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Unlearning Protestantism: Sustaining Christian Community in an Unstable Age

Reviewed by Luke Penkett.

The title, Unlearning Protestantism, is a misleading one. It is not about encouraging people to abandon Protestant churches. Nor is it an effort to persuade Protestants to become Roman Catholic. However, glancing at the author’s autobiographical note, in which he writes about leaving the Mennonite Church to embrace Roman Catholicism himself, one might well be forgiven for thinking so.

Schlabach is Professor of Theology and Director of the Justice and Peace Studies Programme at the University of St Thomas. He is also the Founder and Director of Bridgefolk, a movement of sacramentally minded Mennonites and peace-minded Roman Catholics who come together to celebrate each other’s traditions, explore each other’s practices and honour each other’s contribution to the mission of the Christian church.

His book is, rather, about the virtues of humility and hospitality that all Christian communities need in order to sustain their communal lives, wherever they may be. He begins by recognising the possibilities and dilemmas of our ecumenical age.

This is followed by a retelling of his story of becoming a Benedictine oblate. For me, having left the Anglican church to become Orthodox, this is a subject of some interest.

He then proceeds to argue that, if the Protestant church is to regain some fidelity and stability, it will need to let go of some basic Protestant lessons that are no longer viable. He cites, as an example, Luther’s stand on conscience that has become, in our individualistic age, an excuse to avoid the hard work of living together in community. In so doing, Schlabach names, for Roman Catholics, what they often take for granted.

For the Church as a whole, he promotes conditions for the possibility of greater church unity. In central position, he writes, is the concept that it is by moving closer to Christ, rather than by becoming entrenched in other’s differences, which is the proper goal of ecumenical dialogue.

Returning to the Protestant Dilemma in the final chapter, Schlabach ends by arguing that it is this that has played a major part in creating the dilemma of modernity in the contemporary world.

A thought provoking book, Unlearning Protestantism is useful for all interested in the unity and witness of the Church.