“For by grace are ye saved through faith,” the Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.” This and related Pauline assertions were central to the 16th-century Reformation, and they remain integral to the self-understanding of Protestants around the world. That self-understanding has been challenged over the past three or four decades, owing to a dispute over a single word: “works.”The Protestant Reformers applied Paul’s denunciations of...

Source: Wall Street Journal May 16, 2019 23:14 UTC