By RAYMOND DE SOUZA
In the previous article, the characteristics that identify the Church founded by Jesus Christ were made clear for all to see: His Church is One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, Imperishable, Infallible, and Visible.
Let us take a look at the kind of churches claiming to be the Church of Christ in existence today, and assess their claims in the light of the seven marks, and not according to the individual interpretations of the Bible chosen by their founders or by the majority opinion of their members.
The first mark of the Church of Christ is that she must be one in faith, worship, and government to the end of time, because her divine Founder has promised to be with her always, also till the end of time, and He cannot fail in His promises. His perpetual, continuous, unfailing help ensures that, in a fickle and ever-changing world, and in spite of the human misery of so many of her members, the Church will always teach His doctrine without the taint of error.
His Church, therefore, must claim to possess that perpetual help. Moreover, she must claim infallibility, the indispensable shield of her unity in doctrine. Without infallibility, how could the unity of faith, worship, and government possibly be maintained? Hence any church that does not claim infallibility, but depends on the human judgment of its leaders in everything, has immediately identified itself as being incapable of being the true Church!
In simple terms, there are over one billion baptized Christians today who believe in the divinity of Christ. And they are correct in this belief. They can be distinguished into three kinds: Protestants, Orthodox, and Catholics. Today’s fanatics of ecumenism say that, since all of them are baptized, and believe in Jesus and accept Him into their heart as their personal Lord and Savior, they all belong to the Church of Christ regardless of their visceral doctrinal and moral differences. But others disagree. Most Protestants will call themselves the Church of Christ simply because they believe they are that church, and so do the Orthodox, in spite of their divisions.
The fact is, that, since Truth is one and not many, from both the historical and biblical points of view, neither the Protestant denominations nor the Orthodox Churches, nor a combination of Protestants, Orthodox, and Catholics, can claim to be the Church of Christ.
First of all, there is no such a thing as a “Protestant Church.” There is a multitude of churches and denominations falling under the ever-stretching concept of “Christianity.” Protestantism is not one in faith or worship, and — to do the Protestants justice — never claimed to be. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry among their pastors may have this or that different shade of opinion about every doctrine taught in the Bible. Some reject miracles, deny the Resurrection, and even the divinity of Christ. From the doctrinal standpoint, Protestantism can be described as a religious plateau de fromages, or better still, a doctrinal chaos rather than a religion.
There is not the slightest shade of unity in the Protestant denominations as far as government is concerned. They are divided into a countless number of totally independent bodies. Their leaders “legislate” and act as they see fit, and, if some folks disagree, they are free to leave and form their own little church. In truth, no individual Protestant church has ever called itself “The Protestant Church.” The Protestant denominations include: Lutherans, Calvinists, Presbyterians, Anabaptists, Huguenots, Dutch Reformed, Mennonites, Anglicans (called Episcopalian Church in North America), Church of Ireland, Episcopal Church in Scotland, Baptists, Quakers, Moravians, Swedenborgians, Methodists, Christadelphians, Salvation Army — and the list of opinions goes on and on and on.
Derived from Protestant principles, there are more modern sects, such as: Christian Scientists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Seventh-day Adventists. Mormonism is a mixture of Christianity with paganism. A colorful merry-go-round of preferences, whims, and personal choices, mixing biblical truth with personal wrong interpretations. The sects and Protestant bodies include a countless and ever-increasing number of smaller associations, impossible to list.
The Orthodox Churches fare a little better in the mark of being one. But the churches under that title are acephalous, without a head, as the self-named patriarch of this or that Orthodox denomination reigns supreme. It began with the Greek Orthodox Church, then came the Russian Orthodox, then, little by little, a myriad of lesser Orthodox Churches were formed, immensely less in number than the Protestant ones, of course, but disunited nevertheless. There is no real unity in government, to mention only this aspect, among the Greek, Russian, Coptic, Armenian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Polish, Slovakian Churches in America (Oh, yes, the American enterprising spirit has also made its own contribution to the collection!), and a few more.
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The facts of history testify that in the first one thousand years following the apostles, there was only One Christian Church, spreading the Gospel message around the known world. It was the Roman Catholic Church. In 1054, a silly schism took place between Constantinople and Rome, which remains, unfortunately, to this day. The Orthodox scattered themselves according to their countries, breaking forever the unity of the Church of Christ, even among themselves. There is not such a thing as a One Orthodox Church.
Nearly half a millennium later, in 1517, a proud and immoral German monk invented the thoroughly unbiblical doctrines of Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide (the Bible alone and Faith alone suffice for salvation) and since then Western Christianity has fragmented itself into thousands and more thousands of churches, sects, affiliations, cults, etc. But, since the Church founded by Christ is one, and not thousands of contradictory “denominations,” only the Roman Catholic Church possesses this mark: She is One, everywhere in the world, independently of race, language, culture, etc.
Only the Roman Catholic Church has lived for 2,000 years the first mark of being the one Church of God, the pillar and mainstay of the Truth (1 Tim. 3:15) where you find one Lord, one faith, and one Baptism (Eph. 4:5).
Next article: The origins of Protestantism and its disunity.
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(Raymond de Souza is an EWTN program host; regional coordinator for Portuguese-speaking countries for Human Life International [HLI]; president of the Sacred Heart Institute, and a member of the Sovereign, Military, and Hospitaller Order of the Knights of Malta. His website is: www.RaymonddeSouza.com.)
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