Dec 1997
Evangelicals and Catholics Confusing the Gift of Salvation
Dec/03/97 13:28 Filed in: Evangelicalism | Roman Catholicism
EVANGELICALS AND CATHOLICS CONFUSING THE GIFT OF SALVATION
December 3, 1997 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, 1701 Harns Rd., Oak Harbor, WA 98277) -- On October 7, a group of evangelical and Catholic theologians met together in New York City and adopted an ecumenical statement entitled "The Gift of Salvation" or "Evangelicals and Catholics Together II." The statement has been circulated via the Internet and other means for the last two months, but it was formally published for the first time in Christianity Today, December 8, 1997. The evangelical signers include Bill Bright (head of Campus Crusade for Christ), Chuck Colson, Max Lucado (Church of Christ pastor, popular author, frequent speaker at Promise Keepers meetings), and J.I. Packer (Regent College, British Columbia). The statement distributed via the Internet included Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission, and Bob Seiple (World Vision) as signers, but their names are omitted in Christianity Today. We assume they requested that their names be dropped, though there is no explanation given in Christianity Today.
This new ecumenical statement is an outgrowth of the original "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" declaration of March 29, 1994. It "emerged from a series of conferences convened by Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus."
The publication of "The Gift of Salvation" in Christianity Today is accompanied by an introduction by Timothy George, senior adviser to Christianity Today and dean of Beeson Divinity School at the Southern Baptist-supported Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. George says "The Gift of Salvation" "has been made possible by a major realignment in ecumenical discourse: the coalescence of believing Roman Catholics and faithful evangelicals who both affirm the substance of historic Christian orthodoxy against the ideology of theological pluralism that marks much mainline Protestant thought as well as avant-garde Catholic theology. Thus, for all our differences, Bible-believing evangelicals stand much closer to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger than to Bishop John Spong!" (George, "Evangelicals and Catholics Together: A New Initiative," Christianity Today, Dec. 8, 1997, p. 34).
Timothy George and the other signers of this new ecumenical initiative like to think of themselves as "faithful evangelicals," but in reality they are the blind leading the blind. A true Bible believer does not stand close either to Catholic Cardinal Ratzinger or to the modernist Spong. Neither are friends of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. To pretend that a Roman Catholic can be faithful to his "church" while at the same time affirming the biblical doctrine of justification, that salvation is strictly by faith alone through grace alone by the atonement of Christ alone without works or sacraments, is unbelievable blindness. If the Catholic theologians who signed "The Gift of Salvation" really believe this doctrine of salvation, they are commanded by the Word of God to depart from the unscriptural Catholic church with its false gospel and blasphemous claims and doctrines of devils.
Continue reading this article……
December 3, 1997 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, 1701 Harns Rd., Oak Harbor, WA 98277) -- On October 7, a group of evangelical and Catholic theologians met together in New York City and adopted an ecumenical statement entitled "The Gift of Salvation" or "Evangelicals and Catholics Together II." The statement has been circulated via the Internet and other means for the last two months, but it was formally published for the first time in Christianity Today, December 8, 1997. The evangelical signers include Bill Bright (head of Campus Crusade for Christ), Chuck Colson, Max Lucado (Church of Christ pastor, popular author, frequent speaker at Promise Keepers meetings), and J.I. Packer (Regent College, British Columbia). The statement distributed via the Internet included Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission, and Bob Seiple (World Vision) as signers, but their names are omitted in Christianity Today. We assume they requested that their names be dropped, though there is no explanation given in Christianity Today.
This new ecumenical statement is an outgrowth of the original "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" declaration of March 29, 1994. It "emerged from a series of conferences convened by Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus."
The publication of "The Gift of Salvation" in Christianity Today is accompanied by an introduction by Timothy George, senior adviser to Christianity Today and dean of Beeson Divinity School at the Southern Baptist-supported Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. George says "The Gift of Salvation" "has been made possible by a major realignment in ecumenical discourse: the coalescence of believing Roman Catholics and faithful evangelicals who both affirm the substance of historic Christian orthodoxy against the ideology of theological pluralism that marks much mainline Protestant thought as well as avant-garde Catholic theology. Thus, for all our differences, Bible-believing evangelicals stand much closer to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger than to Bishop John Spong!" (George, "Evangelicals and Catholics Together: A New Initiative," Christianity Today, Dec. 8, 1997, p. 34).
Timothy George and the other signers of this new ecumenical initiative like to think of themselves as "faithful evangelicals," but in reality they are the blind leading the blind. A true Bible believer does not stand close either to Catholic Cardinal Ratzinger or to the modernist Spong. Neither are friends of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. To pretend that a Roman Catholic can be faithful to his "church" while at the same time affirming the biblical doctrine of justification, that salvation is strictly by faith alone through grace alone by the atonement of Christ alone without works or sacraments, is unbelievable blindness. If the Catholic theologians who signed "The Gift of Salvation" really believe this doctrine of salvation, they are commanded by the Word of God to depart from the unscriptural Catholic church with its false gospel and blasphemous claims and doctrines of devils.
Continue reading this article……
