Introduction: When Ancient Voices Still Sing
I have always believed that tradition is beautiful. Rarely do I hear of an ancient practice that doesn’t stir something deep within me—as if God left a quiet echo in history that only tradition can awaken. I love the togetherness that it communicates.
Take, for example, the “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” (The Greater Doxology). This hymn begins:
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men.” (Luke 2:14)
It was already being sung by Christians in the 2nd century, possibly even earlier. The Apostolic Constitutions (around the 300s) record it as part of morning worship. When we recite or sing it today—as it continues in Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and even some Lutheran and Reformed liturgies—we are adding our voices to two thousand years of our family’s praise and worship.
Go ahead, say it out loud right now. Doesn’t it seem different? Doesn’t it seem glorious?
Yet beauty does not make something untouchable. Jesus Himself established two traditions that we all—almost without exception—agree are unchangeable in their substance and perpetual in their practice: the Lord’s Table and Baptism. But Christ also gave His Church a remarkable freedom—an elasticity (thank you, Alister McGrath, for that phrase)—that allows the faith to stretch its legs and breathe across cultures and centuries.
That elasticity is not a weakness; it is one of the great strengths of Christianity. The Church’s ability to flex without breaking—to find new forms while preserving ancient truth—is what allows her to live in every nation and speak in every tongue. Those who insist that their own tradition is the only true one forget that Christ’s bride has worn many garments throughout history, and each has carried His beauty in its own way.
What follows isn’t a formal argument, but a reflection—a few things I’ve come to see and appreciate more clearly about the mess and beauty of Protestantism as I’ve read the Fathers and watched the story of the Church unfold.
1. Heresy Is Easy to Recognize
One thing I’ve noticed in reading the Church Fathers this year is that heresy, despite its oftentimes exhausting sophistication, is rarely subtle. It always involves a clear departure from biblical Christianity.
Take the Gnostics. Their problems were not over small matters—they were monumental. They recast the God of the Old Testament as evil, divided Christ into multiple beings, and canonized their own scriptures to suit their myths. These were not interpretive disagreements; they were rebellions against the very nature of God—a nature revealed to all.
The Fathers—men like Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Cyprian—weren’t fighting over precise denominational boundaries. They were defending the heart of the faith: who God is, who Christ is, and what salvation means. Their war was not over minutiae but over the very center of the gospel.
2. The Beauty of Shared Orthodoxy
That realization has softened me toward believers across the spectrum over the years. The early Fathers stood shoulder to shoulder on the essentials (regula fidei): the deity of Christ, the goodness of creation, and the trustworthiness of Scripture. On these truths, the whole Church is one.
We may differ in form and structure, but every Christian who holds fast to those essentials belongs to the same household of faith. I know I sound like a broken record, but here it is again: the early Fathers belong to all of us. No single communion owns them, because no single communion owns the truth.
This is why I believe the Church is already one. Our unity does not depend on institutional hierarchy; it rests on shared life in Christ. We have the same Spirit, the same gospel, and the same Lord.
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3. Sympathizing with Rome’s Desire for Unity
Here I must confess a certain sympathy for the Roman Catholic Church—and for all others who claim to be “the” one true Church. Their motivation is not sinister; it’s born of longing. They desire what Christ prayed for in John 17: “that they may all be one.” They see the disunity among believers and long to heal it through an institution that embodies visible oneness.
From that desire, they reason that if everyone could be taught the same doctrines by one divinely guided leadership, the Church would finally be one. In their view, epistemic unity (believing the same truths) produces ontological unity (being the same body). Hence, the thickness of their catechism, the precision of their councils, and the confidence of their magisterium—all meant to ensure the Church speaks with one voice.
It’s a noble and fine instinct. But the problem is that the Church’s unity does not begin with the intellect; it begins with the Spirit. When Jesus prayed for His followers to be one, He was not asking for identical doctrine and understanding, but a shared life.
There are, in fact, three kinds of unity in Scripture: epistemic (agreement in truth), functional (cooperation in mission), and ontological (union in being). As Protestants, we affirm that ontological unity was achieved on the day of Pentecost, when all believers were baptized by one Spirit into one body (1 Corinthians 12:13). We don’t become one—we already are one. Our calling is to live as what we already are.
Thus, the Catholic instinct for unity is right in heart but misplaced in method. The Church does not need a single visible throne to be united; she already has a single living Head—Christ Himself.
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4. The Protestant Vision of Unity and Freedom
The Protestant Reformation was not a rebellion against unity but a return to its foundation. It insisted that the Church’s oneness flows from faith in the gospel, not submission to an institution. The Reformers did not divide Christ’s body; they rejected the notion that the body could be confined to Rome—or divided at all.
Why is it so necessary for us all to hold the exact same beliefs on so many things? How many more doctrines must we affirm before we are considered one? If the institutional Church adds one or two more items to the list, what does that do to our unity with those who came before the new ledger? And if they are considered fine simply because God did not require those things until the Church proclaimed them, can we really say they were ever necessary to begin with? These are just some of the questions I have always had.
You know me—I believe that even in heaven, I doubt we’ll all think alike. God does not plan to upload uniform knowledge into our minds. Eternity will be a continual discovery of His glory—learning, trial and error, growing, and rejoicing together. Iron will still sharpen iron. When we are wrong, it simply won’t be as a result of sin, but of ignorance. If our future unity will still allow diversity, then surely our present one can as well.
True unity is not the suppression of difference but the harmony of shared life in Christ. The Church’s strength is her ability to live freely in that diversity without losing her center.
So I remain grateful for the Protestant heritage—not because it denies tradition, but because it keeps knowledge free, able to reform itself (semper reformanda—“always reforming”). This may be its most important enduring contribution to a tradition that has too often hardened into traditionalism. It reminds us that Christ is the Head of His Church, that the Spirit unites what no man can, and that the truth of God’s Word is sufficient for the people of God in every age.
That is not fragmentation. That is freedom.
