On Wednesday evening, the church I attend had the distinct pleasure of welcoming (again) Pastor Andrea Ferrari to hear news from the beautiful land of Italy.
I’d like to share some of what we heard from this kind-hearted, strong and passionate Christian pioneer. And thus to hopefully invite your prayers and supplications to the Lord for him and his ministry.
First, let’s throw out some statistics to better familiarize readers with the Italian religious landscape.
Italy consists of approximately 55 million people. Roughly 90% of the population claims to be Roman Catholic, although only about one-third regularly attends services. The remaining five million people are affiliated with other religions — including a small Jewish community (45,000) and a rapidly growing number of Muslims (825,000).
There are about 100,000 Buddhists, too, and about the same number of Hindus.
There are nearly 1-1.5 million Eastern Orthodox rites communities. Another half a million Jehovah’s Witnesses. And about 50,000 Seventh-Day Adventists and Mormons combined.
As for the Protestant Christian community, it numbers in total under 500,000. About 300,000 of the Protestants are members of the Assemblies of God. It sounds like Pastor Ferrari was originally converted in an Assemblies of God church. In any case, he later studied in their seminary for the pastorate. Although it was through his later reading of books by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Charles Spurgeon, and others at the Assemblies of God seminary library, and comparing these to the Scriptures, that he became convinced that the teachings of the Reformers and the doctrines of grace were indeed Biblical.
Likewise there are Pentecostal and Evangelical churches in Italy. Regarding the former, if I understood Pastor Ferrari correctly, the Italian Pentecostal churches are more in line with the Bible than perhaps the ones here. (Although I could be mistaken, but this is what I thought I understood.) This is owing to the fact that many turn-of-the-centruy Italian immigrants to America were converted through the Azusa Street Pentecostal movement, and later returned to start churches in Italy. Italian Pentecostal churches thus don’t have as many of the later excesses which we’ve come to associate with Pentecostalism here.
But not all Protestants are Biblical Protestants. Italy has had only the scantest historical connection to the Reformation. Mostly, the Counter-Reformation was what marked the religious scene. The Waldensians did start out as proto-Reformers, but today they are apparently completely liberal — as in what we would term “left-wing.” There are about 30,000 Waldensians. Also, there are small numbers of Lutherans and Methodists — less than 7,500 each — but most of them are quite liberal as well. Then there are the Baptists (20,000). But again, these are mostly liberal, too. Or at least significantly watered-down in their doctrines.
There are some Reformed churches, but they are few and far between. I believe Pastor Ferrari mentioned knowing at least one Presbyterian or at least Presbyterian leaning pastor. One presumes he’s the head of a Presbyterian church. And one hopes there are more.
Finally, there are two Reformed Baptist churches in the whole of Italy, from Dan to Beersheba. Italy, as was noted in the presentation, is about the same physical size as Oklahoma. That’s why Pastor Ferrari’s pioneering work is so important. He is the pastor of a Reformed Baptist church in Milan, Italy. There is only one other Reformed Baptist church in the whole of Italy: near Palermo in Sicily. Each church has less than 10 families.
The Reformation never really took place in Italy. Or at best, it’s a gossamer thread joining modern day Italian Christians to the faith of Luther and Calvin. What’s more, there’s virtually no tradition of godly, Biblical literature along the lines of the English Puritans let alone substantial evangelical academic works, e.g. commentaries on the Bible, theological treatises, etc. No real Italian equivalent to preachers like George Whitefield or Charles Spurgeon. Or theologians and scholars like Jonathan Edwards or B.B. Warfield. Giovanni Diodati was connected to Calvin in Geneva, and there were a few other noteworthies, but by and large Biblical, Reformed Christianity in Italy was and is a trickle rather than a flood.
Furthermore, the Catholic Church itself has not significantly changed since the Reformation. Sure, there was the Second Vatican Council, but that’s mostly of the superficial, cosmetic variety. A little nip here, a little tuck there. But underneath the robes, Rome is essentially the same. As an instance of this, Pastor Ferrari cited the fact that, since he’s been pope, Pope Benedict XVI has already granted at least three plenary indulgences. Perhaps Rome no longer charges money for indulgences, but indulgences, and the system of theology which makes indulgences possible, apparently still exist. The most recent indulgence was for Catholics who honor the Virgin Mary on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception during the 40th anniversary of Vatican II. As the Italian proverb says, “The wolf loses its hair, but not its vices.”
Continuing, Pastor Ferrari informed us he had three primary goals for his church, the Filadelfia church, and publishing ministry, Alfa e Omega:
- The establishment of new Reformed churches.
- Spiritual and material help for Christian churches which already exist.
- The expansion of the publication of Reformed literature.
Reformed Christians lack considerable resources in Italy which we take for granted here in the USA. As far as I know, churches there can’t telephone consultants, form action committees, apply for government grants, air telethons, etc. Not that these are necessarily things which become Christians anyway (some could be highly questionable, in my opinion), but I bring this out to provide readers with a sort of framework in which to better understand the limitations Italian Reformed Christians face.
On the other hand, and by God’s grace, there are signs of growth. Pastor Ferrari was originally the pastor of the Reformed Baptist church in Sicily, but several years ago moved to start the new church in Milan. He left the church in Sicily to his friend Pastor Reno Ulfo. Pastors Ferrari and Ulfo actually both met while attending the Assemblies of God seminary. At first, I wondered why the Lord thought to establish the only two Reformed Baptist churches in Italy so far apart from one another. Now, perhaps I’m naively optimistic, but I suppose it makes strategic sense. In other words, given that there is one Reformed Baptist church in the south of Italy and one in the north, let’s pray the twain shall meet via the expansion of many Reformed Baptist churches in-between!
Similarly, the publishing house Alfa e Omega have published and sold a number of Reformed books. Basically, Alfa e Omega translates predominantly Reformed books into Italian for the edification of the saints and others. After the books and assorted literature are brought to press and printed, they are distributed primarily through about 10 evangelical bookstores throughout Italy. The Alfa e Omega website is apparently doing well, too.
I believe there are some original works, such as short booklets, pamphlets, and the like, but at this point the majority of Alfa e Omega’s work centers around the translation of past and current Reformed Christian literature. Most of these are in English, but there are a few in German or French as well. Examples include many of the Puritans like John Bunyan, Richard Sibbes, and John Owen. Also later Reformed stalwarts such as Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, J.C. Ryle, and Charles Haddon Spurgeon. More modern authors are Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and Iain Murray. And they’re currently working with American publishing houses like Crossway on publishing the works of John Piper and Mark Dever and others.
During an allotted time for questions after the main presentation, I asked Pastor Ferrari which of Alfa e Omega’s books have been the top-sellers. He replied that books on raising a godly family tend to sell a lot. About 1,000 copies on various aspects of raising a godly family have been sold. Charles Spurgeon’s Lectures to My Students has sold 700 copies since its original publication. As far as meatier theology, Geerhardus Vos’ Biblical Theology sold 250-300 copies in one year (it was only published last year). I mentioned John Piper in the previous paragraph. Piper’s The Passion of Jesus Christ: Fifty Reasons Why He Came to Die, however, has sold the most out of all the Alfa e Omega books with about 15,000 copies. But Pastor Ferrari tells us it’s a slightly misleading figure because the books were printed and sold almost at cost. There was little or possibly no profit made. If it had cost a bit more, surely there wouldn’t have been so many copies sold. Also, I didn’t quite make out what was said precisely as I was sitting a little further back, so I hope I’m not mistaken, but it sounded like many of these Passion books were bought by the church and simply distributed as an evangelistic endeavor.
Nevertheless, even though these numbers and statistics would be easily dwarfed in comparison to one of the smaller American publications, and even though Pastor Ferrari and the Reformed Christian movement as a whole in Italy is for all intents and purposes a brand new, budding venture, so to speak, thanks to the grace of God, through patience and perseverance, these are bearing good fruit to the glory of Jesus Christ.
This means all the more, too, because, as Pastor Ferrari noted and spoke at length about, Italians are not “a people of the book.” In general, Italians do not enjoy reading because they do not have a history and tradition of reading in the same fashion that exists in the Protestant influenced nations. Modern Italy has always been a Roman Catholic nation. The Catholic Church did much to keep the Bible out of the hands of the common layman, in order that their hierarchy and power might not be challenged.
One of these avenues was through illiteracy of the Bible. As we might recall, vernacular translations of the Bible itself were at one point banned by the Roman Catholic Church on their Index Librorum Prohibitorum, or Index of Prohibited Books. The only Bible which was not banned was the Latin Vulgate, which was translated by Jerome in the late 4th to early 5th century. By the 1500s, no ordinary layman could understand Latin let alone the Latin of Jerome’s day. After all, this was a gap of over a millennium! To put it into perspective, there was a far longer period of time here (two and a half times more) than between the King James or Authorised Version of the Bible and our modern translations. And at least the KJV was in English! In fact, it was only as recently as 40 or so years ago at Vatican II that the Roman Catholic Church agreed to forego conducting the mass in Latin and allow priests to conduct it in the vernacular. Pause and think about this: that’s only a single generation in which most ordinary Roman Catholics have been allowed to understand the words spoken during mass.
Another avenue was through veneration for statues and images. This either gave rise to or heavily contributed to a considerable amount of superstition and popular folk religion in Italy. In a sense, it’s not unlike our contemporary society in which there is an increasing focus on learning through the media of drawings, pictures, video, and so forth. Pastor Ferrari had an interesting quote from a professor of mass communications at the University of Toronto, Canada (whose name he unfortunately did not remember either). The quote is short and sweet: “The medium is the message.” Personally speaking, I don’t know that I would quite go so far, but I will agree that the medium certainly affects the message. Perhaps like stepping on the pedals of a stomp box or adjusting an amplifier distorts the original sound of an electric guitar. TV, movies, video games, computers, etc. certainly have their place, and can be beneficial in many respects. But at the same time, Pastor Ferrari elaborated, let’s not forget there are trade-offs and costs involved, too. For instance, one of the costs might possibly be an increasing difficulty to focus or concentrate for long periods of time. It arguably contributes to a shorter attention span.
In Protestant influenced nations like Britain and the United States, though, literacy was encouraged because reading and understanding the Bible was encouraged. As Pastor Ferrari explained, Biblical literacy might even have contributed to the divide between north and south Italy, north and south Europe, and the north and south Americas. To take one example, when Luther understood the Bible, he saw that nearly all vocations were good if performed unto the Lord. No vocation is somehow inherently inferior or superior to others. The priest or monk is not somehow spiritually better than the tinker. Or the bishop intrinsically nearer to God than the tailor. After all, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ Himself was a carpenter. Paul was a tentmaker. Peter was a fisherman. And so on. But in the south of Italy, which was more directly under the influence of Rome, unlike north Italy which was closer to Geneva and the other centers of the Reformation, Catholic teaching reigned supreme in people’s lives. Thus, in regard to vocation, many of the best and brightest aspired to political positions such as becoming a statesman or military officer. Or failing this, to ecclesiastical positions such as priests and bishops. Not that these things didn’t also occur in the north, or that men were somehow less socially ambitious there. But because of the influence of Reformed teachings on vocation, such things were less pervasive. Egalitarianism in social positions, alongside improved social mobility, was more the order of the day than the maze of moving through stratified, hierarchical structures. Thus one can hopefully better discern the social, economic, political, and other differences between the Protestant influenced nations in the north and the Catholic influenced nations in the south.
Of course, I want to stress this is certainly not to dismiss other historical, economic, cultural, etc. reasons. Still, literacy in general and Biblical literacy in particular does seem to have been an impetus behind the transformation from a feudal economy based on vassalages to the rise of modern day commerce and trade, market and industry; the rise of the nation-state; the age of exploration and discovery; advancement and progress in the sciences, etc. In short, Biblical literacy might not have been the sole factor involved, but it is a foundational one in determining the vast differences we see today between Catholic and Protestant influenced nations.
That’s why, again, it’s so important to pray for the continued progress in publication of good, sound Christian literature through ministries like Pastor Ferrari’s Alfa e Omega.
In addition, Pastor Ferrari is working on two other important projects:
- The New Testament Commentaries Project.
- The Calvin Project.
Regarding the former, Italian Christians are not well furnished with scholarly evangelical commentaries on the NT. Scholarly commentaries written from a mainly Reformed perspective would aid in the training and education of a pastorate which in turn could better teach the people of God the Word of God. It’s one thing to have a good collection of devotional, pastorally themed commentaries, which is obviously important, too, but it’s sometimes quite another to have commentaries imbued with linguistic, historical, literary, textual, cultural, scientific, etc. learning generally inaccessible except to who are able to devote a lifetime to such learning. To put it another way, I’m not talking about Matthew Henry, but about D.A. Carson. Speaking of which, one of the translations currently in the pipeline is indeed a commentary on the book of John (I believe) by D.A. Carson.
As for the latter, the Calvin Project will fully blossom in 2009, on the 500th anniversary of John Calvin’s birth. Why is the Calvin Project important? Because many so-called Christian groups in Italy, including the Roman Catholic Church and the Waldensians, are attempting to use the anniversary of Calvin’s birth to promote their own agendas (e.g. ecumenism). Rome wants to downplay Calvin the Reformer and exaggerate Calvin the paedobaptist, Calvin the sacramentalist, and all those other areas which he might’ve shared with Rome. On the other end are the Waldensians who wish to claim a shared Reformation heritage with Calvin — even though the modern Waldensians are quite liberal and at heart entirely unfamiliar with the doctrines of grace. Pentecostals turn to men like Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who was a Calvinist Methodist Welshman, and want to make some sort of a connection between Calvinism and charismaticism — despite overlooking the itsy bitsy fact that Pentecostals do not share the rest of Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ Reformed doctrinal beliefs and outlook.
Hence the Calvin Project involves translating several key books of the Bible hand-in-hand with the contribution of a series of sermons which highlight Calvin’s own theology. Examples include sermons on the Providence of God, Justification and the New Perspective on Paul, Covenant Theology, the Decalogue or the relation between the Law and the Gospel, etc. The Calvin Project could thus prove an important means of bringing to light Reformed doctrine and theology to all the various stripes of Christians in Italy — from Waldensians to Catholics to Pentecostals to everyone else in-between. Even those of other religions, or atheists and those who claim no religion at all, could benefit from this should God grant it. And not because the Calvin Project is “Reformed,” or “Calvinistic,” or whatever else, but simply because it is Biblical. It is what the Bible itself teaches. And when God’s Word is proclaimed, God Himself is glorified. His Word will not return to Him void.
By the way, that’s yet another reason I fully support Pastor Ferrari. One can see in him a life sweetened by years of meditating on the Word of God, and on Biblically-based literature, and one can almost taste his every word which drips with the honey of Scripture. In a life shaped and molded in the sweetness of the grace of God, his heart and soul shine forth the glory of the living God. Somewhere near the beginning of the presentation, Pastor Ferrari noted the large influx of Muslims into Italy and the closure of Muslim borders in the Middle East to Italians. He plainly stated it is impossible to send Christian missionaries to these Muslim nations. However, he continued, not at all despondent but in fact with an almost insuppressible measure of joy and enthusiasm, since it’s impossible for Christian missionaries to immigrate to Muslim lands in the Middle East, shall we stop preaching the gospel to Muslims? No! Instead we must change our strategy. That is, we Christians must preach and reach Muslims in Italy, and by God’s grace bring them to Christ, so that they might go back to their lands like the turn-of-the-century Italian immigrants to the USA did, and so preach the gospel to their brethren. What a sweet and precious heart he has, not only for others, but primarily for the glory of God!
Therefore, for all these reasons, and more, please do pray for Pastor Ferrari and the other Christians in Italy. Please remember his three primary goals and pray for those. Please pray for his two projects. Please pray for the continued translation work in a land with a multiplicity of languages, cultures, and faiths toiling under the shadow of Babel. Please ask for the Lord to raise up godly preachers and teachers of His Word in Italy. Please pray for the salvation of many souls. Please pray that the kingdom of God might conquer the hearts of sinners there, to conquer in the very midst of the darkness that is Babylon, and to grow, and expand, so that a mighty work of God would be accomplished even in our day. As the pastor of our church asked, “Wouldn’t it be something if the Lord began a new Reformation right under the nose of the Pope himself?” For the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. So please pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. Please pray for Italy.
Update (5:15PM 10/27/06): I notice that Pastor Geoff Thomas wrote an article on Pastor Ferrari’s work and ministry for the Banner of Truth some time ago.
