And Which Ones Are You? The Question of Evangelical Believers’ Identity

Introduction

The recent population census and the guidelines given by different evangelical denominations to its members concerning their religious affiliation in questionnaires have brought to the surface an important subject – the question of evangelical believers’ identity. If you are a member of a Baptist, Pentecostal, some Charismatic, or, perhaps, Church of Christ, in our Roman Catholic context you will most probably come across the following question: “And which ones are you?” where you will be asked to identify and specify yourselves. The map of Christianity is partially clear: there is the Roman Catholic Church in the West, Orthodox Churches in the East, and some people know about Protestantism and Protestant Churches. This raises a question: Where should one categorize churches from the second sentence? Should they be categorized under Protestantism or some fourth option? There is no single answer and there is no wider agreement on this topic, which makes this question a difficult one to answer.

1. Short Historical Overview

The Reformation is a historical event that took place in the 16^th century. Although at that time Christianity was divided into Western and Eastern, the Reformation brought a new division to the Western Church. It resulted in Protestantism and, consequently, the emergence of Protestant Churches.¹ However, this so-called Protestant Reformation had its reformation, because some voices inside the movement continued to call for further reformation of reformation, which is otherwise known as the Radical Reformation. Namely, Luther and Calvin, who were Protestants, initially did not want to leave the Catholic Church but reform it. Also, they had no problems with the common Catholic folk but with the leadership structures (e.g., “the Pope is the Antichrist”).

Although at first glance Protestant and Radical Reformation movements might seem similar, especially since one is the product of another, these two movements are significantly different. When we talk about Radical Reformation, then we are talking about three groups of believers: “Inspirationists,” “Anabaptists,” and “Rationalists” (Estep 2020, 10). According to Williams and Mergel (1957, 22), “all three groups within the radical reformation agreed in cutting back to that root and in freeing church and creed of what they regarded as the suffocating growth of ecclesiastical tradition and magisterial prerogative. Precisely this makes theirs a ‘Radical Reformation.’”

The goal of the Radical Reformation, in accord with the teaching of the Bible, was to reform the Protestant Reformation and, consequently, the Church, and do so for the Church to be what Jesus intended and created it to be. However, one should be careful when talking about such radical groups because, far from the idyllic scenario of the previous sentence, these groups contained all sorts of views. For example, the “Inspirationists” placed the inspiration of the Spirit above the written God’s Word, while the “Rationalists” denied the Trinity. Therefore, when talking about the Radical Reformation, I will primarily focus on Anabaptism because it represents the best and the most desirable in the Radical Reformation. It also represents the tradition that is alive today, and whose influence has left the strongest mark on all the churches that are discussed here.

2. Differences Between Two Reformations

What is the difference between the Protestant and the Radical Reformation? If we were to summarize the characteristics of the Radical Reformation, especially through the prism of the Anabaptist movement, then we can say that, ultimately, the churches which are nowadays called churches of the Reformation heritage inherited five Solas from the Protestant Reformation:

Sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”) – Scripture alone is authoritative, it alone represents the basis of faith and speaks to all believers, and is not exclusively connected to the interpretation by church leaders and church councils

Sola Gratia (“grace alone”) – Christ went to the cross because of God’s grace and one can earn no merits for one’s salvation – it is the unearned God’s love (grace) that justifies

Sola Fide (“faith alone”) – man is justified through faith alone in Christ alone, and not through works

Solus Christus (“Christ alone”) – salvation is realized in Christ alone and mediated by Christ alone (and not by the church, sacraments, saints, reliquaries, angels, etc.)

Soli Deo Gloria (“Glory to God alone”) – to God alone belongs all the glory for his grace, love, and salvation.

However, it is also true that the churches of the Reformation heritage have inherited some doctrines from the Radical Reformation, namely the doctrine of adult baptism (and all it entails) and the doctrine of the free church concept.²

Therefore, what makes the Radical Reformation radical is, in the first place, the formation of the church according to a New Testament pattern which included the necessity of personal commitment to Christ, making it a precondition for water baptism. Although the matter of baptism may seem irrelevant from our contemporary standpoint, in the time of Radical Reformers baptism determined and, I would add, still determines, the very nature of the Church. Writing about Conrad Grebel, one of the leaders of the Anabaptist movement, Estep (2020, 21) states the following:

Although Grebel’s disillusionment with the Swiss Reformation began with Zwingli’s failure to follow through on plans to observe the Lord’s Supper in a simple apostolic pattern on Christmas day, 1523, by 1525 the protest movement involved much more than the mass, or even believers’ baptism — it involved the nature of the church. The concept of a church of committed believers had taken the place of a church made up of a mixed multitude. This new church, like that of the apostles, was to be made up only of those confessing Christ as Lord followed by believers’ baptism, instead of everyone born in a given parish. The Lord’s Supper would then be observed by the baptized in a simple manner, shorn of its medieval trappings, as a pledge of brotherly love in remembrance of the one, all-sufficient sacrifice of Christ.

If adult baptism is the biblical norm, then being a part of the Church means being a disciple of Jesus Christ (therefore, discipleship) and it also entails church discipline, i.e., that church members are responsible for what they say and do to God and others. It equally means that the term believer or Christian cannot be used for everything and everyone, but only for that person or persons who truly know God’s Word and live it out in practice, or for a person that we can call a born-again person. Such persons gather in a visible local church and make what the Bible calls the Church.

Secondly, what makes Radical Reformation radical is the concept of free churches. While Protestants believed that the Catholic Church, despite its errors and fallacies, has never stopped being a Church, radical reformers did not share that view, which is why they named the Reformers “halfway reformers.” The union of church and state that began under Constantine and the introduction of infant baptism damaged the character of the Church as a community of born-again people and was considered to be “the fall of the church” (Estep 2020, 176–177). So, when we talk about free churches, the Anabaptists opposed both the “church-state” and “state-churches” (Estep 2020, 187), and this term is used to speak about the Radical Reformers’ endeavor to break the bond between the Church and State, i.e., the right of the state to have authority in religious matters (Estep 2020, 187). What follows is that the Anabaptists did not submit to authorities when it came to religious matters and they believed that it was necessary to separate those two entities, due to the very nature of the Church (Estep 2020, 189–190).

3. Issue of Terminology

Since there are theological differences between the Protestant and Radical Reformation, and Radical Reformation has begun from the same starting point as the Protestant Reformation, one must ask which “camp” should Baptist, Pentecostal, and other churches are categorized in, and what terms should be used to denote them? I am aware that some might be irritated by the use of the term “camps,” but it is important to consider this topic because it ultimately represents the question of identity.

Interestingly, in Croatia, there are several approaches. Some who belong to the aforementioned churches see themselves in the camp of the Radical Reformation and do not consider themselves Protestants, since they emphasize the theological differences between the Radicals and the Protestants. Some others who belong to those same churches consider themselves Protestants because they believe both reformations stemmed from the same starting point, the only difference being that one went further than the other. A third group does not want to share the term Protestant with the Radicals (Baptists, Pentecostals, etc.). So, who has it right? The answer will depend on whom you ask… For example, Stanko Jambrek (2007, 318) says that the Reformation further developed into four traditions: 1. Lutheran; 2. Reformed (Presbyterian) or Calvinist tradition; 3. Anglican, and; 4. Anabaptist tradition or the free church tradition. According to Jambrek, only Lutheran and Reformed traditions can truly be called Protestant, since the Anglican tradition primarily had a political and not religious background, while Anabaptism continued where Reformers faltered. However, Jambrek points out that, in its widest sense, Protestantism can refer to a “whole spectrum of non-Roman Catholic western Christianity with different doctrinal worldviews.”

Things get additionally complicated if, in our context, we consider the terminology used in conversations:

Conclusion – What Now?

When we speak about the churches of the Reformation heritage today, we must be aware that one of the problems we encounter is the problem of identity – who are we, really? In a sociological sense, believers in these churches are often placed in the rubric of Protestants (sometimes of their own accord), since they do not differentiate between the two mentioned kinds of reformation. Moreover, the Radical Reformation grew out of the Protestant Reformation and shares with it some basic tenets of faith, which further complicates this “nuance.”

Furthermore, churches of the Reformation heritage are the result of historical development and various influences, movements, and theologies, and it is often hard for the ordinary believer to know, understand and follow this historical development. As Kraljik (2021) points out, in the centuries after the 16^th century Reformation, the churches of the Reformation heritage have continued to reform their church life and practice through personal beliefs established on the level of individual denominations, through their teachings, understanding, and interpretation of Scriptures as the main basis of their doctrines, and in our modern age, to a certain extent through interdenominational encounters on the continental and global level (e.g., Lausanne Movement, World Evangelical Alliance, etc.). However, when one takes into account different Scripture interpretations, theological doctrines, and different understandings of how the Church should look and function, it was inevitable that these various movements, such as Pietists, Anabaptists, and Puritans, issued forth various theological movements in the coming centuries which also became ecclesiastical (denominational) movements such as Baptist Churches, Brethren Churches, Methodist Churches, Renewal Churches, Holiness Churches, Pentecostal Churches, Independent Charismatic Churches, etc. (Jambrek 2003, 13–14).

Therefore, churches of the Reformation heritage do not necessarily have a historical order of the Radical Reformation (e.g., Pentecostal, because they appeared at a later date). However, on one side, they are theological heirs of their faith and practice and, on the other, they are the product of certain historical development. It is exactly this diversity that makes it difficult to answer the question of who we are.

Chronologically, the first Christians were one of the Jewish sects (sect as a positive notion) and were called “the Way.” We are Christians, but the term Christian appears later in Acts 11 and most probably represents a form of mockery directed at followers of Jesus by their enemies. We could say that we are Protestants in the widest possible sense because we have inherited basic tenets of the Protestant Reformation, but not all. We are also Radicals because theologically and practically we are most like them – namely, Anabaptists. Ultimately, we are also evangelical Christians because the basic postulates of the evangelical movement suit the radical reformation although both Protestants and Catholics can be found under that concept. However, if I were to choose one concept that best describes our churches, in Croatia that would be the concept of churches of the Reformation heritage, and on the global level, free churches, although in this case we are left with the problem of which term to use for believers of such churches.

Whether you consider the answer to the question: “Which ones are you?” a simple or a complicated one, the matter of identity is very important for the everyday life of the churches of the Reformation heritage, but also their future. Indeed, in a time of spiritual globalization, correct identity gives us roots, stability, and security and keeps us from forgetting Jesus’s calling and mission. And, as this article has implicitly pointed out, this question is related to and opens many other questions and topics such as soteriology and ecclesiology, the question of ecumenism, evangelization, rebaptism, etc.

References

Bebbington, D. W. 2005. Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s. London and New York: Routledge.

Estep, William R. 1996. The Anabaptist Story. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans.

Jambrek, Stanko. 1997. Povijesni pregled Evanđeoskog pokreta. In: Stanko Jambrek, ed. Evanđeoski pokret. Zbornik radova sa znanstvenog skupa Protestantsko-evanđeoskog vijeća povodom 150. obljetnice Evanđeoske alijanse, 27–38. Zagreb: Protestantsko-evanđeosko vijeće.

Jambrek, Stanko. 2003. Crkve reformacijske baštine u Hrvatskoj. Zagreb: Bogoslovni institut.

Jambrek, Stanko. 2007. Protestantizam. In: Stanko Jambrek, ed. Leksikon evanđeoskog kršćanstva, 318–320. Zagreb: Bogoslovni institut and Prometej.

Kraljik, Dalibor. 2021. Reformacija kao (ne)završen proces: Ecclesia semper reformanda? (unpublished article).

Larsen, Timothy. 2007. Defining and Locating Evangelicalism. In: Timothy Larsen and Daniel J. Treier, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology, 1–14. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Packer, J. I. 1978. The Evangelical Anglican Identity Problem. Oxford: Latimer House.

Williams, George H. and Angel M. Mergal. 1957. Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press.