In an essay entitled The Ecclesiology of Vatican II, Joseph Ratzinger (as of 2011, the current pope) explains a Catholic view of what constitutes a church:
No one can make a Church by himself. A group cannot simply get together, read the New Testament and declare: “At present we are the Church because the Lord is present wherever two or three are gathered in His name.†The element of “receiving†belongs essentially to the Church, just as faith comes from “hearing†and is not the result of one’s decision or reflection. Faith is a converging with something I could neither imagine nor produce on my own; faith has to come to meet me. We call the structure of this encounter, a “sacrament.†It is part of the fundamental form of a sacrament that it be received and not self-administered. No one can baptize himself. No one can ordain himself. . . . In the Eucharist, the priest acts “in persona Christi,†in the person of Christ; at the same time he represents Christ while remaining a sinner who lives completely by accepting Christ’s Gift. One cannot make the Church but only receive her; one receives her from where she already is, where she is really present: the sacramental community of Christ’s Body moving through history.
As Quakers, we see things differently. Our understanding is that such matters rest with Christ, not on a human succession – not even an unbroken succession of human apostles (if such a thing even exists). While to a Catholic the other churches seem to presume too much in organizing themselves outside the “one true church”, to a Quaker the Catholics seem to presume too much in claiming an exclusive right to franchise the church, or even in claiming to be the one, first, only, true church! Quakers testify that God has come to teach his people himself. Jesus is the head of the church and can establish a gathering of his people directly without needing endorsement form any particular pre-existing organization.
We believe that Christ has gathered us as a people and called us to a particular testimony – a particular way to follow Him and worship in obedience. We are Christian – followers of Christ – first and foremost. Our theology is orthodox and evangelical. Yet we have been given a particular testimony of the reality of Jesus in contrast to the shadows and symbols and rituals that is somewhat unique. Was this testimony formed under particular circumstances in a particular cultural and historical setting? Of course it was. Yet even these particulars are not outside the providence of God. It is our understanding that Jesus establishes his church; Jesus baptizes his people by his Spirit. Said another way, the Spirit baptizes Jesus’ people into Him. We are not concerned about apostolic succession because we are called by the one who established the original apostles and minister under his direct authority.
For the sake of making this point, I will borrow the beginning text and skeleton of Ratzinger’s comment but change it into something more Quaker than Catholic:
No one can make a Church by himself. A group cannot simply get together, read the New Testament and declare: “At present we are the Church because the Lord is present wherever two or three are gathered in His name.†The element of “receiving†belongs essentially to the Church, just as faith comes from “hearing†and is not the result of one’s decision or reflection. Faith is a converging with something I could neither imagine nor produce on my own; faith has to come to meet me. We call the structure of this encounter, a “sacrament.†It is part of the fundamental form of a sacrament that it be received and not self-administered. No man can baptize another into Christ. No man can ordain another into ministry. These are spiritual realities enacted by Jesus himself to establish and organize his people. A gathering of humans is a church insofar as it reflects these spiritual realities. Human beings cannot make the Church but only receive her; humans receive her by being born from above, immersed into Christ, and gathered by His Spirit. Jesus is really present; he organizes his people himself as he sees fit: the sacramental community of Christ’s Body moving through history.
Christ has come to teach his people himself. Christ has come to baptize, call, ordain, and gather his people himself. Apostolic succession is irrelevant when Christ himself is present and active to call out and establish his church – his people – his family by the power of his Spirit.
“Jesus healed 2 men of blindness, one by touching his eyes, and another by spitting in the dirt and applying the dirt to his eyes. If that happened in our day, it would start 2 denominations – the mudites and the anti-mudites.” – Ravi Zacharias.
I was raised in the Catholic church, yet my mother did not agree with all of their traditions, and taught me to listen to Scripture in the event that I saw any contrast between it and Catholic dogma. For example, in Sunday school as a kid, I remember being told that Jesus Himself founded the Catholic church, formed the church hierarchy, and appointed Peter as the supreme head of the church (the first Pope) to lead and guide the church, followed by the other Apostles, then the disciples. I remember getting confused by a particular passage in Galatians which seemed to contradict that. It’s from Galatians 2:11-16, where Paul rebukes Peter for withdrawing from the Gentiles. “If Peter was like the first Pope,” I asked my mom, “how could Paul argue with him?” I’ll never forget her answer: “The Bible doesn’t say anything about a Pope. Jesus is the supreme head of the church, He sends the Holy Ghost to lead and guide us.” I was about 8 or 9 then, so I didn’t fully get it, but I said “oh ok,” and let a question mark sit in my little brain. When my parents split, going to church became less and less frequent for me, and then when my mom took off, both church attendance and reading the Bible became non-existent for many years. When God caused me to begin re-exploring the Scriptures as a young adult, he also led me to start looking more into the history of Christianity, and in particular the Catholic tradition that I was taught early in life.
I was pretty amazed to learn that the office of the Pope as supreme bishop didn’t develop until long after the Apostles had all died, the “apostolic succession” from Peter that I had been taught in Sunday school could only be traced back to the 300’s AD at the earliest; and that the Roman Catholic Church had actually separated itself from the Eastern/Greek Orthodox church.
OK, so what’s the point? Well, I’ve also recently learned something else which I feel connects to this post. As far as I know, there are only 2 Greek words in the New Testament that even come close to our English word ‘church.’ One of them is ‘Ekklesia’, meaning “the called out/assembled ones.” The “church” is all those who Christ has “called out” unto Himself. The other is ‘Kuriakon’, meaning “The Lord’s/Pertaining to the Lord.” It was a word used by a servant of his devotion to his master. The early believers expressed a dedication and commitment to an unseen master, which caused the world to give them a name – ‘Kuriakon,’ The Lord’s. That word has been changed to ‘Kirk’ in Scotland, ‘Kirche’ in German, ‘Churche’ in Olde English (pronounced with a hard ‘k’ sound like character), and finally the English “church.”
Now, while I am certainly no authority on either Quaker or Catholic thinking, I am the world’s GREATEST authority on my own opinion. And in that, both of these words and their definitions fit in better to the Quaker view as listed above than the Catholic view. That’s not to say that there is no one in the Catholic church who belong to the Lord and are a part of the called out ones (in fact, history as well as my own experience tells me that there surely are). But as far as the question of “what makes a church?” the 2nd description above seems to be more in line with Scripture.
“because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”(Romans 8:14 NIV)