“The historic church” is the Bride of Christ, consisting of those adopted into the family of God. It finds its home in heaven, not in Rome.
And *that* is what Mohler is talking about, not some popous bureaucracy based in Rome or any other earthly location.
It really is stunning how Roman Catholics define “the church” differently from those who have simply responded to Christ’s call to follow Him. It really is stunning how Roman Catholics reject the definition of the Church as the mysterious Bride of Christ, and choose instead to see it as a collection of buildings and staff managed out of Europe. You trace your history back to Rome; I trace mine back to Christ.
This is simply not true, as you might see simply by reading the Catholic Catechism if you mind were not closed. But beyond that, if you want to know how pious Catholics think of the Church, one simply has to look at the lives of the Saints they revere and seek to pattern their own lives after. In the Bible there is constant reference to the Remnant, to those who do the will of the Lord, and it is always connected to the Descendents Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. Always God is paring sway, Gideon tells us how to choose men who will win in battle. Judah remains faithful to God as Ephraim is scattered among the nations. The Remnant of Judah remains true, while the Edomites never recover their lands, even though they two are descendents of Abraham. And if you were listening, you would hear the words of the pope. If Europe and America are to be saved, it will be by the few, the faithful, the brave--the saints.
You have made an error here, surely inadvertently, and yet in a way that is damaging to your argument.
What you have done is attribute a deformed and unrecognizable definition of "church" to me or to Catholicism, which is quite baseless, and then disdainfully rejected that definition, what was not mine to begin with, but yours.
In other words, you have falsely imputed to me and to my faith community, this version of "church" - "a collection of buildings and staff managed out of Europe" - which neither I nor my faith community accept as a definition. Then you dispatch it: an easy thing to do, since it is not a definition anybody would defend.
It's what's known as a "Straw Man Argument": setting up a false figure and then knocking it down.
If you would like to know how Catholics really see and define "Church", you ought to do the sensible thing and derive it from --- for instance--- the Catholic catechism.
That's what an intelligent and fair-minded person --- like, for instance, Dr. Mohler --- would do.
I don't thiink that's too much to ask.