Liturgical test

Jenson again.  He notes that liturgy provides a test of theological truth, in the sense that “no teaching can be true whose consequences would pervert the practice or darken the understanding of irreversibly instituted liturgy.”

He illustrates: “the Reformers insisted there must be something wrong with established teaching about the mass because it sanctioned the proliferation of private and votive masses, a situation not coherent with the canonically instituted rite; Catholics charged that Reformation teaching about works must be wrong because it would lead to ‘abolishing the mass’ altogether.   Both accusations proved right.  Catholic theology has adopted the Reformers’ critique of the mass-theologies that justified much late-medieval practice.  And the Eucharist did quickly lose its rightful place in Protestant churches.”

In a footnote, he explains the last comment:

“Does ‘faith alone without works’ mean ‘without sacraments and the other actions that constitute the church’s life’?  Catholic polemicists supposed that it did, with abundant justification in the actual practice of and conclusions drawn by many supporters of the Reformation.”

For Luther and Calvin and Bucer, “faith along without works” certainly did not exclude sacraments since sacraments were not our works but God’s.  But Jenson is right.  For some Protestants, still today, the Catholic critique holds: “Faith without works” is translated as “baptism does nothing” and “the Supper is hardly worth doing, certainly not frequently.”