Open Letter to Christlife Church
Dear Sirs,
Last night my wife and I visited your Christlife Church and listen to a sermon on the Revolutionary Church. We were invited by our neighbors who are parishioners at your Church. My wife is quite taken up with her new lady friend. That she is finally going to a Church – any authentic Christian Church – is welcome news and I find this encouraging. But I am a devout and staunch Catholic Christian. I know the Faith once delivered unto the Saints very well, and that includes the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as the Bible which the Catholic Church gave to the world. I can read both Latin and Koine or New Testament Greek. I have studied the writings of the early Church Fathers (Sts Polycarp, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, John Chyrsostom, etc.). And I know history, ancient and modern. So I cannot be fooled by fine sounding words that tickle the ears and appeal to popular prejudices with feel-good theology.
That all said, there was much good said in the sermon last night, and many points were quite valid. I commend you heartily. However, a few things require closer examination. One of these was a statement which almost anecdotally claimed that the Church took a left turn in AD 300. Another was a continued denigration of religion in favor of spirituality. And a third was a disdain for rules and tradition. I shall deal with each of these in the following discussion. Truth is very important to me – truth in history, truth in religion, truth in politics, and truth in science. I am both a nuclear engineer by profession and a Latinist by avocation. So when I hear history or religion being misrepresented, then I shall respond not to criticize the person making the incorrect claim but to correct in charity (Latin – in caritate). I apologize that this letter is rather long-winded, but truth cannot be distilled into sound bites. It requires thorough and exact explanation along with dispassionate, rational thinking. God gave us brains and He expects us to use them.
ANNO DOMINI 300
The oblique reference that the Church made a left turn in AD 300 was without substantiation or explanation. Typically when I hear Protestants of any denomination (not just Assemblies of God) make such an assertion, they are usually referring to the legalization of Christianity under Emperor Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus Augustus (or in Greek Κωνσταντῖνος ὁ Μέγας) via the Edict of Milan in AD 313. Protestants typically assert that Constantine erred by making Christianity a State Religion, and that this gave rise to the Catholic Church Whom they abhor based on popular prejudices disseminated by heretics in the 1500s. Little do they realize that it was St Ignatius of Antioch, a student of St John who wrote the Book of Revelation, who first used the phrase Ecclessia Catholica (literally universal assembly) in his letter to the Church of Smyrna in AD 110 (one of the seven Churches in Asia Minor to which St John had written Revelation), some 213 years BEFORE Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity. One indeed wonders what Protestants would have preferred instead of Christianity as a State Religion: perhaps Mithraism or Greco-Roman paganism or the Arian heresy which was rampant throughout the Christian Mediterranean world at that time? I write that with irony for of course they would not prefer those.
But suffice it to say that in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge against Maxentius God gave Constantine a vision of a trophy of the cross arising from the light of the sun in the heavens, carrying the message, “In Hoc Signo Vinces “or "with this sign, you will conquer.” That sign was Chi (Χ) traversed by Rho (Ρ):☧, a symbol representing the first two letters of the Greek spelling of the word Christos or Christ. With that sign provided by God Himself Constantine prevailed, and both paganism and Arianism throughout the Roman Empire were defeated. Mithraism never prevailed in the east and died out in Persia. And Constantine convened the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325 to stop the spread of the Arian heresy which denied the divinity of Christ (it is essentially the same heresy which today is resurrected as the Jehovah Witness sect). What Constantine did by making Christianity a State Religion was threefold:
He provided the Church in the West – the Latin Church – with the means to preserve Greco-Roman civilization when the German and Slavic barbarians invaded in the 400s so that in the 1400s when Europe was ready the Renaissance would take place.
He provided a bulwark in the East against Islam which rose in AD 632 and by AD 732 had invaded the West all the way to Tours, France. That bulwark lasted from AD 313 until the fall of Constantinople in AD 1453, more than 1000 years later.
He enabled the spread of Christianity into Ukraine and Russia and the conversion of millions of souls to the Gospel. It was this spread that turn the tide of the Mongol Invasion when the last of the Khan tyrants died.
So the statement that the Church made a left turn in AD 300 is demonstrably incorrect. Rather, the Church made a wrong turn in AD 1054 when the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Bishop of Rome excommunicated each other (fortunately Patriarch Athenogoras and Pope Paul VI lifted this mutual excommunication in 1965). And the Church made a wrong turn again in AD 1521 when Martin Luther rebelled, followed by John Calvin and then by the notorious Henry VIII who for the sake adultery broke with Rome. Yes, Pope Alexander VI in the late 1400s was a horrid man of sin and depravity who did much harm to cause the so-called Reformation, and yes, the Catholic Church needed a purgation which it got at the Council of Trent in 1571.
But let us note that the Assemblies of God (of which your Christlife Church is a part) was established in AD 1914 (not the AD 33 for the Catholic Church). And this denomination is in part derived from the Pentecostal revival of the late 1800s and early 1900s within primarily the Methodist Church. And that Church in turn derived in the 1700s from the Anglican Church which was started in the 1500s by the adultery of King Henry VIII. Therefore, if someone wants to talk about wrong turns, then behold that unbroken succession of wrong turns that began when Henry VIII demanded to dissolve his sacramental marriage to Catherine of Aragon for Anne Bolyne, and Pope Clement VII said, “NO! Jesus declared that what God has joined together, let no man cast asunder.” Imagine that! The Pope defending Sacred Scripture (Matthew 19:1-12) against a Protestant! But I digress.
RELIGION
I frequently hear the phrase, “I am not religious; I am spiritual.” To which I respond, “So are the Wiccans and pagan witches. That doesn’t make them holy.” Now there are two objections to this sentiment of being spiritual and not religious, the first Biblical and linguistic, and the second political.
First, James 1:27 states, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” The Greek word that is used here is θρησκεία which means religious worship, especially external – that which consists of ceremonies, religious discipline, religion. The Latin Vulgate of course translates θρησκεία as religio and states:
“Religio munda et inmaculata apud Deum et Patrem haec est visitare pupillos et viduas in tribulatione eorum inmaculatum se custodire ab hoc saeculo.”
Religio means obligation, bond, reverence and derives from the verb religare which means “to bind together.” This word – θρησκεία for the Greeks and religio for the Romans – was used extensively by all the early Church Fathers who succeeded the Apostles. It denotes the binding together of the Assembly or Church which you throughout your sermon actually advocated with great eloquence. Yet you object to the word religion in spite of its Biblical and historical basis. You’re spiritual but you want your congregants to be bonded – religati – together. Really? I think that what you think is meant by religion is really not the Christian religion.
Second, the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
If yours is not a religion, then you are not entitled to any protection under the First Amendment. So in this day and age of post-modern, neo-pagan liberal progressivism which seeks to shove atheism and hedonism down the throats of every authentic orthodox Christian who upholds the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman and the sanctity of life from conception onwards, I would be very careful if I were you in making statements that say yours is not a religion. Again, what you think is meant by the word religion and what it really means are two different things.
TRADITION AND RULES
Repeatedly throughout the sermon last night disparaging references were made about rules and tradition. Yet St Paul was clear about the traditions handed down from the Apostles. In 1st Corinthians 11:2, he states:
“I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you.”
And in 2nd Thessalonians 2:15 he also states:
“So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter.”
Indeed, all the Church had for the first 400 years of Her existence was Apostolic tradition, whether written or verbal, to go on. It was not until the Councils of Carthage and Rome in the late 300s that the Church – the Bishops and Patriarchs in communion with the Bishop of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople – made a decision regarding what books would be in the Canon of Sacred Scripture and what would not be. There was no formal collection of books called a Bible before that time. There were simply individual manuscripts laboriously copied over the years from one person to another by that tradition which Protestants hold in contempt. It was these that were read during the Liturgy of the Word at Mass on Sundays. Some books which had been routinely read at Mass like the Shepherd of Hermas and the Letters of Clement were rejected by these two Church Councils but others they accepted. Interestingly the undivided Church of that time accepted the seven Deuterocanonical Books (which you Protestants call the Apocrypha) that Martin Luther and John Calvin in their rejection of Sacred Tradition threw out of the Bible. These include Judith, Tobit, Baruch, Wisdom, Sirach, and 1st and 2nd Maccabees. But again I digress.
Tradition is the steady beam of passing on what we have inherited from the past. The Church did not end in AD 300, else Jesus lied when He told St Peter in Matthew 16:18:
“And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.
Rather, throughout history people have rejected that Sacred Tradition and started their own Church based on their own emotional fancies and their disdain for following rules and regulations. Their cry is the same as Satan’s, “Non serviam,” which means, “I will not serve.” (No, I am NOT saying that is you. Rather, that is the rebellion of Luther, Calvin and Henry VIII.)
As for rules and regulations, what does Jesus Himself say? Matthew 5:17-20 tells us:
“Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
Now how did the early Church worship? Is that not what you should want to do? Follow in the footsteps of what the New Testament Church actually did? St. Justin Martyr describes this in AD 155 and it is the Catholic Mass (some 145 years before that “left turn” you talked about last night). Here is what he says in his First Apology.
“ No one may share the Eucharist with us unless he believes that what we teach is true, unless he is washed in the regenerating waters of baptism for the remission of his sins, and unless he lives in accordance with the principles given us by Christ.
We do not consume the eucharistic bread and wine as if it were ordinary food and drink, for we have been taught that as Jesus Christ our Savior became a man of flesh and blood by the power of the Word of God, so also the food that our flesh and blood assimilates for its nourishment becomes the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus by the power of his own words contained in the prayer of thanksgiving.
The apostles, in their recollections, which are called gospels, handed down to us what Jesus commanded them to do. They tell us that he took bread, gave thanks and said: Do this in memory of me. This is my body. In the same way he took the cup, he gave thanks and said: This is my blood. The Lord gave this command to them alone. Ever since then we have constantly reminded one another of these things. The rich among us help the poor and we are always united. For all that we receive we praise the Creator of the universe through his Son Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit.
On Sunday we have a common assembly of all our members, whether they live in the city or the outlying districts. The recollections of the apostles or the writings of the prophets are read, as long as there is time. When the reader has finished, the president of the assembly speaks to us; he urges everyone to imitate the examples of virtue we have heard in the readings. Then we all stand up together and pray.
On the conclusion of our prayer, bread and wine and water are brought forward. The president offers prayers and gives thanks to the best of his ability, and the people give assent by saying, “Amen”. The eucharist is distributed, everyone present communicates, and the deacons take it to those who are absent.
The wealthy, if they wish, may make a contribution, and they themselves decide the amount. The collection is placed in the custody of the president, who uses it to help the orphans and widows and all who for any reason are in distress, whether because they are sick, in prison, or away from home. In a word, he takes care of all who are in need.
We hold our common assembly on Sunday because it is the first day of the week, the day on which God put darkness and chaos to flight and created the world, and because on that same day our savior Jesus Christ rose from the dead. For he was crucified on Friday and on Sunday he appeared to his apostles and disciples and taught them the things that we have passed on for your consideration.“
By the way, the English word Eucharist is derived from the Greek ευχαριστία which means thanksgiving. It is used repeatedly by the Apostle Paul in his epistles, but few Bible translations properly translate this word. And yes, the real Presence of Jesus – Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity – is the Eucharist exactly as Jesus’ Bread of Life Discourse in John chapter 6 has it. That’s Biblical and as you can see from the text above substantiated by the unchanging Tradition of the Church. A validly consecrated ἐπίσκοπος or ordained πρεσβύτερος prays the ἐπίκλησις over the bread and wine, and by the power of the Holy Spirit they become the very Body and Blood of our Blessed Lord and Savior. Sadly the rebellion of the Protestants undid all of that in the 1500s.
CONCLUSION
I will support my wife in whatever she endeavors. I love her with all my heart. But I will combat disinformation with all the knowledge at my disposal. I applaud the moral values which your religious denomination teaches, and the fellowship and friendship which it extends. But Jesus founded One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church in Matthew 16:18, and the Holy Spirit breathed life into Her at the Feast of Pentecost in Acts 2:1-4. The divisions that exist today are created by man’s self-will run riot – “I’m spiritual but not religious.” Imagine your Church as a Protestant one doesn’t even commune with the Protestant Christian School right next to you because each of you is “spiritual but not religious” – nothing binds you together – there’s that word religio again! And now you have to move out into another building! Christians do not even support Christians because “…each one of you says, ‘I belong to Paul’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ’” (1st Corinthians 1:12). How Christ must weep that His prayer in John 17:20-21 is negated by human rejection of Sacred Tradition, Sacred Scripture and the Church Whom He founded on Peter the Rock, “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”
Cordialibus cum Salutationibus,
Paulus
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