As Mike Aquilina and I describe in How Christianity Saved Civilization and Must Do So Again, the world we live in is increasingly a “post-Christian” world. Ironically, it’s also a world in which society and culture look more and more like the “pre-Christian” world of paganism before the Church converted Western civilization. In many ways, we are coming full circle to a time when faithful Christianity is being ridiculed and marginalized, and the Church is once again forced to be countercultural in the way it once was in the time when it was persecuted.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that it was precisely a persecuted Church that converted the world. But if we’re going to convert the world again, we’re going to have to work together—Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Coptic, and Assyrian. For one thing, we’re going to need the safety of numbers to confront our common enemies of relativism, moral decline, and anti-Christian bias.
But we are increasingly finding that some of our most dangerous adversaries are members of our own households. There is a growing trend among the more radically progressive factions of our own traditions to actually join in on the tradition-hating, Church-bashing, intolerance-in-the-name-of-tolerance prejudice.
It’s ironic, but some of the people who seem to be the most scandalized by Christianity are people who call themselves Christians. We find that faithful Catholics and evangelical Protestants often have more in common with each other than with the left-leaning members of their own communions.
As most people know, the word catholic in the Nicene Creed is usually printed with a lowercase “c” because the original meaning of the word had the sense of “universal.” In other words, the catholic Church was the universal Church, the one worldwide body of Christ. But to be historically honest, even when the word was used that way, it was not meant to be inclusive. The whole point of the use of the word catholic, going back to its first known use in Ignatius of Antioch, was to distinguish legitimate (orthodox) Christianity from heresy. The point was to clarify what was Christianity, by definition, against something that someone was calling Christianity but, in fact, was not.
In Ignatius’s time and place, the heresy in question was docetism, the belief that Jesus Christ was not really human. For Ignatius, as for the other Church Fathers, one could be a member of the body of Christ anywhere in the world as long as one was a member of body of the right Christ—the one who actually exists.
Simply calling yourself a Christian doesn’t make you one if you put your trust in a false Christ who doesn’t exist—for example, one who is not really human, or one who is not really divine. To be within the “catholic” (universal) Church, one must accept the Church’s teaching that Jesus Christ has two natures, fully divine and truly human, and that he is the second Person of the Trinity.
We find ourselves now in a similar situation. We have real Christians separated by geography, by differences of ecclesial polity, by liturgical variations, and also by misconceptions about each other; and we also have false Christians using the name while harming the Church and even trying to water down doctrinal orthodoxy. It’s time we sort out the difference.
As a Catholic teaching in a Methodist seminary, I have the privilege—and the challenge—of debunking many of the myths Protestants tend to believe about Catholicism. And as a revert to the Catholic Church, I also have a pretty good sense of the Protestant point of view, with its insights and its blind spots.
Taking my cue from the Second Vatican Council and Pope St. John Paul II, I try to present Catholicism and Protestantism as cousins (if not brothers) that each have gifts for the other as long as each side is willing to accept them.
In my teaching, and especially on the Rome pilgrimages I lead, I encourage Catholics and Protestants to think of each other as partners in the work that God has for us in the world. My hope for my Protestant students is that when they are in their ministries they will reach out to their Catholic neighbors and extend a hand to share in the corporal acts of mercy that will be so needed in their communities.
Don’t get me wrong: I am Catholic because I think Catholicism is authentically consistent with original Christianity, and so I’m certainly not saying we should water down our Faith to something like a lowest common denominator. We should express the distinctive aspects of our tradition as our special contributions to the life of our common faith as gifts to be shared.
But having said that, sometimes it’s appropriate to put aside the intra-familial debates and focus on common ground for the sake of the wider mission of the gospel.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, is often given credit for saying, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty.” In other words, when it comes to the essentials of the Faith, we have to be united, and we have to be adamant that those who do not hold to the essentials cannot properly be called Christians.
But for those things that are “non-essential,” we can allow some diversity of practice while still recognizing our unity with our brothers and sisters in the same Faith. We are, after all, members of the same religion, Christianity. That is, as long as we agree on the essentials.
Thankfully, we don’t have to speculate on, or argue about, what those essentials are. They are outlined for us in the conclusions of the first three ecumenical councils, and especially in The Nicene Creed, that historic summary of biblical theology and Christology.
You have to respect the intention of the founders of Fundamentalism. Although the movement itself has its problems, it started with a desire to identity the “fundamentals”—the essentials of the Christian faith. But many fundamentalists rejected out of hand the very idea of creeds because they’re not in the Bible. They should have recognized that the creeds, and especially the Nicene Creed, had already done their job for them and they didn’t need to reinvent the wheel.
Fundamentals of the Faith
The Nicene Creed is an outline of the essentials of the Faith. I think it’s helpful for us to focus on those essentials when we consider our relationships across the Catholic-Protestant divide. At the end of my Catholic Answers book, Handed Down: The Catholic Faith of the Early Christians, I have a list of what I believe are the “fundamentals” of the Faith on which all Christians should agree. I won’t go through all of them here, but I want to highlight a couple of them.
The primacy of Scripture. Let’s not argue over words such as inerrancy, a concept the Church Fathers didn’t worry about. Let’s agree that the early Church Fathers understood the apostolic documents as inspired and authoritative yet not self-interpreting. Even in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions that hold up Scripture and Tradition as parallel authorities, we understand that Scripture is primary and that Tradition exists in part to help us interpret Scripture.
As St. Peter said, no interpretation is a matter of one’s own opinion (2 Peter 1:20), and the Church Fathers would never have dreamed of interpreting Scripture in a vacuum apart from the community of the Church and its mission in the world. (For more on the development of the New Testament and how the early Christians interpreted it, check another book of mine, Reading the Early Church Fathers.)
The doctrine of the Trinity. This is the sine qua non of Christianity, and it is the consensus of the Church Fathers and the ecumenical councils that it is non-negotiable. The Nicene Creed is the Church’s authoritative and normative interpretation of Scripture with regard to God’s Triune nature and the relationship of the three divine Persons. Therefore, sects that do not accept the doctrine of the Trinity and the Nicene Creed cannot properly be called Christian. The same goes for anyone who does not accept the divinity of Christ. (For more on the doctrine of the Trinity and a line-by-line commentary on the Creed, see my book Trinity 101.)
Bridge builders
Let’s admit that the Church Fathers were not infallible. They made mistakes, and we could point to things each one got wrong. But where they are in agreement—where there is consensus—becomes part of our Tradition. It is what we all hold in common as Christians because it comes from a time before the current divisions when the Church was one. What is more, the consensus of the Church Fathers on the interpretation of Scripture is our common legacy, helping us understand the timeless messages in the word of God.
In the time of the early Church, in the Roman empire, the high priests (and later the popes) were called pontifex, which means “bridge builder.” It implied that they were those who made connections between the divine and the human. But, in a way, the Church Fathers can be bridge builders for us today, helping us grow closer not only to God but also to each other, as we allow their insights to unite us across ecclesial boundaries.
Unfortunately, most people don’t know the Church Fathers. Most lay people have a vague awareness of someone named Augustine, but how we understand Augustine can often be a point of contention between Catholics and Protestants. In any case, within only a couple decades of Augustine’s death, the Church suffered her first permanent split, when our non-Chalcedonian brothers and sisters became separated from the rest of the Church.
Common ground
So, what about the earlier Church Fathers? What about the Fathers of the first three centuries? The sidebar below contains a short list of the earliest Fathers’ most accessible documents, which could be used to emphasize the common ground between Catholics and Protestants. These could be used even for an ecumenical study group. (To read these online, go to my website, www.JimPapandrea.com, and click on the tab for “Primary Sources.”)
When Catholics and Protestants get together, let’s start with the agreement that we are all members of one religion—Christianity—and therefore all members of the one body of Christ. Let’s keep that conviction as the foundation of all dialogue and healthy debate.
Remember that traditional Catholics, faithful Orthodox, and evangelical Protestants often have more in common with each other than with radically progressive factions within our own traditions. We need to work together to advance the cause of the gospel and promote traditional Christian values, the very things that will make us seem countercultural in a post-Christian world if we live according to our convictions. But it was this countercultural approach to life that characterized the early Christians, and it contributed to their witness in the world, which led to the rapid growth of the Church.
One of the things that all the Church Fathers agreed upon—in fact, were adamant about—was that abortion was a form of murder and should not be tolerated in a civilized society. This conviction was part of the very identity of the Church that saw itself as distinct from the world. In some of the early documents, the position we now call pro-life was a defining factor in the self-understanding of Christians. And today, some of the most powerful ecumenical cooperation has been for the pro-life cause.
The Church is not a human institution. Sure, it’s made up of and run by humans, so there will be mistakes, selfishness, and sin within the Church. But the Church was created by Christ himself when he gathered his followers around a table on a Thursday night, and broke the bread, and said, “This is my body.” And Christ also made the Church a promise: he said to Simon, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the powers of death [or: the gates of hell] shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).
This is Jesus’ promise that the Church will never go off the rails, because if it does, hell wins. If the Church ever became something other than the Church that Jesus Christ created, then the Church would cease to exist, but we have Jesus Christ’s promise that this will never happen. Jesus also prayed that we all would be one (John 17).
In spite of our divisions, we can access the Church Fathers, reclaim the consensus of a time before the divisions when the Church was really one, and use the conclusions of the Fathers and their councils to be clear about who we are and what we stand for.
Sidebar 1
Hermeneutic of Ancient Continuity
“You shall not commit murder . . . you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten.”
— The Didache (First-century church order manual)
* * *
“See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the priests as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no one do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is [presided over] either by the bishop or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the congregation also be; even as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic Church. It is not lawful without the bishop either to baptize or to celebrate an agape meal; but whatsoever he shall approve of, that is also pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid.”
— Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Smyrnaens
Sidebar 2
Primary Sources
Ambrose of Milan
On the Holy Spirit
Fourth century
Athanasius of Alexandria
On the Incarnation of the Word
Early fourth century
Clement of Rome
First Clement (letter to the Corinthians)
First century
Cyprian of Carthage
On the Unity of the Church
Mid-third century
Hermas
The Shepherd
Second century
Ignatius of Antioch
Letters (to churches of Asia Minor)
Early second century
Irenaeus of Lyon
Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching
Late second century
Justin Martyr
First Apology (an open letter to the emperor)
Mid second century
Origen
On First Principles
Early third century
Tertullian
Against Praxeas (document on the Trinity)
Early third century
Sidebar 3
Trinitarian Teachings
All [three Persons] are of One, by unity of substance; while the mystery of the dispensation is still preserved, which distributes the Unity into a Trinity, placing in their order the three Persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit: three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as he is one God, from whom these degrees and forms and aspects are reckoned, under the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
* * *
I confess that I call God and his Word—the Father and his Son—two. For the root and the tree are distinctly two things, but correlatively joined; the fountain and the river are also two forms, but indivisible. Everything which proceeds from something else must needs be second to that from which it proceeds, without being on that account separated. Where, however, there is a second, there must be two; and where there is a third, there must be three. Now the Spirit indeed is third from God and the Son; just as the fruit of the tree is third from the root, or as the stream out of the river is third from the fountain, or as the apex of the ray is third from the sun. . . . In like manner the Trinity, flowing down from the Father through intertwined and connected steps, does not at all disturb the [oneness], while it at the same time guards the state of the [threeness].
* * *
And lastly, he commands them to baptize into the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, not into a unipersonal God. And indeed, it is not once only, but three times, that we are immersed into the Three Persons, at each several mention of their names.
—Tertullian, Against Praxeas 2, 8, 26,
c. A.D. 210