Not the Church Christ Founded
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that it is the one church Jesus Christ founded on Peter and the apostles, kept intact through an unbroken line of bishops. The Second Vatican Council said that the church of Christ “subsists in the Catholic Church,” which is governed by Peter's successor and the bishops in communion with him (Lumen Gentium 8). A Catholic friend who believes this is not being stubborn. He is repeating what his church has taught him about its own history.
This study tells that history from Scripture and the records. The hierarchical church that became the Roman Catholic Church did not appear on a single day. It developed gradually, apart from the New Testament pattern: first one bishop over each city's churches, then a church joined to the Roman empire, then a bishop of Rome who claimed to rule the West, and at last a papacy that claimed rule over kings. Through all of it Christ kept His promise. His churches never ceased, though they were usually small and often persecuted.
“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”MATTHEW 16:18 · KJV
Catholics read the rock as Peter and his successors (see Peter and the Papacy). We read the verse as Christ's pledge that He builds His church and that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. That promise does not depend on a palace in Rome or a list of bishops. It depends on Him (the perpetuity of the church).
The institution formed when the bishops of the larger catholic party joined themselves to the Roman state, beginning with Constantine's favor in 313 and made the religion of the empire in 380. Theologica writes catholic in lowercase for this body before the medieval papacy, and the Roman Catholic Church for the institution that grew from it.
Most of what we know about the dissenters comes from those who condemned them, and not every group that stood apart from Rome held sound doctrine. We name a person's affiliation and teaching, never the state of his soul. Many links below open fuller articles on each event. This study traces the line that connects them.
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For Deeper Study
- The Pilgrim ChurchAmazon E. H. BroadbentA history of believers who gathered apart from the state churches, by a Brethren missionary. Sympathetic to the dissenters; read alongside the sources.
- The Reformers and Their StepchildrenAmazon Leonard VerduinOn the dissenters whom both Rome and the Reformers persecuted, and the sacral society that bound church to state, written from a free-church perspective.
- Saints and Sinners: A History of the PopesAmazon Eamon DuffyA readable history of the papacy by a Roman Catholic historian, candid about its failures. Useful for hearing Rome's story told by one of its own.
- Roman Catholic Theology and Practice: An Evangelical AssessmentAmazon Gregg R. AllisonA Southern Baptist theologian's careful assessment of Catholic teaching, organized by the Catechism.
- Catechism of the Catholic ChurchAmazon The primary source for Catholic teaching today (1992; second edition 1997), including Rome's own account of its origin and authority.
- Foxe's Book of MartyrsAmazon John FoxeThe classic Protestant record of those who died for the faith, from the early church to the English Reformation.
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Peter and the Papacy
The Roman Catholic Church teaches that Christ made Peter the rock and head of the church, that the bishops of Rome succeed him as the Vicar of Christ, and that the pope is infallible when he speaks ex cathedra. Scripture shows Peter as a faithful apostle and fellow elder, Christ as the church's only foundation and head, and the Word as the only infallible rule.
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