Half of Protestants Agree With Catholics on Salvation

These are the findings of the Pew Research Center, detailed in their report  “U.S. Protestants Are Not Defined by Reformation-Era Controversies 500 Years Later.”

According to the study, Protestantism used to be defined over against Catholicism by its adherence to sola fide (faith alone) and sola scriptura (Scripture alone).  But now, as we approach the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, these distinctions are fading.  Another Pew study of religion Western Europe (“Five Centuries After Reformation, Catholic-Protestant Divide in Western Europe Has Faded”) finds a similar pattern there.  Only in Norway do a majority of Protestants (51%) still hold to sola fide.  The conclusion from this and other data (such as whether a Protestant or Catholic would accept a member of the other theology into their families–98% of German Protestants and 97% of German Catholics say “yes”) is that the Reformation divide is pretty much over.

I think these findings are significant, but possibly misinterpreted.

First, I have often noticed that Protestants who come across as the most opposed to Catholicism are often quite Catholic in their views of salvation.  They fixate on sacraments, liturgy, vestments, religious images, confession–thinking those are what constitute Catholicism.  But they don’t.  We Lutherans, the first evangelicals and the first Reformation critics of Catholicism, have that stuff.  Yes, there are other features of Catholicism–such as the papacy, Purgatory, and the cults of Mary and the other saints–that are problematic.  But these too have to do with the essential issue:  Catholic soteriology.  That is, how we are saved.  Are we saved according to our “merit”?  Or by the “merit” of Christ?  Must Christians endure punishment after death, possibly thousands of yeas of suffering, to purge us of our sins before we can enter Heaven?  Must we be punished even for sins that have been forgiven?  Or did Christ on the Cross bear all of our sins and endure all of their punishment on the Cross, so that, united to Him by faith, we can enter Heaven as having been redeemed by God’s grace?

Second, while Lutherans, along with Calvinists and others, do hold to sola fide, many Protestants do not and have never believed that way.  Many of the different Protestant theologies that have emerged since the Reformation have been concerned to re-introduce some measure of salvation by works.  Arminians emphasize the role of the will, with subsequent teachers in that tradition–such as Wesley and the “Holiness” movement–teaching the possibility of leading a sinless life.  These traditions, along with the anabaptist communitarians and various Millennialists and Pentecostals, explicitly criticized Luther for downplaying the role of moral behavior in salvation.

Lutherans have always replied that they are not opposed to good works simply because they insist that we are not saved by them.  Good works are the fruit of faith.  Good works happen in vocation, where we live out our faith as we love and serve our neighbors in the family, the workplace, the church, and the community.

But not all Protestants have ever held to sola fide.  As for sola Scriptura, the study seems confused about the nature of that teaching as well.  Yes, Lutherans would say, church teachings and church traditions are important as long as these are grounded in Scripture.  But the church is how Scripture is taught, preached, and carried out.  Sola Scriptura, in the original Reformation sense, does not mean that every individual Christian can interpret the Bible however he or she wants, though this is how some later Protestants took it, resulting in still more theologies and in the authority of the individual.

So, from a Lutheran or “Reformational” point of view, after 500 years, the church as a whole still needs a reformation.  Protestant churches no less than Catholics.

Illustration:  Part of Wittenberg altarpiece by Lucas Cranach the Younger [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons