Is There Only One True Church? (Part 1)

I recently had a discussion with my sister—a devout RomanCatholic, of the very best kind—about how one could plausibly assess thecontention made by her church to be the one true church and the exclusive,fully legitimate heir of Christianity’s apostolic foundations (a title to which, contrary to the Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches also lay claim). I was, asone might imagine, skeptical of such claims, though I love Catholicism andOrthodoxy for their rich traditions of piety and their steadfast adherence tothe core doctrines of the patristic age. But unlike some Protestant skeptics,who are content to brush off the exclusivist claims of apostolic churches asmere hubris, I desperately want to know the truth of the matter: Which church,if any, is closest to what Jesus intended? Is there a “one true church” amongthe proliferation of Christian denominations, and if so, how might one discernit?

Terminology

It might be useful to start with a couple notes onterminology. I’m using the term “denomination” to designate each Christiangroup. Some communions don’t think of themselves as denominations, eitherbecause they see themselves as the one true church, rather than one among many(à la Catholics and Eastern Orthodox), or because they prefer to think ofthemselves as a “movement” (like some recent Protestant arrivals, such asCalvary Chapel). Unfortunately for their preferences, “denomination” is a wordthat entirely fits the bill, so it’s the one I’m going to use. It simply means“a group with a name,” as they all quite obviously are.

I’m also going to use the term “apostolic” in this piece,which refers to denominations that can trace their lineage and governance backin a direct line to churches founded by the apostolic generation of the firstcentury. For the purposes of this piece, I will refer to denominations whichfeature an undeviated line (that is, being always in communion with theapostolic foundation from which their line was originally traced) as “apostolicchurches.” These would include the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodoxchurches, and the Oriental Orthodox churches. These are distinguished from whatI’m calling “apostolic communions,” which maintain an unbroken line of descentand governance from apostolic foundations (usually mediated throughecclesiastical structures like the office of bishop), but deviated by separationsin communion from their original apostolic source. Major examples of this wouldbe the Church of the East (formerly called Nestorian), the Old Catholic churches, and the AnglicanCommunion, all of which preserved the lineage of traditionalecclesiastic orders even during their breaks with the apostolic sees from which they came, and so can trace the successionof their ordinations in a direct line back to the apostles.

One True Church?

Two broad types of claims are usually made. When anapostolic church claims a position as the one true church that Jesus founded,it is usually appealing to its history of direct descent from the apostles.Every other church, in their view, branched off from the one true church eitherby abandoning a crucial element of Christian doctrine or by choosing to breakcommunion with the apostolic foundation over some other matter. Ironically, allof the apostolic churches generally hold this view with regard to themselves:namely, that they are the ones who stayed connected to the apostolicfoundation, and everyone else chose to break off at some point. They hold that communion couldbe reestablished, but only if everyone else gave up major parts of their theological distinctives in order to align with the practices of the "original" group. You can imagine the apostolic church as a giant iceberg which has, overtime, split into several smaller icebergs, and all the penguins on each icebergbelieve that theirs is the original piece, from which all the others broke off.

The other type of claim comes from a small set of Protestantchurches which regard their own doctrine and practice as representing the onetrue church. In this view, most of Christian history was an exercise in goingastray, starting immediately after the apostolic age, and it was only whentheir own branch’s founder rediscovered the core of true doctrine thatauthentic Christianity re-emerged. Such churches base their claim primarily onthe principle of biblical adherence, arguing that their own practice bestmatches that laid out in the New Testament. While this now tends to besomething of a fringe position in Protestantism, a fairly broad swath ofProtestant churches had their beginnings in a belief like this. My Baptist communion would not usually claim to be the only true church nowadays,but one doesn’t need to read that far back in Baptist history to find such aclaim being made.

It might be tempting, on looking at the churches makingthese claims, to dismiss them with a wave of the hand. It seems a little silly,after all, that all the churches in each group are making the exact same claimabout themselves, despite the many manifest differences between them. Theycan’t all be right, and thus many observers are content to shrug the matter off. 

Butif there is one true church--or even just a church that most closely accords to God's intention--then I would very much like to know. It seems ratherimportant that if there is one, then I should try to be a part of it. So I’mworking through how one might assess the rival claims of all these differentchurches. Is there a communion of Christians that constitute the one true church in the world today? Or, on the other hand, is it the case that the one true church issimply the mystical Body of Christ, composed of all faithfully believingChristians, regardless of which visible communion they belong to? Either way,it seems an important question to try to get right.

Assessing the Evidence: Historical, Biblical,Experiential

Three main types of arguments are used to back up theclaim that one’s own church is the right one:

1.) Historicalarguments: “We’re directly descended from the original church and neverseparated from it, so that must mean we’re the true church.”

2.) Biblicalarguments: “Our theological distinctives offer the clearest presentation of NewTestament doctrine and practice of any church body, so that must mean we’re thetrue church.”

3.) Experiential:“The Holy Spirit works in our midst in such-and-such a way, and we experiencethis or that kind of miracle, clearly showing that God’s supernatural stamp ofapproval is on us.”

Each of these arguments faces challenges: for the historicaland experiential arguments, it’s commonly the plurality of denominations thatcauses the most difficulty for making an exclusivist case, since there areusually other groups that can boast similar historical records and miraclestories. For the biblical argument, it’s the ambiguity of certain aspects ofbiblical interpretation that causes the most difficulty—it’s hard to make thecase that your interpretation on a particular point is clearly the right onewhen, again, there are other denominations making equally impassioned andtheologically plausible arguments for their own view of the same passages.

(To be continued…Next time we’ll examine each of the threetypes of claims using the case study of our quirky big sister in the faith, theRoman Catholic Church.)