Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 72:1 (Spring 2010)
Article: Catholicity Global And Historical: Constantinople, Westminster, And The Church In The Twenty-First Century
Author: Robert Letham

WTJ 72:1 (Spring 2010) p. 43

Catholicity Global And Historical: Constantinople, Westminster, And The Church In The Twenty-First Century

Robert Letham

Robert Letham, a minister in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in England and Wales, is Senior Tutor in Systematic and Historical Theology at Wales Evangelical School of Theology in Bridgend, Wales. This article is a revised version of his presentation given as the second annual Richard B. Gaffin Lecture Series in Theology, Culture, and Missions at Westminster Theological Seminary on April 15, 2009.

“We believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church”: so runs the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed, the one thread that holds together the tattered fragments of the Christian church. In this creed Constantinople I asserts four things: the unity of the church—it is one; its holiness—it belongs to God; its catholicity—the church is international, found throughout the world, and “teaches completely, without any omissions, all the doctrines which ought to be known to humanity”;1 and its apostolicity—the church is founded on the apostles and the apostolic teaching.

This Niceno-Constantinopolitan quadrilateral is based firmly on the teaching of the Bible. It is expressed clearly in one concise passage, Eph 2:11-22. Here Paul focuses on the unity of the church, for the Jew-Gentile division has been broken down by Christ so that “he made both one”; “he created the two in him into one new man.” Peace with God in and through Christ simultaneously reconciles and unites the strongest enemies in one body to God through the cross. Later, Paul affirms that there is one baptism. In his other letters the same theme is prominent. Romans was probably written against the backcloth of tensions at Rome between Jewish and Gentile Christians. Yet the gospel is for both, and both are branches of the same olive tree. Philippians addresses the need for the church to stand shoulder to shoulder in the face of persecution, for each to look not on their own interests but those of the other, for Euodia and Syntyche to reach a common agreement. In First Corinthians, in the face of rampant factionalism, Paul insists that there is only one body. In the course of time, differing interpretations arose on the unity of the church. Rome held that the church’s unity—and catholicity—was founded on Christ’s appointment of Peter as the rock on which it would be built, so Peter as the bishop of Rome and all his successors were and are the basis of the church. There having been no western representatives at Constantinople I, it took over one hundred years for it to be fully recognized as

WTJ 72:1 (Spring 2010) p. 44

You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
Click here to subscribe