If We Just Love Jesus, Does It Really Matter Which Church We Go To?

When I was considering joining the Catholic Church, I sat down with some of my non-Catholic friends to see if they could talk me out of my decision. They were Christians, but they didn’t consider themselves to be “Protestants.” Instead, they called themselves Evangelicals or just “Christ-followers.” Regardless, their response to my decision to become Catholic surprised me.

One of the girls said, “As long as Catholics believe in Jesus then I don’t think it’s a big deal.” Another chimed in, “I mean, we’re never going to know which church is the right church or even if there is such a thing, so why worry?”

That answer didn’t satisfy me so I asked them, “Don’t you wonder if one of the churches that exists today can be traced back to the Church Jesus founded? Don’t you wonder which church Jesus wants us to join?”

My question was met with a collective shrug and a simple recommendation that I just “believe in Jesus,” but that wasn’t good enough for me. How did my Evangelical friends know we only have to believe in Jesus to be saved? What does it mean to believe in Jesus? Do we have to be baptized to believe in Jesus? Do we have to receive Communion? If I stop believing in Jesus, will I lose my salvation?

I wanted the answers to these questions, so I decided to study what the very first Christians believed. These were the believers who lived just after the apostles. If there was one church I wanted to belong to, it was their church.

In the time of the apostles believers were called “Christians,” but the Church was not called “the Christian Church.” It was simply referred to as “the Church,” as is evident in Luke’s description of what Paul and Barnabas did in the city of Antioch. He said, “For a whole year they met with the Church and taught a large company of people; and in Antioch the disciples were for the first time called Christians” (Acts 11:26).

St. Paul says the Church was built on “the foundation of the apostles” (Eph. 2:20) and is “the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). Jesus said the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church, and that the apostles, especially Peter, would have authority over it (Matt. 16:18-19, 18:17). If the apostles alone had the authority to speak on Christ’s behalf (Luke 10:16), then that authority would be lost once they all died. Fortunately, God gave the apostles the ability to pass on their spiritual authority to worthy successors.

After the death of Judas (the apostle who betrayed Jesus), Peter proclaimed that Judas’s position among the apostles would be transferred to a worthy successor (Acts 1:20). St. Paul even warned Timothy, “Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands” when he appointed new leaders in the Church (1 Tim. 5:22). The apostles did all this to make sure their authority to “bind and loose” (Matt. 18:18), that is, to determine Church teaching and practice, would be passed on to their successors.

In A.D. 110 St. Ignatius of Antioch told his readers, “Follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the presbytery [or priests] as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop.”

“How can today’s Catholic Church with all of its traditions and rituals be the same the humble Church we read about in the New Testament?” It’s a good question, but it’s sort of like asking, “How can that fully grown man be the same little boy in a baby photo whose diaper had to be changed decades earlier?” In both cases the body being described grew and developed over time without becoming a different kind of being.

In the same way, the Catholic Church, which St. Paul calls the Body of Christ (Eph. 5:23), has the same “DNA” as the Church of the first century: the word of God. This word is transmitted both through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition and you can see its effect in one of the Church’s “old baby photos.”

One particular “photo” comes from the second century, when St. Justin Martyr wrote about how when Christians gathered to worship, they “offer hearty prayers in common for ourselves and for the baptized person, and for all others in every place.” After that, they “salute one another with a kiss,” the presider at the service takes bread and wine and does the following:

[He] gives praise and glory to the Father of the universe, through the name of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at His hands. And when he has concluded the prayers and thanksgivings, all the people present express their assent by saying Amen.

Justin’s description corresponds to the prayers of the faithful, the exchange of peace, the offering of bread and wine, and the “great amen” that are still said at Catholic services today. Justin goes on to say that the bread and wine at Mass are not mere symbols of Christ’s body and blood, but are instead “the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh.” This doctrine, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, is one the Catholic Church still teaches and defends.

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