© EBS Administrators

 

Here's an excellent lecture by Fr. John Behr, a noted authority on the early Christian Church. He talks about how Christianity, from its very beginning, was interpretive in nature, not rigidly dogmatic, and about how the core of the Church always tolerated heretical views (though the heretics rarely tolerated the Church). Thus the Church was "catholic" (meaning of broad or liberal scope) not because of the singularity of its viewpoint. Rather, it achieved universality by searching in earnest for the commonality among differing viewpoints.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gy-gCEWh5-4