By Noel A Espinosa (Evangelical Times)

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In 1517 Martin Luther posted his ninety-five theses on the church door in Wittenberg.   That was not extraordinary in itself – it was a normal way of making public announcements in those days.

What made it extraordinary was that his document was a defiance of beliefs and traditions of which Rome was the powerful patron.

For a similar defiance a century earlier, the Bohemian John Hus was burned at the stake.   Under God’s blessing, Luther’s defiance produced the Reformation.

Luther did not immediately renounce his Catholic faith and his ninety-five theses were still saddled with erroneous Catholic beliefs.

But they were a call for Rome to repent and change.   Catholic theologian Hans Kung admits that, in rejecting that call Rome responded wrongly (The Catholic Church Phoenix Press, 2001).

Luther’s excommunication caused the most unbridgeable divide ever within Christendom – between Evangelicals and Catholics.

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Crossing the bridge

Over the centuries, the only way Evangelicals and Catholics could come together has been by setting aside any discussion of doctrinal issues.

In the early 1990s, however, Charles Colson, an Evangelical leader of the Prison Fellowship Ministry, and Richard Newhaus, editor of the Catholic journal First Things, started a new movement linking respective traditions.

While they did not speak officially for their communities, they published a series of three documents to which both Evangelical and Catholic leaders put their names.

The sponsors maintain that these documents differ from previous efforts at unity in that they frankly discussed doctrinal differences.

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Huge controversy

The first of these publications struck like a bombshell in 1994, and spawned a huge controversy.   It carried the title Evangelicals and Catholics Together.  Its initials ‘ECT’ have become the banner of the movement.

The document attempted to take a common stand on pressing issues in which Evangelicals and Catholics were in agreement.  It went so far as to proclaim unity of the communities in mission.

Two further documents followed, which consider the two chief principles of the Reformation.   The Gift of Salvation, released in 1997, addressed the so-called formal principle of the Reformation, justification by faith alone, and claimed that the two communities are at one over this doctrine.

The third document was published only last year, 2002, and was entitled Your Word is Truth.   It is the movement’s answer to the so-called material principle of the Reformation – Sola Scriptura.

Has the ECT, then, truly discovered the formula for unity?   Let us take a step back and consider the origin of this movement.

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Reasons

What justifies the pressure for unity between two bodies that have stayed divided for almost half a millennium?   Based on their published statements, the following arguments seem to have guided Colson and Newhaus.

Firstly, there are more pressing issues than the Evangelical-Catholic tension.   Richard Newhaus published the Naked Public Square in 1986.  His analyses showed a society that has questions but no answers.

For his part, Colson authored The Body – Being Light in Darkness in 1992.   Colson states: ‘The divisions between us are not the battle of the hour … The controversies that divide us are far less significant than the common threat that confront us’.

Secondly, they claim there is more that unites Evangelicals and Catholics than divides them.   Both hold the tenets of orthodox Christianity, believing in the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, the resurrection of Christ, and supernatural miracles.

Certainly Evangelicals share more with Catholics than with, say, Protestant liberals, and this leads the first document to conclude: ‘All who accept Christ as Lord and Saviour are brothers and sisters in Christ … He has chosen us to be His together’.

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James Packer’s reasons

Thirdly, say ECT, the focus of efforts together must be on non-believers.   ‘In view of the large number of non-Christians in the world’, says the first report, ‘and the enormous challenge of our common evangelistic task, it is neither theologically legitimate nor a prudent use of resources for one Christian community to proselytise among active adherents of another Christian community’.

But the signatory who probably drew the loudest gasp from the Evangelical community was Reformed stalwart Dr James Packer.  To his credit he faced up to his detractors in an article entitled ‘Why I signed’ in Christianity Today (12 December 1994).   His reasons were as follows:

1. Because good Catholics and good Evangelical Protestants are Christians together.

2. Because the enemies – relativist, monist, pluralist, liberationist, feminist, etc –need to meet a united front.

3. Because Evangelicals and Catholics are already linked in ministry.

 

Of course, the cause of unity carries a perennial appeal.   But on matters that affect loyalty to truth – and indeed eternity – it must be closely scrutinised.   To the foregoing justifications of unity, therefore, let me offer the following comments.

 

Orthodoxy not the gospel

‘Orthodoxy’ is identified by ECT with the great creeds of the Patristic age (Apostles’ Athanasian, Nicene, Chalcedonian).   These creeds settled basic issues such as the Trinity and deity of Christ.

The gospel, however, focuses on the saving significance of the person and work of Jesus Christ – on ‘Christ and him crucified’ (1 Corinthians 2:2).

The issue at the heart of salvation is not just orthodox belief in the deity of Christ, but gospel faith in the all-sufficient Saviour, whose righteousness alone merits our acceptance with God.

This righteousness is imputed to those who trust in Christ, and this trust comes through the medium of the Word preached (Romans 10:14; 1 Corinthians 1:24) and the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit (John 3:5-7).

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Imputed righteousness

The issue of imputed righteousness has always spelled the difference between Evangelical teaching and the Sacerdotal system of Rome, which maintains a flawed system of merit.   In this system, many things are interposed between Christ and the sinner, such as meritorious works, sacramentalism and mediation by Mary and the ‘saints’.

Roman Catholicism may qualify as ‘orthodox’, but sadly it is not gospel Christianity.

This is the tragic flaw in Packer’s assertion that ‘good Catholics and good Evangelicals are Christians together’.   For a ‘good Catholic’ is a loyal advocate of all that the Catholic Church teaches, and these teachings are a departure from the saving gospel.

The Reformation began when Luther stopped being a good Catholic.

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Tactical alliance is not Christian unity

Having common enemies may justify making common cause (campaigning against abortion, for example).   But this is not the same as espousal of a common faith.   Alliance may be called for on certain issues.   Interpreting this as unity is to abandon the higher issue of reconciliation to God.

To imagine that moral campaign is the key to unity is to ignore the lessons of history.   Prior to Luther, there were campaigns for moral reform in the Church – notably that of Girolamo Savonarola.   But they left little mark on the Church or society.

It was only when Luther defied the false doctrine of Rome that Europe was shaken, and history changed course.

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Conversion

Finally, to seek the conversion of the unsaved is not proselytising.   Proselytising persuades people to transfer from one religious affiliation into another.   Conversion is a work of God in the human soul, a faith-response to the gospel of salvation (Acts 20:21).

Yet ECT confuses the evangelisation of lost souls with sheep-stealing.

If Catholics – and ‘Evangelicals’ for that matter – do not know the gospel, they need to be converted.   Belonging to one or other community will not alter that basic fact.

Living in a predominantly Roman Catholic country, nothing would be more welcome to the writer than to be one with Catholics.

But it is far worse to make the unfounded assumption that people have no need of the gospel just because they adhere to another ‘Christian’ belief-system.   For then they are left without the only message than can save their souls.

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Conclusion

To be an Evangelical (in its historic sense) is to insist on the biblical gospel as the only authentic Christianity.

The question to ask, therefore, in deciding to unite with anyone, is whether they hold and believe this biblical gospel.   Does the Roman Catholic Church do so?   Clearly not.

The basis of unity is not similarity of vocabulary.   Nor is it agreement in orthodox beliefs, no matter how fundamental.    It is first and foremost belief in salvation by God’s free grace through faith in Christ, as taught in the Word of God (Ephesians 2:4-10).

Let the Reformer John Calvin define the right attitude to unity: ‘Agreement or union is, indeed, singularly a good thing, because there is nothing better or more desirable than peace.

But we must bear in mind, that in order that men may happily unite together, obedience to God’s Word must be the beginning.   The bond, then, of lawful concord among us is this – that we obey God from first to last; for accursed is every union where there is not regard to God and His Word.’

It will be good to be united with Catholics if the day ever comes that they truly embrace the gospel of God’s grace in Christ.   But it is betrayal of our Lord – and cruelty to Catholics themselves – to seem to grant them ‘the gift of salvation’ without the gospel and by a handful of human signatures.