramental mode of faith, there is no need for assurance because it is given from above. To take a naturalistic view (one we need not shrink from: natural explanations often point to supernatural providence), anthropologists recognize the vital role of ritual in religion, in the participation of community.

Because modern evangelicals have supplanted the church and the sacraments, they must substitute "homegrown" alternatives. Thus weekly altar calls offer a feeling of assurance. In radical Pentecostal settings, assurance is gained through the "works of the Spirit", usually speaking in tongues. Anyone not participating must not bear the seal of the Spirit. These heresies are why we must preserve the true sacraments of the church.

I suppose this is one reason I find Presbyterianism so attractive: the balance it acheives between the inner life of the believer and the corporate life. The more I look into Covenant theology, the more sense it makes: God is bringing together a people for himself. Paedobaptism, which I once vehemently shunned, seems more and more a viable option. Luther's explanation really stuns me: infant baptism signifies that the work is God's, not ours. Modern interpretations of baptism make it into a work we do for God, instead of a sign of the promise He made to us through Abraham.

Communion is a little stickier (and not only because we have substituted sugary juice for wine). What exactly does it mean? This is something I struggle with, but again I find myself attracted to the Presbyterian view. While I reject real presence, I cannot see it as simply something to be done and forgotten about. Christ's grace is present, if not his physical body. We must revere this great mystery, not shove it aside.

The third leg of the stool is of course the church. Sadly in Protestant circles the church is not the bride of Christ but rather the nanny of believers, catering to their every want. This is coupled with the problem of scriptural interpretation. Luther opened the word to all believers, but that means that many will distort his intentions and hold that, where exegesis is concerned, anything goes. The opposite strain is the dangerous form of fundamentalism that holds that every word of the bible is literally true, which is so preposterous that I would disbelieve its existence if I didn't know it to lurk around. Instead we should embrace Luther's view of faith informed by knowledge, recognizing that neither faith nor scholasticism alone will help us rightly divide the word of truth. Because of this individualistic approach to the Bible, the church is lessened instead of increased. We have a basic distrust of authority.

To be fair to Catholics, in modern times they have been affected by this crisis, and more and more they speak of individual faith and salvation. As Dr. Bowlin rightly pointed out, trying to fit things into definite categories is messy and usually falls apart in the face of the real world.

Still, this tension between individual assurance and robust community life (in the sacraments and word) lingers. How do we resolve it? I have the suspicion that no one has the answer entirely correct, and that we must bear all things with patience.