What is Protestantism? A set of ideas? The result of historical events? No more than a reaction to the medieval Catholic Church? Does Protestantism have core beliefs? Is Protestantism a single or multifaceted phenomenon? Alister McGrath attempts to answer these questions in his book Christianity’s Dangerous Idea, which he has divided into three parts. Part 1, “Origination,” deals with such topics as Luther and “Alternatives to Luther,” “The Shift in Power: Calvin and Geneva,” “England: The Emergence of Anglicanism,” “Protestantism in America,” and the global expansions of Protestantism. McGrath surveys Protestantism’s history, its multiple origins in Germany and Switzerland from the Reformation, and eventually its “evolution” into many parts in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Part 2, “Manifestation,” deals with the Bible as the sole or highest authority within Protestantism, “Believing and Belonging: Some Distinctive Protestant Beliefs,” such as the priesthood of all believers, “The Structures of Faith,” organization, the sacraments, worship, preaching, and how Protestantism shaped Western culture, Protestantism, the Arts, and the Natural Sciences.” Part 3, “Transformation,” deals with the changing shape of Protestantism as it expands into the global South with the rise of Pentecostalism, and Protestantism’s future.
McGrath concludes that Protestantism is a method by which believers use the Bible to decide on beliefs and practices. Under the scrutiny of the Scriptures, believers will change and alter their ideas and walk away from the safety and comfort of their traditions rather than compromise their biblically informed consciences. The Bible becomes their only rule and guide in life. The Westminster Confession of Faith states, “In its formative phase, Protestantism was characterized by a belief—a radical, liberating, yet dangerous belief—that scripture is clear enough for ordinary Christians to understand and apply without the need for a classical education, philosophical or theological expertise, clerical guidance, or ecclesiastical tradition, in the confident expectation that difficult passages will be illuminated by clearer ones” (208).
The sola Scriptura principle teaches the “sufficiency of scripture” and the “clarity of scripture” (203). Nonetheless, the history of the Reformation shows how different interpreters, using the same Bible, came up with, in some cases, radically different interpretations with dire results. For example, Zwingli had one of his closest associates, Felix Manz, drowned in the river Limmat because Manz refused to recant his belief that infant baptism was not taught in the Bible (71). Religious wars also resulted. In addition, McGrath discusses the changing understanding of various scriptures. For Luther, Christ crucifi ed was the center of the Bible. For Calvin, the center of the Bible was the sovereignty of God. For Zwingli, the center of the Bible was the freedom of the human will. When Luther challenged the authority of Catholic tradition and the papacy, this opened a wide diversity of thought. What the Reformers wanted was reform, not rebellion. They wanted everything to be evaluated by the Word of God. This “dangerous idea” of Protestantism, that each individual Christian has the right to read and interpret the Word of God, the Bible, as he or she sees fit, fostered by Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and others, effectively strikes out at Roman Catholicism. This is in spite of the fact that each of the Reformers had his or her own differences with the other Reformers as just stated previously of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and the Pentecostals. Hence, what appears to have united Protestantism was not a common doctrine but a common enemy, the “other,” Roman Catholicism (132, 291).
McGrath has written a book that tells us what it means to be a Protestant and how the meaning has shifted over time. In my view, I think every pastor should read this book because it refreshes one’s memory of what happened in the Reformation as well as how Protestantism developed into what it is today.
—Reviewed by Rollin Shoemaker, DMin, STM, a retired pastor living in Berrien Springs, Michigan, United States.
