Peter Leithart Calls For The End Of Protestantism

Ironically we were just talking about the Protestant Reformation in class then in comes a blog post from First Things where Peter Leithart (member of the PCA) is calling for the end of the Protestantism. In its stead Leithart is calling for something that he calls "Reformational Catholicism". I have been following Leithart for several years now and while I don't agree with much of what he has been saying; I would have to say he is a very intelligent and well informed author, pastor, and theologian. I don't want to give the impression here that I could hold my own with Leithart but his intelligence isn't in question here. Rather, i'm wondering about some of the claims he makes in this article that are just overtly and blatantly incorrect at the most fundamental level. I will just high lite a few:

First I will start by saying I am not heavily vested in a brand. It isn't uncommon for some to be very brand conscious when it comes to their particular type of Christianity.  So for Leithart to go after "Protestantism" isn't all too important for me. However, we typically use these "brands" to share with others where we are on the "theological map." Behind many of these brands are teachings that some feel reflect the Bible's teaching and in cases of unresolved disagreement on essential matters, separation is warranted. This was the case of the Protestant Reformation.

However, Leithart makes the Reformation debate out to be a reactionary response to secondary issues when he says things like "Protestantism is a negative theology; a Protestant is a not-Catholic. Whatever Catholics say or do, the Protestant does and says as close to the opposite as he can." I realize Leithart understands the issues and Reformational theology but that's why I can't understand why he would say such a thing. Luther's 95 theses were a response to Catholic indulgences but that hardly makes Reformed theology a "negative theology" (by this I take Leithart to mean a theology that explains what we are not, as opposed to a theology that seeks to articulate what we are). Later in the article he looks to Baptists and Bible churches as proof of this. Hypothetically if that were true it doesn't validate the claim since Reformational theology is not defined by the beliefs of modern day isolated individual churches. 

He further goes on to say, "A Protestant exaggerates his distance from Roman Catholicism on every point of theology and practice, and is skeptical of Roman Catholics who say that they believe in salvation by grace." I haven't met that person who is skeptical of Rome's claim to salvation by grace. What was called in to question was the way Rome was defining grace. Rome taught that grace is infused righteousness which helped the believer work her way to justification. The Reformers on the other hand argued that grace was an imputed righteousness where God sees the believer as bearing Christ's righteousness. As you can probably tell this is a very large issue the outcome resulting in whether or not one believes in a works based system or a grace based system.    

In its whole I found many problems with Leithart's article. There seems to be a lot of fudging for the sole purpose of a thesis calling for the "end of Protestantism." Leithart may want to consider the possibility that if he has to do that much fudging to make his point, it is quite possible that his thesis is wrong. Just a thought. Read  his article and tell me what you think.