Christian Churches Together in the Good Old USA

A report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.  This week’s item is from Religious News Service, May 15, 2002 with a headline: Churches take major step toward ecumenical unity.”Ever since the modern ecumenical first took root 50 years ago, the two largest Christian groups in the United States, Roman Catholics, and evangelical Protestants have been missing from the table.That may change after a recent high level meeting in Chicago when Catholic, evangelical and main line Protestant leaders formed what is being called “Christian Churches Together in the USA,” and agreed to work for greater unity.Representatives of the twenty-four groups ranged from the Episcopalians and United Church of Christ on the theological left to the Roman Catholics and the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the center to the Salvation Army and Korean Presbyterian Church on the right.If the 24 groups can agree to form a new organization, it would signal a seismic shift in American church relations.Most leaders said a new something could emerge within five years, perhaps sooner.

Tom:

Well Dave, as you know I just returned from a conference held at WheatonCollege in Wheaton, Illinois and the conference was called Catholics and Evangelicals in Conversation.

Dave:

This was held in the BillyGrahamCenter?

Tom:

At the Cliff Barrows Auditorium.Fourteen representatives, seven from the evangelical side, and seven from the Roman Catholic side. Five priests, two nuns from the Catholic side including Frances Cardinal George, the Archbishop of Chicago.He spoke at the large chapel.There were at least 2000 people there to hear him.So Dave, I would have to qualify this news alert here because this ecumenism, this relationship of evangelicals and Protestants to Roman Catholics has been growing over the last—well since Vatican II in the 1960s and it’s a done deal.There’s no surprise here and this is the heart breaker that, as far as I am concerned as a former Catholic, this is the way it seems the church wants it.When I say the church, I am talking about the professing evangelical church.

Dave:

Well two years ago, no three years ago coming up in October the Lutheran World Federation and the Roman Catholics signed a deal, joint declaration on justification by faith.They said it’s was a semantic misunderstanding all the time and we are really in agreement on this central issue over which we fought and people were even burned at the stake.That’s got to be some kind of a joke Tom, because no one has changed. The Catholic Church certainly hasn’t changed.Now they’re going to get together and work together.Tom, the first question is what is it that divides us?What has divided us for 470 years?Well, a different concept of the gospel.For example, if these are evangelicals and many of them are no longer evangelicals.These are Protestants, but they have lost their taste for the truth and for God’s Word. But if you were a biblical evangelical you would go by Hebrews:9:27-28 [27] And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: [28] So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.
See All... where it says, “As it is appointed unto man once to die….So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many….” Or in Hebrews 10 you have the contrast between the Old Testament sacrifices that were offered over and over and over and the writer of the Hebrews says the fact that they had to be repeated proves that they couldn’t take away sin and then in contrast it says, (Hebrews:10:12But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;
See All..., “But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.”Verse 18 says, “…there is no more offering for sin.”But the Mass is called as you know, the Sacrifice of the Mass.And they believe that Jesus Christ is being immolated on their altars.

Tom:

Right, that’s their term. It means to kill as in a sacrifice.

Dave:

That’s right.So Jesus Christ must be suffering again.But it says, “…once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”That’s Hebrews:9:26For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
See All... again.So we have a different concept of the crucifixion of Christ.

Tom:

Now Dave, is that wrong? At this conference I was told over and over again by both Catholics and evangelicals that the view of the gospel from the scriptures is just too narrow.God is bigger than his Word.I mean in effect that is what they were telling me.

Dave:

Yes, well you should tell that to Paul.He would anathematize them.

Tom:

Galatians 1.

Dave:

Right.Well do words mean anything?Is it important?Is God entitled to any opinions of his own?He created us.Heaven is his—

Tom:

What did you use the word “opinions”?

Dave:

Well, okay, I am just putting it on that level because—

Tom:

Okay.

Dave:

We’ve got our opinions and why not, one opinion is as good as another.But God created us.Heaven is his home.He ought to know the way to get there.Tom it’s so simple.You are going to go to somebody’s house for dinner or whatever, and they write out a little map for you and you just disregard it.All roads lead to—we’re all taking different roads to get to the same place.Come on!Doesn’t God have the right to tell us how to get to heaven and cannot he make the restrictive rules?But we’re down here shuffling these rules around thinking we’re—it’s like an NFL player and the referee blows the whistle and he says, hey what are you blowing the whistle at me for?I’m just doing my own thing.So we have churches that are planning how to get together without regard for what God has said.Now the only way you are really going to get together on the way to heaven together is if both sides follow what God says.But they don’t do that.Otherwise they would have been together long ago.The problem is both sides strayed.Most of what the Catholic Church practices today—where did it come from?Tradition—they made it up as they went along.We talked about it next week.Immaculate conception and bodily ascension and so forth, the Mass, the whole thing and the Protestants have strayed away from the Word of God—most of them.So I don’t think they’re going to get back together on the Word of God, but on some compromise that is a human opinion of how we can work together in unity.