Reformation – Pursuit of Percipience

Scholars employing the historical-critical method and the Third Quest for the historical Jesus have reconstructed the origins of the movement centered on Jesus of Nazareth as an apocalyptic, messianic, and eschatological expression firmly rooted within Second Temple Judaism. This article focuses primarily on the development of early Christianity and its transformation into modern western Protestant Evangelicalism, tracing key adaptive processes that carried the movement from its Jewish apocalyptic beginnings to contemporary forms. This reconstruction aligns with the perspective that Jesus functioned as an apocalyptic prophet who announced the imminent arrival of God’s kingdom and called Israel to repentance in light of coming judgment and resurrection. Early Christianity exhibited diversity from its beginnings, encompassing apocalyptic emphases alongside wisdom-oriented teachings evident in traditions such as the hypothetical Q source and portions of the Sermon on the Mount. High Christology also emerged at an early stage, as Richard Bauckham has demonstrated in his analysis of the inclusion of Jesus within the divine identity. Pauline writings preserve an early hymn in Philippians 2:6-11 that reflects this elevated view of Jesus as existing in the form of God and receiving universal acknowledgment.

The earliest followers understood Jesus’ death and resurrection as the decisive act that delivered Israel from the curse pronounced by the law. As the apostle Paul expressed in Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” Through this event, faithful Israelites attained right standing within the covenant that YHWH had established with Israel. Gentiles, who had long possessed the option of full conversion to Judaism, gained access to covenant membership without the requirement of circumcision or comprehensive observance of Torah regulations. Faith in Christ served as the sole criterion for inclusion among both Jews and Gentiles. The entire movement anticipated the swift return of Jesus, which would inaugurate a general resurrection and final judgment. Texts such as Mark 13:30 preserve this expectation that “this generation will not pass away until all these things have taken place.”

E. P. Sanders’ seminal work Paul and Palestinian Judaism (1977) established the framework of “covenantal nomism” as the prevailing pattern of first-century Jewish soteriology. In this model, entry into the covenant rested on divine election and grace, while Torah observance maintained one’s position within it. The Jesus movement operated within this framework, reinterpreting covenant fidelity through loyalty to Jesus as the Messiah. James D. G. Dunn and N. T. Wright further developed this New Perspective on Paul, demonstrating that the early community did not represent a departure from Judaism but a sectarian renewal movement within it. The expectation of an imminent Parousia remained central, shaping ethics, mission, and community life.

As decades passed without the anticipated return of Christ, the movement underwent gradual transformation. The delay of the Parousia, acknowledged even within New Testament writings such as 2 Peter 3, prompted theological reflection. The Jewish-Roman War of AD 66–70 and the subsequent destruction of the Jerusalem Temple accelerated the shift toward a predominantly Gentile constituency. Jewish Christian leadership diminished, and the movement’s center moved to urban centers across the Roman Empire. This expansion into new cultural contexts brought the community into contact with popular mystery cults, such as those of Isis and Osiris, Mithras, Cybele and Attis, Dionysus, or the Eleusinian rites. These cults offered secret initiation rites, ritual participation in a deity’s death and renewal, and promises of personal salvation and afterlife benefits. While some earlier scholarship proposed that such cults directly shaped Christian practices like baptism and the Eucharist, contemporary critical analysis emphasizes that any parallels arise from shared Hellenistic cultural vocabulary and convergent religious aspirations rather than derivation. Christianity’s primary framework and rituals retained their Jewish roots, yet the encounter facilitated further adaptation in ritual expression and theological articulation alongside continued engagement with Jewish apocalyptic traditions. Hellenistic philosophical concepts began to shape theological expression. Early apologists such as Justin Martyr presented Christianity as the fulfillment of true philosophy, incorporating notions of the divine Logos and metaphysical attributes drawn from Greek thought. Richard J. Bauckham and other scholars have documented how this period witnessed both continuity with Jewish apocalyptic traditions and the emergence of distinctively Christian adaptations to the prolonged interval before the end.

The reign of Emperor Constantine and the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 represented a decisive stage in institutional development. Constantine convened the council to resolve the Arian controversy concerning the relationship between the Father and the Son. The resulting Nicene Creed established a standardized doctrinal formulation, while the council issued canons that regulated church discipline and practice. Although the council did not determine the biblical canon, which evolved through a longer process involving figures such as Athanasius in the fourth century, Nicaea contributed to the formation of an imperial church characterized by creeds, hierarchical structures, and official theological norms. Christianity transitioned from a marginalized apocalyptic sect to a stabilized religion integrated within the structures of empire.

Subsequent centuries witnessed further evolution in the understanding of key theological categories. The concept of righteousness, originally denoting right standing within the covenant between YHWH and Israel, acquired broader connotations. During the Reformation, Martin Luther’s engagement with Romans 1:17 and related texts emphasized justification by faith alone. In this framework, the shift of “works” from observance of Torah boundary markers to general moral conduct or sacramental participation continued. The Reformation reframed soteriology around individual salvation from universal human sinfulness, further diminishing the original covenantal focus on Israel. What led to this was Luther’s response to late medieval theological developments that emphasized infused grace through penitential practices and works (penitential works and acts of satisfaction within the late medieval sacrament of penance). Luther reframed justification by faith alone as a gift of Christ’s righteousness imputed to the believer, addressing pastoral concerns of individual guilt and assurance of salvation. This reinterpretation emerged under the pressures of the era’s theological and practical questions while building upon earlier scriptural foundations.

In contemporary expressions, particularly within Evangelical Protestant circles, the Christian message frequently centers on a universal human predicament. God is portrayed as holding all humanity accountable for sin, with personal faith in Jesus providing deliverance from final judgment. The central role of Israel in the original covenant has vanished, and the narrative emphasizes a generalized offer of salvation. Many believers, often unconsciously, operate with the attributes of classical theism—an immutable, impassible, and metaphysically simple deity synthesized from patristic and medieval engagement with Greek philosophy. This conception contrasts with the dynamic, relational portrayal of YHWH in the Hebrew Scriptures, where God responds to human actions, grieves, and engages in covenantal dialogue. Scholars such as J. Richard Middleton have highlighted this divergence, noting that biblical depictions of divine adaptability differ markedly from the philosophical categories of classical theism. However, scholars have noted that both relational adaptability and more unchanging aspects coexist within the biblical texts themselves, and early theologians sought to harmonize these through philosophical reflection.

The historical trajectory traced here reveals a movement that began as an internal renewal within Judaism and developed into a global institutional religion. Critical scholarship, drawing on the Third Quest and the New Perspective on Paul, affirms the Jewish apocalyptic origins while documenting the adaptive processes driven by the non-occurrence of the Parousia, cultural expansion, imperial patronage, and philosophical synthesis. These developments produced the forms of Christianity observable today, yet they also invite ongoing reflection on the continuity and transformation of the original proclamation. The evidence from scripture, Second Temple literature, and patristic sources supports this reconstruction as a coherent account of Christianity’s emergence and evolution within its historical contexts.

luther door

In honour of the Reformation’s 500th birthday, here is an excerpt from Clinton C. Gardner’s book Letters to the Third Millennium describing the Reformation’s influence on the western world….

Before the Reformation we had assumed that either the church or state was ultimately responsible, and therefore we need not be excessively concerned with creating the future. Now we sensed that “I am responsible, not only for myself but also for the outcome of history.” We could no longer “let George do it.” Ultimate authority, we perceived, was not in institutions but in individuals. Only we give validity to the organizations or nations which we create and uphold. The revolutionary implications of this perception are still being worked out in the 20th century. Many of us relapse into the pre-Reformation belief in the sanctity of such institutions as churches or nations. Examples are hardly needed.

As conscientious laymen living under the imperative of personal responsibility, we began to speak a language never heard before: the purely lay and secular. Until this moment, throughout history, all government and art — indeed, every human institution — had been inextricably connected with institutional religion. As followers of Luther we began to break the connection. Actually, the Papal Revolution had initiated this separation of religious and secular power but only by setting the religious on top. Now we heirs of the bold monk appropriated “religion” inside each lay person. Quite logically this led to the translation of everything “religious” into lay and secular terms, from government to science, education, and the arts.

Let us start with the last. Giotto had already painted us as real individuals, but he and even the artists of the Italian Renaissance — Leonardo, Raphael, and Michelangelo — still showed us acting out salvation history. Now, some fifty years after Luther’s death, the thoroughly “reformed” Dutch painters suddenly plunked us down in our kitchens and living rooms. From Franz Hals to Rembrandt to Vermeer, we became increasingly visible as just lay people going about our daily work.

About a century after Luther, One of the most marvellous “translations” occurred in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. Why is it that we listen to German music with more “reverence” than to any other? Because it transforms the resounding Reformation church hymns — say Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress is our God” — into a universal language. In Bach the religious origins are clear, but even as German music became increasingly secular, with Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms, it has always remained true to its origins. It strikes the deepest chords. It carries the breath of the spirit through us, quickening our sense of belonging to the human enterprise. An eloquent testimony to the staying power of this new Reformation “speech” comes from a later revolutionary. In a conversation with Gorky, after listening to Beethoven’s Appasionata, Lenin said, “I know nothing the is greater than the Appasionata; I’d like to listen to it everyday. It is marvellous superhuman music.” And it’s not only “Westerners” that are so moved One of the first things that happened in China after “the Gand of Four” had fallen was the playing of Beethoven again in Peking.

Of course there was no point in having “freedom of conscience” if we were illiterate, as over 95% of us were before the Reformation. Fortunately Gutenberg’s newly invented printing presses gave Luther a vital weapon: a Bible for each of us to read and interpret for ourselves. Along with the Bible thousands of books poured into our hands as we all began to read on any subject. Public school systems, education for everybody, and a global campaign for literacy, were born out of the Reformers imperative that each of us work out our own salvation.

With the new theological doors that Luther had opened, universities “became” the church, the secular institution to nourish both our science and our con-science. The first American college, Harvard, was started in 1636 for the education of Protestant ministers. Yale, Princeton, and Dartmouth followed in the next century, all founded by devout Protestants, as were most private U.S. colleges.

But we miss the full import of the Reformation’s new language if we concentrate only on Luther. The Czech Jan Has had been a martyr for the “Reformation” faith before it burst out in Germany. And the Reformation’s most creative “scientist” was probably the alchemist and doctor Paracelsus, who opposed the new “bookish” humanism of his century but also opposed Protestant and Papal parties. In many ways he was a loner, but in retrospect he seems to have been, as much as anyone, the founder of “contemporary” science. He was certainly the first biochemist. Rosenstock-Huessy hailed him as the man whose turbulent life and vision embodied the transition from medieval to “modern” times.

Until Paracelsus, not only medicine but all “science” was largely theoretical, based on the “logic” of abstract ideas derived from Greek and Latin sources. Now the eccentric Swiss doctor rejected this scholastic approach. He trusted his own personal observations and experiments, asking us to read the book of nature in much the same way Luther had asked us to read the Bible. Among those who shared Rosenstock-Huessy’s enthusiasm for him is J. Brinowski, who wrote that Paracelsus marked that “instant in the ascent of man when he steps out of the shadowland of secret and anonymous knowledge into a new system of open and personal discovery…..”

Finally, the Reformation created a vital new government institution: an incorruptible civil service. You may laugh but you are wrong. The exceptions prove the rule. Watergate and the Lockheed bribery are as good as examples as any. You can’t launder your money through Mexico and remain in government service. A Japanese premier, or any other, will fall if they betray the public trust. Teddy White called his book on Watergate Breach of Faith. It was a breach of our Reformation faith in the public servant. As Rosenstock-Huessy puts it:

Civil Service as a purely mechanical organization will never work efficiently. To understand the real inner justification for the strict discipline of a civil service, we must turn to the German revolution; for it alone gave the civil servant a religious position in his country. In the German revolution the drab, grey life of the average bureaucrat was suddenly transformed, as if by great volcanic eruption. Graft, bribery, the spoils-system, stain the character of the civil servant in every country which has not been touched by this great revolution. (ERH, Out of Revolution, page 362)

To sum up, the secular city created by the Reformation doesn’t mean a city where people have lost all interest in the purposes once expressed by religion. Just the opposite: it means the effective incorporation of those purposes into changed persons and new institutions capable of maintaining the standards once set by the church.

However, in replacing church by state, Luther went to unfortunate extremes. He positively exalted the power of the princes and the state as he depreciated the role of the visible church. He was anything but a populist. When his revolution’s left wing, the Anabaptists, inspired the Peasant’s Revolt of 1525, he urged the princes to crush it. In Ideology and Utopia Karl Mannheim calls that revolt “the decisive turning point in modern history.” He says it began contemporary “politics” because it was a “more or less conscious participation of all strata of society in the achievement of some mundane purpose, as contrasted with a fatalistic acceptance of events as they are, or of control from ‘above.'”

Reading his Bible, particularly St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, Luther didn’t mind control from above, but he saw it as exercised by many princes rather than a church hierarchy. Thus the Reformation set the mold of German national character, with both its virtues and its most outstanding defect, what Rosenstock-Huessy called its “lust for obedience.”

~taken from Letters to the Third Millennium, by Clinton C. Gardner, pages 35-38

Related reading: German Reforvolution by Peter Leithart

Tag: Reformation

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