Protestantism and Criticism

From Neill and Wright again, summarizing the assumptions behind William Hietmuller’s early twentieth-century work on Paul’s views on sacraments. Hietmuller placed Paul within the history of religions, and arrived at conclusions that have guided many Pauline scholars ever since.

As summarized by Neill and Wright, there are four principles at work: a) There is radical difference between preaching of Jesus and the theology of Paul; b) Paul is self-contradictory, and unaware of it; c) The source of the contradiction is the intrusion of alien Hellenistic elements into his thought: destroyed faith as simple trust; d) This is the beginning of “Catholicism,” reliance on outward and visible, an institutionalization of Christianity that is at war with the true spiritual gospel of Protestantism.

The last is crucial: Critical scholarship sees itself as a continuation of the Reformation. Critical scholarship is a Pietist/Anabaptist movement that attempts to purge “foreign” and “catholic” residue from Christianity and re-tells the story of early Christianity accordingly.