Religion: Strategy for Protestants

U.S. Protestantism is in grave danger, according to one of its outstanding leaders, Dr. John A. Mackay (rhymes with decry). Dr. Mackay is president of Princeton Theological Seminary, president of the Board of Missions of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., chairman of the International Missionary Council and a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches. In the current issue of Presbyterian Life, silver-thatched, 61-year-old Dr. Mackay pictures Protestantism as ringed by three dangerous enemies. The first is religious syncretism, which “denies that Jesus Christ is the truth” but “makes Him one single aspect of a larger truth.” The second enemy: Communism, which “substitutes . . . the Proletariat … as the Saviour of mankind.” The third: “Political Catholicism” of the Roman Catholic Church.

“Political Catholicism,” says Dr. Mackay, is “the most subtle challenge of these three.” To meet it, he formulates what he calls “some fundamental principles of a Protestant strategy.” Prime requisite of Dr. Mackay’s strategy is that it should not be negative—”marked by no mere blistering denunciations.” Instead, Protestants “must apprehend in the light of the Gospel the nature of the Roman error,” and this means “an intelligent understanding of the Christian faith . . . what the Bible is, what salvation is and what the Christian Church is.”

Authority & Salvation. To Protestants, he says, the Bible is “the supreme authority upon all matters of Christian belief and behavior . . . the chief and permanent medium of the Christian’s communion with God.” But to Roman Catholics, says Dr. Mackay, Church tradition “is equal in authority to the Bible. Moreover, the Church itself, under the leadership of an infallible pope, is ultimately more authoritative than either the Bible or tradition.”

As to salvation, Dr. Mackay says that Protestants believe that “man is delivered from sin and all its consequences through faith in, that is, through commitment to, Jesus Christ . . . He is accessible to the approach of the meanest human sinner.”

But in the Roman Catholic view, as he understands it, “Jesus Christ has virtually abdicated. He has handed over to the Church, and particularly to the pope . . . all things relating to the affairs of His Church upon earth . . . The Roman Church, to all intents and purposes, patronizes and controls Jesus Christ, whose life and influence it mediates to the faithful through the sacrament of the Mass, and in other ways.”

Much to Do. “For the Protestant Christian,” writes Mackay, “the Church is basically a fellowship of believers which has been created by the Holy Spirit. Its ministers . . . are servants of the Church, not its masters. In the Roman Catholic view, Jesus Christ did not found a fellowship, but rather an organization. The hierarchs of this organization belong to the Church in a sense that ordinary Christians do not. In the evangelical view, ‘where Christ is, there is the Church.’ In the Roman view, ‘where the Church is, there is Christ.'”

This concept of the Church, according to Dr. Mackay, leads to clericalism, which he defines as “the pursuit of power, especially of political power, by a religious hierarchy, carried on by secular methods and for the purposes of social domination. Clericalism constitutes the greatest spiritual menace in the Western world of today.”

First, says Mackay, Protestants should understand their faith and its points of difference from Catholicism. Secondly, he warns, Protestants must “live their faith” and return to an emphasis upon personal religion. “Christians are needed . . . whose lives have a contagious glow . . . who act together as brotherly enthusiasts under the leadership of Jesus Christ Himself. Cold, conventional Protestants are incapable of meeting any challenge, least of all the challenge of political Catholicism.” Thirdly, Protestantism must be “transfused with an ecumenical outlook. Denominational loyalty must be overshadowed by the one Church of Jesus Christ which is greater than all the churches.” The “fourth and final requisite for a Protestant strategy” is vigilance in counteracting clericalism in the social and political spheres. If these four fundamentals of strategy are carried out, he says, “we Protestant Christians will have much to do—but nothing to fear.”