Why I Am A Protestant Protestant
by Brett Jacobsen
I do believe that you would be hard pressed trying to find a true follower of Jesus Christ in our time that is not thankful that the protestant reformation occurred. For without it we would all be deeper in the clutches of Dark Age religious tyranny. We would not have a Bible in our own language, we wouldn’t know that we have direct access to God and we would still be trying to buy our way into heaven, not to mention whipping ourself to try to please Him. Yet much of the church of their time stood vehemently against the reformers.
This caused me to ponder the fact that throughout history man has often despised, rejected, persecuted and even martyred those who are latter (usually when they’re dead) appreciated and esteemed as beneficial contributors. The church in both the Old and New Testaments has been the worst offender in this. The Old Testament church (Israel) persecuted and killed all the prophets who came to aid her, this culminated in them murdering their own Messiah (Matt 23:29-39, 1 Thess 2:14-16, 2 Chron 36:15-16, Acts 7:51-52, Rev 17:6, 18:24, Luke 13:33). Sadly, the church throughout history often followed suit in their rejection of truth and its bearers.
Many these days try to claim that Jesus’ love is motivating them to simmer down any protestant activity. They even go as far as to say that Christians are un-loving and out of line when they pray for, preach and practice reformation from a protestant posture. Some portray an “everything’s groovy” attitude even though deep down inside they are fully aware that we need real lasting change in many ways.
Jesus was a first century protestant reformer, so was John the Baptist, likewise the early apostles. Jesus always walked in the Love of God and yet He stood lovingly in protestant opposition to the church system of His day. Neither John nor He blended in with the human religion elements in their contemporary church. Nor did they try to unify the denominational sects of their time, because when you unify a carnal dissociate mess you just get a compound carnal dissociate mess.
The Old Testament prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus, the first century apostles, the 15th and 16th century Reformers, and many other servants of Christ were protestant in their prayer, preaching and practice of reformation in God’s glorious church. Protestantism is not just some event from yesteryear nor should it be a denomination over denominations; it is an ongoing challenge from the heart of the Father to His church.
So here’s the big question – will we too reject protestant reformation in our time or will we learn from the past and humbly embrace God’s dealings with us? Will we allow protestant reformers to speak truth in love or will we fob them off by making up some hippie-love excuse to not be challenged about our less than biblical human endeavours? Will we love God more than man, or will the opposite prevail?
Instead of getting doctrinal in this article, as I usually do, I feel to simply make a list of reasons that through Christ I protest against – cathedrals and so-called “church buildings”, denominations and named congregations (besides geographical), institutional church businesses, physical so-called holy places and sanctuaries, pulpits and pews, the positions of - Head Pastor or Senior Pastor (and its other names), capital A Apostles, capital P Prophets and other religious titles, the still remaining Clergy/Laity lie, hierarchical leadership, singular leaders OVER the people, stage strutting preaching, humanistic motivational speaking, prosperity predators, self-help series’, manipulating mammon from men, church membership (besides Jesus’ church), factional fraternising, interdenominational “unity”, worship being reduced to sing song services, religious rituals replacing everyday Spirituality, lifeless and meal-less communion, altar calls, “the sinners prayer”, coerced conversions, rushed results, deathless discipleship, and the much and varied foul fruit of these things.
These are just some of the many biblically inspired reasons that I, and the Lord, protest where the protest-ants have stagnated since the protestant reformation:
- The above attributes are not biblically prescribed nor do they honour God in the degree that He deserves.
- The saints are greatly robbed of flowing in the gifts of God.
- A majority of believers become spectators rather than consistent participants.
- The power of God is replaced by human ingenuity and Spirit-less striving.
- Carnal structure replaces celestial structure.
- All sorts of corruption are produced due to man running the show and often ruling over people.
- Many saints learn to rely on the leader for direction and even to hear from God for them.
- Some have marriage and other relationships strained or even fail due to being busy building the institution they have their identity in.
- The larger part of the body of Christ is retarded by the false leadership structures.
- Men are honoured (doxa- praise) due to their lofty titles and offices.
- Men (and women) are placed between God and His people.
- They become celebrities who strut their stuff on stages using persuasive words of mans wisdom.
- Leaders are forced to compete with others in the building of THEIR church.
- Leaders are not submitted to all the saints, just their hierarchical head of the denomination (accountable only to those who don’t live everyday life with them).
- Leaders are overworked and subsequently under prayed and studied.
- We’ve looked to celebrity stage strutters for healing rather than believe Jesus’ covenant truth.
- Instead of praying ourselves without ceasing we’ve fabricated a clergy-class of prayer people called the intercessors (I do believe though that some are called to pray more in intercession; this ought not replace the saints all being prayers though).
- Some leaders have mountains of mammon while others struggle to make ends meet.
- So much money is tied up in property and possessions that churches and ministries become carnal companies rather than celestial communities.
- The saints clinically drop money into a coffer rather than valuing real ministers financially and in relationship.
- Real love community is substituted by church membership and attendance.
- The saints struggle to be spiritual in every day life due to a dualistic paradigm created by the extra-biblical distinction between the holy (days, buildings, leaders and other), and the profane (normal life outside institutional church).
- Instead of worship being all the saints daily presenting themselves to God as a living sacrifice, it has mostly become a sing song on Sunday.
- The main get together has become a professional concert rather than a Christ-centred meal in one another’s homes.
- All the spiritual elements in the New Testament, like prayer, teaching, communion, giving, fellowship, evangelism and more, have been heaped together in a quick service rather than being daily enacted by all the saints, all over the place.
- Old Testament and Pagan paraphernalia obscure New Covenant truth and reality.
- True oneness is replaced by ecumenical compromise touted as unity.
- The pulpit and stage pacifies the majority while the select few are able to contribute.
- Churches become busy running churches while His church is greatly neglected.
- The saints anticipate God to show up at “church” and so don’t expect Him to during the week at home and work etc.
- People fall prey to a result based lust for statistics by becoming another rushed decision… who often fall away not long after.
- Unsaved people are coaxed to a church service to be evangelised rather than the saints being ministers of reconciliation every day, everywhere.
- People are often given a brief message about Jesus and pushed to “invite Jesus in” when they haven’t had a real chance to count the cost and the Kingdom of God has barely even been sown into them, let alone produced a harvest.
There are many other reasons why I protest the lingering Dark Age Christendom religion throughout God’s church but these have given a fair idea of the sad state of affairs we see.
Some may pass our protesting off as a bad attitude, cynicism, hurts or rebellion but if you examine the list and the points of protest you will see that it is God’s Love creating in us a desire for His best for His church. I’m not talking about judging people; I’m talking about discerning between man’s plans and the Lord’s. We need to get back to His ways which are “as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Is 55:9).
We have leaned to our own understanding and strayed from His ways of being the church and it is the world who is suffering as a result. It is high time we stop making excuses and reasons for stagnating in yesterday’s ways and start the journey back to His principles and His Kingdom.
Perhaps you have some points of protest or reasons for protesting that I have left off the list… feel free to add them in the comment box below. Also, I’d be happy to unpack any of the above points if someone wishes me to do so.
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Thank you.
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:18 am
Consider again, Brett, if you will, for how little the Protestant Reformation has since changed “Dark Age Christendom religion”, West to East.
Jesus of Nazareth was a first century transformer (metamorpho), electing not to reform the religious system of the times… a system with its very origins in Him. Many of those who would perish within the Protestant Reformation did not surrender for the sake of a reformation, as it promptly became clear to each “reformer” that the Roman Church would not come to yield — no matter how sound or secure the revelation.
Rather than presenting another Kingdom — the Kingdom of Christ, Protestantism foolishly takes up schism from within; reformers coming to practice the like sins of those whom they sought to reform. (e.g., Martin Luther calls for the tortured deaths of thousands). For the larger part of tens of thousands of denominations and sects today, we have reformation to praise. At what point will there come enough confusion and division to satisfy our taste for it?
July 3rd, 2009 at 1:38 pm
Thanks Bretto, the Truth is always arresting and energising, how glorious and blessed is our God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Keep proclaiming the prophet Word.
yours as always, John
July 3rd, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Hey Marshall,
You’ve typed another comment that seams quite ignorant to the article you’ve commented on. I’ll give a worthy response to your comment sometime in the next few days when I get time. Peace
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Thanks John for your encouragement and your willingness to put action to what God shows you no matter what the cost.
Blessings
July 4th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Bretto,
I really appreciate the fact that you are motivated by love, not bitterness.
How’s this for another reason for protest: ‘validating membership by attendance’.
Timo
July 7th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Hi Timo,
Good call. It’s sad that sons of God feel the need to be a member of something official rather than relishing in their membership in His church.
Gospel Love,
Bretto
July 7th, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Response to Marshall,
I didn’t think that I had to make it too obvious in the article but it appears I should have. I didn’t say I was into Protestantism as in the sect, but protest-antism. This is two articles of mine now that you have miss-represented.
You said “Consider again, Brett, if you will, for how little the Protestant Reformation has since changed “Dark Age Christendom religion”, West to East.”
- It is the protest-ant action that I was reffering to, not the religion that has stemmed therefrom. The good protest-ant reformation that the Lord inspired wasn’t trying to reform “Dark Age Christendom” it was to reform His church- those who are called out ones (ekklesia).
You said “Jesus of Nazareth was a first century transformer (metamorpho), electing not to reform the religious system of the times… a system with its very origins in Him.”
- Jesus was both a transformer and reformer, He brought about - “…the time of reformation” (Heb 9:10).
You- “Many of those who would perish within the Protestant Reformation did not surrender for the sake of a reformation, as it promptly became clear to each “reformer” that the Roman Church would not come to yield — no matter how sound or secure the revelation”.
- I am not speaking about reforming carnal Christendom into a new improved carnal Christendom any more than reforming the Roman church into a better Roman church, hence the word re-form. We’re talking about people in His body taking on a whole new form. For many that can be re-forming from carnal church community into underground celestial community.
You- “Rather than presenting another Kingdom — the Kingdom of Christ, Protestantism foolishly takes up schism from within; reformers coming to practice the like sins of those whom they sought to reform. (e.g., Martin Luther calls for the tortured deaths of thousands).”
- To preach, pray and practice re-formation in a protest-ant, yet loving manner is not to become schismatic. When re-formers (like Luther) stagnate from further reformation and cease to move forward with God they usually set up camp and denominate in schismatic half measures. Luther didn’t actually want the denomination that bears his name, but carnal men decided to make a monument to him and to stagnate in yesterdays reformation.
You- “For the larger part of tens of thousands of denominations and sects today, we have reformation to praise. At what point will there come enough confusion and division to satisfy our taste for it?”
- You are way off. We have carnal men to thank and we have the whole list of things in this article to thank for the denominational debacle, not reformation. Jesus and John brought reformation to the remnant of Israel, the early apostles continued reformation, Luther and co were used by God to re-reform some aspects in the true ekklesia, and we need more re-formation in the true church despite the fact that many in carnal Christendom won’t budge.
Marshall, I suggest you pray before reading any more of my articles so you go into them without a critical spirit. It seems that you just want to argue and I feel a lot of confusion in our disputations.
Love,
Bretto
July 8th, 2009 at 2:36 am
Thank you, Brett, for extended clarification to the writing “Why I Am A Protestant Protestant” via your reply, though it may be forthcoming in irony of some protest. {grin}
Earlier alerted to drift here via a link to “Christ Is All” at a website for which I assist in correspondence, I responded to suspend that link and to seek Father’s heart as to whether the shifting required any response through this servant at your porch and/or for the ekklesia everywhere. Unless you should specifically require that I no longer respond with you to encourage or exhort, I will pursue here as Father permits to His pleasure. And, my concern is quite taken with the representation and magnification of Christ.
diorthosis [through-straightening, ref: Hebrews 9:10] comes with the move of the tabernacle from a land-base into these vessels of flesh, as the context of Hebrews 9 accounts. Such a reformation essential and complete is not accomplished in the protest-ism of men, but by the power of God. Therefore, we call upon men everywhere to repent. Christ is all.
September 30th, 2009 at 11:04 am
“Nor did [Jesus & John] try to unify the denominational sects of their time, because when you unify a carnal dissociate mess you just get a compound carnal dissociate mess.”
- well said! : )
September 30th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
In the early days, ‘Christians’ were a thriving community, known for their powerful healings and spiritual awakenings, with the conviction of martyrs. For a Prophet of Nazareth had gotten bruised and bloody so that they may have life - and they had it in abundance.
Though they valued the gifted, there was no class distinction. For even Peter and John referred to themselves merely as “fellow elders” and Paul was a ’sinner’ and ‘the least of God’s people.’[1Pt 5, 3Jn 1, 1Ti 1, Eph 3]. Any fool could see that, contrasted against the cold staunchness of Jewish religion, this was a vibrant family community. Kings were treated like brothers and paupers were treated like kings. And the love and goodness of simple folk was a magnet to all whose hearts had yearned for something more…
And we know religion came in and choked out this life for many centuries. And we’ve read that in the 16th century God gave Luther a voice of reformation and the church another chance to clean up its act and get back to its roots, the True Vine, Jesus. People were rejecting religious death and coming alive again. ‘Community’ had rekindled and empires began to fall…
But when Luther died so did reform, in a sense. People still revered his enlightened teachings, but the enlightenment stopped with Luther…and God never gives His whole plan to just one saint. People continued with Luther’s reform, but not with God’s. And so Protestantism became as stunted and ghastly as the Catholicism it had rejected…
Just three centuries later, another German, Karl Marx, would rise up as a voice of the people. He looked at the church, the proud centerpiece of all society, and was anguished at the cruel class distinctions it had created. He loathed its hypocrisy. His deep sympathies stirred for the poor working class. Above all, his heart’s desire (a God-given desire, mind you) was for a sense of ‘community’, which was sorely lacking at the heart of church-centered society. “Religion is the opiate of the masses” he famously stated, witnessing the godless apathy of sleepy congregations. And so, in his own protest, he became the author of Communism, the father of the doomed Soviet empire and no small trouble for Christian nations for over a century to come.
Why? How is it that he could he look at the European church, the mother land of reformation, and see a complete lack of life, community, conviction and concern for the poor? Of all the people who should have turned to the faith for an alternative to cruel hierarchies, it should have been the young Karl Marx. Why? It is because the work of the reformation had ceased. The church was active; but not reformed. It was powerful; but not accountable. It was rich; but it was blind. Its soul had slipped back into its sleepy dark ages and allowed the brutal work of reform to cease.
And it must not cease. To reject death is to embrace life and there can be no blessing without brutal repentance. In this age, we all think reformational thoughts but we dare not speak them, in keeping with a non-biblical definition of love. But if we don’t continually press on with reform (which in essence means repentance) then what will rise up in its absence? Another Communism? A New Age deception? How many heresies are we to blame for by the absence of Truth in our midst? How many searching souls are rejecting Christ for all the compromises we turn a blind eye to, so as to not offend? For even Gandhi, the great liberator of India, while basing his life on the teachings of Christ and of Tolstoy, resisted conversion upon inspection of the church’s double standards.
How much damage have we done through resisting reform to date! Let us resist change no longer but give the highest honour to him who brings us the most discomfort! Amen.
Thanks Bretto : )
September 30th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Well said Dave