Part Two
THEOLOGICAL BASES OF CHRISTIAN ACTION
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Chapter III
THE
PROTESTANT PRINCIPLE IN AN ERA OF AUTHORITARIAN POLITICS
The Religious
Culture of Authoritarian Politics
Authoritarian
regimes in general have historically ascribed high religious purpose to their
political programs and leadership. One remembers, for example, the Spanish peseta
that was issued at the time of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. It carried the
face of the Spanish dictator with the inscribed words, "Conductor de Espaρa, Para Gloria de Dios."
No mint of a Philippine coin has appeared so far, bearing such high religious
ascription to the current political leadership. Much has been going on however
to infuse religious sanction, show religious intentionality and high Christian
spirituality, and provide religious fervor to adherence and obedience to the
present regime. The constant show of Catholic piety on the
part of the First Family and the Cabinet, the incessant building of often
grotesquely huge church buildings and cathedrals, the seemingly open arms.
extended to religious leaders and personalities, the periodic religious
pilgrimages of the First Lady the latest being her recent visit to the
Vatican as head of the Philippine delegation to the celebration of the Holy
Year of Redemption during which she was received by the Pope , the official
adulation given to symbols of Christian piety and devotion, e.g., to the Sto. Nino and to the Lady of Fatima, and the renovation and
refurbishing of relics of our Christian history: all of these and many more are
fervently projected as integral expressions of the private faith and public
life of the holders of power in the current political dispensation. Indeed, as
the First Lady underscored and
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pointedly emphasized in a
talk she gave at a reception for the evangelist Billy Graham, when the latter
held a crusade in
A. Hallelujah: Behold the King of Kings
Few
events in our recent political life illustrate this intertwining of political
power and religious purpose more tellingly and symbolically than the
inauguration of the
By the
standards of the government, the expenses for the inauguration were, to use the
words that Marcos himself used to describe his last state visit to the United
States, 'minuscule " The rites too were supposedly to be expressive of
dignified simplicity and austerity. It had, of course, all of the accouterments
of a Marcos event. There were the hordes of media people giving full coverage
to the event (all TV and radio stations were in fact mobilized to give
attention to all of the proceedings) and heaping praises on the achievements
and promises of the
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she said, that has
ever gathered in the history of the country, but which was estimated by others
as at most half a million. Some came spontaneously; many; it was reported, were
required, if not paid, to come for the occasion.
There
were naturally some special ingredients to the occasion. It was, after all, the
inauguration of a newly elected President whose margin of victory at the
elections that were recently held was the largest ever, and of a newly
constituted republic the architectonic features of which are supposedly
incomparable the world over and the structures and ideals of which combine the
very best that is native to the Filipino character and the highest in the
political traditions of East and West. There were, for example, the "tambuli" trumpeteers perched
on the roof of the grandstand who blared their trumpets to welcome the arrival
of the President and his family, and there were the mounted horses, marching in
ordered parade, ridden by some of the country's most prominent citizens. The
occasion was clearly orchestrated and planned to serve as a symbol of national
unity and singular rule, of "one nation and one race," and as an
expression of the celebration of a people over their choice of government and
of the political leaders who are to lead them to the beckoning light of a
bright future.
What
was, however, most striking and most special about the event was the manner in
which Christian symbolism and liturgy were infused into the program of the
inauguration rites, presumably to give to the event not just popular and
political credibility but also religious sanction and importance. Shortly after
the inaugural speech of the President, given in his usual oratorical style (the
editor of one of our most widely circulated weekly magazines commented on the
speech as one that would have won a high school oratorical contest on patriotism;
that editor was fired shortly thereafter!), a one-thousand-voice choir rose to
sing the
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"Hallelujah
Chorus" of Handel's 'The Messiah." Earlier in the program, a group of
religious leaders drawn from the major religious traditions of the country,
mostly Christian, read in unison an ecumenical prayer for the unity and
progress of the nation and for the health and prosperity of the ruling powers.
And then after the singing of the "Hallelujah Chorus," with its
classic oblation to the "King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and Prince of
Peace," who "shall reign forever and ever...," a selected
soloist sang "The Lord's Prayer," with its clear intercessory lines
that 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" and its longing for
the coming of God's kingdom.
The use
of Christian liturgy in public events in the
The
linking of the inauguration of the New Republic and its leaders with the reign
of the "King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and Prince of Peace... who shall
reign forever and ever" was however a new high in religious presumption
and in pretending religious and Divine approval for, and therefore also popular
obedience to, the politics, programs and personalities of a particular
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government.
"National security ideology and its political system," writes Jose Comblin, "do not reject either religion or worship. On
the contrary, their adherents view themselves as the supporters of Christian
civilization, as the saviors of Christianity from communism and atheism, as the
artisans of a new society built on the Christian principles that are essential
to national tradition" (The Church and the National Security State, p.
106). The Christianity that such a system purports to support and to profess
however is really little more than its cult, that peripheral and outer
shell of traditions, rites, customs and symbols, which often carry social and
psychological weight but not necessarily the imperatives of its faith. And the
reason, continues Comblin, why such authoritarian and
dictatorial systems so strongly and so eagerly support this cultic periphery of
Christianity or of any religion for that matter is that they find in it symbols
which can be used to mobilize national sentiment without disturbing public
order or national stability. Dead and one might add, merely habitual cultic
symbols are basically antisubversive.
B. The Contours of Authoritarian Politics
This
becomes quite clear, I think, when one goes beyond the symbolic and
illustrative features of the inaugural rites of the
Underneath
the religious pretensions of the
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mobilized and
concentrated at facilitating rapid economic and industrial growth that includes
as a basic component a warm hospitality to transnational business as an
instrument of quick development. Thus, also, its developmentalist
orientation is accompanied by technocratic, nationalistic and militaristic
ideological elements that together look at the state as the primary agent of
development in the light of which the state assumes enormous and centralized
powers, systematically eliminates any or all sources of possible countervailing
centers of power and influence in the pretext that it is only in this manner
that its presumed human social and economic goals can be attained.
The
form of political organization that emerges is unmistakably authoritarian and
carries with it many features that correspond to that pattern of political life
that looks at the political structure in an organic manner, a body, in other
words, that has many functions but only one head. It is also quite messianic in
its claims for the renovation of society. Indeed, it projects itself in part as
an extended and comprehensive welfare institution and in part as the progenitor
and bearer the mater et magistra of an
encompassing social and political revolution that is neither from the top nor
from the bottom but from the center. To use the words of Ferdinand E. Marcos,
government is "the power center surrounded by the people, to whom it
proposes and whom it leads standing in front of them but not above
them," (Today's Revolution: Democracy, pp. 11-12). All aspects of
life in this sense are subject to the orchestration and control of government
in the name of that humanist transformation of society which it initiates and
leads. All must cooperate and remain in proper place or be subjected to
political and other forms of sanctions. Technocratic planning and military
power combine to give rationality and muscle respectively to the controls that
are required and the subservience that is demanded.
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C. The Role of the Churches
What emerges
from this are sometimes subtle and sometimes not too subtle prescriptions with
regard to the role of the Churches and religious groups in society. Two such
prescriptions have been, of late, quite palpable:
The
first is to seek, if not to require, from religious groups and institutions
subservient allegiance to the goals and programs of government. The euphemism
for this is "partnership." What such partnership often means however
is ecclesiastical and religious legitimation of political programs and what is
often done is manipulation of religious symbols for the sanctioning of the
premises of authoritarian power. What is always expected, moreover, is that
where key programs and activities of government are involved and where the
highest political leadership is concerned, the religious communities the
Churches, in particular must be a part of that "supervised and
managed" spontaneous support that must come from all sectors of society.
Like everybody else, the religious communities are guaranteed their freedom
to praise, but little else beyond that in relation to the actuations of
government.
The
second is very much akin to the first. "There are two revolutions,"
said a military chaplain before a large gathering of
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control them. A new
dualism is prescribed, buttressed less by metaphysical arguments, more by the
enticements and dictates of political power. The political powers, in this
context, are freed from the disturbance of theological and religious criticism
without appearing to be irreligious, and Christian spirituality is made into
civil religion.
The Political
Culture of the Protestant Principle
How
does a Protestant that person or group of persons who trace their historical
and religious roots to the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century
respond to such a political condition? I pose the issue in a personal manner. I
say personal because I am a Protestant, in short, one who is a believer and who
is involved in Protestantism both as an expression of religious faith as well
as a historical movement. In this sense, I look at the question of Protestantism
not primarily from the "outside" and therefore not exclusively in
terms of the observable quirks, predilections, programs and activities of
Protestant groups and churches but more from the "inside," in short,
from the innersprings of those convictions and perspectives that have generated
it as a historical movement, and from an existential experience of the meaning
and power of those convictions and perspectives. To be sure, the
"outside" and the "inside" views are not mutually exclusive
of each other. It is nevertheless important, especially in our present context,
to make this point clear.
If,
however, I pose the issue in a personal manner, I would like to emphasize that
this does not mean that the issue is either private or individualistic. There is
a common perception of Protestantism often expressed by some brethren from
the Roman Catholic Church that looks at it primarily in terms of its
divisions and divisiveness. In affirming freedom as over against
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authority, it is often
said, Protestantism has all but put into shambles any conception of the unity
and universality of the Church and put in its place an excessive individualism
the ecclesiological expression of which is sectarianism. The result is that
there are as many Protestantisms as there are
protestants so that it becomes impossible to speak of a Protestant perspective.
Though
1 am not one who denies the sectarian tendencies m Protestantism and who would
minimize the debilitating reality of sectarianism as part of the Protestant
predicament, I am nevertheless strongly insistent that there is a Protestant
principle that lies beyond and beneath the rise of Protestantism as a
historical and religious movement, to which the Protestant Reformation was a
testimony and of which Protestantism is a historical expression. It is a
principle which gives to Protestantism its dynamic character, universal
significance and contemporary importance, and which provides for Protestants
the basic perspective and source of their life and mission in the world. It is
a principle, moreover, which is not exhausted m any of the movements which have
given it historical manifestation and have provided it a doctrinal form. As
such, it is a principle that stands over against not only the various institutions
of society and the various structures of culture but also the varied forms of
Christian life and organization, including Protestantism itself, both as a
perennial source of judgment and criticism and as a challenge to their life and
mission (cf. Paul Tillich, The Protestant Era, pp.
162-163).
Expressed
positively and succinctly, that principle is the discovery and affirmation,
rooted in the primal faith of the Biblical narrative and the religious
experience of early Christianity, of the majesty, sovereignty and freedom of
God as the one unconditional source and power of existence in all of its forms
and manifestations, and of the proper relationship that must be recognized
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and lived between
that one unconditioned source and power of existence and the whole gamut of
human activity. To put it differently, the Protestant principle is the
affirmation that God alone is God. He alone holds the ultimate destiny of the
world which is His creation, and it is He alone who can assume unto Himself and
demand from anyone unconditional and absolute obedience. Faith as a human act
and as a Divine gift is the recognition of this fact and the commitment to live
by it, discover its creative possibilities for human life, and give testimony
to its unceasing and inexhaustible power for human renewal.
The
Protestant Reformation as a historical expression of this principle affirmed it
over against what the Reformers considered to be the religious pretensions of
the Roman Church, including and especially the institution of the Papacy, and
gave shape to it in two classical "reformed" doctrines that touched
upon the question of the character of the relationship between God and the
human being. The first of these doctrines is the doctrine of Justification
by Faith, that idea that when all is said and done separated the Protestant
Reformers from Roman Catholicism and which became the so-called
"material" principle of the Reformation. Put briefly, this doctrine
gave testimony to the fact that the ultimate destiny of the human being is
solely and totally in the hands of God. It is dependent neither in human
actions of piety and morality, in human subservience to prescribed doctrines
and authorities, nor in the intervention and control of any human institutions,
including the Church, but upon the gracious will and free gift of a sovereignly gracious God. Much more, of course, can be said
about this doctrine and I am aware of the incessant debate it
unleashed within the Christian community; whatever else this doctrine has done
however, it raised in such a strong manner a protest
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against any
insipient form of human control of human salvation.
The
second is the doctrine of Biblical authority, that doctrine that became
the so-called "formal" principle of the Reformation. If
"Justification by Faith" affirmed the sole sovereignty of God in
regard to the question of the ultimate destiny of man, the doctrine of
"Biblical authority" did the same in regard to the question of
religious knowledge or the knowledge of God. One's knowledge of the Divine will
is mediated not by the ascent of human effort and rationality into the
structures of Divine being but by the gracious and free revelatory act of God
who out of His gracious freedom makes Himself accessible to human beings for their
illumination and salvation. The Bible is authoritative in the sense that it is
a faithful witness to the revelatory acts of God to humanity.
As a
Protestant, I cherish these classical affirmations of the Reformation. There is
no question in my mind that they constitute a major turning point in the
understanding of the faith of the Christian community. There is equally no
question in my mind that the Reformation constituted a "hinge point"
in the history of the human effort to deal with the religious question. In
affirming that the religious issue is in the hands of a sovereign and gracious
God, the Reformers asserted the release of the human being from the gnawing
fear of and exhausting concern over his or her ultimate destiny in order that
he or she may devote his or her energies not towards the expiation of an angry
God but towards the embodiment of the exhilarating freedom of being human and
of the responsibility of exploring the inexhaustible resources and
possibilities of that human freedom in the building of a human world.
Thus,
while the Reformation was a religious and Theological" event, its impact
and influence spilled over beyond the "religious" or
"theological" circle into the
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whole gamut of human
activity and culture, including political culture. To be sure, the significance
and consequence of the Protestant principle in the religio-theological
field are legion. Here however I want to draw attention to some elements of the
meaning of that principle in the context of the culture of authoritarian
politics. Is there in fact a political culture of Protestantism to the extent
that it is faithful to the Protestant principle to which we might allude both
as an expression of faith and as an illumination of our practice in the midst
of the culture of authoritarian politics? I think there is and I would like to
suggest that it revolves around three basic ingredients, namely, the Protestant
Principle as Protest and Criticism, the Protestant Principle as Freedom, and
the Protestant Principle as Advocacy.
A. The Protestant Principle as Protest and
Criticism
Whatever
else the Protestant principle might mean in the political arena, it means
indelibly the presence as its name implies of a perennial principle of
protest and criticism of, and I might add, of possible negation and resistance
to, the political powers and structures of the present.
The
affirmation that God alone is the unconditioned source and power of existence
serves as a historic guardian against the attempt of any human and historical
institution or personality to usurp the place of the unconditional in thinking
and action, and against any attempt on the part of any such institution or
personality to seek unconditional and uncritical allegiance and obedience to
it, whether that institution or personality is religious or secular,
ecclesiastical or governmental, King or Prime Minister, President or First
Lady. It comes therefore as a prophetic judgment - a Divine and a human
"no" against any form of religious pride, ecclesiastical arrogance,
and secular self-sufficiency and
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their destructive
consequences in the common life of human beings. In the light of the Protestant
principle, in other words, the key religio-thological
issue in a situation of authoritarian politics is neither "atheism"
nor "materialism." It is idolatry, that perennial tendency in human
institutions and personalities, especially the political ones, to arrogate to
themselves total uprightness, and to claim for themselves unquestioning loyalty
and eternal continuity in their management of human welfare and their
determination of the human future. Indeed, the Protestant principle holds
within it the latent suspicion that those who pretend Divine approval and
purport religious sanctity in political life are usually those who have lost
human credibility so that religious fervor becomes a substitute for human
responsibility and performance.
What
this implies above all is an attitude towards the social and political order
that looks at it as being forever incomplete and therefore forever in need of
transformation. Society and the powers that run it are never sacred. The
allegiance they may demand is therefore always conditional and relative so that
the social and political process is an unceasing adventure in human
imagination, and Protestant participation in it becomes an equally unceasing
adventure of protest and criticism in the name of that transcendent principle
from which Protestantism has its religious source as well as in the name of the
human for which the Protestant principle expresses its primal historical
concern.
One can
look at the meaning and implications of this protestant affirmation in the
context of a number of critical issues of political life:
1. Consider, for example, the crucial issue of
language and speech. Since God alone is God, nobody else is God and no one can
seek or be given Divine prerogatives. The prerogative of denying anyone the
freedom and possibility of talking back at you belongs only to God (and even
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God, as you know,
carries out this prerogative softly and gently!). No human being can assume
this prerogative in regard to other human beings. The culture of silence and
the singular language of praise, in this light, may not be imposed by any human
power or anyone. Language and speech as vital expressions of the power of being
human are indelible and inalienable gifts of God to everyone. They are
instrumentalities of being human that can not be denied of anyone. Any society
that requires or imposes the language of silence and of praise on its people,
especially on those things that vitally affect their lives, militates against
the Protestant principle and illicits Protestant
protest and Protestant resistance.
2. Consider, as another example, the issue of
justice. Because we are all justified (made just, or made right) by faith, we
are impelled to treat each other justly. Our actions in regard to the other
must correspond must be analogical to that loving justice which has been shown
to us and given to us by God. One can not accept, therefore, any situation in
which one is being treated unjustly. Justice is a gift which has been bestowed
on everyone; where justice is denied, distorted or delayed, the gift itself is
denied, distorted or delayed. Such denial, distortion or delay is not only
humanly repulsive; it is theologically unacceptable. It is, to use a
traditional theological word, sin.
3. Consider, finally, as a third example, the
prescribed division between the "religious" and the
"mundane" dimensions of life and the suggestion to allocate the
"religious" dimension only to the private and internal domains of
human existence. To such a prescription there can be no Protestant silence. For
the Protestant principle, the privatization and internalization of Christian
faith and life trivializes the relationship of God with His world and his
creation. On the one hand, it reduces the relationship of God with the world in
terms of His relationship with the individual, and reduces in the
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process His
sovereignty to the private and internal domains of the individual soul. It
prescribes, in short, a limit to God's activity in the world and limits the
boundary of His sovereignty over His creation. On the other hand, it gives trivial
consolation to people in their misery, makes them meek and patient in the midst
of their suffering and travail, and as a result gives protection and stability
to the existing social and political order. Such internalized and privatized
religion is inevitably and unavoidably ideological. It is, in fact, an
idealization of the present order of things and of the powers that rule that
order. It is an indelible part of the political culture of the Protestant
principle to express a persistent and resolute protest against such
privatization of faith and to provide a vehicle for the deintemalization
of Christian spirituality.
B. The Protestant Principle as Freedom
If the
Protestant principle means the unleashing of a latent and perennial source of
protest and criticism in social and political life, it involves at the same
time the installation of freedom as the central and foundational concept for
the understanding and organization of human life. Freedom, it has been said, is
the ethical correlate of "Justification by Faith," the characteristic
of human behavior and life that corresponds to the affirmation of God as a
gracious God. Freedom is really more than this. The Protestant doctrine of
"Justification by Faith" in fact places freedom at the very center of
its understanding of the Gospel itself: the Gospel is the message and gift of
freedom, the amazing freedom of God in his redemptive work for us and for the
whole creation, and the gift of freedom which has been bestowed upon the whole
of humanity which is ours as Christians in faith and which is our task to share
and to make known to all.
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The
Christian life, in this light, recaptures and embodies the potency of a new
language about God, less the language of abstraction and static dogma, more the
language that recollects and describes the events in which God acts in order to
bestow and open up a new freedom for his people, e.g., the Exodus, as events
that contain the challenge of a new creativity and the opening up of a new
future. The Christian life, in other words, becomes caught in the power and
activity of a will which is not human will whose purpose for humanity and the
world is the bestowal of freedom. Where freedom is taken away or withheld, not
only humanity but God himself is betrayed. The denial of freedom is Christian
heresy even if those who deny it make pompous offerings at the altar of God.
The
life and work of the Christian community as a result becomes the unceasing
creation and recreation of those symbols which keep alive the memory of those
freedom-giving events of God's redemptive work in the world. They also become
the embodiments of a new language about human development and human community.
Humanity is not a finished product that is simply to be provided with new
material and technological resources. It is an unfinished experiment, an open
horizon, in the undertaking of which each human being must be given the
responsibility and the freedom to share his or her creativity. It is a language
that inverts the prevalent logic of development and community because it
requires as the center and organizing principle of that development and
community the freedom of all to share in its undertaking and its benefits.
While it recognizes that human beings live by bread, for example, it recognizes
even more importantly that human beings do not live by bread alone. Any society
or political order which creates or purports to create the hypertrophy of the
stomach but requires the atrophy of the will is
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violent
irrespective of its economic success or its political stability.
What
all of this means for the Christian community is that there is a
correspondence, a correlation, between the redemptive work of God and the
active struggle for human freedom. God's redemptive work as it were is to be
verified or can be verified only through the fulfillment of the promise of
human freedom from bondage and of human freedom for new life. It is the task of
such a community to continue to explore further the meaning of this
correspondence and to impress upon Church and society that the freedom of God
and God's gift of freedom for humanity are of crucial importance to the
struggle for freedom from all forms of oppression that is being waged by
various people in various places in the country today.
C. The Protestant Principle as Advocacy
The
fact that the Protestant principle and the discovery of the intimate
correspondence between the gospel and the struggle for human freedom are
permanent features of the Christian life does not obviate the equally incontrovertible
fact that at certain critical points in the history of the Church and of
society it becomes more crucial that the Christian community becomes more fully
aware of and extend further the boundaries of this correspondence and make it
the organizing center of its life and witness. The fact also that the
Protestant principle is never exhausted by any of the historical expressions of
it, including that of the Protestant Reformation, means that every generation
of Protestants, in living interaction with that principle and the situation in
which they find themselves, must continually explore the new historical modes
through which that principle might be prophetically and dynamically expressed.
I would like to suggest that we live today in such a critical situation in
which a new and dynamic expression of Protestant testimony is required.
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I
would like to suggest further that the possibility and the challenge for this
new expression of Protestant testimony are being posed by those Christians who
make their witness and live their lives in terms of their praxis with an
advocacy of "people".
The
Protestant principle is premised upon a recognition of a basic and fundamental
distortion of human life both in its individual and corporate form. It recognizes
the power of evil not only as a private but also as a corporate and structural
reality in human existence. It relates its judgment of the human situation, in
other words, to the "whole man" and refuses to interpret this
distortion of human existence in terms of the dualism between the
"spiritual" and the "mundane". It unleashes its principle
of protest and criticism by refusing to idealize the present but by locating
within that present the critical manifestation of this human distortion and
posing a challenge for the manifestation of new avenues of human freedom and
creativity.
The
distorted character of the vital existence of millions and millions of people
in city and country, their economic privation and suffering, the political
manipulation of their lives, the degradation of their culture, and the
annihilation of their rights become, in this context, the historical vehicle
for the expression of the Protestant principle. Their protest, in this sense,
becomes the social and political correlate of the Protestant principle, at the
same time that the Protestant principle gives religious significance and
importance to that protest. The recognition of the religious importance of
their protest, moreover, compels Protestants to recognize the possibility of the
demonic character of the economic, social and political structures within which
they live and of the theoretical and "doctrinal" foundations on which
such structures are premised. Those Christians who recognize the religious
importance of this social protest and bear testimony to it through their life
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and practice are
expressing the protestant principle whether or not they identify themselves
with Protestant institutions.
The End of the
Protestant Era?
Some
discussion have taken place in recent times about the fact that perhaps the
Protestant era, if ever there has been one, has come to an end. It has come to
an end, it is said, because the prophetic power and dynamic character of the
Protestant principle has been made docile and innocuous in the institutions of
Protestantism.
If that
in fact is the case then the age of Protestantism may indeed have come to an
end. If it has not, then maybe it should. The end of Protestantism, however,
does not mean the end of the Protestant principle. It may, in fact, be an
affirmation of that principle and it may, in fact, bring about the beginning of
a new historical expression of that principle in Philippine life.
I am
one Protestant who is not particularly interested in the perpetuation of
Protestantism as such. I am, however, very much concerned that there emerges a
new expression of the Protestant principle in our time, and it is towards
bringing about such emergence that the Churches, the Protestant Churches
especially, must devote themselves.