By Jake R. Taylor · Contributing Writer
The Reformation did not come as a surprise to Europe on Oct. 31, 1517 — it was the result of at least a century and a half of turmoil that had ravaged the Church.
John Wycliffe’s name is associated with the translation of the Bible into English, and indeed, along with rejecting the papacy and transubstantiation, the translation of the Bible into the vernacular was important for Wycliffe’s reform efforts.
But this did not occur in a vacuum; it was during Wycliffe’s lifetime — in 1378 — that the papacy, the center of Christendom, was divided between two men striving for the position.
Few events could possibly have tested the faith of Christians in Europe more than such an obvious and confusing instance of schism. But it became even worse when not just two, but three men were simultaneously seeking the Chair of Saint Peter.
The Council of Constance (1414-1418) put an end to this and called for Church reforms, but its legacy also included giving over Jan Hus — who had been influenced by Wycliffe — to burn at the stake.
In the following century, the Church was scandalized by multiple popes, such as Pius II, Innocent VIII, Alexander VI and Julius II, who brought more infamy than honor to the Christian religion. The moral authority of the papacy was undermined by such men who failed to be representatives of Christian holiness.
When Luther began to criticize abuses in his day, he continued to show deference when addressing the pope. But by the Diet of Worms in 1521, he was accused of “(renewing) the errors of Wycliffe and Hus.” What we call “the Reformation” was not a novelty. Nor were the Protestants aiming at divisiveness.
The first major Protestant confession — the Augsburg (1530) — was conciliatory in its tone and even went so far as claiming that in its doctrines were “nothing that varies from the Scriptures, or from the Church Catholic, or from the Church of Rome as known from its writers.”
Protestants were not radical subversives desiring to split Christendom in two or to rid themselves of tradition. They were Catholics desiring to see a Church reformed.
Although it was caused by ecclesiastical abuses, the Reformation’s greatest import was the refinement of catholic doctrine through necessary development. When Luther was condemned in 1520, he could not have been condemned for a heretical view on justification because the doctrine of justification had never been defined. The Reformation allowed for the necessary definition of doctrine for the two parties involved.
Over a thousand years prior, Vincent of Lerins had written eloquently, “teach still the same truths which you have learned, so that though you speak after a new fashion, what you speak may not be new.” New terminology need not indicate innovation if it is spoken according to catholic tradition.
For myself, I am Reformed because I believe the Reformed tradition most faithfully preserves the catholic Christology of Chalcedon, and I remember the words of Ignatius of Antioch: “wherever Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”
