by

Clifton D. Healy

As a Protestant, and more particularly a Restoration Movement Christian, the only Christendom I’ve known has been a divided one. I have never known what it is to believe, let alone to live, the doctrine that the Church is both one and visible. In fact, I have always believed the typical Protestant teaching that the Church is an invisible unity of all believers, from all times, everywhere, including those in heaven. It has never occurred to me to question that belief, since it has always seemed to me to be so obviously true. In fact, when I encountered those members of Restoration Movement churches who taught that the only Christians who could know for certain that they were saved and part of the true New Testament Church were those in our Restoration churches, I cringed. I couldn’t imagine a more sectarian understanding of Christianity.

But because I have had to come to grips with all the contradictions in teaching and all the schisms among the Protestant groups, I have had to reevaluate what I understand by unity, and whether that unity manifests itself visibly or invisibly, or perhaps both. After all, if Protestants are so divided over such essential doctrines as the proper understanding of salvation, the Trinity, and the Lord’s Supper, to name a few, then what good does an invisible "unity" do for Christendom?

In beginning to search out this topic, I needed to set out my starting points, and attempt to forecast what the endpoint of such reasoning would be. Few would deny that the New Testament, especially our Lord Jesus Christ, spoke of the Church as one. In fact, as Jesus himself prays in John 17, it is a unity that shares in the energetic unity of the Godhead. Unity is God’s original purpose for the Church. Yet humans seem to have divided up the Church.

The nature of the Church as it presently exists--irrespective of whether its present divided nature is contrary to God’s will, or even possible--is either one of unity or one of division. This unity or division can manifest itself in only one of three ways: visibly or invisibly, or a combination of both (for example, as in a visible unity that is also manifested invisibly among all believers including those in heaven). In considering all the possible combinations of visibility and invisibility, union and division, there are two that offer any logical consideration. For it is impossible that the Church is visibly united and visibly divided. Furthermore, it doesn’t seem to make any sense to proffer that the Church is visibly united but invisibly divided. One can also say that the Church is united both visibly and invisibly, or divided visibly and invisibly. But though either of these possibilities is perhaps the most complete way to speak of either unity or division, it seems reasonable for a simple descriptor of "visible" to suffice, at least for now, in speaking of either the unity or division of the Church. (Later I will return to this doubly visible and invisible aspect of unity.) Too, though it seems tautological to offer the simple declaration that the Church is visibly divided, it is nonetheless a logical possibility among all the combinations we can make. However, because the unity of the Church is manifestly the will of God, whatever its present actuality, then if it is indeed the nature of the Church presently to be divided, then it is incumbent upon Christians to work for the overcoming of that division in unity.

So, having considered all the possible ways the Church may be, with regard to unity and division, in the end we really only have two possibilities: either the Church is, presently, visibly united (with invisible unity a part of that as well), or it is visibly divided and invisibly united. We will consider what the New Testament and the earliest Christian writers have to say about the unity of the Church. If a case can be made for the fact of an invisibly (and only an invisibly) united Church, then, though these various visible divisions are deeply regrettable, and distractions to the mission of the Gospel, nonetheless, we can recognize both our own distinctive teachings and traditions, while at the same time recognizing as our brothers and sisters those Christian in other groups. However, if the fact of the matter is that the Church is a visible unity (as well as being an invisible unity), then the only reasonable response is to determine where that Church is, whether one is a part of that Church or not, and if not, to become so.

It may seem remarkable to say so, but: We must first begin by establishing the unity of the Church. It seems that there are only two possibilities to consider: either the Church is intended to be one, and was once one, but men have created schism (actual division) within the Church; or the Church is one and cannot but be one, the divisions among Christians being schisms away from the true Church.

There are a number of important New Testament texts to consider when speaking about the unity of the Church. The most important of which would likely be Jesus’ prayer in John 17, followed by Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians and his epistle to the Ephesians. Similarly, among the early Christian writings, we can turn again to Ignatius of Antioch and his epistle to the Philadelphians and the seminal text from Cyprian of Carthage, his Unity of the Catholic Church. We will look at these in turn.

John 17 consists of Jesus’ prayer prayed before he was betrayed to the Sanhedrin and willingly gave himself to be crucified. In the first part of his prayer, he prays for himself and his mission which his Father had given him, and for his Apostles. In the latter part of the prayer, particularly verses 20-23, he prays for all those who will become believers through the Apostles’ teaching:

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. (English Standard Version, here and hereafter)

Note clearly the unity here for which he prays: it is the unity of the Godhead in which the Church shares, and it results in an authentication of the Gospel message. John’s Gospel is not the only place in the New Testament where the unity of the Church is spoken of in terms of the unity which obtains in the Godhead. Paul, in his first Corinthian letter, is chastising the Corinthian church for its party spirit. He writes to them: "I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.. . . Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" (1 Corinthians 1:10-13). His questions are rhetorical devices expecting the answer "No!". Christ is not divided. Paul was not crucified for them. They must, then, desist from quarrelling and attempting to divide this essential unity that is theirs.

This essential unity was manifest visibly and concretely at the regular worship. Paul writes, "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread" (1 Corinthians 10:16-17). This bread, which manifests the reality of Christ’s incarnation, is one, and is emblematic of the reality of the Church’s unity. The unity of the Church, then, may be said to arise from the real consequences of the Incarnation. Christ is a unity of human and divine, two natures, in one Person. Similarly, the Church is one body, the body of Christ, uniting these fleshly creatures by the work of the indwelling Spirit.

Paul’s theme of the reality of the Eucharist mirroring the reality of the unity of the Church is taken up by Ignatius of Antioch in his letter to the Philadelphian church:

Take ye heed, then, to have but one Eucharist. For there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup to [show forth] the unity of His blood; one altar; as there is one bishop, along with the presbytery and deacons, my fellow-servants; that so, whatsoever ye do, ye may do it according to [the will of] God. (Ignatius, Philadelphians 4; The Ante-Nicene Fathers, [hereafter ANF] vol. I p. 80-81).

Again the unity of the Church is based in the divine reality: the Incarnation of Christ, which is the basis for the reality of the Eucharist as well.

I cannot stress the radical importance of the Church’s unity being a participation in the unity of the Godhead, through participation in the unity of the Incarnation. There is no division in Christ. There is no division in the Godhead. Insofar as the Church participates in Christ in God, there is no division in the Church. Indeed, for the Church to cease participating in Christ in God, she would cease to be the Church.

But, Protestants will argue, this is certainly the ideal, that is to say, God’s will, for the Church, but the reality is, humans, in their sinful actions, have come in and made divisions. Isn’t it the case that the Church is (visibly) divided, though it would certainly seem reasonable to infer that it is invisibly united. In other words, what do we do about the divisions? One cannot argue that the divisions do not exist, that they are not real. This is certainly the case. It is manifestly evident that there are divisions among Christians. The question to be answered, however, is: What is the nature of those divisions? Are the divisions within the Church (in contradiction to what the Scripture seems to indicate is the essential unity of the Church), or are the divisions away from the Church?

Once again, we start with Paul. He notes the fact of schisms among the members of the Corinthian church, especially in chapters one and three of his first epistle. But recalling to mind his words in 1 Corinthians 10, cited above, about the unity of the Church being a participation of the reality of the unity of the Incarnation, we now turn to the next chapter, where he addresses their Eucharistic assemblies in particular. There he writes, "For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized" (1 Corinthians 11:18-19). Notice, the factions are not attributed to the reality of the Church’s unity, but rather to the genuineness of the believers’ life and faith. Paul is not disputing the reality of schisms. But neither is he attributing the reality of those schisms to an actual division in the body of Christ. In other words, those engaged in schism have divided themselves from the genuine Church.

Returning to Ignatius’ text cited above. Immediately prior to his words regarding the unity of the Church being based in the reality of the Eucharist, he writes:

Keep yourselves from those evil plants which Jesus Christ does not tend, because they are not the planting of the Father. Not that I have found any division among you, but exceeding purity. For as many as are of God and of Jesus Christ are also with the bishop. And as many as shall, in the exercise of repentance, return into the unity of the Church, these, too, shall belong to God, that they may live according to Jesus Christ. Do not err, my brethren. If any man follows him that makes a schism in the Church, he shall not inherit the kingdom of god. If any one walks according to a strange opinion, he agrees not with the passion [of Christ]. (Ignatius, Philadelphians 3; The Ante-Nicene Fathers, [hereinafter ANF] vol. I p. 80-81; emphasis mine).

Here Ignatius is clear. Those who create schisms separate themselves from the Church. The Church itself, a living organism, remains one.

Again and again in the New Testament, the refrain of the unity of the Church is written. Paul in Ephesians 4.1-6 writes the familiar words, "There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call--one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." The believers are to utilize their giftedness, their vocations, to further that unity. For though the unity of the Church is a reality, it is nonetheless one that, in synergy with God, is to be perfected. Paul writes later in that same chapter:

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. (Ephesians 4:11-16)

The Church, then, cannot be divided, but its unity can be maintained and furthered. One need only think of the first human couple in Eden, a perfect environment, yet one which they were called to tend. When they sinned, they did not destroy Eden, rather they were cast out of it. We may consider the unity of the Church along the same lines, it seems to me.

I hope I have provided the appropriate Scriptural foundation for the belief that the Church is not merely intended to be one, but is one, in a unity that human beings cannot divide. One that reflects the unity of the Godhead, and the unity of the Person of Christ. But if these have not been forceful enough, consider the following statements by Cyprian of Carthage, writing in A. D. 251.

These citations, and the ones to follow below in the next point, are taken from his treatise, actually a sermon, given to his congregation following a recent persecution of the Church by the Roman government. In an earlier sermon given about that same time, he considers those who temporarily denied their Lord under the persecution and its threat. For those who repent and return to the faith, their readmittance to the Church is a tough discipline, but they may nonetheless return. However, the sermon whose passages I will be considering, that is, The Unity of the Catholic Church, he looks at a different group of people. (Protestants should note that "catholic" in the title does not refer to what is now the Roman Catholic Church, an entity that did not even come to be until around the eleventh century, but is rather referring to the whole Church, the complete and universal Church). In the treatise on which I am reflecting, he considers those who attempt to divide the Church by schism and heresy. And for them, theirs is a worse fate than for the ones who temporarily fell away from the faith during the persecutions. Against those who would divide the unity of the Church, he writes:

The spouse of Christ cannot be defiled, she is inviolate and chaste; she knows one home alone, in all modesty she keeps faithfully to one only couch. . . . Whoever breaks with the Church and enters on an adulterous union, cuts himself off from the promises made to the church; and he who has turned his back on the Church of Christ shall not come to the rewards of Christ: he is an alien, a worldling, an enemy. You cannot have God for your Father if you have not the church for your mother. . . . Our Lord warns us when He says: ‘He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth.’ Whoever breaks the peace and harmony of Christ acts against Christ; whoever gathers elsewhere than in the Church, scatters the Church of Christ. Our Lord says: ‘I and the Father are One’; and again, of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit it is written: And the three are One. Does anyone think then that this oneness, which derives from the stability of God and is welded together after the celestial pattern, can be sundered in the Church and divided by the clash of discordant wills? If a man does not keep this unity, he is not keeping the law of God; he has lost faith about Father and Son, he has lost his life and soul. (Cyprian of Carthage, The Unity of the Catholic Church 6; pp. 48-49; emphasis original).

A little later in the sermon, he returns to this understanding of the unity of the Church. He considers the passage in the Gospels which speak of Christ’s seamless robe, which the soldiers at his crucifixion were reluctant to tear, and so gambled for its possession.

Can anyone then be so criminal and faithless, so mad in his passion for quarrelling, as to believe it possible that the oneness of God, the garment of the Lord, the Church of Christ should be divided, or dare to divide it himself? Christ admonishes and teaches us in His Gospel: ‘And they shall be one flock and one shepherd.’ And does anyone think that in any one place there can be more than one shepherd or more than one flock? . . . The flesh of Christ and the Lord’s sacred body cannot be cast outside, nor have believers any other home but the one Church. (Cyprian of Carthage, The Unity of the Catholic Church 8; pp 50, 51; emphasis original).

Finally, as he closes out his sermon, he returns to a theme that we have seen before, from the very words of Jesus himself in one of his final prayers here on earth: the unity of the Church is founded on the unity of God.

God is one, and Christ is one, and His Church is one; one is the faith, and one the people cemented together by harmony into the strong unity of a body. That unity cannot be split; that one body cannot be divided by any cleavage of its structure, nor cut up in fragments with its vitals torn apart. Nothing that is separated from the parent stock can ever live or breathe apart; all hope of its salvation is lost. (Cyprian of Carthage, The Unity of the Catholic Church 23, 65).

Clearly, then, the Church was intended to be one. Not only that, it is clearly the understanding of the New Testament and the early Christian writers that this unity was not merely an intention, but is an actual reality. Furthermore, it is not possible, having considered all the ramifications, for the Church to be divided. Therefore, the only possible conclusion that can be reached is that the Church is, indeed, now and always, one.

The New Testament is clear about the unity of the Church and whence it derives. The early Christian writers amplify this understanding. Dogmatic statements, however, as to the Church’s visible nature--vis a vis Protestant understandings of its invisible unity--are not quite as evident. The reason for this is patently obvious: there was no need to assert the reality which everyone knew. The Church during almost the entirety of its first millennium was a single entity. There was no Roman Catholic Church, or Eastern Orthodox Church, nor the many denominations of Protestant churches. It was one catholic (complete, whole) Church. Only since the Great Schism in A. D. 1054, and even more since the Reformation, has it been necessary to consider the visible unity of the Church. However, statements testifying to the Church’s visible unity are present in the New Testament. And with the rise of heresies, the Church Fathers also clarify this understanding. I’ll once again consider New Testament texts alongside those important early Christian writings which also shed some light on this matter.

We begin by first noting a very important Pauline passage on the Church. Not surprisingly, it is from his first letter to the Corinthians.

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not being merely human?

What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 3:1-11)

What is important to note, here, is that there is only one foundation on which the Church can be built, that of the Person of Jesus Christ. As I noted above, this perforce encompasses the reality of the Incarnation. Jesus Christ had a physical body, which got tired, ate, drank, slept, and so forth. It was a body which was visible. To deny this incarnate existence of Christ is to deny the faith. But what is Paul’s point? No one can build the Church on any other foundation. There is a Church Christ founded. There is no other entity that can be called the Church. Furthermore, the Church is referred to in a double metaphor, as God’s field, and as his building, both visible things. Things to which one may point and say, "There it is." One need not press the metaphor any further, for Paul’s point is to stress the unity which obtains in the Church. The apostles and their representatives built upon the foundation of Christ, but it is one building.

Having noted that, we need also note that the various epistles were written to churches in specific locales. This is not a minor point. The fact of the Church’s unity has been amply proven. Thus when Paul, for example, refers to the church in Corinth, or in Colossae, or elsewhere, he is talking about a church to which one can point and say, "That is the Church which Christ founded." He was not referring to a merely spiritual fellowship of all the house churches in these locales.

Note also that these churches in the New Testament were ones established by the apostles or their representatives. Paul wrote above that Christ is the foundation on which the Church is built, and the Apostles and their representatives (such as Apollos), built upon that foundation. Clearly apostolic continuity is important.

Protestants have typically stressed that continuity with the Apostles must be conformity to the teachings and doctrines of the Apostles preserved in the inspired Scriptures. With this, I obviously cannot disagree. However, if Paul’s argument is that one cannot build on any other foundation than Christ, and if the building which God had given increase to was the work the Apostles had done on that foundation, that is to say, the actual historical churches founded by the Apostles, then the only conclusion that one can come to and retain the full meaning of the text is that there is an historical, visible if you will, descent from the Apostles that can be traced. A case in point: the church founded in a handful of weeks by Paul in Thessaloniki exists in unbroken continuity to this day. In other words, the church at Thessaloniki today, is the two-thousand-year-old church founded by Paul. To draw out the implications from above, those who would separate themselves from the church at Thessaloniki would be separating themselves from the Church.

In Paul’s Thessalonian correspondence, especially his second letter, he discusses the strife the church at Thessaloniki was in due to a letter, purported to have come from him, which apparently contradicted his teaching. The Thessalonian Christians were at a loss as to what to believe. Paul said, in effect, you know what to believe: Believe that which I handed down to you by word of mouth. So important was this adherence to the tradition he’d passed on to them, that he wrote:

So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us, either by our spoken word or by our letter. . . .Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. . . . If anyone does not obey what we say in this letter, take note of that person, and have nothing to do with him, that he may be ashamed. Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother. (2 Thessalonians 2:15; 3:6, 14-15)

Once again, this was a visible local congregation from which the one abandoning the tradition was to be excluded. And this local congregation, being a unity, was at the same time the Church.

This New Testament understanding of the visible nature of the Church, is even more clearly expressed by Ignatius of Antioch in his letter to the Magnesians: "Be ye subject to the bishop, and to one another, as Jesus Christ to the Father, according to the flesh, and the apostles to Christ, and to the Father and to the Spirit; that so there may be a union both fleshly and spiritual" (Magnesians 13; The Ante-Nicene Fathers, [hereinafter ANF] vol. I p. 64-65; emphasis mine). Here again, the two-fold aspect of unity: spiritual and fleshly, or, as in the terms I have been using, visible and invisible. Not one or the other, but both.

Ignatius stresses this even further in another epistle where he writes, "In like manner, let all reverence the deacons as an appointment of Jesus Christ, and the bishop as Jesus Christ, who is the Son of the Father, and the presbyters as the sanhedrin of God, and assembly of the apostles. Apart from these, there is no Church" (Trallians, 3; ANF vol. I p. 67; emphasis mine). To put it simply: apart from the local church, whose foundation can be historically traced in unbroken continuity to the Apostles or their representatives, existing in union with the entire Church, there is no other body which may call itself the Church.

Not surprisingly, however, perhaps the strongest statement indicating that the unity of the Church is not merely a spiritual one, but manifests itself visibly, comes from Cyprian’s sermon from which we quotes above. He writes:

He [Satan] snatches away people from within the Church herself, and while they think that coming close to the light they have now done with the night of the world, he plunges them unexpectedly into darkness of another kind. They still call themselves Christians after abandoning the Gospel of Christ and the observance of His law; though walking in darkness they think they still enjoy the light. . . . All this has come about, dearest brethren, because men do not go back to the origin of [the Christian] realities, because they do not look for their source, nor keep to the teaching of their heavenly Master. (The Unity of the Catholic Church, 3, 45-46).

Cyprian is here talking about the delusion in which the heretics in the Church think that because they consider themselves to have the real truth, despite its contradiction of apostolic teaching, they are still Christians and by implication still part of the Church. The reality is that they have departed from the faith once for all delivered to the saints and therefore have departed from the fellowship of the Church.

To this point I have been laying the groundwork for visible unity via the references in the New Testament and a few of the earliest Christian writings. I have done this for the purpose of showing what the New Testament doctrine of the visible unity of the Church is, and how the interpretation I am positing is borne out by the early leaders of the Church. If, in other words, my interpretation of, and the implications which I have drawn from, the New Testament texts is borne out by the earliest Christian witnesses, then it is not merely my interpretation but can safely be considered the apostolic teaching and, indeed, the view of the historic and unified Church. Having laid this groundwork, then, I cannot but press on to trace the possible implications of these realities.

The unity of the Church leads logically to one of its corollaries: its visibility. If the Church is one and undivided, then it also stands to reason that it must be a body that is visible. It would make little sense for a Church, which is the Body of Christ, who himself was visible and incarnate, to be some amorphous, invisible entity made up solely of some sort of "spiritual realities." Such a notion is Gnostic, and, the witness of history would judge, heretical.

But as I noted above, my experience is certainly not one of unity. My Protestant world has been little else but division. Thousands upon thousands of denominations. Contradictory teachings, each purporting to be the New Testament teaching. Shifting lines of orthodoxy. It has quite literally been a confusing mess.

It is not surprising, then, that as a Protestant, the teaching of the invisible unity of the Church has been the dominant understanding of ecclesiology. If invisible unity were to be denied, it would result in one of two situations: our group would have to declare itself the only true group, or we might possible conclude that our group was outside the visible Church. The latter implication is untenable, leading to the group’s disavowal of its own history and its subsequent dissolution. But the former implication, though one taken by some groups, appears lead to judgmentalism and sectarianism. In a pluralist democracy such as the United States, this violation of the spirit of toleration is not one that is very comfortable to most groups. Even more important than a group’s psychological comfort, however, is this realization: If one claims to be the true Church, one has to have evidence to prove it.

To prove that a church is the true Church, based on the above considerations, one must prove its continuity with the apostolic teaching, and one must also prove an historical continuity with the churches founded by the Apostles or their representatives. While the Protestant claim regarding our doctrinal pedigree is that it derives directly from the New Testament, clearly our claim to historical continuity with the apostolic churches becomes problematic in our break with Rome. The Protestant argument is that when Rome refused to be reformed in her heretical teaching to the apostolic doctrine, Protestants were justified in leaving the Roman church and setting up their own churches. (Granted, this is an overbroad generalization of a very complex history, but I think it touches on the basic Protestant agenda.)

To say it another way, all the churches are branches off the true vine, who is Christ. The diagrams for this ecclesiology are legion. There is the New Testament Church, which is all one trunk for nearly a thousand years. Then the trunk splits into two branches, becoming the Eastern Orthodoxy churches, and the Roman Catholic churches. The Eastern Orthodox churches remain one in the next thousand years, but the Roman Catholic branch splits again after only five hundred years, resulting in the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant church. Rome continues on unified within herself, but with the Protestants, things are pretty hairy. Almost immediately you have the Luther branch (the Lutherans), the Calvin branch (the Reformed churches), and the English branch (the Anglican churches). There quickly follow the Anabaptists (precursors to the Baptists in their dizzying dozens of branches), the Reformed churches in Scotland soon devolve into a dozen groups, and the English church grows a Methodist branch. The Methodists soon grow a Nazarene branch. Somewhere the Pentecostal churches develop. My own churches grow out of an amalgam of Presbyterian groups. And so it goes. So many branches, and by the time we get to the modern era we’re very much out on a limb.

It soon became evident that there was something radically wrong with the Protestant impulse. Rather than resulting in greater unity and purity of faith, it led to more and more divisions. So today, to be able to claim a sort of unity with one another that transcends manifest divisions, we Protestants either offer a hierarchy of doctrines (ranging from essential or core doctrine to nonessential doctrine or adiaphora) by which we can tabulate points of convergence with one another, or simply ignore contradictions altogether. But as we have seen, while doctrine is important, and an important signal of Church unity, it cannot stand alone. Not only are Protestants more divided now than at the first break with Rome, we so contradict one another in our teachings that it appears impossible to come to substantive agreement as to what is apostolic doctrine.

Failing to sustain any real notion of unity of visible bodies, any real notion of unity of teaching, it is not surprising that Protestants have also failed to sustain a unity of worship (liturgy) and polity. The means by which local churches, and larger denominations, are led and governed is a dizzying array of difference and contradiction. In my own heritage churches, for example, we claim that the only biblical polity for the local church is leadership by a plurality of male elders assisted by male deacons. Yet, most churches are served by a paid minister, and actually governed by a church board, the former of which very closely resembles the parish priest clericalism that Protestants claim to have done away with, and the latter which derives from nothing else quite so recent as the model of the business world, with presidents, secretaries and treasurers. Further, Protestant churches not only divide over doctrine, but even within groups that share doctrinal commitments, churches divide over the mode and manner of worship. The obvious arena in which this has most recently been exhibited is that between the so-called contemporary and traditional styles of worship.

In light of all the forgoing, then, it stands to reason that the unity which we seek ought not be merely one of some mystical reality (though that is surely a part of it), nor of congruence on important doctrines (though it is that, too), rather this unity needs to be the full life of the Church, including its worship, doctrine and polity.

If the unity of the Church is such that the Church itself cannot be divided, but any divisions are separations away from the Church; and if the unity of the Church necessarily entails a visible unity which derives from adherence to the apostolic teaching and historical continuity with the churches founded by the Apostles; and if the Protestant churches exist in a milieu of ever-growing division and contradictory teaching, then the question inevitably with which we Protestants have to deal is this: From whom have we separated? Or to say it another way: Where is the true Church?

That’s right. The implication is inescapable: we Protestants have separated ourselves from the true Church. Here is a thought experiment: Transport us back one thousand years to AD 1002 and there would be no real quarrelling over which church one would attend come Sunday morning. There was no "Eastern Orthodox" church or "Roman Catholic" church, and certainly not any of the purportedly 20,000-plus Protestant denominations. There was simply the Church. And you went to the local parish in your village.

A millennium later, things are radically different. Not only are east and west split from the Great Schism of 1054, its antecedents and consequences, but there is the schism of the Reformation between the Roman Catholic church and the Protestant churches. In the time of Paul, a follower of Jesus might be divided from the members of his or her family by the very Gospel which made them a Christian. In our day there is the disturbing scenario that a household may be all Christian, but may be divided along various confessional lines. The parents may be Roman Catholic, a daughter might be Episcopalian, a son a member of a Southern Baptist Church. The parents are divided from their children during the Holy Eucharist, the daughter may wonder what all the fuss is with her devout parents and her conservative brother, the son may wonder whether any of them will be in heaven with him. This sort of a situation is truly obscene.

On the confession of Peter, described in Matthew 16.18, Jesus declared that the Church shall not perish. That is to say, death or Hades will not overcome his Church; his Church will not cease to be. Furthermore, it is absolutely clear that Christ’s Church is one. Consequently, his Church must still exist today. There must be an historical, traceable continuity between the Church on the day of Pentecost and the Church today. Such a Church would be quite visible. Which begs the question: Where is that Church?

© 2002 Clifton D. Healy

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