Many "Bible-believing" Christians find it awkward to recite the Apostle's Creed because of the phrase "I believe in . . . the holy catholic Church." The only catholic Church many know is the Roman Catholic Church. To make matters worse, the name "Roman Catholic" is often shortened to simply "Catholic." Are we, therefore, saying that we believe in the Roman Catholic Church when we recite the Apostles' creed? The answer is no! Historically speaking the Church called herself "catholic" for a long time before anyone added the word "Roman" to it.
The word "catholic" is a Greek word that means "according to the whole." It is made up of the Greek word "according to" (kata) and the Greek word "whole" (holos). The conjoined term is not used in the New Testament. The term "catholic" was first used by Ignatius, the leader of the Church in Antioch about A.D. 110. He wrote that "wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the catholic church."
During the early centuries of its history the Church struggled to maintain the gospel over against a number of errors that reduced the faith to less than the Apostles had taught. Some denied that Christ truly came in human flesh. Others denied that Jesus was the eternal Son of God. Yet others questioned the full deity of the Holy Spirit. The Church responded to these assaults on the truth through a number of Church councils which clearly stated the one true faith over against the errors of the day.
The Church called herself "catholic" (whole, universal) in contrast to those groups that broke away from the truth (heretics). So for the ancient Christians the church was one (Christ has only one body), holy (set apart as belong to God), and catholic (whole, universal). This one catholic Church could trace its origin back to the Apostles. It had not departed from Christ by denying his divinity or his humanity as many of the heretics had done.
Sadly, although the ancient Catholic Church had remained essentially faithful to the Apostolic teaching, distorted idea and practices began to enter her life. With the passage of many centuries, the situation became so bad that drastic measures were required to return the Church to her original faithfulness to the teaching of the Apostles. The great reformers of the sixteenth Century, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, Thomas Cramner (to mention only a few), set about the arduous labor of corrected the errors and purifying the practices of the Church. They did not begin new religions and start new churches, but they sought to return the Church to the teaching of the Apostles found in the New Testament. They also studied and learned from the writings of the ancient Christian writers (called Church Fathers). Under the leadership of the Reformers, the Catholic Church in various location in Europe purged itself of medieval errors and incorrect practices. In Germany, Scotland, France, and Switzerland these Churches simply called themselves "Reformed." Their's was not a new church, but the catholic Church reformed and restored.
Those who opposed the reform of the Church were lead by the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. This party defended practices and doctrines that the Reformers regarded as errors and corruptions. The Reformers referred to them, not as "Catholics", but as "Romanists" and "Papists." Hence there were Reformers and Romanists, Protestants and Papists, but both claimed to be "Catholic." What does it mean to be "Catholic?" Who are the true "Catholics?"
The catholic faith is that faith taught by Christ's Apostles, and written down in what we call the New Testament. Such creeds as the Apostles' and Nicene creeds are summaries of this faith. This is the faith of the whole Church. Without catholic faith one cannot be saved. Christians can differ on a number of important issues and still recognize each other as truly Christian. That is because they all hold to the catholic faith. In brief this faith is the belief in one God who is a trinity of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is the belief that God the Son became a man, suffered and died for sinners, rose again on the third day, and ascended into heaven. It is the belief that the Holy Spirit has been poured out on the Church by Christ from heaven. It is the belief that through faith in Christ there is forgiveness of sins (sealed in baptism) and everlasting life. A "church" which does not receive this faith "whole and complete" is not catholic. In our day two good examples of "churches" that are "sects" and not "catholic" are the Jehovah Witnesses and the Mormons.
A catholic faith produces a catholic order. This catholic order is the basic pattern of the Church established by the Apostles. There are three marks of such a catholic order in the Church. The first is the true preaching of the gospel by those called to the ministry. It is the declaration of Christ's death and resurrection, and of the salvation through faith in him. The second mark of a catholic order is the proper administration of the covenant signs which Christ appointed, namely baptism in the triune name and the Lord's supper. (The Quakers, for example, do not have a catholic order in their church because they do not administer baptism or the supper.) The third mark is the exercise of discipline, that is, the effort to exclude from the supper those who (though they profess the faith) live lives of open scandal and immorality.
Since the Reformers faithfully returned to the teaching of the New Testament, and the faith and order of the Ancient Church, they are properly called catholic. Sadly, this catholicity was never fully expressed in organizational unity. Over the centuries the protestant Churches have become badly fractured organizationally. Yet there remains a substantial unity of faith.
On the other hand the Roman Church has maintained an organizational unity. However it has obscured the ancient, catholic and biblical faith with doctrines and practices not found in the New Testament and not part of the life of the Church in the first several centuries. This ideas include the pope as head of the Church, purgatory, the merit of the saints, the perpetual virginity, immaculate conception and assumption of Mary, transubstantiation, and the sacrifice of the mass. These are not catholic doctrines, but Roman doctrines. They are additions to the gospel of Christ as taught by the Apostles, and believed by the ancient Catholic Church.
So then, confessing one holy catholic Church has nothing to do with being a member of the Roman Catholic Church. It is whether you believe that Christ has only one Church, present in every age wherever the gospel is preached and believed. This one church is not limited to any ethnic group or any location. But wherever Jesus Christ is present through a faithful preaching of his gospel, there is the catholic church. Where Christ is truly preached, and his supper and baptism properly administered, there is the catholic Church. There is the one body of Christ. Sadly, in our day there is little organizational unity in the one holy catholic Church. But since we cannot divide Christ or the Holy Spirit, the church remains essentially one despite the divisions we have created in her organization. We confess "one, holy, catholic Church" not to deny the divisions, but to affirm that Christ's grace is greater than all our sin, and Holy Spirit's bond is stronger than all our separations.
Dr. Jack Kinneer