A Pensées-style critique of Protestantism — 272 numbered “sayings” across ten chapters, modeled in form after Blaise Pascal. The aim is not to attack individual Protestants but to examine the formal principles of Protestantism — sola Scriptura, the invisible church, private judgment, the perspicuity of Scripture, predestination, Luther and Protestant origins — and some of the system’s negative tendencies in practice.
This is a loving (if vigorous) “in-house” critique from a brother in the Lord, not a “hit piece” by an “enemy.” Dave Armstrong was a Protestant for the first thirty-two years of his life and fondly remembers that time. “True ecumenism, to which I am passionately committed, does not ‘paper over’ profound disagreements in a delirious, ‘warm fuzzy’ atmosphere of self-deluded bliss. Rather, the profundity of authentic ecumenism is fellowship despite major differences, in a special and delightful environment of mutual respect.”
Five substantial appendices follow: Calvin on Protestant divisions; the agony of Luther, Melanchthon, and Bucer over early Protestantism; Luther’s assertions of his own authority; Erasmus on Luther; and five John Henry Newman essays on apostolic tradition, private judgment, and faith.
Inside this book
- *Sola Scriptura*, the perspicuity of Scripture, and the canon question
- The invisible church, the “pure” church, and the doctrine of denominations
- Private judgment and the rejection of binding apostolic Tradition
- Predestination, Calvinism, Arminianism, and the Protestant divisions Luther himself lamented
- Five John Henry Newman essays — *Apostolical Tradition* (1836) through *Faith and Private Judgment* (1849)
