Should Evangelicals and Catholics be together instead of separate?

PROTESTANTS AND CATHOLICS CONTINUE TO DIALOGUE

As the third millennium dawned, efforts continued to be made to bridge the gap between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. Getting much attention during the final decade of the twentieth century was the work of Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT), which issued a statement in March 1994 entitled, "Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Commission in the Third Millennium." ECT does not officially represent denominations or churches. It is made up of pastors, priests, theologians and other leaders from Protestant and Roman Catholic ranks who have come together with "no official church sanctioning" but still seeking to find common ground for discussions that could produce unity at some level.

The ECT statement drew fire from some evangelicals who believed it had "sold out the Reformation" by asserting, "Evangelicals and Catholics are brothers and sisters in Christ". It is not enough, said ECT's critics, to claim that Catholics and evangelicals can both subscribe to the same Nicene or Apostles' Creed. The major issues authority and salvation, or how one truly is saved - are still there. The ECT critics believe that to speak of Catholics and evangelicals as "brothers and sisters in Christ" was to confuse their entirely different ways of looking at just what it means to be saved and justified before God.

The meaning of baptismal generation, the Eucharist and sacramental grace. Historic uses of the language of justification as it relates to imputed and transformative righteousness. The assertion that while justification is by faith alone, the faith that receives salvation is never alone. Diverse understandings of merit, reward, purgatory and indulgences. Marian devotion and the assistance of the saints in the life of salvation.

Whether or not the work of ECT will finally reach the official halls of the Roman papacy or the council tables of leading Protestant denominations and churches is hard to predict. Some evangelical critics of ECT and The Gift of Salvation statement point out that, because the issues listed above remain to be discussed, there is not any real agreement between Catholics and evangelicals on justification by faith. [.]

SUMMING UP MAJOR DIFFERENCES BETWEEN ROMAN CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICAL PROTESTANTS

Lewis was firmly ecumenical, though he distanced himself from outright liberalism. In his preface to Mere Christianity, Lewis states that his aim is to present 'an agreed, or common, or central or "mere" Christianity.' So he aims to concentrate on the doctrines that he believes are common to all forms of Christianity--including Roman Catholicism. It is no surprise that he submitted parts of the book to four clergymen for criticism--an Anglican, a Methodist, a Presbyterian, and a Roman Catholic! He hopes that the book will make it clear why all Christians 'ought to be reunited,' but warns that it should not be seen as an alternative to the creeds of existing denominations. He likens the 'mere Christianity' that he describes in the book to a hall from which various rooms lead off. These rooms are the various Christian traditions. And just as when you enter a house you do not stay in the hall but enter a room, so when you become a Christian you should join a particular Christian tradition. Lewis believes that it is not too important which room you enter. It will be right for some to enter the door marked 'Roman Catholicism' as it will for others to enter other doors. Whichever room you enter, says Lewis, the important thing is that you be convinced that it is the right one for you. And, he says, 'When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors.' Mention should also be made of Lewis' views of the sacraments. The sacraments 'spread the Christ life to us' (Mere Christianity, book 2, chapter 5). In his Letters to Malcolm Lewis states that he does not want to 'unsettle in the mind of any Christian, whatever his denomination, the concepts--for him traditional--by which he finds it profitable to represent to himself what is happening when he receives the bread and wine' of the Lord's Supper. What happens in the Lord's Supper is a mystery, and so the Roman Catholic conception of the bread and wine becoming the actual body and blood of Christ might be just as valid as the Protestant view of the Lord's Supper as a memorial (Letters to Malcolm, chapter 19). ... This enigma of C.S. Lewis was no more than a slight bemusement to me until recently three things changed my bemusement into bewilderment. In March 1994 the Evangelicals and Catholics Together movement produced its first document. This was a programatic document entitled Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium. It was rightly said at the time that this document represented 'a betrayal of the Reformation.' I saw no connection between this and C.S. Lewis until a couple of years later when the symposium Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Working Towards a Common Mission was published. In his contribution to the book, Charles Colson--the Evangelical 'prime mover' behind ECT--tells us that C.S. Lewis was a major influence which led him to form the movement (Billy Graham was another!). In fact Colson says that Evangelicals and Catholics Together seeks to continue the legacy of C.S. Lewis by focusing on the core beliefs of all true Christians (Common Mission, p. 36). The enigma took on a more foreboding aspect. The enigma darkened further when just last year (after becoming connected to the Internet at the end of 1996) I discovered, quite by accident, that C.S. Lewis is just as popular amongst Roman Catholics as he is amongst Evangelicals. Perhaps I should have known this already, but it had never struck me before. The third shock came last autumn when I read that Christianity Today--reputed to be the leading evangelical magazine in the USA--had conducted a poll amongst its readers to discover whom they considered the most influential theological writers of the twentieth century. You will have already guessed that C.S. Lewis came out on top! After these three things it came as no surprise to me this year to find that C.S. Lewis has exerted a major influence on the Alpha course, and that it quotes or refers to him almost ad nauseum. Could not the Alpha course be renamed the 'Mere Christianity' course? ...

But if sects are thus a denial of God's teaching concerning the Church, what are believers to do? The only organization which claims catholicity is so evidently corrupt that its pretensions to be the one Church need scarcely be discussed. Evangelical believers, admitting the practical evils, though denying the unscriptural character, of the divisions in the Church, have sought to mitigate them by various devices for friendly co‑operation among the sects. Of the kindly feeling thus evinced, and the sincere expressions of brotherly love thus called forth, we would certainly not speak in slighting terms. But a false diagnosis necessarily leads to false treatment. The disease is not the ill‑feeling existing among the sects, but the sects themselves; and this disease is neither removed nor altered in character by the occasional "exchange of pulpits," united prayer‑meetings or communions, joint committees and societies for common objects, by which modern evangelical Christians so earnestly seek to promote religious fellowship and good feeling. We have seen that sects are condemned altogether, and no mere rubbing off of their angles will therefore restore the order enjoined in God's word

But if sects are thus a denial of God's teaching concerning the Church, what are believers to do? The only organization which claims catholicity is so evidently corrupt that its pretensions to be the one Church need scarcely be discussed. Evangelical believers, admitting the practical evils, though denying the unscriptural character, of the divisions in the Church, have sought to mitigate them by various devices for friendly co-operation among the sects. Of the kindly feeling thus evinced, and the sincere expressions of brotherly love thus called forth, we would certainly not speak in slighting terms. But a false diagnosis necessarily leads to false treatment. The disease is not the ill-feeling existing among the sects, but the sects themselves; and this disease is neither removed nor altered in character by the occasional "exchange of pulpits," united prayer-meetings or communions, joint committees and societies for common objects, by which modern evangelical Christians so earnestly seek to promote religious fellowship and good feeling. We have seen that sects are condemned altogether, and no mere rubbing off of their angles will therefore restore the order enjoined in God's word

Now, as the various denominations either let in anybody, or meet professedly as such denomination, though they may allow, being such, a stranger to partake of it, the unity of the body and Christ's presence in the assembly is lost to faith, and they are still the church. But pious persons going to the communion at one of these places can enjoy, according to their piety, the remembrance of Christ, and of His dying love. I believe they lose by it, and certainly do, the present sense of the unity of Christ's body as a present thing on earth, for their faith does not embrace it; and in a measure the sense of Christ's presence - that is, as there in the assembly, though they may realise it by the Holy Ghost for their own souls. I do not attach importance to words; but I could not own, with the light I have as to the unity of the body, that these denominational ordinances are the Lord's table; but I am quite ready to believe that souls may go there with a deeper sense than myself of the Lord's love personally. I do exceedingly enjoy the sense of His love there; but more than that, I own, as associated in heart with Him, the unity of the body, of those He gave Himself to gather together into one, and own it scripturally according to His will in practice in that in which He has given expression to it; and denominationalism by being such does the contrary. But if I walk with my feet in the narrow path, from which I dare not stray, and find blessing in it, I desire to have my heart large enough to embrace all God's children walking before Him; and I lose in spirit the very blessing I am speaking of if I do not. "Your love," says the apostle, "to all the saints," "to comprehend with all saints." We cannot properly realise the love of Christ in communion without taking in in its place all He loves as His. "Fellowship one with another" is one of the three elements of the christian state, its import far larger than we are apt to think; and if hindered in its manifestation by others, it ought only to be stronger within in our hearts in grace, and thinking of them with the Lord Himself "Everyone that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him." But then, if it is love for His sake, this will be in obedience. Hereby we know that we love the children of God, if we love God, and keep his commandments. I cannot go out of the path He has marked out, to be with those I yet love. It would not be true love to them, not the love of God, to be disobedient, and set them at ease in what was wrong, treating it as no matter.

On, the subject of Church fellowship his cherished and practiced principles, strangely so often misunderstood or misrepresented by some of a more legal turn of mind, found expression in the following, "We receive every Christian as such, without reference to their connection with Nationalism or Dissent; we rejoice to have communion with them, whether privately or publicly; They may join us in worship and the Supper of the Lord. They are as free as any of us to help in thanksgiving, prayer or a word of edification, if so led of God; and this without stipulation either to leave their old associations or to meet only with us. Where is this done save only with "Brethren"? With us on the contrary, if any godly Churchman or Dissenter thought fit to come when we remember the Lord together, he would be quite in order if he did any or all of these things spiritually; and this, not from any permission on our part, but as a matter of responsibility to God and His Word."

Again, a Christian is brought before them, who desires to remember the Lord along with them. Perhaps he belongs, as they say, to the national establishment, or to a dissenting society. But he is well known as a child of God, walking according to the measure of light already possessed. What is to be done? To refuse this member of Christ, without the strongest ground of known sin, would put shame not on him only but on the Lord. It were to deny our title, the true centre of gathering. Membership of Christ attested by a godly life is the sufficient and only right ground on which a Christian should ask to be received. If one understood all mysteries and all knowledge, — if one had all faith so as to remove mountains, one ought to plead His name alone.

Again, a christian is brought before them, who desires to remember the Lord along with them. Perhaps he belongs, as they say, to the national establishment, or to a dissenting society. But he is well known as a child of God, walking according to the measure of light already possessed. What is to be done? To refuse this member of Christ, without the strongest ground of known sin, would put shame not on him only but on the Lord. It were to deny our title, the true centre of gathering. Membership of Christ attested by a godly life is the sufficient and only right ground on which a Christian should ask to be received. If one understood all mysteries and all knowledge, if one had all faith so as to remove mountains, one ought to plead His name alone.

I might have appealed to Mr. Kelly at Clifton for the refutation of some of your suggestions; but I pass on to the charge of latitudinarianism, and it is only striking to my mind how evil and systematic habits hinder simple understanding and subjection to God's blessed word and ways. But first as to one or two charges. You charge us with having Baptists, Paedobaptists, Arminians, and Calvinists, Millenarians, Anti-Millenarians, and even Quakers. Well, are there not Paedobaptists, Arminians, Calvinists, Millenarians, Anti-Millenarians in the Establishment, and teaching too? And Quakers have been received there too: also they have been with us, and have been baptized as became them from the circumstances they were placed in. The only difference, then, on the point, is as to the existence of these various views in the minds of these amongst us. They being real Christians, we should undoubtedly feel it wrong to shut them out, and rejoice we can walk together in love. There is only this additional difference, that there is not, through mercy, amongst us a vast body of members who have no faith at all. And I think you would find more unity of mind amongst us than amongst yourselves. Nay, it was your complaint at Clifton, that we were all so made up in one mind that, wherever you met us, you just heard the same testimony from us all; and when you had heard one, you had heard all. Others have made the same complaint. We are thankful the Lord has kept us thus hitherto, and lean on His mercy to be preserved in this unity. As to not being able to baptize, I have only to say you are quite mistaken, and that we do so when the occasion arises. That some are Baptists, so called, and some Paedobaptists amongst us, is very true; but by the Lord's mercy we have felt the unity of Christ's body more important than the unity of judgment on this point; and each person, without any hindrance to charity, acts in this as he believes according to the mind of God. Would you exclude a Baptist from the Lord's table with you, were he disposed to go? We have acted on the principle of this word, "Whereto ye have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing." "If in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal this also unto you." We have found most happy peace and flow of charity in it; we do not pretend to have attained perfect light in all that God reveals.