The Pope as Antichrist: An Anachronism?

An essential of historical Protestant Reformation faith is the doctrine that the pope or the papacy was to be regarded as the antichrist. The Smalkald Articles, a definitive confessional writing for Lutherans, emphatically states the pope is the very antichrist. Such a view seems anachronistic and out of step in a religious world today where mutual tolerance is the chief dogma.

The “Protestantization” of the Roman Catholic church, at least in the United States, has been rapid. So commonplace is the English Mass that the Latin prototype is a rare and advertised occurrence. In a lecture to a Catholic lay audience, the chairman of the Notre Dame religion department suggested a form of local parish government that was downright congregational. In spite of papal claims to sovereign authority, political upheaval continues in all corners of the Catholic church.

Adherence to the pope as the antichrist was easier when Protestants were being put to death. Luther lived as an outlaw, and unlike other Reformers, could travel safely only in lands held by princes favorable to his cause. The memories of the Saint Bartholomew’s massacre in France and the Inquisition in Spain left indelible imprints on the pages of church history.

The current incumbent in Saint Peter’s chair is a downright amiable person. John Paul II has probably already become the most popular pope in recent history. Out-and-out confrontations and condemnations have been replaced by more reasonable dialogues and policies of unofficial mutual recognition. The churches confronting each other in the sixteenth century are simply not the same ones four centuries later. To commemorate the four hundred fiftieth anniversary of the Augsburg Confession, certain Roman Catholic theologians with papal blessing made honest attempts to interpret this document positively. The time may have come to admit that the doctrine of the pope as the antichrist was valid for the Reformers but inapplicable now.

In the age of the Reformation, the pope was seen as the enemy of the church. Lutherans objected to the papacy for its doctrine that works contributed to salvation, so that Christ was not preached as the only way. Even if Luther and his opponents could not agree on the doctrinal formulation for justification, he had to agree that they did preach Christ since the Mass with its hymn to Christ as the sinbearer has to be recognized as one of the purest forms of the gospel.

The doctrine of the papacy as the antichrist was never intended to suggest the gospel was not present and Christ’s true church absent. Quite the contrary! Through all the aberrations, all signs indicated the true church existed under the papacy. The pope, viewed as the archenemy, was forced to give testimony to Christ.

The question is whether such belligerency is appropriate when the papacy is no longer a major political power and a pope welcomes non-Catholics instead of imprisoning them. But certain indications suggest that Reformation views may still be valid, even if the judgments have to be readjusted—though some Protestants may discover they have fallen under the same judgments their predecessors leveled at the papacy.

Recently the pope was designated “the Bishop of the Catholic Church,” a title that should only be used of Christ. But perhaps Protestants have sinned in not sufficiently developing the organic unity between Christ and his suffering church. An employer-employee relationship between a hiring congregation and a hired pastor hardly fosters the image of the pastor who lays down his life for his flock!

The doctrine of the antichrist involves at least two fundamental concepts. First, it means he takes to himself those prerogatives and functions that can only belong to Christ but without calling himself Christ. Second, he is a secular ruler who exercises in the church authority belonging to Christ.

According to the biblical model, God works through the church and the state, but his instruments in each are different. He governs the church through Christ by the preaching of the gospel. He rules the state through the force and power of Satan, who is called the god of this world. The mystery of the antichrist is that the secular ruler appears in the church with the prerogatives and functions of Christ. He wants to be understood as Christ’s sole representative on earth, and uses for his task those instruments belonging only to secular rulers.

The modern papacy has no army, but it involves itself as a mediator between nations. Popes have presented themselves before the United Nations offering plans for world peace that have little to do with the peace of the gospel. Such political preaching is also common among Protestants in the World and National Councils of Churches. The message of certain conservative Protestant preachers also may be more political than Christian. The time may have come not to make any historic doctrine of antichrist inoperative, but to understand it to represent a frame of reference that includes many Protestant phenomena—to any activity that obscures the gospel.

Of course, the judgment that an institution is antichrist must not be reckoned as a total negation. Even in the Reformation papacy, the judgment was never eschatological in passing sentence on the state of anyone’s soul. It was rather recognition of an evil working in the church to draw people away from Christ to itself. This evil can be very moral, but cannot tolerate an unadulterated Christ—grace alone, Christ alone, faith alone. As a world leader, the pope can be recognized as making real contributions to international peace. He can be recognized as the bishop of Rome whose stands on abortion, women’s ordination, and family integrity can be wholly praiseworthy. But the modern papacy still presents at least some of the Reformers’ problems. Beneath the robes of the congenial churchman is a secular ruler. No ecclesiastical leader can be Christ’s sole spokesman. Some uncertain sounds regarding the gospel of grace and faith still emanate from the Roman church, and, more to the point, they also emanate from some Protestant quarters.

The doctrine of antichrist has little to do with fanatical anti-Catholicism. Bigotry should not be permitted to find its roots in this Reformation understanding. But in reapplying Reformation insights to the problem of the modern papacy we also need an honest evaluation of the same problems within Protestantism.

DAVID P. SCAERDr. Scaer is professor of systematic theology at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.