Catholic and Protestant

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Catholic and Protestant

I will look with favor on the faithful in the land, that they may dwell with me;

He who walks in the way that is blameless shall minister to me.

No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house;

no one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes. Psalm 101:6-7

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Catholic: “Universal”

The Evangelical United Brethren pastor was visiting the writer’s childhood home.  Mother inquired about the use of the word “catholic” in the Apostles’ Creed during the Sunday morning worship hour.  Pastor Ralph Steese explained that the word “catholic” simply meant “universal,” and on that basis, it was perfectly okay for Protestants to affirm the words of the Apostles’ Creed:  “I believe in the holy catholic church.”  The church’s catholicity reflects its apostolicity in the sense that it defines the church as God Himself established it through the testimony of the apostles [1] on the foundation of Jesus Christ [2] in its local expression, worldwide,  throughout all time, and extending into eternity.  Just as an automobile would be dead in its tracks without its “universal,” so a congregation ceases to be the church of Jesus Christ if it abandons its catholicity, i.e., if it veers from the truth, as the Scriptures define “truth.” [3]

That is the sense in which Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, [4] first used the Greek word for “catholic” around 112 A.D.:

Wheresoever the bishop appears, there let the people be, even as, wheresoever Christ Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church. [5]

Ignatius was advising the church of Smyrna to be attentive to their presiding elder.  The apostles had appointed overseers or bishops, also designated elders and pastors.  By the time of Ignatius’s letter, the Greek episcopos (bishop or overseer)  designated the presiding elder (presbuteros), much as the term “pastor” designates the primary teaching and preaching elder in many Protestant churches today.  The Greek word in Acts 14:23, rendered “appoint” in the English Standard Version, literally means “to elect by a show of hands.”  The apostle Paul  entrusted such congregationally-approved appointees with “the whole counsel of God,” and commanded them to “pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, [and] to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”  Before commending them “to God and to the word of his grace,” Paul solemnly  warned them that after his departure “fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock” and that even “from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away disciples after them.” [6]

Church Elders were instructed in their scriptural duties and duly charged so that they take solemnly their God-given assignment.  Churches were to stand by those Elders, and in particular, the presiding Elder-Pastor charged with the primary teaching responsibility and  spiritual oversight of the congregation.  Ignatius’ counsel, on the surface of things, appears inconsistent with the following chorus that was popular in the early 1970s:

Me and Jesus got our own thing going!

Me and Jesus got our own thing going!

Me and Jesus got our own thing going!

We don’t need anybody to tell us what it’s all about!

But then again, such a song might be appropriate on occasion, with a bit of humor, of course, lest the elders forget that sanctification is God’s work [7] and is not to be confused with sanctimony.  As for the role of humor, this writer recalls a Sunday morning when he and his own family were worshiping with the congregation where Mr. Ralph Steese, then much older, was serving as pastor.  Mr. Steese, commenting on newspapers, advised the congregation that the comic section was the most significant part and the place to start. [8]

Protestant: “For the Testimony”

Ignatius’ reference to the “Catholic Church” as early as 112 A. D.  helps us understand a statement by the renowned church historian Jaroslav Pelikan (1923-2006) .  Referring to Martin Luther and John Calvin, Pelikan wrote,

According to both of these reformers, the church had been Christian and catholic before the papacy; therefore it could be both Christian and catholic without the papacy.  In the name of such Christian catholicity they were willing to challenge Rome. [9]  

In his classic volume, The Riddle of Roman Catholicism, Pelikan stated,  “. . . the Reformation began because the reformers were too catholic in the midst of a church that had forgotten its catholicity.” [10]  Incrementally, the church of Rome had yielded its catholicity by elevating its own authority above the Old and New Testament Scriptures.  This was met with a fivefold Protestant declaration “for the testimony”:

Sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”): The Bible alone is our highest authority.

Sola Fide (“faith alone”): We are saved through faith alone in Jesus Christ.

Sola Gratia (“grace alone”): We are saved by the grace of God alone.

Solus Christus (“Christ alone”): Jesus Christ alone is our Lord, Savior, and King.

Soli Deo Gloria (“to the glory of God alone”): We live for the glory of God alone. [11]

England’s John Wycliffe (1330-1384) and Bohemia’s John Hus (1372-1415), forerunners of the Protestant Reformation had been burned at the stake because of their protest.  “Protestant” is actually a positive term traceable to the Latin “protestamentum” meaning “for the testimony” –in this case represented by the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.  Accordingly, the church that ceases to be protestant surrenders its catholicity. The birthday of the Protestant Reformation is identified as October 31, 1517 when a German monk, Martin Luther, posted his ninety-five theses concerning Roman Church indulgences on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg. [12]  Such a bold action would have been unthinkable prior to the soul-liberating event when Luther comprehended the true meaning of Paul’s words in Romans 1:17: “The just shall live by faith.”

The most notable spokesman for the Protestant Reformation would be the French theologian John Calvin who had a Roman Catholic education at the University of Paris; was an accomplished student of logic, philosophy, and law; and excelled in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. [13]  Calvin was prevailed upon to become the primary teaching elder at Geneva, Switzerland where John Knox, would shepherd an English-speaking congregation before taking the Reformation message to his native Scotland.

Calvin systematically stated the case for the Christian faith over against the errors of the Roman Church in his definitive Institutes of the Christian Religion. [14]  It was prefaced by a letter to the Roman Catholic King Francis I of France.

The work consisted of four books:

1) The Knowledge of God the Creator;

2) The Knowledge of God the Redeemer in Christ, First Disclosed to the Fathers Under the Law, and Then to Us in the Gospel;

3) The Way in Which We Receive the Grace of Christ: What Benefits Come to Us From It, and What Effects Follow; and

4) The External Means or Aims By Which God Invites Us Into the Society of Christ and Holds Us Therein.

In the Institutes, Calvin included an exposition of the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed.

With its doctrine of transubstantiation, and obsession with money, the Roman Church had exerted control over all of Europe.  So far had the Roman Church veered from the teaching of Christ and the apostles, that the Reformers, rather than blindly subscribe to the Roman pontiff’s claim to be Peter’s successor and the Vicar of Christ, regarded him as the Antichrist.

Here it is six centuries later, and the Roman Catholic cardinals have introduced their pontiff to America as the “Holy Father,” the President of the United States has so addressed him, and the pontiff has addressed a joint session of both houses of Congress.  For biblical Christian  perspective on this, in his high-priestly prayer in chapter 17, verse 11 of the Gospel of John, Jesus Christ addressed God Himself as “Holy Father.”

Anglican bishops recently expressed their submission to Roman papal authority by prostrating  themselves on the ground.  By way of biblical contrast, when Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian cohort, fell at the apostle Peter’s feet, Peter lifted him up saying, “Stand up; I too am a man.” [15]

Luther had not intended to break with the Roman Church, but  Rome’s persecution of the Protestants made continuance under Rome impossible. John Calvin defined the visible church as recognizable by the true proclamation of the Word of God, the proper administration of the sacraments, and the faithful exercise of church discipline. [16]  Luther distinguished his view of the Lord’s Supper from that of the Zurich Reformer, Huldrich Zwingli, thereby closing the door on the possibility of union between the German Lutherans and Swiss Reformed Protestants. [17]

Lutherans expressed their views in the Augsburg Confession, the German Reformed Protestants set forth the Heidelberg Catechism, and the Swiss articulated their doctrine in the Second Helvetic Confession.  The Dutch Reformed defined their Calvinistic doctrine by the Cannons of Dort over against the views of Jacob Arminius (1560-1609).  English Reformed Protestants reached agreement in defining the evangelical Christian faith (i.e., the gospel) but were distinctive in their understanding of baptism, the Lord’s Supper, the church, and the state.  While Anglicans had their own Protestant confession, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists set forth their historic doctrinal positions respectively in the Westminster Confession of 1646, the Savoy Declaration of 1658, and the London Confessions of 1644-46 and 1689 all reflecting the influence of John Calvin.  All these Protestant groups and various others including the Methodists (both Arminian and Calvinistic) would find their way to America.

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End Notes

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[1] Ephesians 2:20

[2]. 1 Corinthians 3:11

[3]. John 14:6; 1 John 3:18

[4]. Antioch was the home base for the missionary outreach of Paul and Barnabas and where the disciples were first called “Christians.’ (Acts 11:26; 13:1-3).

[5].Ignatius, To the Smyrnaeans, VIII quoted in A New Eusebius: Documents illustrative of the history of the Church     to A.D. 337 edited by J. Stevenson. 1957. SPCK: London, 1957, p.48

[6]. Acts 20:28-32

[7]. Ephes. 5:25-26

[8]. 1 Cor. 2:15-16; 1 John 2:27; 5:9-10; Psalm 126:2  See Elton Trueblood’s The Humor of Christ: A Significant But Often Unrecognized Aspect of Christ’s Teaching.

[9]. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Riddle of Roman Catholicism, p. 50

[10]. Pelikan, p. 46

[11]. Justin Holcomb, “Five Points From the Past that Should Matter to You” (online article) http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/the-five-solas-of-the-protestant-reformation.html

[12]. Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity, p. 708

[13]. Paul Carlson, Our Presbyterian Heritage, pp. 22-23

[14]. Latourette, A History of Christianity, p. 745

[15]. Acts 10:1, 25-26

[16]. W. Gary Crampton, What Calvin Says, pp. 83-84

[17]. See David C. Brand’s articles:  “Zwingli and the Kicker” Part I and Part II, www.christianobserver.org.

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Sources

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Ahlstrom, Sydney E. 1972. A Religious History of the American People. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Carlson, Paul. 1973. Our Presbyterian Heritage: The revolutionary philosophy, writings, and legacy of John Calvin. Church Heritage Series. Elgin, IL: David C. Cook Publishing Co.

Calvin, John.  1960. The Institutes of the Christian Religion. General Editors: John Baillie, John T. McNeill, Henry Van Dusen.  Library of Christian Classics, Volumes XX & XXI  Philadelphia: Westminster Press

Crampton, W. Gary. 1992. What Calvin Says: An Introduction to the Theology of John Calvin. Jefferson, Maryland: The Trinity Foundation

Holcomb, Justin. n.d. “Five Points From the Past that Should Matter to You” (online article) http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/the-five-solas-of-the-protestant-reformation.html

Holy Bible.  2001. English Standard Version. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles

Latourette, Kenneth Scott. 1953. A History of Christianity. New York, Evanston, and London: Harper and Row, Publishers

Pelikan, Jaroslav. 1959. The Riddle of Roman Catholicism.  New York & Nashville: Abingdon Press

Stevenson, J., ed. 1957. A New Eusebius: Documents illustrative of the history of the Church to A.D. 337. London: SPCK

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About the Author

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David Clark Brand is a retired pastor and educator with missionary experience in Korea and Arizona. He and his wife now reside in Wooster, Ohio, where they first met at a Presbyterian youth conference. They have four grown children and seven grandchildren. With a B.A. in the Liberal Arts, an M. Div., and a Th.M. in Church History, Dave continues to enjoy study and writing. One of his books, a contextual study of the life and thought of Jonathan Edwards, was published by the American Academy of Religion via Scholars Press in Atlanta.

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