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Evangelical and Catholics Together
By Dwight Longenecker
When the Catholic Church first stepped on to the ecumenical stage about thirty years ago some of the most dramatic and significant actions took place with Anglican leaders. In 1960 Geoffrey Fisher was the first Archbishop of Canterbury to visit the Pope since 1397, and when Archbishop Michael Ramsay embraced Pope Paul VI in the Sistine Chapel in 1966 hopes rose of a quick reunion between the Anglican Church and the Vatican.
Since then, however, events have taken a turn for the worse and Anglican-Catholic re-union seems further apart than ever. While hopes for quick formal reunion with Anglicans recede a fresh sense of reality and the need for re-assessment has hit the ecumenical scene. As ecumenism develops Catholics have learned to listen, worship and work together not just with Anglicans, but with a whole range of other Christians. One of the most promising developments in recent years has been the increasing co-operation and discussion with evangelical Christians.
One of the fruits of thirty years of ecumenism is that within the younger generation of evangelicals the old distrust of Catholicism no longer makes sense. For example, the evangelical Christianity and Renewal magazine features articles about Ignatian spirituality and Catholic customs as well as information on how to make a retreat and learn meditative prayer. Greenbelt, the evangelical arts festival isn’t afraid to invite Catholic speakers and musicians. As evangelicals travel more and experience different forms of worship they are not so dismayed by outward forms of Catholicism like images, candles, crucifixes and vestments. Through visits to places like Taize, and through an ecumenical approach to theological education many evangelicals have come to appreciate the strengths of Catholicism. As they explore the traditions of the Christian faith more bravely they are incorporating lectionaries, the liturgical year and Catholic ways of spirituality into their own Christian life.
To a Catholic some of these attempts may seem superficial or even mocking. One Catholic priest told me how the local Methodist minister turned up one year the week before Christmas asking to borrow vestments, a thurible and incense. ‘We want to do things more Catholic this Christmas’ he said quite innocently. Similarly, when a Baptist minister in the USA learned that the ashes he wished to use for an Ash Wednesday service were traditionally derived from burning the palms from the previous Palm Sunday he commented on the unity of the church by saying, ‘Gee, all this Catholic stuff is connected!’ While it may be easy for Catholics to chuckle at such stories in a superior way it is a fresh reminder that other Christians may be far more open to our way of doing things than we are to theirs.
There are actually man Catholics who are happy to learn from the strengths of the evangelical tradition. The renewal movement in the Catholic Church has been influenced by the evangelical strain of worship and ministry, as has publications promoting daily Bible reading and Scripture study. In addition many Catholic parishes have learned how to grow and evangelise through the Alpha course and other evangelically motivated teaching patterns.
On a formal level, the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity has held three sessions of discussions with the World Evangelical Fellowship’s Theological Commission. The final communiqué from their meeting in 1999 stated, ‘As we listened jointly to the Scriptures, prayed together, and spoke the truth to one another in love, we recognized and rejoiced in the fellowship we have in Christ based on our common faith in Him. The riches of this gift are such that all who share in it cannot regard each other as strangers much less treat each other as enemies.’ Catholics have also been in formal discussions on an international level with Pentecostals; and over the past thirty years official discussions have taken place in the United States between the Southern Baptist Church and the United States National Conference of Bishops Secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. Another historic milestone has been the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification which was signed in Augsburg on 31 October 1999. This agreement between the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation shows that there is basic agreement between us on the fundamental questions of salvation and justification. This agreement between Lutherans and Catholics has important and far-reaching ramifications for our continued theological discussions with all evangelical groups.
In addition, over the last few years a number of unofficial initiatives between Catholics and evangelicals have also developed. A Catholic priest, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus established a consultation between evangelicals and Catholics in co-operation with evangelical leader and former White House counsel, Charles Colson. The consultation, named Evangelicals and Catholics Together produced two statements: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium and The Gift of Salvation. Colson and Neuhaus also published a book of essays entitled Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Towards a Common Mission. From this initiative a number of important books have been published by a collection of evangelical, Catholic and Orthodox theologians. Among them has been the volume entitled Reclaiming the Great Tradition: Evangelicals, Catholics and Orthodox in Dialogue. This work of dialogue is continued by journals like Touchstone which seeks to bring together writers and thinkers from these three main streams of Christian tradition.
Despite the promising signs there is still much hard work to be done. Recently a conservative rump of the Southern Baptists terminated their church’s theological discussions with Catholics, and it is certainly true that a stubborn strain of virulently anti-Catholic opinion still lurks within some branches of evangelicalism. Catholics, for their part, have often shied away from evangelicalism because of its sometimes strident anti-Catholic tone. There is a tendency for Catholics to want to ‘correct’ evangelicals on every turn without seeing what strengths the evangelical tradition might have to share with Catholicism. Cardinal Avery Dulles however, calls for Catholics to step away from this approach and to take a more creative initiative. He calls for an ecumenism of ‘mutual enrichment’. The time is ripe, he writes, ‘to welcome the more traditional and conservative churches into the dialogue. For the Catholic Church it may not prove easy to reach a consensus with either the Orthodox or the conservative evangelicals, but these churches and communities may have more to offer than some others because they have dared to be different. Catholics have the right and duty to challenge the adequacy of some of their positions, but they should be invited to challenge Catholics in their turn.’
Despite the traditional dis-trust between evangelicals and Catholics there is more that unites our two traditions than divides. In many social and moral issues Catholics and evangelicals are the lone voices standing for the Christian way. In social work evangelicals and Catholics stand together to help feed the poor, educate the ignorant and heal the sick. On doctrinal matters and questions of worship, many of the long-standing points of division are disappearing as we listen to one another more carefully in the Spirit of Christian charity. It is true to say that in many cases we do not disagree with what the other side believes; we disagree with what we think the other side believes. The first step in our discussions is for both sides to listen carefully and open-mindedly as the other side tries to express their beliefs. Only when we truly understand the other side’s real views can we begin to explore how the differences can be resolved.
Beneath the informal initatives, the formal discussions and co-operation on the grass roots level there is a shared foundation of belief between evangelicals and Catholics. Both evangelicals can Catholics believe in a revealed religion, not a relative religion. Once we look closely we will see that we have a fundamental basis of agreement with evangelicals which is lacking between Catholics and those other Christian churches who have simply followed the winds of fashion. This fundamental agreement should eventually bring about a new realignment within Christianity. As Mgr. Graham Leonard has written, ‘It is a realignment between those on the one hand who believe that the Christian gospel is revealed by God, is to be heard and received and that its purpose is to enable men and women to obey God in love…and those who believe that it can and should be modified and adapted to the cultural and intellectual attitudes and demands of successive generations and indeed originates in them.’
Actual reunion between evangelicals will be a long time coming, but in the meantime I believe both traditions can be enlivened and strengthened if we will listen, observe and share so that we can work together to build up the kingdom of God.
Dwight Longenecker’s latest book, Challenging Catholics-A Catholic-Evangelical Dialogue is published on 17 October. The book is based on Premier Radio’s series of the same name which begins broadcasting on 6 October at 7.00pm
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