Honor Thy Father and Mother
When we think of the Reformation we may call to mind 95 theses, “here I stand I can do no other”, or perhaps the immortal Solas: gratia, fide, scriptura, Christos, Deo gloria. Philip Schaff, the 19th century reformed theologian and historian, distills the principle of Protestantism into sola fide: faith alone (The Principle of Protestantism). For Schaff even sola scriptura (scripture alone) is meaningless if it is not buttressed by faith. The scriptures are the back wall authority: not the only authority. The authority of the Scriptures, however, can only be applied by faith. Faith for Schaff, is not merely an intellectual assent to the facts of the gospel. Faith is allegiance to Jesus, and through allegiance and union with Jesus we are united to His body. Faith binds us to the one faith, one Lord, one baptism of the one Church (Ephesians 4:5). Faith enacted is what puts us in fellowship with the entire communion of saints from Adam until the second coming of Jesus. For a Protestant to be able to rightly divide the Word, he must embrace sola fide. To affirm the Protestant doctrine of sola fide means to properly affirm a healthy authority of the Church.
Who do you love?
When considering our hermeneutical principles, it is helpful to frame our thoughts in light of the fifth commandment. Honor thy father and mother. It seems meet and right to implement an analogy from this commandment about our parents and apply it to the eternal family: Christ and His Church. This would assign the title of Father to the Scriptures (the Word of the Father) and the title of Mother to Church (the wife of the son, and mother to the faithful). A quick warning, if you run this analogy backwards recklessly you can imply that earthly fathers have infallible authority. This is your disclaimer to not abuse the analogy. If we tread more lightly, we do see that earthly fathers do exercise headship as the final authority in the sphere of the home. Mothers are then recognized as counselors; sources of wisdom and glory. With our paradigm set, let us maneuver through our three options for understanding the Scriptures.
Honor Your Mother, and your Father (when convenient): Contra the Papists
The first option to examine is from the perspective of the Roman and Eastern communions. Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox will claim they hold the Scriptures and the voice of the Church as equal in authority. Their official claim is Mother and Father have equal authority in their faith and practice. Functionally, this is not how such a posture plays out. Unwittingly, Mother becomes the dominant voice.
Let’s take one example. The veneration of icons is central to the practice of both the Eastern Churches and the Roman churches. Both communions uphold the authority of the seventh ecumenical council which endorses the veneration of icons (images and depictions of saints and Christ). Here is an excerpt from the decision of the seventh ecumenical council:
Anathema to those who apply the words of Holy Scripture which were spoken against idols, to the venerable images.
Anathema to those who do not salute the holy and venerable images.
Anathema to those who say that Christians have recourse to the images as to gods.
Anathema to those who call the sacred images idols.
The council anathematized (dams) anyone who refused to offer worship to images and/or destroyed icons. This is plainly contrary to the second commandment (Exodus 20:4-5);
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: 5Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
When the Scriptures and the traditions of the church were at odds, who won the disagreement for the Roman and Eastern churches? Mother, or at least the portion of the mother that spoke at Nicea II. Even beyond the second commandment there is ample evidence that the early church did not approve of the veneration of icons. The Mother had faithfully brought glory into the Church through religious art. This is a righteous function of the feminine. The feminine nature glorifies the home; the masculine nature formed for her. A husband buys a house and wife decorates it with paintings, drapes, etc. The error of the Romanists and the East is seen as prizing the adornment as the substance of what makes the house a home. They loved mother’s décor and abused her initial intent of pure adornment. They did not heed the prudence of the Father as to what the house is for, and instead let their affections be primarily transfixed by the feminine beauty.
Honor Your Father. Contra the Fundamentalist.
Since church order gets so hairy when we give mother such airtime, we might as well cut her off and cling to sola scriptura! Enter the fundamentalist. I am using the term fundamentalist to refer to someone who has little to no regard for the insight of the broader church, and prizes above all else the right to private interpretation. This is the sort of person that takes Luther’s phrase, “here I stand I can do no other”, and completely misses the point. Luther was convinced of justification by faith alone from scripture AND the church fathers. He found agreement and affirmation in church history. He was secure in his conscience because he was not alone.
The fruit of a man who hates his mother, bears out as a man who hates his wife. A dismissal or distrust of church history and the voice of the church through the ages will foster sectarian impulses. These are Christians that can’t submit to ministers. They are always searching for that one church that they can agree with on every point of doctrine. They care more for the pursuit of purity than the laboring in the body of Christ.
A couple of years back I was sent a book that was railing against the evil of Calvinism. In the book the man accused Calvin of being a heretic multiple times. I went to his website and found numerous blogs, and books, many of which condemned Athanasius, Augustine, Luther, and other saints of being heretics. I wanted to give this brother the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he was using heretic to simply mean he disagreed with their doctrine significantly. I sent him an email to ask if he was using the term “heretic” to accuse these men of dammnable error, error so severe they were out of the faith. He responded with a multi-page diatribe affirming my worst fears. This man had excommunicated all these fathers of the church for sundry reasons; baptism being efficacious, the presence of Jesus in the Lord’s Supper, being bishops, etc.
This is the danger of cutting ourselves off from the church catholic. We hate everything that doesn’t conform to our private interpretation. We don’t know how to love the glories the church has developed. The church calendar, rich chants, the beautiful liturgies, the exegetical insights, the doctrinal struggles of Nicaea and Chalcedon. Schaff warns about the dangers of destructive forces in the church in The Principle of Protestantism. He points out it is easier to destroy something beautiful than rebuild ancient glories. He argues this as a criticism of the Puritans that wanted to be rid of the Book of Common Prayer and the adornments of the English Church. It is applicable today regarding the legacy of the revivalists: many ancient hymns, full-bodied liturgies, and similar inheritances have all but disappeared from New England. In large part because mother was dishonored.
The voice of the Father has been prized in exclusion to the Mother’s. While listening to the Father will certainly deliver the essential doctrines needed for saving faith; it will be an anemic faith. The fundamentalist will miss out on the songs that elaborate the Father’s instructions. He loses the wise counsel of the mother that patiently explains the Father’s sayings. For instance; if your earthly father tells you, “clean your room” there are myriad ways this could play out. Your mother is the one that knows your father well enough to guide you to full obedience. She knows cleaning entails; making the bed, vacuuming the floor, dusting the shelves, organizing your toys, and taking out your trash. It’s not that the mother is contradicting the father or adding to his commandment, she is articulating the commandment after years of meditating on his person and his other words.
Honor thy Father AND Mother: Toward Historic Christianity
A faithful application of scriptures comes from a faithful appropriation of church history. A historic Christianity is one that is steeped in scriptures and implements the councils, fathers, and liturgies of the past to be a helper fit for us. We all use teachers. We all have pastors, theologians, parents, that shape our understanding. Why not expand that grid to include the true catholic nature of the church? Protestantism is borne out of the faithful use of the Fathers. Calvin, Luther, Melanchthon, Cranmer, Bucer, and others were steeped in the Patristics. Our Father has the final say in His scriptures, but we consult the wisdom of our mother who has listened to him for thousands of years. We ought to have great trepidation in departing from her wisdom.
What would it look like to hold scripture as our final say, while not forsaking the wisdom of our mother? As I stated earlier, read Calvin’s Institutes, spend time with the Book of Common Prayer (that was born from the western liturgies prior to the Reformation). Current theologians like Peter Leithart, James B. Jordan, Michael Mckinnon, are all men that are steeped in Scripture and have a broad perspective on the teachings of the church. Other avenues would be to listen to Byzantine and Gregorian chant, or pick up the Fathers to read, starting with The Apostolic Fathers; Ignatius, Polycarp, Clement, and Justin Martyr. They all wrote short letters and treatises that will insert you into the first two centuries of the Church. Irenaeus has a fantastic short volume; On the Apostolic Preaching that articulates the faith in a second century framework.
To affirm the Protestant doctrine of sola fide means to properly affirm a healthy authority of the Church. Full obedience to the Father requires honor to be given to our Mother. Not only should you clean your room, but you should also have your Mother’s exhortation to vacuum the perimeter ringing in your ear. Not only should you learn the timber framing of your Father’s house, but also imbibe the paintings, tapestries, and recipes of your Mother. The aim of a Reformed Catholic faith is that it is a faith that is in harmony with the communion of saints from Adam to the Second Coming. What can we say today that is “new” without desecrating the foundation we build upon? What dishes can we cook that use our Father’s ingredients and flow from our Mother’s recipes? That is the aim of hymn writing, praying, laboring in the faith. To insert more jewels into the crown of Jesus’s bride, the Church.
Note: I have attempted to demonstrate the love of Father and Mother in my approach to baptism here: (https://www.tributeblog.me/blog/whats-water-got-to-do-with-it)
