Holy catholic church

Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
- Ephesians 4:3-6

“I believe in … the holy catholic church”
- from The Apostles’ Creed

This line in The Apostles’ Creed has been confusing to folks from time to time: “I believe in … the holy catholic church.”

Some of you have wondered if this line means that the Creed pushes us to pledge allegiance to the Pope or a particular denomination. If that were the case, it would be a little odd for us to affirm the Creed in our non-denominational church.

The explanation for this lies in the word: “catholic.”

The word “catholic” can be understood two ways. There’s capital C, “Catholic,” that’s the particular Catholic church with popes and nuns (some of whom at one point were trying to solve a problem like Maria). But then there’s lower-case c, “catholic,” which is the original English definition of the word catholic and simply means “general, universal, concerning the whole.”

So when we’re saying that we believe in the holy “catholic” church, we’re saying that there’s this glorious universal movement of churches (“one body”) who all proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. That’s Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, Catholics, and non-denominational and the like.

We might not all get along with each other all of the time and we might have our own disagreements or baggage with one of these traditions, but we believe and trust that God is at work in the midst of all of the brokenness that is the whole universal church to do his good work throughout history and in our world today.

Hopefully that clears some things up for those of you who were kind of hitting a snag at that point.

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