You have hit the nail on the head and stated it trenchantly.

But we are not disagreeing whether disobedience happens in the Church. I think it is indisputable that disobedience has happened, whether or not the Church is a visible hierarchical institution.

The question is how we can know the new Law at all (Christ’s revelation given to the apostles), and what is the living authority that propagates that revelation? Is it scripture alone, or is it apostolic succession?

If we cannot know the New Law of Christ with any confidence, then that reduces Christ’s revelation to less than that of Moses. And that’s not a hopeful conclusion.

This post is pretty polemical, and I don’t like that. Please forgive me for the harsh way it comes across.

Phil, I would ask you how you square your claim that the Church is and always was faithless with the words of Scripture which describe the Church as Christ’s spotless bride (Ephesians 5:25)?

You are completely wrong about Protestantism. We don’t believe that the church was once faithful to Christ and then became unfaithful. We believe that the chuch was NEVER faithful in the first place! But God remains faithful to us nonetheless.

The church is analogous with Israel: Israel was never faithful to God but God remained faithful to his chosen people. You are hung up on this idea of God conferring “authority” upon the church, and that the role of the church is to use this authority to teach people about God. But did Israel have inerrant authority to teach about God? No! They constantly did and taught the wrong things, and God raised up prophets to bring them back in line.

Then what is the mission of Israel and the church? To witness to God’s faithfulness to humanity, and to be a sign, foretaste, and firstfruit of the Kingdom. Teaching about God is an important part of this, but so is living as if the weakness of God is truly stronger than the strength of men. Like Israel, we Christians will always fail. But, also like Israel, through the grace of God we will witness to his kingdom anyway.

I’m gratified that fellow Catholic convert Andrew knew where I was going!

Jonathan, I was careful to say in the post that Protestants hold to “a form of” Donatism, which conditions God’s authority and action upon the faithfulness of the leaders of the Church, rather than say they believe in Donatism precisely. So you are right that Protestants don’t think anything happens in the sacraments anyway, so the holiness of the minister is irrelevant. Instead, I am focusing on their claim that the Church and her leaders lost the authority which Christ had entrusted to them through the Apostles and their successors when they became “unfaithful to the Scriptures/the Gospel” as Garret affirms above.

Andrew answered better than I would have about what Protestants believe on your question. What is he, a history major of some sort? Daaaang!

Classic: they tend to believe that they are the continuation of the Church based on the Augustinian tradition which Trent anathema’d. In the same way that the Eastern Orthodox church split with Rome over the Papacy and retained their status, so many Classic Protestants believe they can split from the Church and retain their status as being faithful to Scripture ultimately, but also to Tradition. (in the case of Augustine, specifically predestination & original sin, they make a strong case)

American Baptist/Non-denom/Evangelicals: these folks tend to believe the Church as the visible bride of Christ never existed at all. It was always an invisible reality. From a Catholic mindset it’s easier to look at issues like Baptismal validity and Donatism, they generally don’t know what this is though, and in most cases don’t have a theology of the sacraments at all except what they aren’t.

I know what you were trying to do in the post though, but really our apologetics doesn’t work on Evangelicals/American Prots – unless they’re into Church history. The Canon argument is much better, and if you’re looking for ancient heresies, there’s alot of christological ones they fall under because of their views on the Eucharist. But again, most of them are too poorly read to understand what a christological heresy is anyway.

First, you say Protestants believe that the validity of baptism depends on the authority/holiness of the administrator.

Then, you say that Protestants believe in an invisible church. But since it’s invisible, the invisible church can’t be organized hiearchically or authoritatively.

I would say you’re probably right on the second point, but not on the first, in general. Most Protestants don’t set any particular requirements on the person who administrates baptism. But most do set certain requirements on the prerequisites and the form of baptism.

As for the point of your article, can you say whether any Protestants believe the Church was “invisible” (flat hierarchy) from the beginning? e.g. Christ as head with no human authority. Or do all Protestants believe in some sort of apostasy?