A seventeenth-century motto may provide a helpful perspective: ecclesia reformata semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei—the church reformed always to be reformed according to the word of God. Latin grammarians are in short supply these days, and so the first part of the motto is often mistranslated as “the church reformed always reforming,” implying that the church is the agent of its own reform. Both church officials and dissenting elements within the church imagine that implementing organizational