Names and Character

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Aug 26, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 33.

Names and Character

THERE is more or less discussion going on in the papers over the proposed change of name of the Protestant Episcopal Church. There are some that want it the "American Catholic Church," some want to drop out the term "Protestant," some deny the Protestant Episcopal Church's right to the name "Catholic," etc., etc. One writer in the Knickerbocker Press declares that the desire for the name "Catholic" is not a slap at Protestantism, nor does it imply that Catholicity is synonymous with ultramontanism, intellectual slavery, and political ambition. He says the chief reason churchmen do not wish to be Greek or Roman Catholics is that this is not Greece, nor Rome, nor Russia, nor Bulgaria, nor Armenia, all of which maintain their own national churches, but happens to be America, and they naturally prefer to belong to the American Catholic Church.

There is an ambition that is higher and better than this, and that is to belong to the living body of Christ Jesus our Lord. Human names signify but little; character is everything. To the character belongs a teaching, a message, and the message of Christ touching personal duty and personal truth is always distinctive.