Many of the debates in the Reformed world these days have a sizable church-historical, historical-theological component.  What was the Reformation about?  How much was it in continuity with the patristic and medieval past?  To what extent did Protestant Orthodoxy or American revivalism mislead the original Reformation vision?  Some position themselves as defenders of the Reformation against dangerous deviations, but for all the respect offered to the Reformation among contemporary Reformed theologians, many function with a strangely ahistorical conception of the Reformation.  It’s as if the Reformation Confessions dropped from heaven, written immutably on golden tablets.  As James Payton says at the beginning of his Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting Some Misunderstandings , “one way in which some people get the Reformation wrong is by overlooking or neglecting its historical rootedness.”

Payton’s book is a superb antidote to this error, and also offers a neat summary of some of the main historical issues surrounding the Reformation.  He reviews the clamor for “reform in head and body” in the late medieval world and the complex relations between “Ren” and “Ref,” in the process making a fine case for seeing the Ren as a fundamentally Christian movement.  He shows how much the Reformation moved forward by misunderstandings, and reminds us of the painful conflicts among the Reformers themselves.  He devotes balanced chapters to sola fide (justified by faith alone, never by a faith that is alone) and sola Scriptura (always combined with respect for the church fathers and the best of the medieval tradition).  In short, this is a sold, thorough, fairly brief, very readable introduction to the Reformation and Reformation studies that never loses sight of the contemporary relevant of church history.

In two areas, Payton’s book will be controversial.  In both cases, Payton’s on the side of the angels.

In contrast to scholars like Richard Muller and Carl Trueman, Payton argues that the methodological shift represented by Protestant scholasticism “constituted such a serious change in direction that it amounted to a change in teaching.”  Though he gives a sympathetic account of the reasons for the return to Aristotle and scholastic methods, he insists that the consolidation and perpetuation of the Reformation did not require a scholastic turn: “other options were available.”  Among the substantive effects were a growing fixation on logic and systematic consistency the “objectification” of doctrine.  By the latter, he means the effort to make the Protestant case “convincing and compelling to any fair-minded and clear-thinking individual.”  He sees this at work, for example, in the way Protestant scholasticism handled the doctrine of Scripture, shifting the emphasis from revelation to inspiration.  This is not a neo-Orthodox complaint: “The point of contrast here is not that the Reformers did not believe Scripture was inspired by God, but rather that revelation had to do with communication between persons . . . while inspiration focuses on the veracity of what is said.  These not not be in conflict, but they are not the same.”  As a result, “Scripture is depersonalized; the personal connection essential to revelation is sidelined.”  Instead of a love letter from Jesus to His Bride (as van Til almost put it), the Bible is seen as a collection of raw material for theological construction.

Payton’s case is, to me, prima facie, a strong one.  For all the continuities between Reformation theology and Protestant Orthodoxy, and indeed for all the advances that Protestant Orthodoxy might have brought, the fact that there was a change in form argues very strongly in favor of a change in substance.  Luther burned with zeal against the Aristotelian church; Melanchthon (already!) was rehabilitating Aristotle (with Luther’s knowledge and consent).  Similarly with Calvin and Beza.  It’s hardly plausible that this could be done with no change in theological substance.  In fact, the substantive change must somehow have preceded the methodological shift: What assumptions about Greece, about philosophy, about the effects of sin must have been in place before Aristotelian logic could be accepted as the organizing logic for Protestant theology?

Payton’s book will also be controversial for his probing of the question of whether or not the Reformation was a success.  He argues that it was both triumph and tragedy: “it rediscovered and boldly proclaimed the apostolic message, the Christian gospel,” while undermining that gospel in other ways, mainly because divisions among Reformers: “It is at least a horrendous anomaly that the sixteenth-century Reformation got rid of the clutter that obscured the foundation of the Christian faith, only to have Protestants cover that foundation again with the clutter of manifold divisions.”  The gospel has not disappeared from Protestantism, but the splintering of the church is an appalling horror: “In this regard, we have sown the wind and have reaped the whirlwind.”

Is the Reformation Over? Mark Noll asked a few years ago.  Payton hopes the answer is No, and I’m with Payton.  But we need to get the Reformation right if its crucial contributions to the church of Jesus Christ are not going to be lost.  A Reformation gone wrong - a Reformation that has collapsed into traditionalism, a Reformation that persists in its centuries-long mitosis, a Reformation that renounces the call to transform culture and politics - such a Reformation is not worth preserving.  Payton gives us a Reformation worth defending.  By offering a nuanced, sober, modest, historically sensitive assessment of the Reformation, Payton provides just the historical stance we must adopt if we want the Reformation to persist.