Can We Be Reformational Without Being Denominational?

COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue, DD

www.virtueonline.org

June 30, 2025

As the culture descends further into the abyss and secularism takes hold of younger generations, the question must be asked what kind of Christianity will emerge from the secular swamp.

The rise of cultural Christianity looks appealing on the surface, atheists seem to like the veneer of Christianity that keeps society stable, but full commitment to Christ is not on their agenda. Nones are still on the rise. They number in the millions. Nearly 30% of Americans are religiously unaffiliated, describing themselves as atheists, agnostics or “nothing in particular”.

Furthermore, when the sinister forces of Islam raise their head above the Christian ramparts, everybody gets decidedly jittery.

Churchianity is in decline across the West. Denominations are emptying faster than garbage cans on pick up days. According to missiologist Carey Nieuwhof, there’s a church building closing once every hour in the U.S. That should be a wakeup call. Ya think.

Furthermore, American churches are increasingly refraining from including denominational affiliation in their name. This trend seems to be most prevalent amongst Baptist churches and less common in historically liturgical denominations such as the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican or Presbyterian churches, writes Isaac Collum in a column for IRD.

“Rather than include denominational affiliation in their name, many local churches instead opt for generic, one-word names such as Life, Grace or Crossroads. Others use location in their name to build the identity of the church such as Chapel Hill Church, West Hills Church, or Wesley Chapel Church. Notable examples of churches hiding affiliation include Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, and Woodlands Church near Houston.”

Still and all it compels the question what sort of Christianity is being proposed by the stayers?

Excising the cults and “Christian” sects like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons et al, that have weird views of Jesus, the Bible and the Trinity, we are still left with two basic views. One is Catholic, the other is Protestant meaning reformed.

With a new Pope, many hope for a revived traditional Catholicism complete with the Latin Mass; a clear post Vatican II church that they can fully identify with as Catholic. They may get it. Time will tell. Meantime the Pope must deal with rampant homosexuality in his priestly ranks along with thousands of cases of sexual abuse resulting in numerous diocesan bankruptcies. The jury is still out for the RCC with this new Pope. Right noises don’t necessarily equate to right action.

From the Protestant side, the picture is really quite clear. Whether you are Pentecostal, Baptist, orthodox Anglican, orthodox Presbyterian or orthodox Methodist, to name just a few denominations, the picture has not changed in 500 years.

Luther’s ‘Here I stand I can do no other’ and his five Solas have stood the test of time.

Sola Scriptura – Theology must be scripturally grounded.

Sola Christus – Theology must be Christ focused.

Sola Gratia -- Theology must be grace-saturated.

Sola Fide - Theology must be faith-driven.

Soli Deo Gloria – Theology must be God-dominated.

Now most denominational preachers will not preach the Solas in sermons but they are assumed when the word is preached.

A pastor or priest who exegetes the text of Scripture is obeying the first Sola. When he focuses on Christ alone for salvation, he is obeying the second Sola. If he preaches by faith alone in the finished work of Christ at the cross, he is obedient to Sola Fide, and so on.

Rome will never understand this, nor apparently will they be persuaded despite all the talk of Evangelicals and Catholics together.

Thomas Cranmer, and the other English reformers began as devout Roman Catholics, but their context exposed them to the “new learning” of Renaissance humanism. This led them directly to the Bible and the early church fathers, where they caught the Reformation bug, writes Dean Chuck Collins.

Protestants consider many Catholic teachings unbiblical, like their understanding of the Pope’s authority, transubstantiation, purgatory, and the extraordinary place of Mary alongside Jesus as a co-redeemer.

But when we speak of the gospel that the wonderful peculiarities of what it means to be protestant Christian are seen.

The Reformation’s biggest discovery, after the Bible, was finding and experiencing a way of righteousness and justification that was all but forgotten in the Middle Ages.

Imputed verses infused righteousness delineated Protestant and Catholic teaching. Catholics understand it as a “process” to make them holy enough for the Day of Judgement. The sixteenth century reformers began at a totally different place. They believe (and we still do) that no one is ever righteous enough and that all fall short of the glory of God. Protestants understand that that their only hope is outside of themselves – another righteousness – a perfect righteousness that can somehow relate unholy men and women to a wholly righteous God. It is the righteousness of God himself which he credits to our account by faith. Protestants believe that God credits to them Christ’s own perfect righteousness.

These two views have not changed in 500 years and probably never will.  Can we be reformational without being denominational? The answer of course is yes. When God’s Spirit moves across the land as it did with the Wesley’s and other revivalists, denominationalism played little part. God seemed not to care who belonged to whom.

America today is in an advanced state of moral, spiritual and political decay; we are polarized as we have never been with hushed talk of civil war.

God’s Spirit may not appear like Belshazzar’s ‘mene, mene, tekel upharson,’ but perhaps in His mercy God will have a Daniel waiting to reveal himself. Time will tell.

END