The One True Church: Lessons from the Federalist Papers

Part One: Lessons from the Federalist Papers

When the US was a fledgling power, struggling to congeal a proper governance, John Jay wrote the first four articles of what is now known as the Federalist papers. His arguments for a unified and central government when speaking of the thirteen separate states are useful in the debate for the formation of one unified church. The reasons he lists why the states needed to unite - internal order, efficiency, defense – are powerful arguments for the unification of the many states of Christianity that exist today.

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In his third article Jay writes, “The number of wars which have happened or will happen in the world will always be found to be in proportion to the number and weight of the causes, whether REAL or PRETENDED, which PROVOKE or INVITE them. If this remark be just, it becomes useful to inquire whether so many JUST causes of war are likely to be given by UNITED AMERICA as by DISUNITED America; for if it should turn out that United America will probably give the fewest, then it will follow that in this respect the Union tends most to preserve the people in a state of peace with other nations.”

Jay implies that unity will demand less causes of conflict by its very nature. If one examines that lesson through a religious lens, the result is no different. Disagreements in the past have already broke the church apart. Those schisms have lead to many more disagreements, that wouldn’t have otherwise existed. By division’s very nature, the notion of having separate churches that don’t struggle is impossible because of the “weights and causes” that arise from separation. Struggle doesn’t mean raising armies and battle on the field as it once may have. Today’s struggle is fought in the media, is fought in the minds of non-believers, and is fought on the battlefield of good deeds, where there should be no losers.

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Jay further writes in the third article, “The neighborhood of Spanish and British territories, bordering on some States and not on others, naturally confines the causes of quarrel more immediately to the borderers. The bordering States, if any, will be those who, under the impulse of sudden irritation, and a quick sense of apparent interest or injury, will be most likely, by direct violence, to excite war with these nations; and nothing can so effectually obviate that danger as a national government, whose wisdom and prudence will not be diminished by the passions which actuate the parties immediately interested.”

Jay asserts that it is difficult for a state to be immoderate or extremist when balanced by a larger population and the checks of such governments. He is proven right, of course, when the nation eventually fights the Civil War. In a religious scope, one sees that some denominations, either separated from the Catholic Church or congealed separately, will go rogue from conventional Christian beliefs and even find new extremes in comparison to Protestant belief. This point brings to mind Fred Phelps from the Westboro Baptist Church, who chooses to display signs at the funerals of veterans which read, "God hates fags.” Where is the oversight, power structure, wisdom and tradition in his church to prevent such action? A less obvious but just as applicable example is Lutheran denominations who ordain openly homosexual priests.

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In the fourth article he writes, “One government can collect and avail itself of the talents and experience of the ablest men, in whatever part of the Union they may be found. It can move on uniform principles of policy. It can harmonize, assimilate, and protect the several parts and members, and extend the benefit of its foresight and precautions to each. In the formation of treaties, it will regard the interest of the whole, and the particular interests of the parts as connected with that of the whole. It can apply the resources and power of the whole to the defense of any particular part, and that more easily and expeditiously than State governments or separate confederacies can possibly do, for want of concert and unity of system.”

Jay is speaking of the marginal efficiencies that come from reducing the power structures from thirteen to one. “Uniform principles and policies” are important to a religion, because just as a state, these will “harmonize, assimilate and protect” the whole body of believers, and prevent further destructive dismantling. (I will speak about this principle more in an upcoming post) Religious “treaties” ecumenically translate into relationships with the secular world. Having one true church will ensure that it will “regard the interest of the whole,” and not be preoccupied with trying to insist that it is the one true form of Christianity instead of the myriad other contenders.

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Jay further explains in his fourth penning, “The people of America are aware that inducements to war may arise out of these circumstances, as well as from others not so obvious at present, and that whenever such inducements may find fit time and opportunity for operation, pretenses to color and justify them will not be wanting. Wisely, therefore, do they consider union and a good national government as necessary to put and keep them in SUCH A SITUATION as, instead of INVITING war, will tend to repress and discourage it. That situation consists in the best possible state of defense, and necessarily depends on the government, the arms, and the resources of the country.”

The founding father reveals that unification not only discourages war internally, but externally as well. In religious sense, having separated church structures will bear the same fruit. Why not attack the fifteen largest Church in the media? For that matter, why not attack the largest Church, the Catholic one? In the eyes of an onlooker, it is only 1 of 216 Christian options, similar to the cereal isle. If secular culture attacks one denomination, how and when do the other divisions of Christianity reply? Sadly, they often do not, and in most cases likely approve of the attack for their own vindication.

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This essay is the first in a series slotted to explain the benefits of the reunification of all denominations of Christianity into one church, and why that church should be the Roman Catholic order.