Weird Ideas: Catholic ChurchExemplo

The Bible has a lot to say about the Church. Early Christians synthesized it in the Nicene Creed in four ways: one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. The last two weeks we talked about the Church being “one” and “holy.” This week we’ll talk about the Church being “catholic.”

It can be odd for many Christians to hear that the church is catholic. I think it’s because many equate catholic with Roman Catholic. This gets tricky with Christian denominations, because many denominations use titles to stress what they value. Let’s look at some examples. There’s a denomination called the Church of God. Does this mean that no other Christian denomination is God’s Church? Or how about The Disciples of Christ? Does this mean that disciples of Jesus are only found in that denomination? Or take Presbyterians. The term means “elders.” Does this mean no other church body has Elders? You can even drill down into local church names. If a church names itself “Immanuel,” does that imply that God is only with them?

The same is true with “catholic.” When we say the church is catholic, we do not mean Roman Catholic (though Roman Catholics are certainly part of the catholic Church). “Catholic” with a capital “C” refers to Roman Catholicism while “catholic” with a lowercase “c” means something different.

The Greek adjective katholikos, or its Latin counterpart, catholicus, from where we get the word, simply means “universal.” (Other ways it’s put is all-embracing, according to the whole, or in general.) The catholic Church means the universal Church. It is the Christian community of believers in Christ anywhere and everywhere, regardless of denomination. This is why many Protestant translations of the ancient creeds substitute the word “catholic” with “Christian.” It implies the same thing.

Every church should be orthodox, catholic, and evangelical, even though not every church includes those titles in its name. Orthodox, loosely translated, meaning correct in its beliefs, and evangelical, meaning gospel-driven and oriented. In the same way, every church should be catholic – all-embracing of every believer and seeing themselves as part of the same, ultimate Church body, the body of Christ.

The early Christians who penned the creeds envisioned a connection of believers everywhere. Regardless of local customs. Regardless of particular emphases. Regardless if they even knew each other or met together. They envisioned a catholic Church standing in continuity with the original church founded by Jesus through his apostles.

How do you view believers of various stripes and varieties living in your neighborhood and around the world today?