From Athanasius’s talk of ‘Ariomaniacs’ to Zwingli’s salvoes against Anabaptist fanatics, the rhetoric was always as high as the stakes involved, and rightly so. Indeed, I can think of no cardinal doctrine of the faith which was established through expressions of politeness towards error. Yes, we must avoid slander and unnecessary meanness. But we must also make sure that our style and tone reflect the urgency of any given situation.
Todd’s inaugural post as the new editor of this blog (all complaints to Pruitt from now on, please) makes a very good point and also highlights Fred Sanders’s fine review of Richard Rohr’s book on the Trinity. Sanders is witty and sharp as always – and rightly so, for the stakes on the Trinity issue are high, as they are on any matter pertaining to the essence of the faith.
Todd’s post, Fred’s review, and some of the reactions to it raise the question of how the issue of tone played out historically and theologically in the Reformation. It looks to be another area, in addition to that of major doctrine, where modern conservative evangelicalism has a rather vexed relationship with Luther and company. If you are looking for politeness in the Reformers, then you are going to have to buy a microscope. Courtesy in polemic was a rare commodity, as even the woodcuts frequently demonstrate. True, there is some evidence that the French editions of Calvin’s Institutes were a little more polite than the Latin but that was less to do with Calvin having second thoughts about his style of attack and more to do with his elitism. After all, we would not want the Great Unwashed thinking that they can talk about our educated opponents in quite the ways we do…. The Reformation was remarkable for two things in this connection: It engaged in powerfully worded polemic; And it generally played that polemic out in public, eschewing elitism, as Luther did in 1525 when he rudely rebutted Erasmus’s view that the bondage of the will was too tricky and confusing a doctrine to preach from the pulpit.
Those of us who claim to be heirs of the Reformation should take heed. Style and substance are not so easily separated as we might like to think. And the people in the pew have the right — and the need — to hear about the whole counsel of God, from his being in eternity to the consummation of all things at the end of time. For the Reformers, nothing in God’s Word was to be the monopoly of a priesthood or a scholarly guild.
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