If It Is True, It Is Not New

If it is new, it is not true, and if it is true, it is not new.

Every once and again, a message, post, or pin will ask the simple question, “How old is your church?”

The message, pin, or post then presents a list of some of the Christian denominations and their age of formation. For example, “If you are a Lutheran, your religion was founded by Martin Luther, an ex-monk of the Catholic Church, in the year 1517.” The post does not include any information such as the realization that Luther left the church, among other reasons, due to the selling of indulgences, etc.

The list includes most of the “larger” denominations, as well as one or two non-Christian denominations, such as, “If you are a Mormon (Latter Day Saints), Joseph Smith started your religion in Palmyra, N.Y., in 1829.”  The LDS church, is not Christian, in the most commonly understood sense, due to some rather significant distinctions with the other denominations.  Examples of this include Mary and God the Father having had a physical relationship in order to get her pregnant, and the Trinity does not yet exist since the Holy Spirit has not yet been “born”. As well as a host of other items which are not in keeping with Christian beliefs, such as the statement that the Garden of Eden was located in the State of Missouri.

The post continues,”If you belong to the Church of England, your religion was founded by King Henry VIII in the year 1534 because the Pope would not grant him a divorce with the right to remarry”. So, Henry had been a Catholic until he decided that in order to marry legally, he had to create a new religion and make himself the head.

If you are a Presbyterian, your religion was founded by John Knox in Scotland in the year 1560.” He had been, according to an article on the Encyclopedia Britannica website , in good standing with ecclesiastical authorities until at least the year 1543.

The Methodists, according to some folk, were named for the methodic manner in which John and Charles Wesley, both ordained priests within the Church of England, studied the Bible. The denomination was launched in 1744.

Interesting, But So What?

Rather than going through an entire list of the Christian denominations, as well as a few of the non-Christian ones, such as Scientology, everything can be reduced to a simple statement…

If it is new, it is not true, and if it is true, it is not new.

Okay, the statement seems a bit cutesy. Let it sink in for a moment and then we will explore what is meant by it. In terms of “new” consider that the Church we know was established many centuries ago by an unemployed carpenter who became an itinerant preacher. Anything that can reach back beyond ten centuries before the Battle of Hastings can not be considered “new”.

The Church founded by Christ Jesus and given to Peter as its head, the first Pope, was established in the year 33 A.D. By the end of its first century of life, the Church was already known as “Catholic”, in that it was universal. Simply put, if you were Christian, you were Catholic, and it continued that way for the first 15 centuries of the Church’s history.

Since the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, there have been many denominations formed. The count of different Protestant denominations is now in excess of 35,000 worldwide. It almost appears that all it takes to begin a new Christian denomination is one person, a resentment, and a Bible.

Exacerbating this is the realization that of the 35,000+ denominations, nearly two dozen of them contain the word “Catholic” in their title, some are in communion with Rome, many are not.

Why Has It Lasted?

There are at least two very good reasons why the Holy Catholic Church has been around for 20 centuries. The first of these reasons is that clearly, the Church is not of human origin, Christ Jesus, the Son of God established His Church. The second reason the Church itself has survived 20 centuries is the codification of various norms and rules or canons which certainly help to keep human emotions in check.

The Council of Jerusalem, in the late 40’s, provided an answer as to circumcised versus non-circumcised and the relationships, interactions, rights of each group. As time passed, other Councils were called to address specific issues, challenges, and significant matters. Each of these  Councils added other norms, laws, rights, etc., over the next dozen and a half centuries.

In the early 1900’s, the entire system of norms and canons was to be reviewed, refined, conflicting items resolved and the results promulgated to the entire Church.  Thus, the Code of Canon Law (CCL) was created. It has been one of the primary ways the Church is protected from simple human emotions.

Our Protestant brothers may see the CCL as nothing more than a set of rigid ecclesiastical “laws” meant to keep Catholics in line, but, the CCL provides a vehicle for the Church to continue, to assure that Fred cannot go off to start a new denomination simply because he thinks that gerbils ought to be ordained.

If It Is New, It Is Not True, and If It Is True, It Is Not New.

The CCL may itself be “new”, in that it was released in 1917 and revised in 1983, but, it is the summation of 1900+ years of Councils.

Is two thousand years still new?