{"id":254,"date":"2011-12-16T10:29:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T10:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2011\/12\/lots-of-little-churches\/"},"modified":"2011-12-16T10:29:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-16T10:29:00","slug":"lots-of-little-churches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2011\/12\/lots-of-little-churches.html","title":{"rendered":"Lots of Little Churches?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

It is commonplace within Protestant circles to believe that the early church was similar to the church today with its proliferation of different denominations, and that just as Protestants today say, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t really matter what church you go to, as long as you love Jesus\u201d\u2013so it was in the early church.<\/p>\n

So were there lots of different churches in the first couple of centuries? Yes, there were actually lots of different groups. The uncomfortable problem for the Protestants is that these different sects were identified by the apostolic church as heretics and schismatics.<\/p>\n

In his famous work Against the Heresies<\/i>\u00a0Irenaeus\u2013the saintly Bishop of Lyon wrote about all the different little groups who made claims to authenticity and gave them a sure fire way of knowing the truth:

<\/span>
\u201cIt is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors to our own times\u2014men who neither knew nor taught anything like these heretics rave about.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the successions of all the churches, we shall confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, that church which has the tradition and the faith which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the apostles.\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n
\u201cWith this church, because of its superior origin, all churches must agree\u2014that is, all the faithful in the whole world\u2014and it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition\u201d\u00a0<\/div>\n

Those who say there were lots of little churches around in the early days have a point. It\u2019s not much different now I guess\u2013except in scale. The principles are the same, and Irenaeus\u2019 words still ring true.<\/p><\/div>\n

When a Catholic like myself asserts this truth it makes many Protestants howl with rage. I understand. They look at the Catholic Church and they see her human failings. They see her seeming arrogance and her apparent sinfulness. They also see the genuine goodness and love and faith of themselves and those in their churches and compare it to Catholicism and often it seems like the Catholics they know and the Catholic Church they experience doesn\u2019t match up.<\/div>\n
How on earth can it be that the Catholics are \u2018right\u2019 after all? It just seems too crazy from their point of view. I understand. I used to be there. And yet, and yet, when those who look more deeply into it open their minds and hearts in a genuine search for the truth other mysteries open up, and other ways of seeing are given, and these new ways of knowing and seeing are not opened up merely by apologetical arguments.<\/div>\n
People ask why I converted to the Catholic faith, and it was the quote from Irenaeus above as well as a multitude of other factors great and small which brought me to the banks of the Tiber and made me swim.<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is commonplace within Protestant circles to believe that the early church was similar to the church today with its proliferation of different denominations, and that just as Protestants today say, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t really matter what church you go to, as long as you love Jesus\u201d\u2013so it was in the early church. So were there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nLots of Little Churches?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It is commonplace within Protestant circles to believe that the early church was similar to the church today with its proliferation of different\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2011\/12\/lots-of-little-churches.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lots of Little Churches?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It is commonplace within Protestant circles to believe that the early church was similar to the church today with its proliferation of different\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2011\/12\/lots-of-little-churches.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fr. 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