Category: Church

Protestant identity is defined by opposition to Rome. Protestants may disagree vehemently on various doctrinal and ecclesiological issues, but they are firmly united in their rejection of the Pope and other Catholic distinctives. The Protestant Churches will never ever ever, not in a million zillion years, give up their freedom from papal authority; they will never give up their private judgment. That’s why Protestants are Protestant and like being Protestant. This is why they enthusiastically embrace denominationalism and branch theories of the Church. To be Protestant is to enjoy the freedom to choose one’s own church or even create a better one. Bottomline: All Protestants agree that the Catholic Church must abandon her claim to be the true Church: she must become a denomination just like everyone else. The Protestant commitment to denominationalism will never change, because to change on this point is to cease to be Protestant. I do not know if Catholic ecumenists really understand the Protestant mind and spirit at this point. It doesn’t matter how many ecumenical agreements are reached. Such agreements only express the views of the ecumenism experts; they do not impact the essential structure of Protestant identity.
Read the rest of Al Kimel’s post at Catholicism and the Ecumenical Adventure over at Pontifications.

The church is one, holy, catholic and apostolic. In fact I just want to think through these four marks of the church with you. There are others, of course – evangelical and charismatic are two I want to talk about too some time. But meanwhile, these four, because they are from the creed (see, nothing is too obvious to be said) and because we say the creed. That is once a week, the congregation of which I am a member (I’ll tell you about it later) say these words – out loud. If we say them we own them, so we cannot just shrug when asked what we mean by them.

I hope to talk about these four marks of the Church – one, holy, catholic, apostolic. Really I am amazed to find myself saying this sort of thing, me, the evangelical Christian. To use this proud title, evangelical, demands that you confess, that is say out loud, this creed, with these four words, one, holy, catholic, apostolic, every week. Shall I make this plainer? You cannot be evangelical without saying this creed, and saying these four words, which are four vital promises and instructions to us. A service that does not include three lessons from Scripture, one of which is from the Old Testament, and this creed (and much else that we shall come to), is not an evangelical service. The Christians in that service, that is not shaped and governed by these four marks of the church, are not receiving the sustenance by which they can grow: they are being sold short.

But in St Mary’s I don’t remember ever hearing these four words – one, holy, catholic, apostolic) expounded. Really, I wonder why we have a sermon.

I want to use this blog to say some things that should be obvious. Why? Because they don’t appear to be known by the very people to whom they should be best obvious. Every Sunday morning I listen to a clergy person who either has learned these really obvious things, or has decided that they have found something more important to say, something from some other source. What should be most obvious is  that we have to hear from him or her what the Scripture readings that we have just heard, say. The job of the minister, teacher, clergy, whoever, is to say again what the Scripture readings say, to open the Scripture to us. It is not sufficient to refer to a line or two of one of the New Testament readings in passing. Opening the Scripture means talking us through all three readings please. Their job description, to which they gave their promise at their ordination, is to serve the Word of God, and to serve us by serving that whole Word up to us. They simply have to repeat what we have heard, using other words so that we hear it again, and clearer, in all its strangeness and directness. So, this blog is just a response to the sermon I heard and the service I took part in part in on Sunday. For this reason it is full of things that are really obvious to most of you. It is my questions about what was and wasn’t said in that sermon, and my questions about what we heard and said and sung in that service and it is my ‘thank you’ and my ‘Amen’.