helps to shed light on why they (Baptists) would use the term. As I understand it, some Baptists will not even call themselves Protestant because to do so would suggest a tie to Lutheranism, which they see as only a schismatic departure of what they consider to be the “corrupted” Roman Catholic Church. So, in essence, Baptists and other Evangelicals consider themselves to be the true and original Catholic Church (until the Romans corrupted it) - is that correct?
No, not really. Baptists may seem in one sense to be the quintessential evangelicals, but they are quite distinct from other versions of evangelicalism in many ways . The claim not to be Protestant is particularly common among “Landmark Baptists,” who are fundamentalists and think that there have always been true Baptists. But there are various groups (the “Christian churches and churches of Christ” would be one of the best examples) that don’t like to be called Protestants, because the Reformation really doesn’t define what they think they are about. Many Protestants who do acknowledge their ties to the Reformation make the claim described–in fact they are more likely to do so. The folks who claim to be “just Christians” are likely to be the least interested in claiming the term “Catholic,” for the most part.
I have also heard of Baptists calling themselves “Reform Baptists”, to which others will criticize them because it implies too much of a similarity with Protestantism.
There is certainly a debate among Baptists about their relationship to the Reformed tradition, much as there is among Anglicans (of course the alternatives are different in each case).
I’m not sure if I’m understanding. Are you saying that Protestants always called themselves Catholic - even after the Reformation - and then, once the Reformation was complete, they changed the name of Roman Catholics to simply “Romanists” and “Papists”?
No. What I’m saying is that from the beginning they didn’t think that their opponents were the true Catholics. To early Protestants, it would have seemed obvious that “Catholic” meant “one who holds to the fullness of the faith and is part of the true visible Church,” and obviously by definition they thought that fit them and not their “papist” opponents.
I think that Anglicans pioneered the term “Roman Catholic,” because Anglicans were relatively more willing to admit that “Rome” was still in some sense part of the Church.
You may be right that in the 18th century Americans were using the word “Catholic” for those in communion with Rome, but if so I think that indicates how little these American Protestants (or “post-Protestants” perhaps, in Jefferson’s case) now cared for a connection with the historic Christian tradition.
Doesn’t this suggest that somewhere along the way, those in schism with Rome decided to remove the description “Catholic” from “Roman Catholics”?
The other way round. They began to use the word “Catholic” for those still in communion with Rome, but only with the qualifier “Roman.”
I don’t find anything rude about the term “Roman Catholic”, lol - who would find that offensive??
Lots of people on this forum, believe it or not. It comes up over and over, and I find it rather tiresome.
Could you refer me to some writings which showed how the term progressed? From retainment the original claim, the subsequent departure from it for differentiation purposes, then the re-adoption of the identifier “Catholic”?
Hmmm–it’s hard to do, because this is a general observation based on having seen a lot of usage from a lot of documents. I could give specific examples of course of each of the usages I describe, but I can’t prove that they are representative. It’s quite likely that I’m oversimplifying things, in fact. But here are a few examples:
Jewel’s Apology, Part I:
Wherefore, if we be heretics, and they (as they would fain be called) be Catholics, why do they not, as they see the fathers, which were Catholic men, have always done? Why do they not convince and master us by the Divine Scriptures?
This is a nice example of the fact that the term “Catholic” was seen as the point in dispute. Catholic is the opposite of heretic. The whole point of Jewel’s apology is to show that the Fathers are on the side of the Protestant Church of England, and thus that Anglicans are Catholics and not heretics. The one thing both sides agree on is that the Fathers were “Catholic men,” and so Jewel is arguing that the Protestant appeal to Scripture is a thoroughly Catholic (i.e., patristic) way to proceed.
Jewel actually seems to avoid any label for his opponents except for “these men”!
Richard Hooker, in his
treatise on justification, uses the term “popish heresy” but only in response to a Puritan who had used it first. He prefers the term “Church of Rome,” though he makes it clear that in his view Rome is, in a secondary but very serious sense, heretical.
Richard Baxter is perhaps my best example. Admittedly, Baxter was a remarkably “catholic” Protestant in many respects for his time, being the inventor of the term “mere Christianity” which Lewis would pick up on centuries later. He also used the term “mere Catholic” for the same position. He wrote a 1672 treatise called “The Certainty of Christianity without Popery; or, whether the Catholic-Protestant or the Papist have the surer faith.”
These examples don’t entirely answer you, but they are a few places to start to see how Protestants in the first couple centuries after the Reformation used terminology. They’re all examples from English sources, which may skew results a bit.
Edwin
