I have always found the historical argument for the
Catholic Church utterly compelling:
1. Jesus Christ established a Church
(not several, or several thousand).
2. The only Church which can trace its
lineage unbroken to the time of Christ and the apostles
is the Catholic Church.
3. And therefore, Jesus
Christ established the Catholic Church.
Why am I a Catholic? Because I wish to belong to the
Church which Christ himself established, the Church of
which he said, "the powers of death shall not prevail
against it." (Matthew 16:18).
Baptist Successionism?
Some (few) Baptists have claimed that they too can
trace their lineage back to the time of Christ and the
apostles.
This idea was popularized in the early 20th century by
Baptist pastor, and historian, James M. Carroll
who wrote a book entitled Trail of Blood. In it Carroll claims
that the Baptist church, as it is known today, descended
through history under different names, such as the
Anabaptists, Montanists, and Novations.
At first, this may sound tenable, but when you actually
look at these groups, and what they taught, you see very
quickly that their theology was anything but Baptist.
The Anabaptists denied that a person
is saved by faith alone.[2]
The Montanists taught that "God, not
being able to save the world by Moses and the Prophets,
took flesh of the Virgin Mary, and in Christ, His Son,
preached and died for us. And because He could not
accomplish the salvation of the world by this second
method, the Holy Spirit descended upon Montanus, Prisca,
and Maximilla, giving them the plenitude which St. Paul
had not (1 Corinthians 13:9). [1]
The Novatians refused
readmission to communion of baptized Christians who had
denied their faith. [3]
"For proponents [of Baptist Successionism], writes Fr.
Dwight Longenecker, "the fact that there is no
historical proof for their theory simply shows how good
the Catholic Church was at persecution and cover-up.
Baptist Successionism can never be disproved because all
that is required for their succession to be transmitted
was a small group of faithful people somewhere at some
time who kept the flame of the true faith alive. The
authors of this "history" skim happily over the
heretical beliefs of their supposed forefathers in the
faith. It is sufficient that all these groups were
opposed to, and persecuted by, the Catholics."
Thankfully intellectually honest Baptists, such
as James McGoldrick who was once himself a believer in
Baptist successionism are conceding that this "trail of
blood" view is, frankly, bogus. McGoldrick writes:
Extensive graduate study and independent
investigation of church history has, however,
convinced [the author] that the view he once held so
dear has not been, and cannot be, verified. On the
contrary, surviving primary documents render the
successionist view untenable. . . . Although free
church groups in ancient and medieval times sometimes
promoted doctrines and practices agreeable to modern
Baptists, when judged by standards now acknowledged as
baptistic, not one of them merits recognition as a
Baptist church. Baptists arose in the 17th century in
Holland and England. They are Protestants, heirs of
the reformers. (Baptist Successionism: A
Crucial Question in Baptist History [1994], 1–2)
We should applaud these Baptists for desiring to
be part of the Church Christ established, and then, with
gentleness and reverence point them away from fallacious
history to actual history, and let the evidence speak
for itself. For as convert, John Henry Newman wrote: to
be steeped in history, is to cease to be Protestant.
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Religious Origins
Actually, in the context of serious historical
research, if the truth
of history matters to you, the categories
"Protestant" and "Catholic"
--or Eastern Orthodox for that matter-- are not
crucially important.
They still have meaning, especially if we think
about history since
the era of Luther ( the Reformation started in 1519 )
this meaning
is sometimes profound, but in the sense of
Bible-centered faith
a different set of considerations come into play.
The article is over-simplistic. Are all Baptists
successionists ? In actual
fact, only a small minority are any such thing. But
the larger point is that
what the Reformation was all about was recovery
of the original Church
and restoration of its Biblical roots, recognizing
that the first Church was
only a distant memory in the 16th century. Apostolic
succession proves
nothing if, along the way, the character of the
Church of the Apostles
was hopelessly compromised. In that case, succession
merely keeps
alive corrupted traditions which have no
justification.
This does not say that 100% of the traditions carried
along are corrupt ;
it is recognized that part of the
traditions remain true and good. But it does
say that there are so many traditions in the mix that
are unrelated to the
first Church, or even antagonistic to it, that the
overall Tradition, with a
capital "T," must not be allowed to stand and
should be replaced with
the original, or as close to the original as it is
possible for us to get.
In a sense, then, what Protestants in the Lutheran
confession say is that
Apostolic succession ran from the time of Christ
until Constantine ; there is
dispute about this, but certainly the line was broken
no later than the 8th
century by the time of Charlemagne. The Reformation
restored Apostolic
tradition by a radical return to the
recognized authority of the early Church,
Christ foremost, his "essence" communicated by the
Holy Spirit, his words
and all words directly related to them in the form of
the Bible, and, lastly,
leadership by responsible clergy and other
(figuratively) anointed stewards
of the Christian community, like deacons, and (to at
least use the word loosely
although some would argue it should also be literal)
"prophets" and
also "prophetesses."
In other words, leaving aside the question about
whether the Lutheran Church
as it has become has lost sight of Luther's message
and needs its own new
Reformation, Catholic understanding of Apostolic
succession is irrelevant
except as a cultural artifact specific to Catholics
only. What does matter
is what Protestants call the "fundamentals." The
source of all meaningful
history --in a spiritual sense-- must be the Bible
--in its original form.
If you agree with this proposition you are a
"Fundamentalist." As the word
is commonly used these days there are other meanings
attached to the term,
but they are extraneous except to cultural historians
and journalists. But
what this says when you think about it, focusing on
the essential meaning only,
is that, in a sense, and I think that he would agree,
Luther was the first Fundamentalist.
If we focus on the essential meaning of the word,
however, there is a
serious problem for all Fundamentalists :
What happens if the original
text of the Bible is different than some
version of the contents of the
King James Version, or RSV, or NEB, or still other
versions ?
Suppose the original is found ? Suppose it exists,
in part, under
our noses within the pages of the Bible as we know it
now ?
Suppose it also exists in the form of texts from Ur
and other
Mesopotamian cities where Abraham and Sarah once
lived ?
What then ?
All questions of Apostolic succession need to be
dramatically reinterpreted.
All questions about restoring the original Church
take on
radically new meaning.
For starters.....
Billy
