Schisms Upon Schisms

Introduction

Rome was right about one thing, the Protestant Reformation was a recipe for endless schisms. Despite this reality, the Reformation was still utterly necessary. The church was not healthy, and many would say was in some regard, apostate. The Vatican had been littered with scandal for hundreds of years, and anybody that denies this fact is either ignorant or lying. I’ll give one example, though there are many. In the 14th century, the Avignonese Captivity (1309-1376) of the papacy turned the “vicar of Christ” into a French political pawn, which ended in two popes (Urban VI and Clement VII) being elected by the same body of cardinals, who proceeded to excommunicated each other. It was an act of divine comedy, as if God Himself were saying, “I recognize neither of you.” By 1398, the French Monarchy took control over the papal powers in France, highlighting the secular and political nature of the church. If you’re confused as to why the Reformation was so successful, the Catholic church had been discrediting itself for hundreds of years by the time Martin Luther comes onto the scene.

Rome, You Asked for It

During the time of the Avignonese captivity, the first steps of the Reformation began with a theologian named John Wyclif from Oxford. Wyclif wrote a book called, On the Church, where he argued that the church was comprised of the body of the elect with Christ at the head, not the organization controlled by the papacy. Wyclif argued that the proper view of eucharist had vanished from the western church since the 11th century, but remained true in the east (Transubstantiation vs. Real Presence). Most importantly, Wyclif set into motion the production of the first English Bible in 1384. Up until then, the Bible in the west was confined to the Latin, which meant very few could read it. Three decades later, the church desecrated his grave and burnt his body. Wyclif’s writings birthed the Lollards, who condemned transubstantiation and prayers for the dead, and advocated for clergymen to marry. The Catholic church used political influence through King Henry IV to burn the Lollard heretics at the stake. In fact, around the Christian world, many scholars and influential men rose up, espousing similar ideas, including John Huss, whose last words before being martyred were, “I shall die with joy today in the faith of the Gospel which I have preached.”

For any of my freshly catholic friends, your church has been apostate for centuries. The only reason the Reformation didn’t happen earlier was because the Roman church was so quick to use violence and political corruption to solve its problems. If Rome wanted unity, she would have been open to reform. Yet, any time a reformer came along, trying to work within the walls of the church, the church responded with violence. Roman Catholics, this Protestant schism is on your hands. I think my reader will agree with me that the schism was necessary while also acknowledging the negative reality of such schisms.

The Reality of Schisms

Yes, the Reformation was inevitable. Rome had fallen too far from her original purpose to be redeemed. I am not saying that modern Roman Catholics endorse any of the actions taken by the church against Christians seeking reform, what I am saying is that modern Roman Catholics are worshiping in a corpse. Unfortunately, this is something that the Roman Catholics have in common with many Protestants today. The problem is not necessarily that there are schismatics, it is that such schismatics are willing to worship without Spirit, and without truth.

The number of schismatic movements had multiplied exponentially since the 16th century, practically bursting from the seams in the 19th and 20th centuries. I would argue that almost every single one of these movements is illegitimate. With every new movement, heresies old are revived, and heresies new were born. Though we know that there is nothing truly new under the sun, churches are born daily on the premise of “sing a new song.” The overwhelming reality is that there is no unified church in the world today, in the US or globally. Even the Catholic and Eastern magisterial churches are not united in themselves, they have their own schisms.

There are many likely reasons for the endless schisms in the Protestant world, but most stem from the insane behaviors of churches in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the first place, churches became obsessed with counting heads and massive pseudo-revivals. This is often called the, “Second Great Awakening,” though I argue that very few souls were stirred genuinely from that effort. The role of the church became less about discipleship, and more about evangelical outreach. We see the effect of this today, where pastors have famously said things like, “If you are a Christian today, this service is not for you.”

Secondly, American churches became obsessed with converting every last person from every third world village, building houses and wells in some foreign country, spawning revivals in India, and so on. Think of all of the Apologists of the last century. The chief assumption was that all of the Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists, and Hindus needed to be converted. Many of the church’s most able bodied men were sent abroad, meanwhile the church at home suffered a painful decline. Many of us grew up hearing the stories of heroic missionaries being slaughtered by unreached people, only for the next missionary to come back to find them all worshipping Jesus. Yes, it is important to reach all with the Gospel, but not at the expense of Christians in your own land hearing the gospel. 20th century Christians seemed to ignore the fact that God had desired them to be born in a place, and perhaps He even desired that place to be their mission field. Ironically, America would do well if foreign missionaries could come to our shores and convert some of our people. In 2025, it is not only the Hindu that has not heard the gospel and rejected it, it is the American Christian.

The ongoing obsession with global missions is only one piece of the puzzle. The churches at home sacrificed purity of doctrine for cultural acceptance at every turn. Instead of the church shaping the culture, the culture shaped her. Finally, you have the abandonment of historical covenant theological teaching for dispensationalism, which came furiously on the scene at the end of the 19th century and dominated American and European Christianity in the 20th century. This pernicious theology teaches, among many things, that the true church and Israel are separate, a departure from historic covenantal teaching of the church throughout all time. The Christian is to believe that all prophecy should be viewed through the lens of modern day Israel and modern day Jewish people. There is no greater calling to the dispensationalist than to serve the interests of Israel. In short, Christianity is just a side quest to the main storyline.

Organizing the Schisms

There are many ways to interpret the schisms of modern day Protestantism, but I am going to split them into three main categories.

1. Dispensationalist
2. Covenantal
3. Non-Covenantal/Personal

In the first category we have dispensationalists. This schism is new to the end of the 19th century, gaining popularity in the 20th century. This schismatic group views the plan of salvation of man in two categories: Jew and Gentile. The Gospel is for the gentile, and the Jew holds a special status of being “God’s chosen” in perpetuity, regardless of covenant faithfulness. There is the church, and then there is Israel. These two are not the same, and God’s promises to Israel are not fulfilled in the New Covenant. Estimates put these churches between 30% and 35% of American churches.

In the second category we have Covenantal Christians. This encompasses much of your mainline, conservative denominations who believe that God has had, and still has, one plan of salvation for man. The church is truly Israel, and the only way to gain entry to the church, to be a part of Israel, is through Jesus Christ. Estimates put these churches between 15% and 20% of American churches.

In the third category we have Non-Covenantal or Personal Christians. This covers the vast majority of American Christians who believe, in the most extreme, that faith is a personal journey. They do not view the church as a covenantal institution, but rather a personal one. There is no physical church on Earth, only in heaven. Estimates put this number between 45% and 55% of American Christians.

Making Sense of the Schisms

This is where I can easily find myself in trouble, because I’m sure many of my readers will tell me that they know a very well-meaning dispensationalist, or that some of the strongest Christians they know don’t go to church. That is not the point of what I am saying. I am not here to decide the eternal status of anybody’s soul. I am simply laying out the landscape of American Christianity. Out of the churches that are Covenantal, roughly 2,400 of these subscribe to a Protestant era confession, with nearly 2,000 of those being the Presbyterian Church of America (PCA). If we include the PCA as adhering to a confessional standard, roughly .7% of all American churches would be recognized by the Reformed and Post-Reformed. This means that less than 1% of all American churches are actually in the Protestant tradition.

An important thing to note here is that if we really want to nitpick about who is a Protestant in the US, it’s less than 1% of all churches. This further emphasizes my point from the previous article, that if somebody says, “I left Protestantism for Catholicism,” it is almost a certainty that they didn’t. They left some vague version of Christianity that does not stand in any historical tradition. The vast majority of churches in the United States are mostly cultural or community centers that represent the American religion. Hardly any of these churches actually function as a church, with discipline, a fenced table, membership, and a coherent doctrinal statement. In a way, Protestantism had its own Great Schism, wherein only 1% of the churches remained in that historical tradition. At the very highest estimate, 20% of churches in the US are covenantal, meaning that they retain some semblance of Reformed catholic doctrine. A very small fraction of these churches actually stake that claim on a written document such as a confession.

Maybe it is a good idea for us, who understand how little Protestant actually means, to view the vast majority of American churches as a product of the Reformed version of the Reformation. Protestants had their own massive schism, but unlike the Roman Catholic church, it has hardly survived. In order to understand the American Christian landscape, we have to understand these schisms, and that is what I will begin to explore in the follow articles in this series.