Pope Francis Meets Evangelical Delegation

Pope Francis Meets Evangelical Delegation [Excerpts]

Two prominent Fort Worth-based Christian ministers led a delegation of Evangelical Christian leaders to Rome to meet privately with Pope Francis. James and Betty Robison, co-hosts of the Life Today television program, and Kenneth Copeland, co-host of Believer’s Voice of Victory, met the Roman Pontiff at the Vatican on Tuesday.  The meeting lasted almost three hours and included a private luncheon with Pope Francis.

In a written statement, Mr. Robison said he believes “the prayers of earnest Christians helped lead to the choice of Pope Francis.”  He described Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the Argentine Archbishop chosen as Pope, as “a humble man…filled with such love for the poor, downtrodden…”

In addition to Mrs. Betty Robison, the high-profile Protestant delegation included Kenneth Copeland, co-founder of Kenneth Copeland Ministries in Newark, TX; Reverend Geoff Tunnicliff, CEO of the World Evangelical Alliance; Rev. Brian Stiller and Rev. Thomas Schirrmacher, also from the World Evangelical Alliance; and Rev. John Arnott and his wife, Carol, co-founders of Partners for Harvest ministries in Toronto, Canada.  Gloria Copeland did not travel to Rome because of a previously scheduled commitment.

Later, James Robison telecasted the video on his daily TV program, Life Today.  “The pope, in the video, expressed a desire for Protestants and Catholics to become what Jesus prayed for — that Christians would become family and not be divided,” Mr. Robison said the response to the video was very positive, and that Pope Francis asked Bishop Palmer whether a meeting could be arranged with Evangelical Protestants seeking Christian unity in the world.

In describing the ecumenical gathering as a miracle, Mr. Robison said, “This is something God has done. God wants his arms around the world. And he wants Christians to put his arms around the world by working together.”

Mr. Robison said he received a divine call from God to seek Christian unity while he was hospitalized several years ago with a serious staph infection following hip surgery.  Robison recalled, “[I] was so weak I could not lift a cup of water to my lips…God got my full attention…He spoke to me through Isaiah:58:6-12 [6] Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? [7] Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? [8] Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward. [9] Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity; [10] And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day: [11] And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not. [12] And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.
See All... and I saw the importance of living in freedom, touching the suffering, the hungry, poor, and downtrodden. I recognized the promise that our prayers would be answered quickly and we would become a free-flowing stream and a well-watered garden, restoring the foundations upon which we must build. During that time God instructed me to focus my attention on Jesus’ prayer and encouraging others to begin fulfilling it through us in our day.”

During that time, he said, he was impressed by a prayer of Jesus in John:17:21That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
See All..., pleading that all Christian believers be one.  “We’ve tried to focus on being an answer to Jesus’ prayer,” Robison said. “We want to see Jesus’ prayer for unity answered in our day.”

Aware that the meeting with the Pope will be troublesome among staunch Protestants, Mr. Robison said he and the other visiting Evangelical Christian leaders talked about diversity and their belief that Roman Catholics and Protestants could work together without compromising their beliefs.

“The world is suffering,” said Robison. “We as Christians have too much love to share without fighting one another.”

Mr. Robison said he and other “respected Evangelical leaders and Spirit-filled Catholics began meeting together to pray for God’s will to be done and to bring true believers together in supernatural unity….We have been commanded to love God with all of our heart and our neighbors as ourselves. The enemy has kept many Christians from loving one another as Christ loves us and have failed to recognize the importance of supernatural unity even with all of the unique diversity.”

Mr. Robison, whose ministry digs water wells and supplies food for impoverished people in third-world nations, recounted that he was christened as a fatherless boy in an Episcopal Church.  As an adult, he joined the Southern Baptist Church.  In the 1980s, he became one of the first prominent Southern Baptist ministers to openly proclaim he had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

http://www.trunews.com/trunews-exclusive-pope-francis-meets-evangelical-delegation/#rDUEHOdvFLZrwrLd.99

[TBC: Rome has consistently stated it has never changed. Consequently, only the “evangelicals” have compromised their position. In the hope of sharing “love” to a “hurting world,” we must first of all share the biblical gospel—something denied by Catholicism with its gospel of works.]