If you are “very online,” you likely know that Protestantism tends to be a punching bag for Catholic and Orthodox apologists, many of whom are recent (and toxic) converts. Much of the theological discourse surrounding Protestantism has laid the blame for all sorts of modern ailments at the feet of the Reformation, from secularism to liberalism to relativism. I’ve participated in this discourse. For example, following the work of Charles Taylor, in Hunting Magic Eels I describe how Protestantism is implicated in our cultural turn toward disenchantment.
As Gavin describes in his book, his online work has slowly evolved into his becoming an online apologist for the Protestant tradition. You can follow his work at Truth Unites. I highly recommend Gavin’s channel for thoughtful and rich Protestant content and perspectives.
Gavin’s book What It Means to Be Protestant is an apology for Protestantism. And here was my biggest takeaway from his book.
What does it mean to be Protestant? Gavin puts a lot of weight on the Reformation call semper reformanda, which means “always reforming.” Crucial to this view is an embrace of human fallibility, that both church and tradition can wander off from the heart of the gospel. This is less about heresy than what Gavin calls gospel “accretions,” doctrinal barnacles that, over time, come to cling to the hull of faith. The two case studies Gavin provides are the assumption of Mary into heaven and the veneration of icons, the former aimed at Catholicism and the latter aimed at Orthodoxy.
Setting aside the debates around these two case studies, Gavin’s strongest point, in my view, is directed toward claims of magisterial “infallibility.” Infallible judgments cannot be fallible, by definition, which limits the ability of the church to recognize error and course-correct. Traditions committed to infallibility must hobble on, unchanging, through time, even after a wrong turn. Which is why Gavin’s use of “accretion” is apt. Errors adhere, and they can’t be shed.
Protestantism, by contrast, has the ability to recognize error and course-correct. True, Protestantism faces enormous challenges in light of its radical malleability. The fallibility of Protestantism is both a feature and a bug, its superpower and its kryptonite. Still, this capacity for correction within Protestantism, its call of semper reformanda, is the source of its great appeal for many as the hope of the church and witness to the gospel.
Catholic and Orthodox apologists, of course, will disagree and have their own, very strong and very good, counter-arguments. Still, I find Gavin's observation that Protestantism is (1) able to admit error and (2) change in response to that error—a vision of a fallible church—something very much worth pondering. I've never really put it this way before, but one of the main reasons I've remained Protestant is that, when I look at church history, I see errors galore, both doctrinal and ethical. The church, as a human institution, is radically prone to error. And while it is true that a magisterial tradition can help prevent future error, it forecloses any consideration of past error. And that asymmetry, the inability to reform, creates congenital vulnerabilities and incapacities.
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