The Holy Christian Church                                                   1/9/49

 

Scripture:  John 13: 31-38

 

Text:  John 13: 35;  “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

 

I was raised in a church wherein the congregation regularly repeated together the Apostles’ Creed at Sunday morning worship.  Some of you were raised in that tradition, for it is done in numerous churches of most Protestant denominations.  There are slight variations in the phraseology, but the intent is the same wherever it is used.  For that creed is one of the truly great statements of Christian faith.

 

There are intellectual difficulties which call for explanation and interpretation, to the mind of those who would know and use it.  Here, for instance, is a city business man who attends, for the first time, a church where the congregation repeats the Apostles’ Creed regularly.  Following the service he says to the minister, “I was greatly surprised that this church uses that creed, and especially surprised that both minister and lay members should be constantly repeating the words ‘I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.’”

 

That minister then explained to him that the Apostles’ Creed was one of the statements of faith in use by all Christians before the final break between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Western, or Roman, branch.  It dates back, therefore, to very early Christianity, and may properly be called a creed of the undivided church.

 

“But,” said the business man, “what about the phrase, the ‘Holy Catholic Church?’  Do you believe in that, too?”  “Yes,” said the minister.  “You see, the word catholic is derived from the Latin ‘catholicus’ which means ‘general’ or ‘universal.’  So when we affirm ‘I believe in the Holy Catholic Church,’ we are saying, ‘I believe in the universal church composed of all who truly follow Jesus Christ.’”

 

The earliest use of the word ‘catholic’ as applied to the Christian church, is found in the writings of Ignatius in the early part of the second century AD.  It signified “the whole body of believers as distinguished from a particular group of Christians or an individual congregation.

 

Now there are some Christian churches of today in which, to avoid any mental confusion, the word ‘catholic’ is not used in the creed.  They say instead, “I believe in the Holy Christian Church.”  But the word “Catholic” is too good and accurate a word to be given up by non-Roman Christians in order to avoid a bit of thinking.  Dr. Rockwell Harmon Potter, retired professor of Hartford Theological Seminary, has often stood up and publicly declared with emphasis, “I am a Congregational, Protestant, Catholic Christian.”

 

The 16th century confession of faith of the Scotch church, in referring to the Holy Catholic Church says, “which kirk is catholic, that is universal, because it contains the elect of all ages, all realms, all nation, all tongues … who have communion with God the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.”

 

Can you think of a better definition?  When, therefore, we hear any Protestant Christian, or church, speak of the Holy Catholic Church, there can rise in our thinking a spiritual vision of innumerable Christians, mortal and eternal, of all races and tongues and denominations whose names can be listed by God alone.  That is the Holy Catholic Church.

 

After the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, the title “Holy Catholic Church” was claimed exclusively by the Western or Roman branch of Christianity.  And in one of its most commonly used catechisms the answer is still given that certain “attributes of the Holy Catholic Church are found in the Holy Roman Catholic Church alone.”  When any church arrogates to itself alone that which belongs properly to all Christians, the original definition of the term is lost.

 

The exclusive claim of the Roman church is made expressly in modern times by Francis J. Connell in his pamphlet entitled, “Freedom of Worship - The Catholic Position.”  It is published by the Paulist Press and bears the Imprimator of Francis J. Spellman, now Cardinal.  These words are quoted from that pamphlet:

 

            They [the Roman Catholics] believe that the Catholic Church is the only organization authorized by God to teach religious truth and to conduct public worship.  Consequently, they hold that any creed which differs from that of the Catholic Church is erroneous, and that any religious organization which is separated from the Catholic Church lacks the approval and authorization of God.”

 

            “...From this it follows that, as far as God’s law is concerned, no one has a real right to accept any religion save the Catholic religion, or to be a member of any church save the Catholic Church, or to practice any form of divine worship save that commanded or sanctioned by the Catholic Church....”

 

            “Such then is the first Catholic principle relevant to religious liberty - that man has not an unqualified right to practice any religion he may choose....”

 

Up to this point, an enlightened Protestant may smile and go his way, worshipping God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and in the manner in which he is accustomed to become aware of the divine presence.  He may say, “I don’t believe it.  That is only for those who do believe that way.”  But note carefully one more sentence in the same pamphlet:

 

            “Neither does it necessarily oblige others to allow him the unrestricted practice of his religious beliefs.”

 

That statement should cause profound uneasiness to every soul who believes in the freedom of worship in which we believe, and which we all allow and exercise in this country.

 

When any religious organization makes the unqualified claim to be sole custodian of the truth and sole dispenser of the grace and salvation of Almighty God, it is only a very short and tempting step to militant denial of the right of any other church to teach or propagate its faith.

 

The Shinto movement was fast putting itself in the position of dictating what should be peoples’ religious expression when stopped by the issues of warfare.  Pagan Rome broke itself over the same rock.  Some of the early American colonies which reserved public office only for adherents of some particular church had to give way on that false ground in order to achieve the benevolent compromise we call freedom of worship.  It was a cause for alarm when large numbers of Protestant laymen and even some ministers became active in Ku Klux Klan organizations 25 years ago, with a militant, threatening anti-Catholic campaign as part of the basis of their activity.  It is no less a cause of concern that such a statement as the following should appear in the book, “Catholic Principles of Politics,” by John A. Ryan and Professor Francis J. Boland of Notre Dame University.  This book also bears the Imprimator of Francis J. Spellman, now Cardinal.  Here is the statement to which I refer:

 

            “The fact that the individual may, in good faith, think that his false religion is true gives no more right to propagate it than --- the perverted ethical notions of the dealer in         obscene literature confer upon him a right to corrupt the morals of a community....  Now the actions of preaching             and writing are at once capable of becoming quite as injurious to the community as any other actions and quite   as subject to rational restraint.”

 

There are two fallacies in that statement which ought to be obvious to every reader.  (1)  One is the suggestion that all non-Roman religion is false.  That is a categorical judgment passed by one branch of Christianity upon another, carrying no moral or spiritual authority so far as we are concerned.

 

(2)  The second is the attempted analogy between non-Roman preaching and obscene literature.  This is demonstrably false reasoning.  For it is clearly apparent that obscene literature does corrupt the morals of individuals and communities; and it is just as clear that Protestant preaching and teaching has produced in this country tens of thousands of the noblest kind of men and women of American history.  “By their fruits ye shall know them.”

 

It was this Protestant teaching and preaching which also laid firm and strong the foundations of the American nation.  The vast majority of inhabitants of this country at the time of the formation of the United States were non-Roman.  According to Justin Wroe Nixon, there were in the American colonies in 1763 only 22,000 Roman Catholics in the whole population of 4 million inhabitants.  The historian, Prof. G. P. Gooch has said: “The democratic church has grown into the democratic state.”  Well the democratic church in this nation has been Protestant to the core.  Protestant Christians ought to remember this, take comfort in it, and continue active propagation of our faith.  We have learned not to deny freedom and dignity to faiths that differ from ours.  Let no one deny the same freedom and dignity to us.

 

Now have I been “tilting at a windmill” for a few minutes this morning?  I invite you to consider the condition in another nation right now.  I refer to Spain.

 

Dr. John Sutherland Bonnell, minister of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church of New York, received from a Roman Catholic priest in Brooklyn a clipping from “The Tablet,” one of the publications of his Roman Catholic church, containing an article on non-Catholic minorities in Spain.  It denied that there is any persecution or repression of Protestants in Spain, saying that Protestants are allowed to distribute their literature, that their churches are open, and distinguished by large visible signs indication that they are Protestant places of worship.

 

Last summer, Dr. Bonnell visited Spain and saw conditions there for himself.  He talked with more than a score of Protestant ministers in Spain and visited as many churches.  He found that all Protestant schools in Spain are closed, and the 7,000 Protestant children who formerly attended them are required to attend schools where Roman Catholic instruction is compulsory.  Protestants are not permitted publicly to bury their dead with the rite of their churches; nor to print hymnals or Bibles; nor to reply in the public press to attacks made upon them; nor to place signs on their churches denoting they are places of worship.  Some have been jailed and fined for holding meetings of Bible study and prayer in their homes.  There have been repeated disorders, among them the case at Linares on June 27th, 1948, with attack on Protestant worshippers by thirty Catholic youths using rubber truncheons and brass knuckles.  Last autumn there were a series of attacks on Protestant by Spanish Catholic youth who left leaflets amid the wreckage of pews declaring, “The Holy Inquisition did not limit itself to talking.  We make ourselves heirs of the Inquisitional Spirit.”  The first of such disorders occurred only a few weeks after Cardinal Segura of Seville issued, on September 10th, a pastoral letter denouncing the Spanish Protestants and demanding abolition of “these centers of false religions in Spain.”

 

But that is Spain and this is the United States where it is quite different!   It ought to be the alerted concern of every liberal Catholic, Protestant and Jew to keep it “different.”

 

In the book “Catholic Principles of Politics” by Ryan and Boland it is frankly stated as an “eternal and unchangeable truth” of the Roman Catholic Church that whenever that church secures a position of overwhelming majority in a nation it has the right to expect that the state will impose restrictions on all non-Catholics in their religious teachings and propaganda, and deny them the privileges extended to the Roman Catholic Church.  One concrete effect of such a position would be that the Roman Church would continue to enjoy exemption from state taxation while such exemption would be denied all other religious organizations.  There follows an assurance that this is all in “logic and theory” and that American Protestants need not be alarmed, since no such dominant position can be attained by Roman Catholics in America for years to come.

 

But what is the purpose of “logic and theory” unless it be to form the basis of action?  What people do is motivated by what they believe, external circumstances only restraining the action.  If it is happening in Spain, it can and will happen anywhere in the world where people who think that way have control.

 

Liberal people of all faiths -- Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and the agnostics, atheists and pagans as well -- will do well to deny the exclusive dominance of any one religious group over the general welfare, and bring concerted opinion to bear on effort to right the wrong of a new inquisition of any sort anywhere on earth.

 

If there were only 1,000 Roman Catholics in this nation, our American concept of religious freedom, for which our men have so recently fought, bled and many died, would give them the right to worship as they wish -- possibly criticized but certainly unmoolested.  The same right belongs to any other group no matter how small.  The dominant church of Spain should grant the same freedom.  The late Dean Inge of London remarked at this point:  “It is becoming impossible for those who mix at all with their fellow-men to believe that the grace of God is distributed denominationally.”

 

Now how should we, as Protestant Christians, react to this situation?  The text from this morning’s Scripture is the sufficient answer for anyone: “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”  Jesus said to all of his followers, “This is my commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you.”

 

In the reports of last summer’s great conference at Amsterdam are these carefully considered sentences agreed upon by representatives of most of the great Christian bodies of our time:

 

            “God has given to his people in Jesus Christ a unity which is his creation and not our achievement.  It is in the light of that unity that we can face our deepest difference, still loving one another in Christ and walking by faith in him alone.”

 

Let us continue to cherish good will to those who differ from us, and to look for the same good will toward us, not as a demand but as a leading of God’s spirit.

 

And let us be vigorously about the business of being Christian in our way.  No one compels you or me by order, by fear of aught but our own devoted desire to be here.  But to be a true Protestant, testifying of our faith, we will be present voluntarily and regularly at worship.  We will be students of the Bible freely placed in our own tongue in our own hands.  We will volunteer in the training of our children at home and in the church school.

 

If our faith be better for us than any other, we will be loyal, active, business-like, devoted adherents through it, that God may be supreme in all our lives.  And we will hold it aloft that its light may be offered to the ends of the earth.

 

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, January 9, 1949