The expression “one true church” refers to an ecclesiological position asserting that Jesus gave his authority in the Great Commission solely to a particular Christian institutional church— what others would call a denomination, believers of this doctrine consider pre-denominational. This view is maintained by the Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Oriental Orthodox communion, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Ancient Church of the East and the Churches of Christ. Each of them maintains that their own specific institutional church (denomination) exclusively represents the one and only original church.
Wikipedia
“It is our firm conviction that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is, as the revelations state, “the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth.”
https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1985/10/the-only-true-church?lang=eng
The existence of so many varied denominations, most claiming to be the church, testifies to the fact that, somewhere, there is, or was a true original. Even counterfeit money is evidence there is a real thing – and that it is valuable. There is only one place to go for answers about the church. The Bible, the word of God, tells all about God’s church, and it clearly presents one church!
httphttp://www.thebible.net/introchurch/ch3.html
Many Christians believe there is “one true church”. The problem is that each of us want to believe our church is the one. Searching for “the one true church” wasn’t a problem for me, because we were the one true church. Eventually, that myth was unmasked.
Asserting a particular church (denomination) is the “one true church” is like declaring your family to be the “perfect family”; they are family, but they aren’t perfect. A perfect family only exists as an idealistic abstraction. Encountering someone who insist their family is perfect, is a huge red flag. That is no less true of those who declare they are “the one true church”.
I am convinced there is no “one true church” today. Every church in existence is in someway, as Kung describes, — “a prisoner of its own theories and prejudices, its own forms and laws, rather than being a prisoner of its Lord.” For those who believe the church is headed in the wrong direction, finding the right (true?) church is like searching for the Holy Grail. If deciding “where to go from here” , means searching for the “true church”, it will be a cold day in hell when we find it.
Although Alexander Campbell’s 1809 statement: …the series of events which have taken place in the churches for many years past, especially in this Western country, as well as from what we know in general of the present state of things in the Christian world, we are persuaded that it is high time for us not only to think, but also to act… is relevant to the present day, contemporary response is different. For Campbell, to act, meant restore the New Testament church. In today’s individualistic consumer culture, to act means shopping for, or building, a church that fits my idealized, abstract conception of church. If not shopping or building, people are leaving, ergo Gallup’s declining church attendance data. In the mean time, competition is fierce. Marketing is the new evangelism. The one true church is, indeed, “my church”.
Where do I go from here? I do not have a clear answer. I do agree with Campbell — “it is high time to think..” (…act comes later). What I want to think about is, as Kung calls it, is …the real church. The next post will wrestle with Kung’s thoughts on the real church.
Still on the journey.