Well, we’ve finally arrived at the conclusion of my list of best books of 2024. And standing at the top of my list is:
What it means to be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church, by Gavin Ortlund (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2024), 288pp.
Few people have done as deep a dive into Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Protestant theological distinctives as Gavin Ortlund. With the news of so many who have converted or are considering converting to either of the first two of these traditions, this book is essential reading.
There is a sense in which Gavin’s book could have been titled, What it means to be Roman Catholic. Or perhaps, conversely, A Multitude of Reasons not to be Roman Catholic. Although Gavin is thoroughly Protestant, he treats the other traditions with clarity and fairness. This is no angry screed against Catholicism but a biblically informed analysis of its primary teaching and the ways in which it differs from Protestantism. Among other virtues of the book, Gavin takes the reader on an extended tour of church history in his attempt to accurately describe the commonalities and differences among these three religious perspectives.
Ortlund argues that “the Protestant Reformation was not an attempt to create a new church, but rather to reform the historic church of Christ by removing various errors that had gradually developed over time” (xix). He writes:
“Ultimately, I am deeply convinced in my conscience that the claims of traditions like Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy to be the ‘one true church’ that Jesus founded are wrong. Further, I maintain that the Protestant Reformation represented a genuine recovery of multiple biblical and apostolic truths. I do not maintain that these various non-Protestant traditions have entirely lost the gospel, but I do believe, with conviction, that the gospel has been both obscured and added on to in them. I will also maintain, as will become evident, that Protestantism (despite its many imperfections) is best positioned to maintain a truly catholic vision of the church today amid its current factures and divisions” (xxiii).
Gavin points out that even Martin Luther and the other magisterial reformers considered the Catholic church to be a church, even though it had fallen into gross sin and error. But he argues, rightly in my opinion, that the core idea of “institutional exclusivism”, the notion that “the real church . . . is restricted to one visible, institutional church with its own unique hierarchical structure – permeates all” non-Protestant traditions. This is one of the major weaknesses of Catholicism and Orthodoxy, just to mention two.
He examines the history and theology of such unbiblical practices as indulgences, the Catholic view of justification and its rejection of sola fide, its elevation of tradition to an equal level of authority with Scripture, the existence of the papacy, the magisterium, and apostolic succession. He does not address the issues of purgatory and transubstantiation.
He devotes considerable space to an analysis and rejection of the bodily assumption of Mary and the veneration of icons (especially within the Eastern Orthodox church). His careful and meticulous defense of sola scriptura is alone worth the price of the book. He responds to virtually all Catholic and Orthodox objections to it and does so convincingly. He reminds us that Protestantism does not reject tradition but simply subordinates it to the superior and final authority of Scripture.
Ortlund sums up in this way:
“The great, shining glory of Protestantism – that which stands out above all else, perhaps – is its radical focus on the simplicity of the gospel. Protestantism is relentlessly and structurally focused on the all-sufficiency of the person and work of Christ himself. The non-Protestant traditions may share this value in principle. But we worry that they have inadvertently added requirements on to
If you know someone who is contemplating joining either Catholicism or Orthodoxy, please give them this book. Or if someone is confused about the essential beliefs and practices in the Protestant tradition, you can do no better than direct them to Ortlund’s excellent explanation.
Well, that concludes my list of best books of 2024. But I do have two that warrant honorable mention:
Romans, Sam Storms (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2024), 262 pp. Our God Reigns: An Amillennial Commentary on Revelation, Sam Storms (Fearn, Ross-Shire: Mentor Books, 2024), 554 pp.
Yes, I agree this is a shameless self-promoting advertisement, but at least I didn’t include them in the top ten!
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