Polemical British cleric Calvin Robinson unsurprisingly sparked a fracas when addressing the “Mere Anglicanism” conference in Charleston, South Carolina earlier this year. Most attention focused on his rejection of women’s ordination.
But his rejection of Martin Luther and the Reformation as preamble to Marxism was more interesting.
Robinson is ordained in the Nordic (Old) Catholic Church founded in 1999 from the Church of Norway (Lutheran). Sharing the perspective of some Roman Catholics and Anglo Catholics, he denounced Luther for “removing the authority of the Church Universal, magisterium, papacy,” which made “Marx’s job of crushing Christianity all the more easier.”
“Priestly authority was damaged in the Reformation,” Robinson recalled. “Every layman became a priest, each with their own personal interpretation.” Centuries later, Marx exploited this absence of priestly authority “in favour of the mass relatively ill-informed laity of the time.” And Marx exploited Luther’s “liberal perspective of freedom,” which was the “ability of the individual to do as they wish.”
According to Robinson, “Luther liberated people from the body of Christ – His Church – and enchained our hearts by putting all the pressure upon our individual consciences, upon our subjective opinions. He made slaves of us and dressed it up as freedom.” Protestantism gifted Marx the “foundation for him to build from.”
“The Reformation made the individual the authority,” Robinson said, “And Marx planned to finish the job by turning those pieces of the Church into godless men.” The result: “Freedom from God. Slavery to sin.”
Robinson warned: “Let this be a reminder to us all that liberalism is a sin. The individual is not at the centre, Christ is. Liberalism is in fact idolatry of man, of the individual, of ourselves, disguised as freedom.”
For Anglicans, Robinson noted, the Reformation was about church reform and refocusing on the Scriptures. “I would say, for the most part, it failed in those matters,” he noted. “The Church doubled down, and in the end the Reformation [resulted] in division, schism, splits and further hostility. I cannot believe our Lord would see that as a good thing. We, the Church Militant, are causing him pain. If the Church is Christ’s body, we are fracturing him.”
Robinson concluded: “Between them, Luther and Marx destroyed the Christian soul of Germany, which, as we know, has gone on to become the home of heresy.”
That’s one perspective. Here’s another: one billion Protestants in today’s world descend from Luther, however indirectly. The Reformation proliferated the Gospel. It also refocused Christians of all branches on the Scriptures and the centrality of salvation by faith.
Robinson disdains “liberalism,” meaning the individual’s right to believe and make choices without coercion. This “liberalism” is baked into the Bible. God creates individuals before He makes tribes and nations. Unlike those groups, the individual lives forever and directly has God’s image. God invites individuals to follow Him. This divine invite cannot be obstructed without violating God’s will.
Robinson, who’s ordained in a church descending from Norwegian Lutheranism, is himself a product of the Reformation. He lives in Great Britain, which was profoundly shaped by the Reformation. Britain, and its child, the United States, also a Reformation product, both thanks to their Protestant heritage, have a Bill of Rights, protecting the individual’s freedoms. Among those freedoms is religious liberty.
Of course, Robinson’s speech in Charleston, South Carolina, would have been impossible without such liberty. His media career, so filled with controversy, depends on freedom of speech, premised on individual rights, largely descending from the Reformation. Robinson’s ideas are highly unpopular ideas today, but he is legally and culturally protected, thanks to understandings about the individual mostly dating to the Reformation. Before the Reformation, Robinson could not have survived, much less made a living as a provocateur. He would have been silenced, jailed, tortured, and/or killed.
Robinson’s career is wonderfully the product of “liberalism” and individual rights. He is free to speak as he pleases. Thankfully, there is no global superintending authority that can silence him. He predictably sparked controversy at “Mere Anglicanism,” delivering remarks his hosts did not expect or want. Yet he was paid his honoraria, and his travel costs, and he reaped the online rewards of notoriety. Doubtless more speaking invitations will follow him. God bless America.
And more power to Robinson, who is the living embodiment of the freedoms, glories, and success of “liberalism,” which he rightly credits to the Reformation. Whatever Luther’s intent, his defiance of the Roman Catholic Church and its allied civil powers unloosed forces that allow controversialists like Robinson, from their perch in Reformation-shaped societies, to reach the whole world and thrive. The world is richer for having gadflies like Robinson who can speak freely.
Far more than Marx and his followers, who despise freedom of speech and religion, Christians globally have immensely benefitted from the rights of conscience that the Reformation ultimately birthed. Maybe in his next speech, Robinson can thank Luther.
Comment by Simon on March 26, 2024 at 6:46 pm
If he thinks the papacy is so important, why isn’t he a Roman Catholic already? I suppose, to elevate the papacy but remain out of communion with it, he must argue that the Roman Catholic Church has taken a good thing too far, and elevated it too highly. But if that’s true, the problems of the modern West can’t be purely blamed on the Reformation, some of them must also be due to the very excesses in the Catholic Church to which the Reformation was a reaction.
Comment by Patrick on March 28, 2024 at 11:35 am
Is Calvin Robinson trying to be the John Spong of the religious right? Poking people with his words, trying to get a reaction and a rise out of people.
What Robinson fails to realize is that from the earliest years, Christianity has had various groups/traditions: Syriac, Coptic, Eastern Orthodox, Indian and Iraqi, to name a few. When the reformation era pope issued a declaration that there was no salvation outside of the Roman Catholic Church, it angered Martin Luther, who was not angry about it for the protestants, but for the Eastern Orthodox.
Robinson is entitled to his opinions, but I disagree, and think he is wrong.
Thankyou Mark Tooley for your analysis.
Comment by Barbara Joliat on March 28, 2024 at 5:48 pm
Calvin Robinson summed up Modernism brilliantly. If anyone can honestly look around at the world today and say the radical individualism of our times is a good thing, then they’re willfully blind. Absolute freedom, which is what most mainline protestant churches support, leads to abortion and chemical castration of healthy children. No human being has absolute freedom and the Catholic Church set the boundaries as Christ’s Church. I think the names say it all: Catholic = Universal/ protestant = just say no to everything Catholic.
Comment by John on March 28, 2024 at 6:56 pm
Robinson appears to be suffering from what we might call reactionary tunnel-vision in which nearly everything that’s happened since whatever time he wishes he lived in (presumably sometime prior to 1500) all seems the same. He makes Luther the father of modernity and classical liberalism, even though most historians argue that Luther still has at least one foot in the Medieval World and actually seems to be longing more for a pre-Constance form of Catholicism rather than a radically new kind of Christianity. Indeed the kind of individualism and human liberty Robinson decries was far from Luther’s intention. Luther had an extremely low regard for the common people and their ability to think for themselves, especially after the Peasants’ Revolt. He thought rulers should be harsh and authoritarian with few checks on their power. He also was no nursemaid to the rise of science or the Enlightenment. He condemned the heliocentric theory and was much more repressive of new ideas of science than the Catholic Church of his time. Robinson’s unnuanced interpretation of Luther and his theology is his first error. His second, perhaps greater error is this manner in which he tries to wrap classical liberalism and Marxist together in one great big modernist bow. Why? Because they both emerge after Reformation, ergo their both the products of it and tied together. It’s called a genetic fallacy. I’m not surprised Robinson hasn’t heard of it if his mind is trapped in the 15th Century. In truth Marxism is more a reaction against classical liberalism rather than an expression of it. Liberalism and individualism have historically been the nursemaids not to Marxism, but rather it’s archnemisis, capitalism. This is one point both Marxists and capitalists tend to agree on. Classical liberalism will naturally lend itself to limited government and free markets, both of which are perfect breeding grounds for capitalist enterprise. It’s clear to me that Robinson has likely never bothered to actually read the works of Marx. If he did, he would be shocked to find how much they are in agreement in the assessments of the fruits of classical liberalism. Both are cynics of not only free-market capitalism, but also democracy, the Enlightenment, and most aspects of modern life. While Robinson is a reactionary Christian and Marx a committed atheist, they also have surprisingly similar understandings of the purpose and centrality of organized religion prior to modernity. Marx famously called religion “the opium of the masses” the original meaning of which is lost on contemporary readers for whom opium is a poison and blight on society. But in Marx’s own time it was a perfectly acceptable form of medicine to treat chronic pain. What he meant was that the serf’s and industrial worker’s belief in a benevolent God and a heavenly afterlife were among the few things that make their hard and short life bearable, though it does not actually cure their pain. But Marx (like Robinson) also believed modern life and in particular the economic and ideological forces of capitalism were chipping away at the power of religion to give meaning to man’s existence, just as they were chipping away at the state itself, at family life, and at all other forms of identity in man beyond his labor. Marx argued that while it look like the spirit of liberalism and tolerance were liberating mankind and bringing members of different faiths, nations, cultures, and ethnicities together under the banner of a global market and free enterprise, it was really reducing mankind to nothing beyond his occupation. Slavery dressed up as freedom, indeed. And Marx’s diagnosis calls for a solution similar to Robinson’s. Both reject individualism, democracy, and classically liberal ideas of tolerance and autonomy. Both call for a more communal existence, less free expression and autonomy, and above all a bureaucratic magisterium they insist has been properly educated and indoctrined to guide the masses into paradise. Robinson’s solution wear a crucifix, while Marx’s wears a hammer and sickle. Robinson looks the heavens for legitimacy, while Marx looks to material reality around him. But both see classical liberalism and the society it has created as a problem to be solved. Both gleefully jump past the objections of their critics and insist “We know what is best for you.” Both paradoxically express rational certainty and blind faith at the same time. Robinson has more in common with the Marxist than he does with contemporary Christian conservatives, though he is probably the last person who would ever admit to this.
Comment by Salvatore A on March 31, 2024 at 4:26 pm
Regarding “But his rejection of Martin Luther and the Reformation as preamble to Marxism was more interesting”: With all due respect, it seems to me that Mr. Tooley has shown that it isn’t interesting, but ignorant, foolish, and ludicrous.
Is it necessary to refute notions like Robinson’s?
Whether it is or isn’t, It shouldn’t be.
Comment by John on March 31, 2024 at 10:58 pm
Barbara,
Except the Catholic Church has never been universal, there have always been other Christian traditions with competing claims of legitimacy. Before there were Protestants there was the Orthodox Church and various other eastern Christian sects, most of which are as old and established as the Roman Catholic tradition. What both Robinson and you are doing here is a bait and switch. You point to the problems of today, blame it on the lack of a universal Christian denomination (which there has never been on earth, certainly not in the period preceding the Reformation), and then proclaim Catholicism the answer, without actually having to defend the RCC or its theology, or its current practices. You’re argument is basically “We need a universal church, why not Catholicism?” By the way, if you’re worried about kids getting castrated, you may want take a closer look at the RCC’s record historically when it comes to this issue. It was common in Late Medieval Christendom to sometimes use surgery to stop boys from going through puberty. Why? So they would continue to sing the high notes perfectly in the church choir. Funny thing about universal authority, when one man or a tiny group of men have the final word on everything, they can easily find a way to justify anything.
Comment by Mark E Roberts on April 8, 2024 at 9:11 pm
Dispense with translating the Bible into the vernacular of many languages? Reject universal literacy so all can read God’s Word? A line between antisemitic Luther and Hitler is much easier to discern than between Luther and Marx.
Comment by Lewis Elliot on April 9, 2024 at 11:25 am
Let’s stop fighting the battles of the 1500s. The world has changed, the Catholic church has changed, the Protestant movement has changed. Let’s take a closer look where we are in 2024.
The LGBT churches were birthed by the Sola Scriptura principle and individual authority. You might disagree with their interpretations, but so what? The Rainbow Christians simply say, “That’s your interpretation and we have our own.” Your scriptural exegesis changes nothing.
Christianity splintered into 50,000 denominations makes Christianity un-credible.
Christian churches are on every side of every issue. Apparently not even Christians really know what Christianity teaches. So the world shrugs their shoulders and reduces Jesus to just “a nice guy”. We are in a new Tower of Babel (confusion).
In the year 2024 it should be clear that something went very wrong with Christianity. This is not simply a philosophical exercise. The persecution of Christianity that I couldn’t imagine in my youth is coming closer. Weakened Christianity makes it possible.