The Church and Our Salvation

      A controversy recently erupted at Wheaton College, a Protestant, evangelical institution in the American Midwest, a controversy documented in the Catholic and ecumenical journal of opinion First Things.  One of the college’s professors, Joshua Hochschild, was received into full communion with the Catholic Church and was subsequently removed from his post at the college.  The response to Wheaton’s action has been varied and most intriguing.  The Catholic response especially.  Yes, there were a few – from my take on the situation – who wanted to cry “discrimination!” but the more reasonable admitted that Wheaton could only have done what the college in fact did – given the fact that all faculty and staff must sign a statement of faith to which no sincere and honest Catholic could ever add his name. 

      Wheaton College is well-known for its sincere and resolute adherence to its statement of faith, and, to its credit, refuses to compromise its understanding of the Christian faith, an understanding, though, that is very much at odds with Catholicism:  thus, Professor Hochschild’s polite and willing resignation from the faculty.  Here, then, it would seem, the controversy was resolved, but there is more to it than this one instance.  And a number of Wheaton’s own have drawn attention to it.   

      This is the intriguing part.  On the college campus is what is known as the Marion Ward Center, a center for advanced research into the writings of a number of prominent Christians, including Catholics such as G. K. Chesterton and J. R. R. Tolkien, as well as the Anglican C. S. Lewis, whose writings have been most influential in the conversion of many to the Catholic Faith.  And there are four other featured writers whose names I do not know; but on the testimony of many, all seven of the authors would face the same fate as Hochschild if they were ever to be, or apply to be, on the faculty at Wheaton.  Indeed, if one were to carefully read the college’s statement of faith, he would realize that not a single Church Father (including St. Augustine, so respected by many a Protestant), nor even Martin Luther himself, would be allowed on the faculty.  This, I repeat, is most interesting.  

      What, then, is the point at issue?  (And, as we shall see, this is most important, given the fact that the make-up of many an evangelical assembly includes numerous, fallen-away Catholics.)  One contributor to the debate, writing his letter to the editor of First Things, summed up the issue rather well.   
 

The large majority of evangelicals (I am one) do not believe in sacramental theology nor in the special role of a “priest.”  We believe there is but one mediator between man and God, Christ Jesus [so do Catholics, I must add].  As our high priest [I thought this writer did not believe “in the special role of a ‘priest’!], he is all-sufficient.  Thus, no other mediators or mediating works are necessary – no saints, no Mary, no penances, no indulgences.  The blood of Christ cleanses from all sin.  While the typical evangelical loves his church, he does not believe that the church contributes to one’s salvation.  The church points to Christ and proclaims Christ but does not add anything to the finished work of Christ…. 
 

      So here’s the point at issue:  the nature of the Church itself, a subject on which much light is thrown, if one were to carefully study history (the doing of which the famous English convert to Catholicism, John Henry Newman, says would mean the end of Protestantism – there being no such thing as particularly Protestant beliefs in the ancient Church all the way up until a century or so before the Reformation), and if one were to carefully study the Scriptures.  Meanwhile, it might be helpful to ask this letter-writer the following question.  If the evangelical “does not believe that the church contributes to one’s salvation,” how on earth does he think he ever came to even know about Jesus Christ, whose life, death and resurrection, His teaching, and His act of founding the Church all were preserved through the centuries by the Catholic Church?  How on earth does he think he ever received the Bible in which he claims he finds the truth?  And further:  if the Church does not contribute to one’s salvation, then any reasonable Christian has to wonder why Christ chose to found it.  Why would St. Paul proclaim the Church, in his first letter to Timothy in the New Testament, the “pillar and support of the truth” (3:15)?  What, does truth not contribute to an evangelical’s salvation?  What meaning can we give, in the face of this evangelical denial of the salvific role of the Church, to St. Paul’s description of the Church as Christ’s Body through which its members are united to Christ the Head of the Body? (See Ephesians and 1 Corinthians 12.) Surely, salvation has everything to do with being united to Christ!  And finally, if the church “does not add anything to the finished work of Christ,” then how do we make sense of the Apostle’s “boast” that “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister…” (Colossians 1:24)?  (Of course, Catholics believe that Christ’s suffering, death and resurrection is all-sufficient for our salvation, but what is lacking is our conformity to Him, including His suffering, so that all He accomplished for us is applied to us fully, and that, as St. Paul says, “for the sake of his body, that is, the church.”) 

      Catholics and evangelicals stand together on the truths of the Incarnation and efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice, but we Catholics insist that far from the Church’s not being a contributor to our salvation, the Church is in reality the means by which all the graces won for us by our Lord are communicated to us in and through the Church, which is no “extra-mediator,” but rather Christ’s own means of mediation between God and man.  He is the Head, and the Church His Body, and Christians are joined to Christ as members of this Body.  This union between Christ and the Church, and the Church as His means of communicating Himself to us, is most beautifully signed and effected through the Church’s great Sacrament of the Eucharist.  Next week we will delve into this great gift and mystery, as we commence today with readings – for the next few weeks – from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, the “Bread of Life Discourse.”