Many evangelicals were not lulled by ecumenism; but if they could be convinced that their catholicity required them to read past figures like Aquinas, then perhaps they could also be gradually lulled into reading contemporary authors who claim to follow in Aquinas’s stead. That subtle, history-emphasizing approach has worked. Credo’s book awards include a whole category on Aquinas, and Crossway is producing a whole series called “Thomas Aquinas for Protestants.” Having lulled people into reading dubious past sources on the theory that catholicity required it, they have now lured people into reading contemporary teachers of Rome, the East, and the apostate mainline Protestant churches.  Our scholars have not only fallen for it but ensnared others, and some wretched fruit is being produced.

Arguing from its proponents’ own terms, I said previously that Reformed catholicity is a “sensibility” rather than a “system” of ecclesiological belief. I said, moreover, that it was a sensibility that had gone astray and born bad fruit. I subsequently wrote that there was a great difference in approach between the present proponents of Reformed catholicity and some of the past sources they appeal to, using the example of William Perkins’ A Reformed Catholike, over which catholicity’s proponents routinely fawn.

I reiterate what I wrote previously, but think that I stumbled. I made observations and reached some conclusions, but did not drive the point home forcefully enough. The great problem with the present so-called Reformed catholicity is that it is mistaken. There is a true Reformed catholicity which we ought to recognize, but it is not the one that is implied by the behavior of certain prominent academics. Properly conceived, catholicity means:

The attribute of the church by which it is not limited to any one nation, class, or era, but is present wherever and whenever there is true faith and the bonds of the Spirit. It is a spiritual unity diffused through space and time: wherever there is true Christ-embracing faith, there is the church. Catholicity is not visible or formal unity as such, but unity in the Spirit and in the truth that he has revealed in word, sacraments, fellowship, charity, and works, etc.[1]

As the Reformed are one manifestation of the larger catholic or universal church, they are rightly deemed catholic.

The real question is who else is in this universal church. Specifically, does it include Rome and the Eastern communions? To that we answer no. Though many individuals within those communions may be true believers and therefore members of Christ’s Church, yet as ecclesiastical institutions they are wayward.

This is the whole point at issue, and where the present Reformed catholicity wrongly arrogates to itself the names of catholic and Reformed. True Reformed catholicity recognizes that catholicity applies only to the true Church and necessarily excludes false churches, groups, or individuals who have departed from the Church morally or doctrinally. When Paul said the Corinthians were “called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor.1:2), he meant it conditionally, for he elsewhere says to avoid professing believers who walk in certain sins (5:9-13; 2 Thess. 3:14).

Those who profess godliness but deny it by their works are not to be celebrated but opposed (Tit. 1:16). Thus also when he says in Ephesians “to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (4:3) because “there is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all” (vv. 4-6). For they are not in the body or the Spirit who maintain grave errors (1 Cor. 6:9-10; comp. 1 Tim. 6:3-5).

Christian unity is in the truth, not against or in spite of it. The same Spirit who enjoins to unity and love also commands the exclusion (1 Cor. 5:2), rebuke (Tit. 1:11, 13) and avoidance (3:10; Rom. 16:17) of those in error. Our Lord who prayed for our unity (Jn. 17:11, 21-23) also prophesied our troubles with false teachers (Matt. 24:5, 11, 24), and warned us that they would lead many astray but that we would know them by their fruits (7:15-17). Some 38 of Rome’s 195 American dioceses[2] have gone or are going bankrupt due to payments to victims of priestly depravity so wicked it ought not to be named.

Tell me, is that a good fruit or a bad one? About as ugly as can be imagined, and it proves that Rome is a den of false teachers. Why then do our promoters of the false catholicity so much crave her company? Rome has been exposed before the whole world – a partial fulfillment, it seems, of Lk. 8:17 (“nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light”) – and the more it has been discredited, the more some Protestant academics have fawned over her doctors. Credo magazine actually awarded some of her teachers in 2023, and people in that orbit like having Romans to conferences, as article contributors, on podcasts, etc.

The true catholicity knows that the Reformed are catholic but Rome is not, that arrogating to itself and its merely human innovations the name of catholic is one of the great lies Rome has foisted upon the world.[3] It holds itself forth as what its works show that it is not, and rather than call it to repentance, our scholars read through the tomes of her doctors approvingly, at least in part. I say again that this is the point at issue.

The sheep of God often recognize that Rome is wrong and act accordingly. Our scholars formally insist that Rome is wrong, and sometimes go to great lengths to demonstrate her errors. And then they turn about and keep company with and commend these people whom they say are so wrong. Thus do they reduce the battle of truth and error to a mere debate over opinion or preference, to the idle disputes of Mars Hill (Acts 17:21), whose contempt Paul earned by his simple gospel message (v. 32; comp. 1 Cor. 1:17-2:5).

Thus also do they risk drawing nigh the woes Christ pronounced upon the scribes. For insofar as they sit on Moses’ seat – and by extension the seat of every other faithful teacher of subsequent generations, including Luther and Calvin – our scholars ought to be listened to (Matt. 23:2-3).[4] That is, we ought to listen insofar as they faithfully expound the knowledge of God and salvation.

But we ought not to do as they do (v. 3), for they not only keep company with men whom they themselves attest are teachers of error, but do many other of the things Christ deprecated. They seek glory from each other, and are always endorsing each other’s books, and quoting and praising each other (v. 5). They parade their positions before the world (vv. 5-7): when one is introduced, he is presented as having this degree from that university, as being the founder of this or that center or organization, or the editor of this or that journal, and is referred to with titles that are unwarranted or actually forbidden (‘father,’ v. 9). They travel great distances for their conferences (v. 15) and gladly extol men of past generations (v. 29), even where those men would differ from them sharply.

For example, John Owen and William Perkins censured Aquinas for teaching idolatry,[5] but our scholars say that Owen and Perkins were commendable for their conscious catholicity and scholastic tendencies,[6] and that they readily appealed to Aquinas and others of previous generations as a consequence. They say moreover that Aquinas is “a beam of orthodoxy,” whose rejection creates “a theology that looks far more modern than orthodox” and who needs to be “recovered.” Thus do they contradict Scripture, for God says “not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is . . . an idolater” (1 Cor. 5:11) and “blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked” (Ps. 1:1), but these men urge that such an idolater be submitted to as an authoritative teacher.

What was Christ’s word about men who do such things? “Beware of the scribes” (Lk. 20:46). Insofar as they speak truth they may be read, but even then with discernment, everything being evaluated in light of scripture (comp. Acts 17:11). But we ought not to replicate their behavior. We ought to be consistent and ensure our ‘Rome is wrong about matters of eternal life and death’ is not followed with keeping fellowship with such teachers of error. To do otherwise is to imply truth is a matter of indifference or mere taste, rather than of utmost consequence.

We must differ also in this, that Christ told us to be wise as serpents (Matt. 10:16), but these men are as naive as the Trojans who brought the infamous horse into their city’s gates. For this false catholicity is ecumenism by another name, and with somewhat different emphases. It is the Trojan Horse of Rome and the wayward World Council of Churches, who are the great advocates of ecumenism.

For example, our scholars say that Aquinas is an antidote to modernism. But they play where Rome fiddled long before. It was Pope Leo XIII in the 1879 encyclical Aeterni Patris who recommended Aquinas as the antidote to modern philosophy and its errors, a torch which has been borne by many Romans since; Romans who are quoted and dallied with rather frequently by our scholars in the catholicity and ressourcement (or ‘theological retrieval’) camps.[7]

Many evangelicals were not lulled by ecumenism; but if they could be convinced that their catholicity required them to read past figures like Aquinas, then perhaps they could also be gradually lulled into reading contemporary authors who claim to follow in Aquinas’s stead. That subtle, history-emphasizing approach has worked. Credo’s book awards include a whole category on Aquinas, and Crossway is producing a whole series called “Thomas Aquinas for Protestants.” Having lulled people into reading dubious past sources on the theory that catholicity required it, they have now lured people into reading contemporary teachers of Rome, the East, and the apostate mainline Protestant churches.[8] Our scholars have not only fallen for it but ensnared others, and some wretched fruit is being produced.[9]

Now against this we must insist that true catholicity has nothing to do with our relations to Rome, the East, and the liberals. Any concurrence of belief between us is, at the institutional level at least, rather coincidence than catholicity, owing to their grave errors. We must insist that catholicity properly belongs foremost to the church invisible, and that the visible church catholic varies as to its size, visibility, and purity, sometimes being small or hidden within a larger, apostate ‘church,’ as when Elijah thought he alone was left and God told him he had reserved a remnant of 7,000 to himself (1 Kgs. 19:15, 18). Though believers are part of the invisible church catholic, they may tarry for sundry reasons in holding membership in a visible body that has departed from the faith, yet this does not commend their doing so, nor make such wayward bodies catholic as institutions or visible communions, any more than Lot’s sojourn in Sodom made that place a city of God.

We must insist further that while reading in church history and the figures of the early and medieval ages is beneficial, this ought to be done discerningly and in light of scripture. There is a great difference between reading for polemic or historic purposes and reading someone uncritically as a faithful teacher. Many in the collections of church fathers are doubtful sources (e.g., Origen), and calamity could result if they were uncritically accepted as being always wholesome.[10]

Last, we must take a scriptural view of false teachers. Repeatedly we are told to avoid and oppose them (Deut. 13; Prov. 13:20; Matt. 24:4; Rom. 16:17; 1 Cor. 5:11; 15:33; 2 Cor. 6:14-18; Gal. 1:6-9; Eph. 5:5-6; 2 Thess. 3:14; 2 Tim. 3:1-9; 2 Jn. 1:10-11; Rev. 2:14, 20), and yet many academics have forgotten or rejected this. With them the Reformation is one valid school out of several; to be preferred as the most accurate, perhaps, but not regarded as though its competitors had fallen from being part of the church catholic. Tell me, did our forefathers go to the stake for an academic or aesthetic preference, or was it because they deemed their reform to be a matter of fidelity or compromise, life or death? Dare I say, of catholicity or rebellion?

Tom Hervey is a member of Friendship Presbyterian Church in Laurens County, SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation, and helped modernize Volume I of James Hervey’s classic dialogue on evangelical faith, Theron and Aspasio, available now at Monergism.

[1] As I stated in my article “Reflections on Reformed Catholicity as Commonly Conceived” here.

[2] See US conference of bishops’ listing here: 194 territorial dioceses and archdioceses, plus that for the military. There is also a special “Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter,” which is a jurisdiction for those coming to Rome from the Anglicans which I have not included here, as it is new and vastly smaller than most other dioceses.

[3] Compare John Owen: “The very name of Ro­man Catholick, appropriating Catholicism to Romanism, is destructive of all Go­spel-unity” and “when once Romanism began to be enthroned, and had driven Catholicism out of the world, we had very few Kings that past their days in peace and quiet­nesse from contests with the Pope” (Owen, Animadeversions on Fiat Lux, 243-4; 260 here). Or more strikingly, “This I say is that wretched Schism, which cloathed with the name of Catholicism (which after it had slain, it robbed of its name and garments) the world for some ages hath groaned under, and is like to do so, whilst it is supported by so many secular advantages and interests, as are subservient unto it at this day” (Vindication of Animadversions on Fiat Lux, p. 362 here)

[4] Certain of Luther’s statements and actions suggest that he did not always sit in Moses’ seat himself, as when he counseled Philip of Hesse to lie about his bigamy or breathed out malice toward the Jews.

[5] Perkins, on p. 161 of A Reformed Catholike (available here). Owen, pp. 85-6 in A Vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat Lux.

[6] Owen in particular had hard words for scholastics (‘schoolmen’), as can be seen from my lengthy quotations here.

[7] Hence Craig Carter wrote of certain Roman Thomists and their allegedly beneficent influence, saying “We should summarily reject nineteenth century historicism and the flawed metaphysical assumptions on which it rests” and that “Thomas Joseph White and many others in the Thomistic Ressourcement movement (such as Gilles Emery, Matthew Levering, and Dominic Legge) are providing the impetus for doing this and confessional Protestants need to learn from them.” All whom he mentions were contributors to the book mentioned in note 6 below.

[8] The recent work On Classical Trinitarianism says in its book description that editor “Matthew Barrett brings together Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox scholars to intervene in the conversation” about the Trinity, and that “this ecumenical volume resurrects the enduring legacy of Nicene orthodoxy, providing a theological introduction that listens with humility to the Great Tradition” and helps “demonstrate that Nicene orthodoxy can endure in the modern world and unite the church catholic” (emphases mine).

[9] There has been a stir over this at Southern Evangelical Seminary, enough that they felt compelled to argue only about 30 of their students have followed Thomas and church history out of the Reformation.

[10] Matthew Barrett actually recommends reading Arius in a list of recommended works for being a “well-trained theologian.” He nowhere mentions that he does so polemically as an example of someone to not emulate, and only introduces the list with language like “without retrieval, there will not be renewal.” (To be sure, his other labors would lead one to conclude that he does so for polemic purposes, but he doesn’t spell it out, which is rather concerning given such a list seems to be aimed at students.)