Who Founded Your Church?
Ever seeking Wisdom, the Catholic Wise Guy has studied the history and development of his church, including who founded it. He wants to understand all aspects of his faith to better practice it. A convert to the Catholic Church, such information guided his conversion decision. But the Wise Guy also realizes many of his fellow believers – Catholic and non-Catholic – lack this intellectual curiosity and are content to find a place of worship that helps them grow in love of the Lord and service to His people. And it would not surprise the Wise Guy to learn that some of these uncurious believers had a stronger relationship with the Lord than he did. Knowledge of one’s faith is not always a sound indicator of the strength of one’s faith. But the Wise Guy encourages everyone to learn about the history of their faith.
So, let’s examine the founding of several churches and see what wisdom we can glean.
The Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ in 33 AD. This event is recorded in the gospel of Matthew, chapter 16, verses 13-20. After Peter’s famous confession of Jesus as Messiah and son of God, Jesus states that Peter is a rock and upon this rock He will build His Church, adding “the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.” His Church will last until the end of time – until He comes again. Jesus goes a step further, giving Peter and His Church “… the keys to the kingdom of heaven.* The Church of the Lord will have power to “bind” and to “loose” – in other words, to teach and make decisions in His name.
Two thousand years later the Church of Jesus still stands. It’s a history of holiness, faithful teaching, corruption, and sin. But the ever-present “gates of hell” have not “prevailed against it.”
The Bible does not explicitly address the founding of any other church. Nor could it, since all the other churches were established long after the Biblical canon was closed. However, all the other Christian churches rely on their founder’s unique interpretation of the Bible as justification for their founding. Believing they were inspired by the Lord, they wanted to combat the corruption, sin, and “flawed” teaching of the Catholic Church to bring believers back to the true faith in the Lord.
Let’s consider the founders of three churches: Martin Luther, King Henry VIII, and John Calvin. All three men lived in the 1500s and founded their churches 1500 years after Christ. Without them, the Protestant Reformation/Revolution may not have occurred. The ideas of Luther and Calvin continue to influence Protestantism today. Henry’s idea of easy divorce has gained prominence throughout Western culture in the last 60 years.
Martin Luther founded the Lutheran Church in 1517. A German monk and theologian, Luther was rightly concerned about corruption in the Church, including the misuse of indulgences. Few questioned that the Church needed reform. At some point he morphed from reformer to revolutionary and founded a new church, the Lutheran Church. Along the way he developed a new interpretation of Christian salvation, teaching that believers were saved by faith alone and not by good works. This concept of sola fide became fundamental to much of the Protestant community.
Henry VIII reigned as King of England from 1509 to 1547. In 1534 he broke away from the Catholic Church and established the Church of England (Anglican Church). His rationale was political and personal, not theological. He wanted the pope to annual his marriage to Catherine of Aragon so he could marry Anne Boleyn. When the pope refused, Henry yanked the English Catholic Church away from Rome. He married Anne – and four other women as well. However, his support for easy divorce (no-fault divorce) did not gain traction in the Christian world until the late 20th century.
John Calvin was a French theologian, who developed a theology called Calvinism, which influenced the development of many Protestant churches, including the Congregational, Reformed, and Presbyterian. His most famous doctrine is predestination. At birth some people by the will of God are predestined for heaven, others for hell. God decides our fate before we take a single action; we do nothing to earn salvation. Those destined for heaven are called “the elect” and are often blessed with worldly wealth. A corollary of predestination is that Christ did not die for everyone, but only for those chosen by God for salvation. Calvin’s ideas have played a significant role in the development of Protestantism.
We close by pondering whether Jesus willed the thousands of Christian denominations that have sprung up across the world since the beginning of the Protestant Reformation/Revolution. The Wise Guy’s Wisdom provides no easy answer. The Catholic Church’s long-established view is that Jesus established only one Church and did not will the creation of others in His Name. The Biblical support for this is best expressed in Jesus’ Priestly Prayer at the last supper as recorded in the Gospel of John, especially chapter 17:20-21:
“I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.”