What Does It Mean to Be “One Church”?

“I believe in . . . the holy catholic Church,” states the centuries-old Apostles’ Creed, or, if you’re a Lutheran, “I believe in . . . the holy Christian church.” In the creed, “catholic” means universal, as in the whole, global church that confesses its belief in Christian doctrine. The origins of the creed can be traced back at least as far as the second century, although it is very possibly older. In other words, the creed began to be recited not all that long after the early church–the church at large, one church–was established, which was essentially still the church’s infancy if considered in the grand scheme of church history.

Similarly, the Nicene Creed, which was adopted at the First Council of Nicea in 325, states, “We believe in one holy catholic [universal] and apostolic church.”

Churches across denominational lines the world over consider one or both of the creeds as part of their liturgy. But what does it mean to believe in “one church”?

I began to ponder this question a couple of years ago, asking myself what “one church” means to God, and what it means for us as believers in Christ. After all, there is only one Jesus, and we all claim to follow him, no matter what denomination is on the sign outside the church building we frequent on Sundays. So why is there so much diversity between us? Why are we all convinced our way of doing Christianity, our doctrine, is the right way, the right doctrine?

There are many follow-up questions we can ask to try to muddle through these tricky and tension-filled questions. What happened during the first 1500 years of the church? What was the Reformation? How did the various Protestant denominations develop, and how have they evolved over the centuries? Who decided what would be included in the Bible, and when was that decision made and by whom?

And then, what common ground can we find? How can we think of ourselves, truly, as one church? How can we be better at being one church?

I was born to Methodist and Presbyterian parents. They divorced when I was two, and my mother joined the Lutheran Church, into which I was baptized at age seven. At the same time, my father remarried, and I spent many a Sunday in Catholic mass, as my new stepmother was Catholic. My mother left the Lutheran church when I was around ten years old, when our pastor answered a call to mission work in Alaska. That ended my churchgoing until my final days of high school, when my then-boyfriend invited me to his church, which was a Church of Christ. I was re-baptized there at nineteen by my own choice, not having any memory of choosing baptism at the tender age of seven, and feeling that making my own personal claim to faith was important. Church attendance ebbed and flowed for me as I entered my twenties. At 25, I began attending a non-denominational church, where I truly began to grasp what authentic Christian community and the embracing of Scripture might look like. Now, in my early forties, a transplant to the MidSouth, I attend a Southern Baptist Church on Sundays with my non-denominational husband and our two young daughters. I wouldn’t say the Southern Baptists and I jive together very well from a doctrinal standpoint, but the community is lovely. At the same time, I attend a monthly women’s retreat at an Episcopalian retreat center where the service is taken from the Book of Common Prayer, I belong to a Catholic reading group, and I occasionally attend daily mass at the Catholic church down the street from my house, where I enjoy the order of the mass and the opportunity to contemplate the meaning of the Eucharist, among other things. I frequently feel a bit like Judy Blume’s Margaret Simon, to be honest, minus the twelve-year-old angst about boys, breast development, and periods.

I present this rabbit trail to you simply to emphasize that I have been all over the place denominationally. Perhaps it is this multi-denominational life experience that enables me to look at the global church and see its commonalities and to ask what can be done to bring us closer together, to bridge the gap. And to ask what my role in that might be, however small.

The obvious place to begin, for me, was at the beginning, meaning the beginning of the early church, the one established in the Book of Acts. Dr. Bruce Shelley, a former professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Denver Theological Seminary and author of Church History in Plain Language, wrote,

“Many Christians today suffer from historical amnesia. The time between the apostles and their own day is one giant blank. That is hardly what God had in mind . . . As a consequence of our ignorance concerning Christian history, we find believers vulnerable to the appeal of cultists. Some distortion of Christianity is often taken for the real thing. At the same time other Christians reveal a shocking capacity for spiritual pride, hubris. Without an adequate base for comparisons they spring to the defense of their way as the best way, their party as the superior party.”

I often find that when I ask someone, “Why are you [insert denomination here]?” the person tends to be unable to answer, or the answer is simply “I was born into my denomination,” or “I was converted to Christianity in my denomination.” Church history, God’s heart for church unity, and why we find ourselves complacently within one denomination, often the only denomination we have ever known, seems to be something we just don’t think about much or very deeply. But to understand how we can become one church, we must first understand how we became so many. And if we are serious about doing so, it’s likely we must take on the task ourselves. We are unlikely to learn our history, beyond that which is captured in Scripture, on Sunday mornings.

I’m not an expert at answering even my own questions (yet), but a dear friend recently said to me, “God has not called us to be experts; he’s called us to be pilgrims.” Her words felt like a deep sigh, a release of tension and burden. We are all simply called to walk the path God has laid out for us with as much wisdom and humility as we are graced with. We all have the same destination (we hope). And if this is the case, wouldn’t it make sense to find the common threads we share here and now, and not wait until heaven? We have so much to learn from one another, so much worth sharing. For as Jesus said, the night before he was taken,

“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me . . . Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one” (John 17:6-11 ESV, emphasis mine).

Harmony Harkema has loved the written word for as long as she can remember. A former English teacher turned editor, she has spent the past nine years in the publishing industry. A writer herself in the fringe hours of her working-and-homeschooling mom life, Harmony also has a heart for leading and coaching aspiring writers. Harmony lives in Memphis with her husband and two small daughters. She blogs at harmonyharkema.com.

Photograph © Akira Hojo, used with permission