Not the answer they’d necessarily look for . . .

. . . or, when you can't always get what you want, if you try sometimes, you'll find, you get what you need.

Yesterday I ended up driving on a street that I only rarely take. A Pentecostal congregation had the following on its marquee: “Is Proto-Christianity Extinct? Come in N C 4 yourself!”(I think the abbreviations were more a result of lack of space on the sign than of some desire to be uber-hip.)

Now “Proto-Christianity” would be the faith as practiced by Jesus’ disciples – presumably after Pentecost -- up through, say, the death of the last Christians who had seen Jesus during His earthly ministry.

Extinction is when a living community ceases to exist. If “Proto-Christianity” were extinct, then it would have been replaced with something else – a pseudo-Christianity with editorial changes made, presumably, by sinful humans.

A living community of authentic “Proto-Christians” would be one that had continuous existence. There’s solid documentation of the continuous nature of the presbyterate and episcopate especially of the Petrine office. There’s solid documentation that the understanding of the Eucharist in the earliest days of the Church is that of the Catholic Church. (Take a look at this, or this or this, for a few ancient representations of Catholic faith.)

So, while its' true that "Proto-Christianity" isn't extinct, it wouldn't likely be extant in a Pentecostal congregation.