Because when Leithart disses his fellow Reformed church officers here, falsely claiming they believe the Protestant Reformation is the apex of all church history, he knows things he’s not saying. From the time of the Reformation a foundational principle of Reformed Protestantism—the brand of Protestantism Leithart holds formal membership in as an officer of the Presbyterian Church in America—has been Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda, “the Church reformed, always reforming.”

Presbyterian Church in America teaching elders, Peter Leithart, Jeff Meyers, Rich Bledsoe and Trinity House friends are pushing peace with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. Till now, the main thrust of their work has been displacing Reformed soteriology and sacramentology through (oatmeal stout) Federal Vision Lutheranism, but now they have turned to larger things. And central to these larger things is their work seeking to displace historic Reformed principles of worship with Anglican, Lutheran, and Roman Catholic liturgism.

In a short piece that ran as the lead article in the latest issue of Lutheran-convert-to-Roman-Catholicism Richard John Neuhaus’s First Things (August/September 2014), Leithart attempts to shame fellow Protestant and Reformed pastors. Note his holy vehemence:

The modern age has seen more than its share of horrors, but none so stupefying as the spectacle of Christ re-crucified in our (Protestant/Roman Catholic) divisions. The only horror that might rival it is our complacency before this cross.

If Dr. Leithart is right that our love for Biblically Reformed doctrine, sacramentology, and worship is perpetuating the worst horror of the modern age; if he’s speaking truth when he claims that Reformed pastors committed to the Westminster Standards are “recrucifying” Jesus Christ; there’s nothing…for it but repentance and joining him and his fellow Trinity House fellows in working towards the creation of what he terms “Reformational Catholic Churches.” One wonders why doesn’t he call them Romanistic Reformational Churches or Orthodox Romanistic Churches? Or better yet, Lutheran Romanistic Orthodox Reformational Churches Becoming Catholic Enough To Include Baptists?

But I digress—back to the main point.

How is this healing of division to be carried out? Leithart points to twentieth century “ecumenism” as the little engine that could.

Can he be serious? Does he know the first thing about twentieth century ecumenism? Maybe he’s hoping for an encore by that grand failure known as Evangelicals and Catholics Together?

In the first sentence of his piece it’s already apparent Leithart intends to take no prisoners:

Protestants often act as if the Reformation were the end of history, the moment when the Church reached its final condition.

Keep in mind Leithart has published his prophetic word in a print journal founded by Lutheran priest convert to Roman Catholicism, Richard John Neuhaus. I’ve been a subscriber to Neuhaus’s publication from the beginning so I know his work intimately. He died a couple years ago, but his journal remains essentially Roman Catholic and Lutheran. Why point this out?

Because when Leithart disses his fellow Reformed church officers here, falsely claiming they believe the Protestant Reformation is the apex of all church history, he knows things he’s not saying. From the time of the Reformation a foundational principle of Reformed Protestantism—the brand of Protestantism Leithart holds formal membership in as an officer of the Presbyterian Church in America—has been Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda, “the Church reformed, always reforming.” And yet, Leithart didn’t let First Things’s Roman Catholic subscribers in on this historic motto of Reformed Protestantism. For all the Roman Catholics of First Things know, we’all think we’ve arrived and there’s no need ever to reform the church again. That’s what Leithart told them: Protestants believe “the Church (has) reached its final condition.”

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