Five Reasons Why “Back to the Basics” Churches Stumble – 3

Fifth, assuming that we could have a full picture of the primitive church in, say, the early second century, why would it necessarily be desirable to replicate it? Why should the worship, life and beliefs of Christians in second century Roman empire be applicable to Christians in America in the 21st century? If it is applicable, to what degree is it? Shall we replicate the early Christians’ sincerity of preaching and zeal for evangelism, but ignore that they had bishops and priests, prohibited masses unauthorized by the bishop, and celebrated the Mass every Sunday? Shall we endorse their speaking in tongues and healing people, but ignore the fact that they prayed for the dead, venerated the Mother of God and kept relics of their saints for veneration? Once we discover what they did, how shall we choose which bits to keep and which to reject?

In fact, every Primitive/Restorationist movement has really only re-created a Christian Church according to their own tastes. They have seen what they liked and either imagined that it was part of the Primitive Church, or chose that strand of the primitive church that suited them, and focused on it to the exclusion of all else.

The Catholic position is that Primitivism and Restorationism (other than part of an authentic reform movement) is a false endeavor. Instead of trying to re-create the past, the Holy Spirit always guides the Church into the future.  Pope Benedict’s ‘hermeneutic of continuity’ instructs us that the past informs the present and directs us into the future. True Catholics lament all in the past which was counter to the gospel, and value all in the past that was true to the gospel in every age. We do not try to go back to some fondly imagined golden age, but move forward into the future God has for us, instructed and guided by the wisdom of 2000 years of living the gospel.

Any group that claims to be ‘living the life of the Holy Spirit just like the early church’ may be sincere, but they are sincerely misguided.