Protestant Eyes

Protestant soteriology claims to deal with perennial patterns of behavior and belief: Striving for approval from God by our performance, self-righteousness, works-righteousness, pride in our achievements, etc.

Let’s grant that these are perennial patterns of behavior, though they will likely take various forms in different cultural settings. That’s not just “grant for argument’s sake”; I grant as true that Luther didn’t invent the various evils they assaulted so vehemently.

Still, we need to ask if our theology has kept us focused on these particular behaviors, whether our Protestant eyes have made us see only the Protestant sins everywhere we look.

And we have to ask if our theology has blinded us to other behaviors, perhaps just as universal, perhaps just as central to a biblical soteriology.

Perhaps abuse of the weak is just as perennial and just as important in Scripture, but we have a hard time seeing it, and when we do, we subsume it into more familiar categories.