A respected friend of mine has undergone the painful (and courageous) journey of challenging the traditions he was raised in to examine them in pursuit of the truth. And this journey has led him into the Orthodox Church. So he recently shared something from Dr Siiuwade that he wanted his friends to read:
“The Identity of the Church: A Comprehensive Argument for the Truth of Eastern Orthodoxy – Penultimate/Updated Version” From Dr. Joshua Sijuwade. Abstract: This work presents a (historically grounded) philosophical argument for identifying the Eastern Orthodox Church as the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church affirmed in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed. Utilising Richard Swinburne’s philosophical criteria of continuity and connectedness, the work evaluates the Roman Catholic, Protestant, Non-Chalcedonian, and Eastern Orthodox traditions. By applying these criteria to doctrine and organisational structure, the study argues that the Eastern Orthodox Church possesses full, unbroken continuity and connectedness in doctrine and organisation with the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church, and no other ecclesial body possesses continuity and connectedness equal to (or greater than) its own. Thus, while acknowledging the complexities of Christian divisions, the work presents a reasoned case for considering the Eastern Orthodox Church as the truest representation of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed’s vision of the Church—that is, it being the Church affirmed within this central and authoritative creed. This argument is offered as a plausible and defensible position, aiming to contribute to broader discussions on ecclesiology and Christian unity.
My understanding of Dr. Sijuwade’s work is that it has four main arguments: 1. Our starting point is the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, taking the creed of “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church” as not just confessional language but as a normative standard, and he builds his argument around showing which Christian body best fits that description historically, theologically, and organizationally. 2. He argues for two philosophical criteria: “continuity” and “connectedness”, suggestiong that ongoing, unbroken, historical, doctrinal, and organizational lineage with the apostolic Church and living connection via active relation to what was believed and how the Church was organized in earlier Christian centuries are imperative to the Church’s identity. 3. He uses these two philosophical criteria as the benchmarks to evaluate the various Christian traditions. 4. He uses the Niceno-Constantinopolitan creed as the baseline to which both doctrine and ecclesiastical structure must align. He concludes that eastern Orthodoxy best fits these criteria, making it the truest match to the “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.” However, it’s important to note that he doesn’t argue that one must be Orthodox.
I appreciate the clarity and intellectual care that Dr. Sijuwade brings to this discussion. And his appeal to continuity and connectedness certainly raises an important question: what makes the Church the Church? Unfortunately, I think his framing of this question assumes without establishing that “the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church” corresponds to a single, historically continuous institution.
When Paul describes the Church’s oneness, his focus isn’t organizational but spiritual. He writes:
Ephesians 4:4–6 (CSB) — 4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to one hope at your calling—5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.
The unity Paul celebrates is grounded in our shared participation in Christ through the Spirit, not in “continuity” or “connectedness“. I think it’s more accurate to say that the Church’s “continuity” is the continuity of the Spirit’s work among all who belong to Jesus, in whom we are “connected”. And this changes the conversation from being about institutional lineage or organizational structure to being about faithfulness to the Lord, the gospel, and the love and sacrifice that marked the Church he established so long ago. This is why the New Testament never hints that this unity would be confined within one administrative body. Instead, it insists that Christ himself is the bond that holds the whole body together (Ephesians 4:15-16).
So while the various tribes of the Christian faith each preserve some element of the ancient faith, none can rightly claim to be the Church in isolation from the rest of the body. The true Church consists of all who “do the will of the Father” (Matthew 7:21), who hear Christ’s voice (John 10:27), “deny themselves, pick up their cross, and follow” him (Luke 9:23). This is as Jesus said, “no one will say, ‘See here!’ or ‘There!’ For you see, the kingdom of God is in your midst” (Luke 17:21). We want to be able to point to something and be done with it, but the truth is that following Jesus’ way requires more.
Now, I do recognize that Dr. Sijuwade isn’t trying to make the claim that the Orthodox Church is The Church in isolation from the rest of the body; he allows for Christians to exist outside of the Orthodox Church. But I believe this allowance is inconsistent with his essential claims, and one that he only makes because today’s prevailing modern sentiments have little tolerance for institutional dogmatism. However, he can only make this allowance by constricting his definition of “The Church” to institutional terms, which are incompatible with “the catholic” (i.e. “universal”) sense of the very creed he claims as the basis against which one’s doctrine and ecclesiology must align. If he were being consistent, I think he would necessarily argue that one must be Orthodox because one cannot rightly be “Christian” and exist “outside” the Church (i.e. “there is one body”).
However, my purpose for writing this post isn’t to pen a rebuttal to Dr. Sijuwade’s work. If I were going to do that, I would spend more time talking about the multiplicity of Claimants with apostolic succession and tradition, the internal divisions within Orthodoxy, and the challenges in defining the terms he assumes. Instead, my purpose in writing this post is to propose and contrast an alternative view: the Church was never meant to be defined along the lines that Dr. Sijuwade has proposed, and doing so creates confusion about the Church’s identity, but rather, the Church is defined by her relationship to Christ. We are all the Church who abide in Christ. And, if the Church is defined relationally, then the burdens of Dr. Sijuwade’s arguments are relieved because your standing as a member of the Church is not defined by the external organizational structures of the Christians you assemble with, nor is it even defined by the theological perfection of one’s creeds, but rather, the Church is defined by her following Christ by faith.
I want to be clear that historic and organizational continuity and connectedness have some value as they force the Church to grapple with the faith that has been handed down to them from those who came before, but these attributes are not what makes the Church “one”, and so those Christians who have historic lineage must not boast against those who don’t. Jesus himself defines who belongs to him, and that definition crosses every human boundary. The Church, then, is not a denomination we can point to, but a people joined to Christ and to one another by the Spirit. This is why Paul urges us to “maintain” unity, rather than to construct it, because our unity is already given to us in Christ; it’s not an institutional possession to defend, but a relational reality to maintain.
A Dedicated Faith 