Were All Churches Started on Pentecost AD 33?

In a very long video, which I will not link to as long as I'm only answering this point, perhaps later if I go through all of it, a Catholic meme was attacked. Here is first the Catholic meme:

"If you are Methodist, your Church was founded in 1784 by John Wesley
If you are Anglican, your Church was founded in 1534 by Henry VIII / Cranmer
If you are Lutheran, your Church was founded in 1522* by Martin Luther
If you are Orthodox, your Church was founded in 1053** by Michael Caerularius.
If you are Catholic, your Church was founded in 33 by Jesus Christ"

Here is their response.

"The correct answer to when your Church was founded is: in 33 by Jesus Christ"

Explanation:

"Every Church that proclaims the Gospel was founded on Pentecost in 33"

It's a statement that makes lot of sense from a non-denominational denomination's view. If you are two men and you are a Methodist and a Presbyterian, you may not be able to go to each other's communion. There is a real excommunication in the sense that they are not the same denomination, each claims his denomination is at least the best approximation to the correct one, the one of 33. This is not totally true even for Presbyterians and Methodists any more, but the point is, it is definitely sth which the non-denominational ones try to avoid. There may be more ad hoc excommunications, over recent matters, but there is usually none over matters a few centuries old ... except against Catholics and Orthodox.

They may be very Catholic positive at least when it comes to cradle Catholics, but they would often enough try to dissuade someone to convert to Catholicism.***

So, this means, in some way, they actually do excommunicate Catholics and Orthodox.

And this exception is of course a very marginal thing to them. Not the kind of people they usally think of. A little like odd-balls. So, in the main, they aren't much about excommunication.

Nevertheless, this excommunication against Catholicism, if not cradle Catholics, is still a fact. And given there is in fact an excommunication, there also is a ground for asking if the answer actually makes sense.

You see, in AD 500 or 700, you are not likely to find non-denominationals. You are likely to find people who, apart from your romanticisation of St. Patrick or the Culdees, pretty much would have fallen into the Catholic camp. Their position makes sense only if the Reformation never took place. But it took place.

That's why they put in a conditional clause "it if proclaims the Gospel" ... meaning, they usually consider Catholicism doesn't do that.

And that puts to a question another matter. WHAT do they believe is the Gospel? If it is "justification is not from previous works" ... Catholicism says that too. If Catholicism proclaims the Gospel, and they don't care about excommunications, why not be Catholics?

If it is about "nor from any willingness to subsequent works, nor does it involve such willingness" (you could already be justified while not at all desiring to walk in Christ), that's more a stance of Luther and of Calvin, than usually theirs. In fact, their typical stance on this tends to agree with Catholicism against the Reformers.

But often, they will take some cue to find a way to blame Catholics for "works salvation" or for making one's salvation on some level depend on one's own work, as if that were necessarily in contradiction with "not from works" ... they will often very much laud someone for speaking about "walking in Christ" and also very much blame someone for saying "in the state of sanctifying grace, you can and you need to do meritorious works" ... even though on a basic level these phrases mean the same thing.

Perhaps it's about the theological fine print, and in that case, they aren't as non-denominational as they pretend.

Or perhaps it's because they think ill of the kind of works Catholics do. Giving money to beggars. Praying the rosary. Receiving the sacraments. And why not Friday abstinence and fasting?

Or, isn't baptismal regeneration making salvation depend on a human act? Well, from the side of the one receiving, no, he isn't working, he is receiving. And from the side of the one baptising, he's normally supposed to already be justified. Because of that, and because of his ministry and because baptism is part of everyone's ministry in a case of urgene, he can work as a tool of Christ working in and through his acts.

Perhaps their most queezyness about Roman Catholicism is, we teach, even a minister in mortal sin, can give a sacrament. God has so tied himself to certain acts by prpomise that if the conditions He stipulated are fulfilled, the sacrament and God's grace is there for the one receiving, even if the minister has shut off God from his own soul.

Or perhaps it is the insistance that even socially accepted sins can shut you off from God, so that a minister you would respect is in fact in mortal sin.

Or perhaps it is the insistance that this situation happens more frequently with sex than with alcohol. Getting tipsy is not mortal, flirting with a divorcee, let alone "marrying" her, is.

Anyway, when the non-denominational gets across this thing in Catholicism, he suddenly remembers, he does excommunicate some things. And if he excommunicates Catholicism, and Catholicism was, and he wasn't, around in 500 and 700 AD, well, then he has proven himself on the wrong side of the excommunication. Matthew 28:13—20 are very clear that this system cannot be the Church Christ founded or even a Church that Christ founded, if it was not there in 500 AD or in 700 AD, or even worse wasn't there in either year. And how he reacts to Catholicism shows, he's not considering it a small matter, like what shape we attribute to the Tower of Babel° and he's also not considering it a matter of free choice, as between Latin and Byzantine rite.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Médard of Noyon
8.VI.2024

Apud Suessiones, in Galliis, natalis sancti Medardi, Episcopi Noviomensis; cujus vita et mors pretiosa gloriosis miraculis commendatur.

* Let's be accurate, in 1517, Luther was as yet only very strongly Jansenist, he founded Lutheranism only while "reforming" the parish in Wittenberg.
** I am well aware that Orthodox invert the last two.
*** Both was pretty true of my mother, when at 16 I told her I was converting. I really had to find answers if only for that reason.
° My take, Nimrod never got around to actually building the rocket, he was always preparing take off ramps, or if he really wanted to make a sky-scraper rather than a rocket, he never got it any height, but was always trying to broaden the base with more pods. Based on how Göbekli Tepe looks.