Sola Scriptura and the Proliferation of Protestant Denominations

by Phil Johnson @ http://teampyro.blogspot.com

"That they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me." (John 17:21).

n a videotape titled "The Pope: The Holy Father," Catholic apologist Scott Hahn claims the proliferation of Protestant denominations proves the Reformers' principle of sola Scriptura is a huge mistake:

Do you suppose that Jesus would say, "Well, once I give the Church this infallible scripture, there really is no need anymore for infallible interpretations of scripture. The Church can hold together just with the infallible Bible." Oh, really? In just 500 years, there are literally thousands and thousands of denominations that are becoming ever more numerous continuously because they only go with the Bible. It points to the fact that we need an infallible interpretation of this infallible book, don't we[?] (Here's a link to a full transcript of the videotape.)

A tract titled "Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth" (published by Catholic Answers) makes a similar charge:

The "Bible alone" theory simply does not work in practice. Historical experience disproves it. Each year we see additional splintering among "Bible-believing" religions. Today there are tens of thousands of competing denominations, each insisting its interpretation of the Bible is the correct one. The resulting divisions have caused untold confusion among millions of sincere but misled Christians. Just open up the Yellow Pages of your telephone book and see how many different denominations are listed, each claiming to go by the "Bible alone," but no two of them agreeing on exactly what the Bible means.

That is a favorite argument of Catholic apologists. They are convinced that the unity Christ prayed for in John 17:21 is an organizational solidarity that is incompatible with both denominationalism and independency. As far as the Roman Catholic Church is concerned, the only way true Christian unity will be fully and finally achieved is when "separated brethren"—non-Catholic Christians—reunite with Rome under the authority of the Pope.

Keith Fournier, Catholic author and Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice, sums up the typical Roman Catholic perspective:

Throughout Christian history, what was once intended to be an all-inclusive (catholic) body of disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ has been fractured over and over. These fractures threaten to sever us from our common historical and doctrinal roots. I do not believe that such divisions were ever part of the Lord's intention, no matter how sincere or important the issues that undergirded the breaking of unity. [Keith A. Fournier, A House United? (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1994), 37.]

Fournier says he is "not advocating a false non-denominationalism or superficial irenicism that denies distinctives of doctrine or practice." [Ibid.] But he is suggesting that doctrinal differences, "no matter how . . . important," should not cause organizational divisions. Moreover, fewer than five pages earlier, he had berated those who "fight over theology." [Ibid., 25.] And (ironically) just a few pages before that, he had expressed outrage at John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, and Jim McCarthy for saying they believe Roman Catholicism's rejection of justification by faith alone is "doctrinal error" [Ibid., 21-22.]

Notice carefully, then, what Fournier is saying: He claims he wants unity without "superficial irenicism," and yet he objects when anyone contends for sound doctrine or (worse still) labels Roman Catholic doctrine "error." It seems the "unity" Fournier envisions is merely the same kind of unity the Roman Catholic Church has sought for hundreds of years: a unity where all who profess to be Christians yield implicit obedience to Papal authority, and where even individual conscience is ultimately subject to the Roman Catholic Church.

Although Fournier politely declines to state who he believes is to blame for fracturing the organizational unity of Christianity, [Ibid., 29.] it is quite clear he would not be predisposed to blame a Church whose spiritual authority he regards as infallible. And since the Catholic Church herself officially regards Protestantism as ipso facto schismatic, Fournier's own position is not difficult to deduce. Although Fournier manages to sound sympathetic and amiable toward evangelicals, it is clear he believes that as long as they remain outside the Church of Rome, they are guilty of sins that thwart the unity Christ prayed for.

Of course, every cult and every denomination that claims to be the One True Church ultimately takes a similar approach to "unity." Jehovah's Witnesses believe they represent the only legitimate church and that all others who claim to be Christians are schismatics. They believe the unity of the visible church was shattered by the Nicene Council.

Meanwhile, the Eastern Orthodox Church claims the Church of Rome was being schismatic when Rome asserted papal supremacy. To this day, Orthodox Christians insist that Eastern Orthodoxy, not Roman Catholicism, is the Church Christ founded—and that would make Roman Catholicism schismatic in the same sense Rome accuses Protestants of being schismatic. One typical Orthodox Web site says, "The Orthodox Church is the Christian Church. The Orthodox Church is not a sect or a denomination. We are the family of Christian communities established by the Apostles and disciples Jesus sent out to proclaim the Good News to the world, and by their successors through the ages."

All these groups regard the church primarily as a visible, earthly organization. Therefore they cannot conceive of a true spiritual unity that might exist across denominational lines. They regard all other denominations as schismatic rifts in the church's organizational unity. And if organizational unity were what Christ was praying for, then the very existence of denominations would indeed be a sin and a shame. That's why the Orthodox Web site insists, "The Orthodox Church is not a sect or a denomination."

Furthermore, if their understanding of the principle of unity is correct, then whichever organization can legitimately claim to be the church founded by Christ and the apostles is the One True Church, and all others are guilty of schism—regardless of any other doctrinal or biblical considerations.

That is precisely why many Catholics and Eastern Orthodox have focused their rhetoric on "unity." Both sincerely believe if they can establish the claim that they, and no one else, are the One True Church instituted by Christ, then all other Protestant complaints about doctrine, church polity, and ecclesiastical abuses become moot. If they can successfully sell their notion that the "unity" of John 17:21 is primarily an organizational unity, they should in effect be able to convince members of denominational and independent churches to reunite with the Mother Church regardless of whether she is right or wrong on other matters.

The plea for unity may at first may sound magnanimous and charitable to Protestant ears (especially coming from a Church with a long history of enforcing her will by Inquisition). But when the overture is being made by someone who claims to represent the One True Church, the call for "unity" turns out to be nothing but a kinder, gentler way of demanding submission to the Mother Church's doctrine and ecclesiastical authority.



Nonetheless, in recent years many gullible Protestants have been drawn into either Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy by the claim that one or the other represents the only church Christ founded. Having bought the notion that the unity Christ prayed for starts with organizational unity, these unsuspecting proselytes naturally conclude that whichever church has the most convincing pedigree must be the only church capable of achieving the unity Christ sought, and so they join up. Many recent converts from evangelicalism will testify that the proliferation and fragmentation of so many Protestant denominations is what first convinced them that Protestant principles must be wrong.

In a series of posts over the next couple of weeks, I want to examine the topics of like-mindedness, disagreement, and divisiveness; the culpability of popes, feuding bishops, and differing denominations when it comes to causing schism; and the kind of unity Christ prayed for.

Celibacy & the Priesthood

Posted by Ben Witherington

Yet another case of a teen molested by a priest. Only this time it was a Republican in high public office who was molested as boy. The priest of course has been banned from ministerial duties but this hardly addresses the larger question. Is there something indemic to the Catholic approach to priesthood that is fundamentally flawed? My answer to this question is yes.

The requirement (not merely the option) of a celibate priesthood is unBiblical. At a minimum it should be optional at best. It's time for the Catholic Church to have a more Biblical approach to persons in ministry. Even the OT priests were not celibate! This is simply a relic of pre-medieval and medieval asceticism. And behind that earlier asceticism is unfortunately an inadequate theology of the goodness of human sexuality. And yet today's paper informs us that Catholic bishops are about to meet and provide new guidelines for ministering to gay persons. This may well be helpful, but the Catholic priestly hierarchy really needs to put their own sexual house in order before telling priests how to minister to gays appropriately. They need to look deep into their own souls and ask--- What is wrong with us? Here is the link to today's story--

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/us/29bishops.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin


What would a healthy approach to these sorts of issues of human sexuality look like that neither endorses sexual sin and calls it good on the one end of the spectrum nor endorses unBiblical forms of asceticism on the other? My answer to this is several fold, and it starts with 1 Cor. 7, and its frequent mis-interpretation.

Throughout 1 Corinthians Paul has been dealing with problems in the Corinthian Church. 1 Cor 7 is no different, and clearly enough what is happening in 1 Cor.7.1 is that Paul is quoting some views that Corinthians have about human sexuality, and he is critiquing and qualifying them in various ways. Notice how the verse starts--
"Now concerning the things about which you wrote 'It is good for a man not to touch a woman.'"

The 'you' here is not Paul, but rather the person's who wrote to him. Someone or someones in Corinth held an extremely ascetical view about male-female relationships. It is possible that the term 'touch' here is a euphemism for 'have sexual contact with' just as we use the euphemism 'sleep with' to mean roughly the same thing.

Notice Paul's response--- at a minimum, because of sexual sin "each man should have his own wife, and each woman should have her own husband". The word 'each' will later be qualified by Paul's discussion of the fact that there are some people (a minority) that have the gift of being able to remain continent and single. But the drift of the argument is clear enough that Paul thinks this is a minority of persons. This is one reason why he starts with the bold assertion "that each one of you should have...." Now notice the context. The context is sin-saturated Corinth. Paul was a good pastor, and he knew the temptations in Corinth were as grave as they are in our own sex-saturated environment. Were Paul here today I have little doubt he would be telling Catholic priests to get married right, left and center UNLESS they were one of those rare persons whom God had blessed with the gift of celibacy in singleness. We would have a lot less messes in the church today, especially the Catholic Church which is the only large denomination that requires celibacy of its ministers, if the celibacy requirement was dropped altogether.

Secondly, notice 1 Cor. 7.4-- Here Paul says something radical. He not only says that the wife's body belongs to the husband (which was the conventional wisdom of the day) startling every man he wrote to in that patriarchal culture with the sexual double standard he says that the husband's body belings exclusively to his wife. No messing around with call girls (called 'companions' back then) prostitutes, or other men's wives. Paul is balancing the ledger, and the eqality he is building into the marriage relationship stands out from the norm in the larger culture. Paul was not just another endorser of the old patriarchal status quo.

Thirdly, notice 1 Cor. 7.5-6-- "Don't deprive each other of sexual relationships except during a time of prayer, but after that come back together again". Paul, far from being in the least bit ascetical is encouraging a robust and repeated sexual sharing as normal for a Christian couple. And his standard for ministers was no different than his standard for everyone else he was writing to in Corinth. This was advice for all Christians there. Notice in 1 Cor. 9.5 he says that he has the right to have a wife and travel with her just as Peter and the Lord's brothers do. So much for the notion that the first 'Pope' was celibate. But back to 1 Cor. 7.

Sometimes 1 Cor. 7.6 has been totally twisted out of its context. The context makes reasonably clear that the exception or Pauline concession is not to HAVE sex, but rather to abstain from sex for the period of prayer. He is not conceding sex, he is conceding abstinence for a brief period of prayer time. That's all.

But what of 1 Cor. 7.7? Here we get to the nub of the matter. Paul does indeed wish that more people had the gift of celibacy so they could devote themselves wholly and solely to Christ and his ministry. But he recognizes that that is not everyone's 'charisma'. The Greek word 'charisma' from which the English word comes does not mean what it means in English. It means a 'grace gift' a gift from God.

What Paul says is that Christians should not ever make decisions about sexual relationships or abstaining from them on the basis of what they think or feel is 'natural'. Grace trumps nature when it comes to these issues. And so for Paul it requires a special gift of God's grace to remain faithful in marriage and it also requires a special gift of God's grace to remain celibate in singleness. Nothing is said here about natural inclinations and the like. Christians should make decisions about such matters on the basis of what God has given them the grace to do and be. And Paul recognizes that only a few like himself have been given the grace gift of remaining celibate in singleness throughout the rest of his life.

If the Catholic church could only listen to and live by this one Scripture when it come to requirments for the priesthood, things would not have gotten so out of hand in a sex saturated culture. There are many wonderful talent persons in the Catholic church whom God is calling to ministry, but has not gifted to be celibate. And since the church allows already for married priests, if their call to ministry comes after their marriage vows, its time to fix the rest of this flawed system.

I am under no illusions that this will solve all of the sexual problems in the Catholic Church, and I am also well aware that we Protestants have just as many problems as well, but for different reasons. We have not listened to the 1 Cor. 7.4-6 portion of this teaching well enough. Infidelity is rampant because marriages are not being nurtured as they should be.

There is an old saying of Chaucer from the Nun's Priest's Tale--- "if Gold rusts what then will iron do?" How in the world could either Catholic or Protestant clergy expect their parishoners to behave, or to have a good and healthy theology of human sexuality if we do not model it as well as teach it? We truly need to get our own house in order. We need to pluck the plank out of our own eyes. Jesus told us a long time ago that there were only two legitimate sexual options-- celibacy in singleness and fidelity in marriage (Mt. 19.1-12). Whether we are happy about this or not it means the sexual sharing is limited in the Bible to monogamous heterosexual marriage relationships. That's all. And if we cannot handle that, then we must pray for the grace gift of continence which God gives to some and not to others, and God does not decide this issue on the basis of whether he has also called the person into ministry.

Its time for the whole church to stop sending mixed messages like "Sex is dirty and unholy, save it for the one you really love and marry". The message needs to be "sex is a beautiful and precious gift of God. There is nothing remotely unholy about it. Indeed it is such a precious gift that it should indeed be saved for the context of unconditional love and an unlimited life time commitment." Unfortunately, however this great truth about human intimacy is one even much of the church and even too much of the clergy can't handle as things now stand. So what shall we do about this malaise? Inquiring minds want to know.

If you want to read more about the Pauline sexual ethic, pick up my Conflict and Coommunity in Corinth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996) and read the relevant bits.

Catholics Join Muslims in Fast for Ramadan

By Ingrid Schlueter

I received a press release today that Roman Catholics are joining with Muslims in a Ramadan fast to show "solidarity" after the controversy regarding remarks made in a speech by the Pope. I predict this solidarity will grow and grow until a flag bearing the star and crescent flies over Vatican City. It's only a matter of time.