For me, this article is significant because the President and CEO of Focus on the Family, a quintessentially Evangelical organization, is taking his cue entirely from the guidance of the Pope in Rome and a Catholic cardinal.
Are there still big differences between Catholics and Evangelicals? Of course! But the ecumenism of the trenches has also done a lot to wear down those differences and make Catholic faith intelligible to Evangelicals who, a generation ago, would still have believed some of the most naive and superstitious rumors about Catholics. (“They worship statues!” “They reject the grace of God!” “They think Mary is a goddess!”) These days, it is not uncommon to find Evangelicals springing to the defense of brother and sister Catholics against the new fundamentalism represented by the New Atheists, who trade in some of the most primitive Know Nothing slanders of the 19th Century (“Catholics hate science, murdered Copernicus, and sentenced him to Hell!”) Indeed, another Focus on the Family alum, Paul McCusker (who was basically the engine behind their hugely successful Adventures in Odyssey franchise) is now a Catholic!
We live in very different times from the election of 1960 or even 1980.
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Not suprised.
This little love affair between Catholics and Evangelicals won’t last long. The Catholic Church in this country is becoming more and more true to it’s traditional roots. The Evangelicals won’t care for that, and they’ll revert to their traditional anti-Catholicism.
Stephen,
As a former evangelical, I think you’re way off base. Evangelicals aren’t stupid and they’re seeing the inconsistencies of many different denominations all claiming the Truth. Evangelicals are taught from babyhood to revere the Scriptures and do whatever it takes to defend the Truth. When you keep smacking your head against ignored Scriptures and opposing views, eventually you start looking elsewhere and a lot of us are ending up Catholic because of it. Give your evangelical brothers some slack and pray for their homecoming to the one Church consistent with Scripture.
This little love affair between Catholics and Evangelicals won’t last long. The Catholic Church in this country is becoming more and more true to it’s traditional roots. The Evangelicals won’t care for that, and they’ll revert to their traditional anti-Catholicism.
Except, of course, that the people being cited are the ones leading the charge toward the traditional roots.
Stephen,
Apparently your experience with evangelicals is different from mine. (Which would make sense since we saw Lutherans as mostly liberal people in need of the Gospel!)
I never experienced hatred toward Catholics—more like pity for those “poor benighted folks who never read the Bible.” I also draw a distinction (as most evangelicals do) between evangelicalism and fundmentalism. They are two different groups and the evangelicals have largely spaced themselves from their fire and brimestone cousins who, as you’ve pointed out, start preaching the “!@#$% of Babylon” stuff loudly if they see any of their number becoming Catholic.
That said, I don’t anticipate a huge influx of evangelicals either, but there are more entering than ever before. Each year it seems a well-known evanglical has entered the Church along with many unknowns. This gives me a great deal of hope. There are those who have been observing that while the evangelical church see Catholics leaving the Church and becoming evangelicals, they are the folks who don’t really know their faith to begin with. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church is receiving top-notch evangelicals who know exactly what they believe and why.
The Catholic Church refers to any who have been validly baptized to be brothers. However, if they are not in union with the Church, then they are considered separated brothers—but still brothers, nonetheless. We just continue to pray that those separated will come home.
At my alma mater, a friend coordinated an exchange weekend with Wheaton College (Billy Graham’s alma mater). When our evangelical friends came to visit, they told us the general pattern at Wheaton is now “enter a low-church evangelical, leave a high-church Anglican.”. The rift is closing. I’m a cradle Catholic, but so grateful for the help formerly evangelical Catholics have given me in my faith. Thank God for all of you!
I was an evangelical before I came home to the Catholic church - listening to EWTN was in great part responsible for my conversion and the Virgin of Guadeloupe had a hand in it and Christ Himself I realized had been giving me little messages since I was a small child:) The great thing about EWTN is that the apologetics on the various shows is thorough and the same questions are raised by non-catholics again and again so you get to hear a full explanation of truth…it was a shock to realize how I had been lied to (unwittingly mostly) by protestants all of my life..I am literally eternally grateful for the folks at EWTN…and for the Holy Mother Church…
I pastor a SBC congregation. We have a very good relationship with our local Catholic church. It is built on mutual respect for our usual moral stands and convictions. Matter of fact, one of our staff members is married to a member of the Catholic church.
I think one of the reasons we see this “coming together” is because of some of the very pressing social issues of our day. Sort of like being threatened will often bring former opposing factions together… to stand against their common challenge.
God knows that we have some very challenging issues facing us that have sort of trumped our differences.
I like Chuck’s concise commentary on our common ground as Christians. I am a conservative Catholic who has many evangelical Christian friends. We keep each other honest and respect differences in doctrine and tradition. They remind me to keep in the Word, minimize ‘legalisms’ that detract from faith in action, and continue to evangelize for Christ. I share my ancient and rich faith and traditions and sacramentalsand history with them, and inform them that Catholicism never gets rid of things, even through some doctrines and aspects (such as limbo and indulgences and Marian apparitions) can be thought of as de-emphasized, or are in the realm of ‘personal revelation’. I love being a Catholic, and love my fellowship with other Bible-believing Christians.
How can we have true common ground when the gospel message i.e. how a person is saved, is not the same thing between Roman Catholics and Protestants?
faithful, the Gospel message is that Christ came to earth, was crucified, died and was buried and rose again to pay the debt of our sins. And, yes, we know as Catholics that baptism is the door through which we enter into the covenant of salvation. However, if someone has never known that, how is he held accountable for it if he’s doing the best he can with what he does know? Granted, I can read through the Bible now and see how obvious the truth of baptism is, but I couldn’t see it for the first 30+ years of my life.
I am reminded, too, of Jesus’ words in Mark 9:38-41, “John said to Him, “Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in Your Name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us.” But Jesus said, “Do not forbid him; for no one who does a mighty work in My name will be able to soon after to speak evil of Me. For he that is not against us is for us. For truly, I say to you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ, will by no means lose his reward.”“
These verses have given me a lot of peace as I’ve wondered about my family who are not Catholic and probably never will be (which would be all of them, btw). They are not against Christ and they have been told all kinds of things that are not true about the Church. Sure, I’d like them to listen to the truth and I pray that someday they will. But I also believe that even if they don’t, we can still be a family and pray together, work together, etc. for the good of Christ’s kingdom.
Perfect? No, but it’ll do for now.
@faithful:
That’s a fair question. I think the answer is that once we get past shibboleths about “faith” and “works,” there really is a lot of common ground.
This is a passage from one of Mark Shea’s apologetical Sheavings:
“Salvation is, then, a living relationship with God. It is created and sustained by grace, born in faith, grows in love and bears fruit in glory.”
There is a fair amount of potential for common ground there. One of the most intriguing ecumenical exchanges in recent decades was that which produced that Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Lutheran World Federation
and the Catholic Church. Reading that document demonstrates that there is substantial common ground indeed between the soteriology of the Catholic Church and the first of the Protestant denominations to break away in the Reformation.
There is much work still to be done to bring together all of our separated brethren, that we “may all be one,” but the foundations are there.
And, lest we forget, we share the most important foundational commonality of all: Christ.
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