We are contained by our casual words. Before any science has been explored, the very word we use to describe its field denotes its limitations and its conclusions. To put it another way, a word’s etymon determines its eschaton. The Protestant tradition, unable to go back any further than Rome, uses Roman language as the backbone for all its theology (e.g., Imago Dei, Contra Mundi, Sola Gratia, sacramentum). The inability to question our vocabulary limits us to the Protestant “language game,” which is nothing more than a redefinition of Roman Catholic theology.

If Protestantism truly wanted to “re-form” the church, it would have found new words, returning to the source: Greek or Hebrew. But as it stands, Protestants know little Greek, less Hebrew, and no theology. To rediscover the original world of Christianity, Protestants must stop redefining Latinate terms and return to Greek and Hebrew. Protestantism is contained by the broader vocabulary of Catholicism, unable to escape even as it tries to condemn Catholicism. Because Protestantism possesses only a fragmented Catholic language, the best it can do is limp on as a weak form of Catholicism.

The unstoppable process of fragmentation started by Martin Luther is little more than a splintering of Roman thought into incommensurable pieces. If what was broken was a puzzle, we are missing the pieces and have forgotten what the whole once looked like.  Trying to craft a coherent whole out of fragments, the best Protestantism will be able to do is imitate the grandeur of the Catholic Church. Having broken the symbols of Catholicism, Protestantism now attempts to make stained glass out of the very thing it destroyed.

Protestantism speaks in terms of “Imago Dei,” which is a translation to Latin from Hebrew. This is Protestant theology: Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English. Anyone with any knowledge of language realizes the treason committed by such a process.

Do you even believe what the Church first believed? How could you know? We accept the spiritual poverty of our forefathers and continue the heresy of breaking apart that which God has joined together–the Puritan impulse of “purifying” everything here and now, tearing up the wheat with the weeds. Protestantism is little more than trench warfare between ever-dividing factions of self-proclaimed “freedom fighters” who know nothing of intellectual honesty or graciousness. “Conservative” Christians are little better than their “postmodern” counterparts. In fact, conservative Christians use the very words of postmodernism: “worldview” and “values.” If postmodernism is a plague (as some Christians make it out to be), they should realize that they have the same disease. As soon as you speak of “worldviews” you should realize that you are–inescapably and possibly irremediably–postmodern.

To reform Protestantism, it must be reinvented (reinvenio, “rediscovered”). A new language must be formed and the comfort of old words must be questioned, even destroyed. For hating Catholicism so much, all of Protestantism’s prejudices are Latinate. Only the Orthodox Church, with its exclusively non-metaphysical and Greek theology, comes close to an authentic linguistic tradition.

There is little that I find true (or wholesome) in Protestant theology.  If there are intellectual pedants, there are spiritual pedants. Battle lines are drawn between sects (e.g. “Arminian” or “Calvinist,” post-, pre-, or a-millennialist), but never with the intent of self-questioning. Truth is no longer the issue. If truth were the priority, self-questioning would take priority over questioning others. We would thank others for correcting us.

The very name “Protestantism” is problematic, as its essence is tied up with its opponent. Only with an enemy can anyone “protest.” Without an enemy, Protestantism loses its meaning. There needs to be an adaptation of language to the condition of spirituality today.

One’s spiritual journey should be one of perpetual adaptation and evolution. While seeds of thought might be planted at one point, one should not be spouting the same quotes four years later. When one is stuck in a particular paradigm, one should look for exceptions. If all you talk about is “mediated knowledge,” find an exception. If all you talk about is “pride,” find an exception. If all you talk about is being a “pilgrim,” find an exception. If one does not look for these exceptions, what was once an epiphany becomes lethargy. The comfort of a particular paradigm (or “worldview”) is intellectually and spiritually deadly. People can became obsessed with the tripartite division of the soul the first time they read Plato–they may start seeing it everywhere. Only with concerted effort can we escape the mental “rut” of thinking in a particular language. Freeing oneself from a single, unitary language, one can say, “Yes, but–.” A paradigm shift is not the obliteration of all that is before, but (hopefully) the expansion to explain those unexplained exceptions. There are always exceptions (and maybe even to this). If you can’t find one, you’re probably wrong. Each paradigm-shift is an entry into a new language, one which contains the past and also the (immediate) future. For example, Einstein’s theory of relativity compared to Newton’s theory of gravity. It is not that a previous paradigm was wrong, but that it was incomplete. One must never think one’s orthodoxy (or orthopraxy, for that matter) is complete.

Realize your own psychological tendencies, your personal complexes–which everyone else sees. If you say the same thing every time you speak or write, someone always question why you say the same thing over and over. A simple answer is this: people only talk about what is a problem for them. For example, if someone writes about the “simple life,” he no longer has it! A “simple life” person wouldn’t know to call his life “simple”–it would just be simple. When a theologian like Martin Luther writes so much about “vocation” one has to wonder what the source of that monumental problem is: himself, someone else, or perhaps the Protestant tradition itself? No one writes about problem-free things. Even what you are reading now is what I consider to be a problem. Plato didn’t write about “Justice” because justice existed–he did it because it didn’t exist. Aristotle didn’t write about “Politics” because it was well-ordered–he did because it wasn’t well-ordered.

If you talk about family all the time, it’s fairly obvious that family is a major problem for you. If you talk about gender roles all the time, or mock homosexuality, or drop names, … etc. Break out of your crippling vocabulary and find something stronger. Find a new language if you want to grow.

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