Page 5244 – Christianity Today (2024)

The 22 million people who visited Expo ’86, which ended last month, encountered religious messages almost everywhere they went.

The most obvious religious presence at the Vancouver, British Columbia, world’s fair was the $6 million Pavilion of Promise, sponsored by Crossroads Christian Communications, producer of the Canadian television program “100 Huntley Street.” The pavilion offered a 40-minute presentation called “The Scroll,” which covered Creation; the life, death, and resurrection of Christ; and Christ’s final encounter with Satan. It utilized ballet dancers, multimedia wide-screen technology, lasers, and narration by Malcolm Muggeridge. Some 750,000 of Expo’s visitors witnessed the presentation, and 9,000 of them discussed the Christian faith with pavilion counselors.

Expo ’86 was not designed to communicate religious ideas. The fair’s theme, “Man in Motion, Man in Touch,” focused on transportation and communications. In the early planning stages, fair organizers said any permanent religious presence at Expo ’86 would be limited to an interfaith pavilion. An early effort by an interfaith group to sponsor a pavilion failed, however, and Expo ’86 organizers approved the application of Crossroads Christian Communications to sponsor the Pavilion of Promise.

The pavilion was just one of a number of Expo ’86 exhibits and presentations that highlighted religion in various forms. The General Motors—sponsored Spirit Lodge featured a ten-minute presentation on North American Indian religion and culture. The Saudi Arabian pavilion had strong Muslim overtones. And Japan’s pavilion hosted a series of actual Shinto weddings. Seventy-five volunteer chaplains, organized by Expo ’86 and representing several major religions, assisted world’s fair visitors who needed their services.

Other fair activities communicated an exclusively Christian message. World Vision displayed one of the hundreds of 12-foot bamboo vessels it built to replace fishing boats lost in floods in Bangladesh. Sail and Life Training Society, a Canadian organization that uses sailing trips to teach Christian values to young people, constructed a sailing ship on the Expo ’86 site. And each Sunday, a 3,100-seat facility was turned into a sanctuary. Several denominations took turns holding worship services, drawing crowds ranging from 200 to 1,500.

By Lloyd Mackey in Vancouver, British Columbia.

NORTH AMERICAN SCENE

DRUGS

A Lecture at Church

The California teenager who captured nationwide headlines when she turned in her parents for possessing illegal drugs went to the police after hearing an antidrug lecture at a Lutheran church.

Deanna Young gave police a bag containing marijuana, pills, and cocaine belonging to her parents. She told authorities her parents had refused her requests to stop using drugs.

The Lutheran Council News Bureau later reported that the girl acted against her parents’ drug abuse after hearing an antidrug lecture at Peace Lutheran Church in Tustin, California. Although Young is not a member of the church, she is active with its youth group.

“I doubt that Deanna even vaguely comprehended the amount of publicity her act would generate,” said Lloyd Strelow, pastor of Peace Lutheran Church. “She only expressed that she wasn’t happy with the way things were at home, and she wanted to make a change.”

The parents, Bobby and Judith Young, were charged with felony possession of cocaine. They pleaded not guilty to the charge and requested admission to a drug counseling program.

“As concerned Christians, we uphold [the Young family] in prayer,” Strelow said, “and we trust that they will be able to iron out their problems as a family unit.” Bobby and Judith Young were reunited with their daughter after being released from police custody, he said, adding that Deanna Young “has been back with the [church] youth group.”

FAMILY PLANNING

Contraceptives at School

The number of school-based health clinics that provide family-planning services has risen from 12 in 1980 to 61 today, according to the Center for Population Options, a group that seeks to prevent unwanted pregnancies among teenagers.

At least 17 school-based clinics dispense contraceptives, and 32 others provide prescriptions for birth-control pills or devices. Clinic officials say most of the services they provide involve first aid, physical examinations for school athletes, laboratory tests, immunizations, and drug-abuse counseling. But they say family-planning services constitute an integral part of their work.

“We offer comprehensive health care, but our bottom line is that we want to address the crisis of adolescent pregnancy,” said Geraldine Johnson, supervisor of two school-based clinics in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

In Chicago, critics have made known their opposition to the clinic at DuSable High School, including organizing pickets at the school (CT, March 7, 1986, p. 42). In New York City, where the state funds nine school-based clinics, two school board members have spoken out against the practice of dispensing contraceptives to students.

U.S. Secretary of Education William Bennett also opposes the practice. “This is not what school is for,” he said. “… [Dispensing contraceptives] tends to legitimate the very behavior whose natural consequences it intends to discourage.”

Otis Bowen, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said every day nearly 3,000 teenage girls become pregnant. Of those, he said, more than half will give birth, 40 percent will obtain abortions, and the rest will have miscarriages.

TELEVISION

Links to Teen Suicides

Two studies published in The New England Journal of Medicine indicate there may be a link between televised accounts of suicide and a temporary increase in the number of teenagers who take their own lives.

One study found that the number of teenagers committing suicide increased by about 7 percent in the seven days after each of 38 nationally televised news reports about suicide. A second study examined the number of New York-area teen suicides in the weeks surrounding the broadcast of four made-for-television movies on suicide. Teenage suicide rates climbed during the two weeks following the broadcast of three of the four movies. If the New York-area pattern held true across the country, more than 80 suicides could be linked to the televised movies.

Television network spokesmen questioned the methods used in the studies. George Schweitzer, of the CBS Broadcast Group, said the second study was unable to measure “the tremendous positive effects these movies had” in generating awareness of the suicide problem and in prompting suicidal youths to seek help. A spokesman for NBC said neither study demonstrated a cause-and-effect relationship between television programs and suicide rates.

The number of teenagers who commit suicide has tripled since 1950, making it the number-two killer, second only to accidents, of Americans 15 to 19 years old. Some 1,700 youths in that age group take their lives every year.

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

Elected: Allan Boesak, a leading opponent of South Africa’s system of apartheid, as head of that country’s mixed-race Reformed Church. Boesak, 39, won the election over the conservative incumbent, Isaac Mentor.

Lionel R. Louw, a black South African clergyman and lecturer of social work at the University of Cape Town, as the next moderator of the World Vision International Council. The 97-member council determines the objectives and directions for the international Christian humanitarian agency. World Vision’s international president, Tom Houston, said Louw’s election “reflects our commitment to the post-apartheid era in South Africa.…”

Ordered: By a federal judge, a halt to public prayers at the beginning of athletic events at Douglas County (Ga.) High School. William Jager argued that the rights of his son, a member of the school’s marching band, were violated because he was forced to hear prayers at the beginning of athletic events.

Passed: By the Texas legislature, a bill legalizing parimutuel gambling, pending a statewide referendum. If Texas voters approve the law in a statewide November 1987 referendum, individual counties will be able to hold referendums to establish legalized betting on horse races.

Korean Pentecostals target 10 million Japanese for revival.

Known as the “Land of the Morning Calm,” South Korea is anything but calm on Sunday morning. As the sun is making its entrance, thousands of Koreans are making their way to “megachurches” throughout the capital city of Seoul—500,000 to the Yoido Full Gospel Central Church alone—bringing some area transportation to a standstill.

It is a phenomenon that has been scrutinized by missiologists and church-growth experts alike, and one that an increasing number feel may soon characterize the whole of Asia.

An Open Door?

Leading this optimistic chorus are Pentecostals, and for good reason. It is their churches that are bursting at the seams not only in South Korea, but in such distant lands as Malaysia, Thailand, and Sri Lanka as well. Empowered with Holy Spirit teaching and emboldened by heavy doses of “signs and wonders,” Assemblies of God, Full Gospel, and Holiness pastors are confidently bracing themselves for what they expect will be a torrential, continentwide “latter rain.”

Addressing a recent multinational gathering of Pentecostal pastors eager to learn the methodology of his church-growth success, Yoido Full Gospel Central Church pastor Paul Yonggi Cho said it would be “no problem” for his congregation to grow to a million members by the end of the decade. He has challenged each of his church’s almost 50,000 cell groups (neighborhood Bible study and support groups) to lead six people to Christ during the next year. Some of Cho’s parishioners, however, have already surpassed that goal, with one woman reportedly leading more than 400 people to Christ in the last year alone. Comments Cho: “Korean Christians are soul-winning people.” “Cho is a phenomenon,” says Wesley Hurst, Far East field director for the Assemblies of God division of foreign missions, “but within the framework of what God is doing in Asia. The continent has been preparing for this day, and its cities are ready for revival.”

Hammering home that point was evangelist Oral Roberts, a guest speaker at Cho’s church-growth conference. With a series of addresses reminiscent in style and substance of his early messages as a youthful Oklahoma evangelist, Roberts, who was introduced as Cho’s “spiritual father,” exhorted his listeners to call down the powers of heaven and turn the Devil on his heel. “The door to Asia that was closed to the apostle Paul,” Roberts said, “is now open.”

Target Japan

For Cho, who has seen his Seoul congregation give birth to eight satellite churches, each with a membership in the thousands, the nation of Japan will pose a critical test of that openness, and of his own style of “power evangelism.” With a population that is less than 1 percent Christian (about 200,000 Christians in a country of more than 120 million), Japan is “the toughest nut to crack,” Hurst says. Cho has set a goal of 10 million Japanese Christians. And to underscore the seriousness of that commitment, he began his 1986 church-growth conference in Japan’s industrial capital of Osaka. “Cho understands he can never impact Japan like Japanese pastors can impact Japan,” Hurst says. Still, Cho was instrumental in starting a Japanese church that now has 5,000 members.

More than 500 Japanese pastors attended the conference, a number made doubly impressive by the fact that prejudicial hatred between Japanese and Koreans runs high. The pastors heard Cho, Roberts, and others from nations as disparate as Norway and Australia discuss their “power encounters” with God, leading hundreds, and more often than not, thousands, to Christ.

Signs and wonders, usually in the form of healings, are an expected prerequisite to revival and therefore crucial to the Pentecostal “game plan” for Asia. Not surprisingly, then, miracles were presented as everyday possibilities for those baptized in the Spirit and confident of his goodness and power.

“To be sure,” commented one theologian on the controversial nature of this approach, “more theological substance is needed. But God is here in spite of the imperfections.”

Added Hurst: “Such an emphasis may not give you a complete understanding of the faith. But it is enough to move the curious listener to a place where he or she seeks that fuller understanding.”

Indeed, that message seemed to underscore events at the conference’s closing session, an evangelistic crusade in Osaka’s Festival Hall. In what some described later as a logical culmination of all the praise and power that had keynoted the previous two days of meetings, more than 300 Japanese rushed the stage and surrounded Roberts following his altar call and prayers for healing.

“A demonstration of God’s power had to happen!” Hurst said after the meeting. “I don’t know of any meeting here in Japan where there was such an overwhelming response to an invitation [to trust Christ].”

Whether this evangelistic approach, with its focus on supernatural healings and speaking in tongues, can move the staid Japanese away from their spiritual lethargy remains to be seen. But it is clear that Asian Pentecostals, and most notably their leader, Paul Yonggi Cho, think it will. And they are eager to reap a spiritual harvest.

Says Cho confidently: “Japan is on the brink of revival.”

By Harold B. Smith in Osaka, Japan.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY/November 7, 1986

‘Lone Ranger’ group keeps score on Congress while it battles rumors of Unification Church ties.

A fade-out by some Religious Right groups in Washington before the November elections has left a gap being filled by Christian Voice, a group with alleged ties to the Unification Church. Christian Voice now appears to have inherited the tasks of grassroots organizing and political persuasion pioneered by such groups as Pat Robertson’s Freedom Council, Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, and Tim LaHaye’s American Coalition for Traditional Values (ACTV)—groups that have for one reason or another disbanded or shifted focus in the last few months.

Christian Voice is best known for distributing report cards on candidates. In the month before the November 4 elections, it distributed millions of full-color magazines, called the Candidates Biblical Scoreboard, rating nearly 3,000 candidates for state and national office.

Few recognized Christian leaders endorse the group or cooperate with it. But an aggressive effort by Christian Voice to attract media coverage has succeeded, bolstering the group’s claim to speak for 45 million evangelical Christians. Media quotes, in turn, are sprinkled throughout Christian Voice fund-raising tools to garner financial support.

The director of the National Association of Evangelicals’ (NAE) Washington office, Robert P. Dugan, Jr., has expressed concern about the group, saying, “Christian Voice has succeeded in convincing some gullible media people that it speaks for all evangelicals. That is not the case. Christian Voice is not constructed to be a representative organization, and its political positions may well be determined by a handful of activists meeting over lunch. They are accountable to no one but themselves.”

Christian Voice employs 17 field directors who monitor politics in two dozen states and organize churchgoers into what they say will become a potent voting bloc. Through those contacts, between 10 and 20 million report cards on individual candidates were distributed this fall.

In Washington, Christian Voice is known for its “Lone Ranger” style of operating, and some political consultants are warning candidates for office to keep their distance.

What Is Christian Voice?

In 1976 Christian Voice was chartered in California under the name Citizens United. Its purposes were to promote anticrime legislation and community awareness. In August 1978, the group changed its name to American Christians United, and in October 1978 it became Christian Voice, Inc. In 1981 the group’s purpose was changed to the following: “To educate the public on Christian moral issues … [and] to educate religious leaders and the laity on the principles of ethical and moral stewardship and responsibilities.”

On the basis of its mailing list of 350,000, including 50,000 ministers, Christian Voice presents itself as the premier Christian political organization in Washington. Gary Jarmin, the group’s lobbyist and political consultant, says membership is built from direct-mail recruitment, television fund raisers, and grassroots organizing.

“We have no membership criteria,” Jarmin said. “There are no minimum contributions or dues. Our membership is based on the number of people who give to the organization, whether it’s $5 or $5,000.”

Christian Voice’s publication, Candidates Biblical Scoreboard, identifies 19 “family-moral-freedom” issues that it uses to rate members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. The magazine describes itself as “nonpartisan and nonsectarian,” yet it presents political issues using the terminology of far Right rhetoric. For example, the Scoreboard describes support for President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)—also called Star Wars—as a “pro-biblical” position, saying “letters to the editor, generated in Russia, are appearing in American newspapers protesting ‘Star Wars.’”

Capitol Hill Presence

Literature distributed by Christian Voice calls the organization “the nation’s largest Christian conservative religious lobby.” But according to the clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the organization has no registered lobbyists. Groups planning to influence legislation through direct contact with elected officials are required to file with the Office of Records and Registration in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Jarmin, who lobbies for Christian Voice on a part-time consulting basis, registered in 1980. But because the Office of Records and Registration has not received a report from him since 1981, he is considered inactive, according to Mimi Engler, of the House of Representatives clerk’s office.

When asked why he is no longer a registered lobbyist, Jarmin said, “We represent a lot of different groups, and to me [registration] is just an enormous waste of paperwork. I believe, quite frankly, that the lobby laws are unconstitutional.”

Not all Washington lobbyists file with the House of Representatives, especially if their main purpose is to alert a constituency to an issue they consider important in order to mobilize a telephone or letter-writing campaign to Congress. This is the way Christian Voice has operated recently, in addition to distributing report cards and its Candidates Biblical Scoreboard. In the past several years, however, according to Christian Voice chairman and president Robert Grant, the organization has done a substantial amount of face-to-face lobbying on issues such as school prayer.

The organization’s practice of lobbying without being registered has drawn criticism from other Washington lobbying experts. “They need to play by the rules or they will give all of us a bad name,” said Paul Weyrich, founder and president of the conservative Coalitions for America.

A Moon Connection?

Conservatives in Washington are troubled by Jarmin’s outspokenness and by rumors of continuing ties between Christian Voice and the Unification Church and its related organizations. From 1967 to 1973, Jarmin was an active member and leader in the Unification Church. Today, he says he is not active in any church, adding that he attends a nondenominational “home church.”

In April and July, Jarmin spoke at political conferences sponsored by CAUSA USA, a political organization of Sun Myung Moon’s that recruits the support of Christian pastors in its fight against communism. “I see CAUSA and the [Unification Church-owned Washington] Times as basically co-belligerents in the battle,” Jarmin said. Asked his opinion of Moon, Jarmin said, “I don’t think I even want to comment on that. That’s a question I am quite frankly getting tired of answering. I don’t think it’s relevant, and I’d rather not even get into it.”

Reflecting concerns shared by many Washington political observers, the NAE’s Dugan says, “I find it revealing that Gary shows anger when he is questioned about Rev. Moon. A Washington activist said Jarmin assured him that ‘Moon is a prophet of God.’ In my experience, ex-cult members who become evangelicals are vocal in denouncing their cults’ heresies. Jarmin’s typical Washington ‘no comment’ is not good enough, especially when one understands the grandiose and blasphemous messianic claims of Sun Myung Moon.”

Jarmin left Christian Voice in 1984 to work for Tim LaHaye’s American Coalition for Traditional Values. But when Grant reorganized Christian Voice earlier this year, he hired Jarmin on a consultant basis, knowing the baggage he brought with him. “I’m willing to pay the price,” Grant said of suspicions about Jarmin’s Unification Church ties and his isolation from other groups. “I think Gary is probably the most gifted and knowledgeable lobbyist in this town who understands the issues and knows the players and how the town operates.”

Additional links between Christian Voice and Moon’s organizations are apparent. Grant, like Jarmin, has spoken at CAUSA meetings. As recently as last March, he addressed a two-day seminar in California which was cosponsored by CAUSA and the Washington-based Coalition for Religious Freedom. CAUSA provides pastors with all-expense-paid trips to conferences to present its philosophy of “Godism,” a counterproposal to communism based on Moon’s teachings (CT, June 14, 1985, p. 55).

Grant, a graduate of Wheaton College (Ill.) and Fuller Theological Seminary, is chairman of the executive committee of the Coalition for Religious Freedom, a group that opposed Moon’s 1985 conviction and imprisonment for tax evasion. Grant said the coalition “is funded by the Unification Church, and that doesn’t bother me a bit. The Unification Church puts money into an organization because they like what it is doing. They are not going to dictate what that organization does, because they believe in the ideal of religious freedom.”

At the same time, Grant insists, “I certainly don’t agree with the theology of the Unification Church.” He says his sympathies for Moon are based instead on constitutional guarantees of free religious exercise.

Christian Voice faces an uphill battle for credibility and influence. Disclaimers on the group’s report cards state that a candidate’s score is not meant to be a reflection of his or her personal faith or morality. But that message may be missed by voters.

In 1984, U.S. Sen. Mark O. Hatfield (R-Oreg.) received a 20 percent rating from Christian Voice. Known for his outspoken Christian witness in the capital, Hatfield received a copy of the report card from an irate Oregonian. A note was scrawled across the front: “As a Christian, you need to repent.… Study this and take notice.”

Incidents such as this make it likely that other Christians involved in politics will keep their distance from Christian Voice. Said Weyrich, “I have a theory that they are conservative first and Christian incidentally, as opposed to other groups that are Christian first and conservative incidentally.” Until Christian Voice proves otherwise, Christians need to weigh that theory carefully before they support the organization that says it speaks for them.

By Beth Spring.

Classic and contemporary excerpts

God called Vance Havner home on August 12. He was one of our era’s most quotable pulpiteers, and this edition of Reflections is dedicated to his memory.

A More Dangerous Stroll

We’re so smart in America we can walk on the moon, but it’s not safe to walk in the park.

The Peril Of Lesser Goals

I asked a preacher, “How are you getting along?”

He said, “We are living in idolatry—just sitting around admiring our new church. We have arrived; we have it made—no more worlds to conquer.”

What ought to be a milestone has become a millstone. We have run out of goals.

Separatists?

A church had a sign in front: JESUS ONLY. One night a storm blew out the first three letters and left us ONLY. Too many churches have come to that.

A Peaceful Existence

My wife and I were taking a bus trip through the mountains, and the bus broke down right in front of a hillbilly grocery store. The woman there apparently had never been anywhere else much.

My wife said, “I don’t believe she knows what’s going on in the world outside.”

I said, “Well, don’t tell her. I wouldn’t want the poor soul to know. Let her die in peace.”

Figuring Out Providence

I get a little weary of these dear souls who have all the dealing and doing of Providence catalogued and correlated and figured out and can give you glib little answers to your heartache. They haven’t been far. God just doesn’t operate on our time table. And some of His operations don’t add up on our computers.

The little boy who didn’t understand why God put so many vitamins in spinach and didn’t put more of them in ice cream had a pretty good idea that it just doesn’t work out like you’d think.

The Red Tide

If America is not buried by Red Russians from without, we may be smothered by Red Tape from within.

The Hope Of Dying

George Palmer said before he died, “I’m homesick for heaven.” It’s the hope of dying that has kept me alive this long.

A Heavenly Shakeup

Sometimes your medicine bottle has on it, “Shake well before using.” That is what God has to do with some of His people. He has to shake them well before they are ever usable. Paul wrote to Timothy, “Stir up the gift of God, which is in thee.”

Whose Song?

One frequently meets passersby with music emanating from transistor radios on their persons. Lacking music in our hearts, we carry it in our pockets!

Search Committees

Knowing God is not a big item in the preparation of a lot of preachers over America today because, just between you and me, pulpit committees are not asking, “Does this prospective pastor know God?” They are asking, “Can he raise the budget?”

Alive Or Dead?

(God) wants our bodies as living sacrifices, not corpses.

Halfway Equals Lukewarm

A “halfway Christian” works both sides of the street. He is religious because it helps him in business and gives him a self-righteous satisfaction. But he has no intention of making Jesus Lord of his life. Yet our Lord said He would rather a man be cold, utterly without profession to be Christian, rather than medium, lukewarm, “moderate.”

Home Before Dark

When I started out as a boy preaching, Father went along. Then when I got old enough to go by myself, he’d meet me at the little railroad station in Newton, North Carolina. I can see him standing there by that old Ford roadster, in that old blue serge suit that hadn’t been pressed since the day he bought it.

When I’d go up to him, the first thing he’d ask me would be, “How did you get along?”

It’s been a long time, and one of these days when my train rounds into Grand Central Station in glory, I think he’ll be there—not in the old blue serge suit, but in the robes of glory. I wouldn’t be surprised if the first thing he’d say would be, “How did you get along?”

I think I’ll say, “Pretty well, and I owe a lot to you for it.” Then I think I’d say, “You remember back in the country when I was a little boy, no matter where I was in the afternoon I was supposed to be back by sundown. It’s been a long trip, Dad, but here I am by the grace of God, home before dark.”

All excerpts taken with permission from The Vance Havner Quote Book, compiled by Dennis J. Hester (Baker, 1986), and On This Rock I Stand (Baker, 1986; originally published under the title Vance Havner: Just a Preacher, © 1981 by Vance Havner).

God’s Choice: The Total World of a Fundamentalist Christian School, by Alan Peshkin (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1986, 349 pp.; $24.95, cloth). Reviewed by Paul F. Parsons, R. M. Seaton Associate Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications, Kansas State University, and author of the forthcoming book Inside America’s Christian Schools.

More than one million schoolchildren in the United States attend Christian schools—by far the fastest-growing segment in public or private education today. Yet few studies have examined this educational phenomenon.

Alan Peshkin, a professor of education at the University of Illinois, spent 18 months inside a fundamentalist Christian school that he calls “Bethany Baptist Academy.” Bethany, though, is more than a school; it is the educational arm of a way of life. Students do not don the robes of spirituality during school hours, only to shed them when the bell rings. They live in an adolescent culture that bans rock music, dancing, smoking, movie going, and dating non-Christians. It is a world where God directly intervenes in both the magnificent and the mundane affairs of men. Bethany serves as part of the triad of home, church, and school. They all have the same norms, and these norms become the students’ norms.

An Outside Observer

Peshkin became an observer and a participant in Bethany’s world by living in the home of church members, attending all church services, and by interviewing students, parents, and educators at length. His intimate research has fashioned a rich and sensitive account of a single fundamentalist school.

What adds drama to this story is that Peshkin is Jewish. He weaves within this chronicle of a Christian school his own realization of being an outsider to the faith. He became the focus of repeated proselytizing efforts, especially by teachers. But he left as he had come, saying, “We are worlds apart, Bethany and I. I say this neither sadly nor defiantly. It’s just the way things are. If they are right—and I do not think they are—then I am forever doomed.” Yet amid such theological differences, Peshkin writes with true affection for the people of Bethany.

Peshkin found Bethany to be a good school in conventional terms, using such criteria as standardized test scores, the assigning of homework, an orderly school climate conducive to learning, and expectations of high student achievement. He said Bethany’s students are “fun-loving, enthusiastic, warm and friendly” and are not, as Christian school critics sometimes suggest, “mindless youth, frozen into routines, beliefs and behavior patterns that control them as though they were machines.” Peshkin said the teachers exemplify hard work and caring. “They do indeed teach as though teaching were their calling,” he writes. “We public school parents rejoice when our children encounter such teachers. To think what it [would] be like to have an entire school of such teachers and administrators!”

Also reviewed in this section:

A Tale of Two Churches: Can Protestants and Catholics Get Together?by George Carey

A Closer Look at Catholicism: A Guide for Protestants,by Bob Moran, CSP

Francis Schaeffer: Portraits of the Man and His Work,edited by Lane Dennis

Reflections on Francis Schaeffer,edited by Ronald Ruegsegger

Pro-Life/Pro-Peace: Life-Affirming Alternatives to Abortion, War, Mercy Killing, and the Death Penalty,by Lowell O. Erdahl

The Absolute Truth

But their absolute certainty is too much for Peshkin. Impressed with Bethany’s commitment to the faith, he balks at their claim of unequivocally knowing Truth. This absolutism allowed Bethany’s teachers to provide answers when public school teachers would shrug with uncertainty. For example: “Why don’t the parts of an atom fly apart? Because God holds all things together.”

Bethany does not foster a Jeffersonian marketplace of ideas. At Bethany, education is acquiring a known Truth, not searching for it. Education is an intellectual transfer rather than an intellectual quest. Choice, doubt, suspended judgment, and dissent are excluded from Bethany’s pedagogical arsenal. This is where Peshkin parts ways with Bethany’s world. “I do not see students learning that dissent and compromise are critical attributes of healthy democracies, rather than unwelcome guests in the house of orthodoxy,” he writes.

Yet Peshkin concludes that fundamentalist schools serve well the ends of the community they serve, even though they contribute to a paradox of pluralism. After all, to the extent that these schools exist and prosper, they testify to the well-being of our pluralistic society. But since their monolithic beliefs preclude their support of pluralism, they undermine the principle that guarantees their very existence. “Espousing pluralism is not functional to the cause of their monolithic Truth,” Peshkin says. “Rather than tussle with the dilemmas produced by the acceptance of both pluralism and absolute, universal truth, they leave the principle of pluralism as an abstraction, one that is literally overwhelmed by their Truth and its ramifications.”

A Russian In The Pentagon

Some may conveniently dismiss Peshkin’s conclusions because he is Jewish, as did one principal who refused Peshkin admittance to his school by saying, “You’re like a Russian who says he wants to attend meetings at the Pentagon—just to learn.… No matter how good a person you are, you will misrepresent my school because you don’t have the Holy Spirit in you. First become a child of the King, and then you can pursue your study of Christian schools.”

Based on my visits to Christian schools in 60 cities, I find Peshkin’s observations to be remarkably representative of the segment of Christian schools in this nation that operate, like Bethany, as islands of absolutism. Many other Christian schools approach the development of the intellect with less absolutism. In merging man’s knowledge with God’s wisdom, they seek to develop thoughtful persons who will be able to seek their own revelation from God. Peshkin’s book, then, does not represent all—or even most—Christian schools. But he makes reasoned observations about the role of education in our society and offers an intriguing outsider’s perspective of not just a single fundamentalist school, but of the philosophy behind it as well.

A Tale of Two Churches: Can Protestants and Catholics Get Together? by George Carey (InterVarsity Press, 1985, 172 pp.; $5.95, softcover). Reviewed by David Neff.

Several years ago, two Roman Catholics, two Episcopalians, two Lutherans, two Plymouth Brethren, and one Presbyterian gathered in my living room to discuss the Lord’s Supper. The occasion was the publication of Communion: The Meal that Unites? by Harold Shaw publishers—an unlikely book coauthored by a British Baptist and an Anglican.

The discussion of this sensitive topic went well for about an hour. Then we reached an impasse. One of the Catholics, a learned classics scholar, asserted that since Vatican II much of his church had adopted a view of the Mass that would be more acceptable to Protestants. He was challenged by a Lutheran, who held an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in theology and humanities. No official voice of the Roman church had ever repudiated transubstantiation and the sacrificial character of the Mass, he objected, and until such an official repudiation was made, he would refuse to believe anything had changed.

The Catholic explained that an institution like the Roman church never repudiates a previous declaration. When there is a change of mind, he said, it merely “reinterprets” older teachings. It says “What we really meant was …”

But our Lutheran friend was obdurate. The discussion was over.

Changes

George Carey, principal of Trinity Theological College in England, urges his fellow Protestants to take to heart what the adamant Lutheran refused to recognize. In his preface to A Tale of Two Churches, he writes: “It is especially important that Protestants learn to recognize that real changes can take place in Roman Catholic theology without there ever being any official repudiation of past positions. It is simply part of the fabric of Roman Catholic theology to reinterpret the faith as time goes by, laying stress in new areas and de-emphasizing old ideas without announcing the changes. This is a very un-Protestant thing to do, but Protestants are bound to misunderstand current Roman Catholic thinking if they do not recognize this phenomenon.”

Carey appears to have a genuine hope that “the two great Western church traditions may one day meet in spirit and in truth.” One source of this hope is that Rome appears to have realized that it is no longer “the center of Christendom which would in time conquer the world.” Secular governments, resurgent world religions, and widespread atheism put Roman Catholics in the minority position Protestants have learned to live with. In pluralistic societies, the Church of Rome can no longer flex its muscle to get its way. The pope must now lead by moral influence rather than imperial fiat, and the hierarchy must listen to the voice of the people. The result is an openness to change and a willingness to join hands with Christians of other traditions in what J. I. Packer calls “the cobelligerence of Catholics and Protestants fighting together for the basics of the creed” in his foreword to this book.

Serious Differences

Carey does not downplay the serious doctrinal differences that still exist between Roman Catholics and Protestants: Mary and the saints, faith and works, tradition and biblical authority, the church and sacraments. But while pointing to actual differences, he also demolishes some old myths that Catholics and Protestants cling to.

Carey objectively sets forth in what ways each Protestant tenet and Catholic dogma is both a strength and a weakness. For example, Protestants who change churches and denominations at the slightest provocation can learn from Catholics who are bound in loyalty and obedience to their church. Although Protestants may never adopt many Catholics’ abject obedience to the will of the church, they certainly can learn to take their church more seriously than they do. And while Roman Catholics may never come to share Protestants’ radical reliance on personal faith and trust, they certainly can benefit from the revitalizing effect a personal faith can have on corporate faith and worship.

Carey is not so fond of ecumenical efforts toward organic church union as he is of the informal talks and experiences of renewal that lead to mutual understanding. The charismatic renewal is, in his opinion, the only renewal movement that has successfully built bridges between islands of doctrinal isolation.

Hierarchy Of Truth

Of course, theological dialogue must follow renewal. And Carey suggests that Vatican II’s Decree on Ecumenism points the way for fruitful discussions. “The decree suggested that closer agreement among Christians is possible if we think in terms of a hierarchy of truths.”

Carey suggests six central points of unity that should be near the top of this hierarchy of truth, items on which Protestants and Catholics should be able to agree quickly.

Perhaps, if Carey’s advice and example were followed, we could see more of “the cobelligerence of Catholics and Protestants fighting together for the basics of the creed” and the preservation of what remains of an agreed moral standard in our society.

The Priest’S Tale

A Closer Look at Catholicism: A Guide for Protestants, by Bob Moran, CSP (Word, 1986, 259 pp.; $12.95, hardcover). Reviewed by David Neff.

Father Bob Moran and the Irish-American Shanahan family were obviously uncomfortable and out of place standing around and sipping fruit punch at the alcohol-free, dance-free (and seemingly fun-free) reception after Terry Shanahan’s evangelical Protestant wedding.

Having been evangelized by an evangelical campus fellowship at MIT, Terry had met the love of his life at the local Good News bookstore. Terry stopped attending Catholic services and became, in effect, an ex-Catholic.

Of course, Father Moran, his former Catholic chaplain, came to Terry’s wedding; and the curiosity that was piqued there grew into Moran’s new book, A Closer Look at Catholicism: A Guide for Protestants. Moran’s own Catholicism seemed to him “a richly appointed banquet with lots of courses and plenty of substantial food,” whereas the evangelicalism of Terry and his friends “seemed like a quick lunch at a drive-in. It nourished at a basic level for a while, but appeared to lack depth, breadth, and an awareness of history.”

However, Moran did not dismiss evangelicalism out of hand. When he felt the need for a sabbatical, he decided to study the strange faith firsthand and enrolled, with the permission of his order, in Wheaton College for the 1983–84 school year.

Cosmetic Surgery

As a result of the experience of that sabbatical year, Moran has attempted to explain the Catholic faith and capture the Catholic spirit in a way that will be understood and appreciated by evangelicals.

For the most part, Moran has succeeded in giving his heritage an attractive profile. Like a skillful plastic surgeon, he gives Catholicism a facelift, smoothing its wrinkles and whittling away at its Roman nose. Indeed, there are many points in this volume when the Protestant reader will wonder why the great Reformation divide ever happened. By and large, Moran treats Protestant-Catholic differences as though they are merely stressing different aspects of the same truth.

Moran has read his evangelical sources carefully. He knows how to quote and whom to quote to support his Catholic perspective on Christian truth. What evangelical will dare to quarrel with what John R. W. Stott has to say about conversion? And who will quibble with A. W. Tozer’s views on spirituality or with what Dawson Trotman taught about the need to cooperate with the Holy Spirit?

Many readers will, however, choke on his comparison of the holy relics of Brother André enshrined in Montreal’s Oratory of Saint Joseph with the historical artifacts of evangelism on display at Wheaton’s Billy Graham Center Museum. (But perhaps the comparison may have more value than we are eager to admit.) And his illustration of a Native American Christian’s communications with her ancestors and other “spirit friends” will only confirm the fears of many Protestants concerning prayers to the saints. Father Moran has studied the evangelical language, but his accent betrays his origins.

Despite its layer of cosmetics, A Closer Look at Catholicism is valuable for Protestant readers who want to understand the spiritual impulses of their Catholic neighbors. The earthy celebration, the sense of historic continuity and tradition, the worship in smell and taste (as well as spirit and truth)—all are communicated with clarity and charity by one who has a deep fondness for his newfound evangelical friends.

The Judgment Of Francis Schaeffer

Francis Schaeffer: Portraits of the Man and His Work, edited by Lane T. Dennis (Crossway, 1986, 237 pp.; $7.95, softcover), and Reflections on Francis Schaeffer, edited by Ronald W. Ruegsegger (Zondervan, 1986, 320 pp.; $11.95, softcover). Reviewed by Douglas Groothuis, research associate for Probe Ministries, and author of Unmasking the New Age (IVP).

Francis Schaeffer was unique. At once a pastor, evangelist, and apologist, he intellectually and ethically invigorated modern evangelicalism as few others have. His mission “to speak historical Christianity into the twentieth century” was neither engineered nor executed from the academy but rather forged in the heat of evangelistic encounters.

Yet in his quest to give “honest answers to honest questions,” Schaeffer critiqued modern culture in bold and broad strokes, touching disciplines as diverse as philosophy, theology, art, history, and politics. Some hailed him as a brilliant thinker; others claimed to spot simplifications and distortions. Now there are two new books to aid our understanding of Francis Schaeffer by focusing on specific aspects of his work.

Lane Dennis’s Francis Schaeffer: Portraits of the Man and His Work is essentially a tribute, culling essays from academics and personal admirers, who, while not afraid to correct Schaeffer at times, unite in their positive evaluations. Portraits is divided into two parts. “Knowing the Truth” treats Schaeffer’s contribution to the humanities; and “The Practice of Truth” contains appreciative essays by those touched personally by Schaeffer.

Ronald Ruegsegger’s Reflections on Francis Schaeffer is more critical and scholarly. After a particularly balanced and winsome preface by J. I. Packer, Ruegsegger provides an expository essay on “Schaeffer’s System of Thought,” followed by three sections of essays: “Schaeffer’s Conceptual Framework,” “Schaeffer’s Analysis of the Disciplines,” and “Schaeffer’s Critique of Culture.”

Although Dennis defends Schaeffer against scholarly criticisms of his views of the Reformation, Kierkegaard, and the Christian influence on America’s Founding Fathers, his discussion does not fully meet the challenges posed by some essays in Ruegsegger’s Reflections (which was published second). Nevertheless, Dennis is able to defuse some criticisms, especially where critics have caricatured Schaeffer’s work.

Prophetic Generalist

The real issue raised is the value of the generalist’s role versus that of the specialist. Portraits paints a picture of a daring and prophetic generalist who filled a crying need for evangelical apologetic engagement with culture. Ronald Nash, for instance, appreciates Schaeffer the generalist who awakened many culturally ignorant Christians—even though he finds fault with Schaeffer’s indictment of Aquinas as a precursor of secularism and wonders why Schaeffer never treated Nietzsche as modernity’s model anti-Christian.

On the other hand, the contributors to Reflections, all academic specialists, are less forgiving of scholarly inadequacies—although they sometimes appreciate Schaeffer the generalist. The generally more scholarly assessments of Reflections, while not always definitive, warn us not to take his work as the last word.

Yet Schaeffer’s word was an important word, says Denver Seminary theologian Gordon Lewis in Reflections. In his essay “Schaeffer’s Apologetic Method,” he argues that Schaeffer was neither presuppositionalist (contra Clark Pinnock’s interpretation in a later chapter) nor evidentialist, but verificationist (à la E.J. Carnell). Lewis finds his method basically sound (if somewhat imprecisely presented) and defends Schaeffer against what he takes as some unfair criticism. The essay contributes to the issue of apologetic method in general as well as Schaeffer’s in particular.

Other essays in Reflections tend to be less positive—especially Harold Best’s critique of Schaeffer on art and music, Richard Pierard’s treatment of Schaeffer on history, and Ronald Wells’s analysis of Schaeffer on America. But by and large these essays take a kind tone and further challenge our understanding of the issues.

Reflections’ concluding chapter, “Schaeffer on Evangelicalism,” shows a clear understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of Schaeffer’s role. Here James Hurley of Reformed Theological Seminary notes the characteristics of Schaeffer’s rhetorical style: dramatic presentations of issues, real-life illustrations, and a call to choose between polar alternatives. Says Hurley, “Schaeffer’s broad brush and lack of scholarly detail are appropriate to his role. He sounded a call to engagement.”

Integrity, Inspiration, Instinct

Taken together, these two books highlight several things about Schaeffer.

First, Schaeffer’s personal ministry was a model of integrity and compassion. His writing grew out of his concern to minister to people, not to impress academics.

Second, Schaeffer inspired scores of young evangelicals to take their culture seriously and to apply a Christian world view to all of life. But although inspiring, he is usually not the best authority. (Schaeffer himself never claimed to be an academic specialist.) His works should be consulted, not canonized. It is unfortunate that he was sometimes promoted beyond his capacities.

Third, Schaeffer possessed sound theological instincts. His warnings about theological liberalism, the importance of biblical inerrancy, the poverty of secular thought, the need to affirm the sanctity of human life, and the threat of totalitarianism were “words in season.” For this reason, Harold O. J. Brown in Portraits rightly applauds Schaeffer as a pathbreaker not afraid to stand alone and take decisive action.

Fourth, we need prophetic generalists such as Francis Schaeffer in an age of fragmented knowledge and overspecialization. The strength of the specialist is exacting scholarship; the weakness is tunnel vision and academic isolation. The strength of the generalist is a comprehensive vision and broad appeal; the hazard is oversimplification and distortion. Yet scholars and generalists need each other.

Schaeffer would not have appreciated sustained controversy about the merits of his contributions; he rather yearned to see his Lord honored in every area of life. Whatever our judgment on Schaeffer may be, I believe God’s word will be, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

When Exceptions Become The Rule

Pro-Life/Pro-Peace: Life-Affirming Alternatives to Abortion, War, Mercy Killing, and the Death Penalty, by Lowell O. Erdahl (Augsburg, 1986, 160 pp.; $8.95. paper). Reviewed by Michael J. Gorman, Ph.D. candidate at Princeton Theological Seminary and author of Abortion and the Early Church (IVP).

With this significant book, Erdahl, bishop of the Southeastern Minnesota district of the American Lutheran Church, joins the growing number of Christians who lament the radical split between the peace and prolife movements. Erdahl calls for a consistent, though not absolute, sanctity-of-life ethic.

Erdahl first outlines his fundamental contentions in three brief chapters: (1) the “pro-life principle” of reverence for and protection of human life is basic to human existence and Christian faith; (2) certain exceptional circ*mstances justify taking life rather than giving and enhancing it; but (3) abortion, war, euthanasia, and the death penalty (Erdahl’s four “institutions of death”) are practices in which killing has become (or could become) the rule rather than the exception. Tragically, not only the world, but even the church has often uncritically accepted the exception as the norm.

In the following four chapters, Erdahl deals with the “institutions of death” one by one. In each chapter he applies the prolife principle to the issue, discusses criteria for justifiable exceptions, and suggests life-affirming alternatives to the specific practice of death. A final chapter gives practical advice to the reader who wants to apply the prolife principle concretely and consistently, and two appendices contain discussion questions and a list of resources.

Institutionalizing Death

Erdahl’s position is not really new; the author places the fetus before “brain birth” (set at six-weeks’ gestation) as radically different from the status of the more developed fetus. Consequently (and unfortunately), he is less troubled by early than by late abortions. But one is tempted to ask whether this position does not allow the exception to continue as the rule, since most abortions are already relatively early and may soon, with the advent of the “morning-after pill,” be extremely early.

Because Erdahl believes that the institutionalization of killing is the most grievous error, he is more lenient in his views on abortion and euthanasia than on war and capital punishment. But we must ask whether the fundamental sin is really killing as an institution or simply killing per se, the destruction of even one individual created by God and thus an act inconsistent with following Christ. If the latter, then perhaps this book will stimulate both author and reader toward a prolife position with even fewer—if any—exceptions.

Despite its problems, Erdahl’s work will encourage serious reflection, and it should be read by everyone concerned about issues of life and peace.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY TALKS TO Alan Peshkin

What did you admire most about Bethany?

It was a wonderful community, There was a nice feeling of belonging. The word nurturance came to me in 1972 when I was doing my first study of a rural community school. And nurturance is an important word for characterizing what a community is about.

We don’t have too much nurturance in our society, but there was nurturance aplenty at Bethany. You weren’t left alone to stew in your own lonely juices. One doesn’t have to be a believing fundamentalist to admire the good thing that they had going there.

Bethany students are not encouraged to question authority. Do public school students question authority too much?

Without respect for authority, you may be inviting trouble in your social order. But there is danger in either extreme. Public school kids go too far in questioning authority. Bethany kids hardly begin to go anywhere. They have internalized a lesson that authorities have prerogatives that should be honored.

There are important things that one doesn’t learn when one esteems authority in the way the Bethany kids are taught. For example, intelligent doubt is an important asset in learning about any part of one’s world, whether it has to do with watching a television advertisem*nt or listening to a politician talk about his or her platform. One should not doubt everything one hears from an authority. But I didn’t hear the quality of intelligent doubt being nurtured at all at Bethany.

Do Bethany students gain more than they lose from this Christian school experience?

In no way would I want any relative of mine to be raised in such an environment. They educate, but the price is high.

However, I think that it’s not too high a price to pay given their beliefs. There should be institutions like Bethany. It would be inappropriate for a democratic society not to be comfortable—not just begrudgingly tolerant, but comfortable—with the fact that they deserve to have schools that are good places for their children.

Do you think that the graduates of Bethany will grow up to be productive, contributing members of society?

Yes. Among the lessons they learn are hard work, giving people their money’s worth, being fair, and being honest. Does the school do it? Were these kids this way when they came into this school? Possibly. But certainly the lessons in the school reinforce hard work, persistence, determination, honesty, reliability, punctuality—a lot of virtues.

Research shows relationships have more effect than doctrine

JOHN R. THROOP¹John Throop is associate rector of Christ Episcopal Church, Shaker Heights, Ohio. He is the author of Shape Up from the Inside Out (Tyndale House, 1986).

I can’t point to a particular moment when decided to leave the Roman Catholic church. No specific incident angered me; no key doctrine influenced me. But during my first year of college, became aware that I could no longer call the Roman Catholic church my home.

I do not regret leaving the Roman church, although the decision was tough on my family relationships. My home was shaped by the staunch Irish Roman Catholic faith of my mother and her forebears. My grandmother used to tell stories about her grandfather who suffered for his Catholic faith in nineteenth-century Ireland. “Your great-great-grandfather used to have to climb into the trees to pray,” she said. “He would have been put in prison for receiving his Communion.” We never told my grandmother that I had “left the church.” That would have hurt too much.

Friends And Relations

Not every Catholic who comes to a personal faith decides to leave the church. But research shows some interesting patterns surrounding both those who make a conscious decision to stay in and those who choose to leave the church.

According to Dean Hoge, a sociologist at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., relational rather than doctrinal reasons are behind many of the decisions. There is no clear statistical information on the number who leave the Roman church. But in a study he did for the Roman Catholic Bishops’ Commission on Evangelization (see “Which Way Did They Go?” p. 33), Hoge found that the great majority of those who join the Catholic church or leave it do so because of interfaith marriages.

Formerly, large numbers of converts to Catholicism came from the pool of non-Catholic spouses. “The number of converts to Roman Catholicism has exhibited a downward trend over the past twenty years,” says Hoge, showing that “people are making a variety of decisions … about how they handle interfaith marriages.”

Hoge found that, in addition to interfaith marriage, other relational factors influencing individuals to stay in or leave the church included the breakup of close personal relationships (marriage, romance, family), employment changes and new associates who are non-Catholic, and new friendships where the importance of the religious quest is shared.

Peter Wagner, professor of church growth at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, agrees with Hoge’s findings. His own research shows that the decision to leave or stay in the Roman Catholic church is based much more often on relational than on doctrinal bases. (Church-growth research shows that Protestants make these decisions in much the same ways.) Says Wagner, “One can see the relational factor so strongly in two ways. First are the many Roman Catholic families (or even entire parishes) that are ethnically or culturally rooted. The kinship ties to the social group are much more important to these people than specific doctrinal issues.

“Second are those Roman Catholics who are part of the American mainstream. Many of them are like those in Protestant denominations where there is diminishing denominational loyalty. So, when they move, they look first for a church that meets their needs.

“In both cases, the relational element for staying in the church or leaving it is the determining factor.”

The influence of new friendships is especially strong among those age 22 and under. For example, in my first year of college, I struck up a friendship with a young man who subsequently became my roommate. He shared his faith with me and invited me to read Scripture with him. As I read Scripture for the first time, the truth of the Word spoke deeply to me. But the growing friendship I had with my roommate helped the Word to be living and active—because he lived it out. Only later did I begin to assess doctrinal differences. I never had a friendship in the Roman Catholic church in which faith was a strong element. No one outside my family had ever shared his faith with me. Mine was a relational, not a doctrinal, crisis.

Committed Catholics

But not every Roman Catholic has had my experience. Others have known a community of faith in the Roman church and, after coming to Christ, decided to stay. Kevin Perrotta, a member of the interfaith Word of God Community in Ann Arbor, Michigan, insists that “the importance of personal faith and appropriation is genuinely part of the Roman Catholic tradition as well as the Protestant tradition. The great Catholic Reformers have always pointed to personal appropriation as a vital element of faith.” In the Roman church, then, as Perrotta sees it, faith is personal and relational.

A lifelong Catholic, Perrotta drifted away from his childhood faith during his college years. But he had a conversion experience influenced by deeply faithful Roman Catholics. “I found that they had a personal witness that I couldn’t deny—a love and peace in their hearts that were real. So I returned to the Lord from my agnosticism.” Like many in the late twentieth century, he sought a strong community where he could be at home with God and with himself. “I dropped in on the community just for a visit. I got there and found something more—I ran into the Lord himself.” Perrotta is committed to staying in the Roman church. “I have found the Lord here,” he says simply.

Many choose to stay in the Roman church because they have found God there. And many choose to stay precisely because the church is striving to become more relational and less authoritarian. It also seeks to communicate more effectively. Thus baby-boom Roman Catholics who have dropped out of the church are now returning.

The Roman Catholic laity has also increasingly become grounded in and knowledgeable about the Scriptures. Bert Ghezzi, a lifelong Catholic and editorial director at Strang Communications, a charismatic Christian publisher, highlights the Catholic hunger for the Word and the community: “Popular movements are bringing Catholics to personal commitment to Christ and to personal application of Scripture.”

The popular attention to Scripture and the expectation of better homilies from priests are evidence of a renewal in the Catholic church that encourages many to stay. The rapid increase in the number of home Bible studies, personal retreats, charismatic prayer groups, and parish renewal weekends all point to a thorough effort on the part of the clerical and lay leaders to help faith be more relational, relevant, and responsive to the needs of parishioners. In turn, the bonds of community are strengthened, the very thing that helps to retain Roman Catholics. As believers mature, however, doctrinal issues do have to be addressed.

Ghezzi, who studied Reformation historiography while earning his Ph.D. in European history, chose to remain in the Roman Catholic church after a profound charismatic experience and after dedicating his life to the Lord. “I was asked, ‘When are you going to leave the Roman Catholic church?’” Ghezzi recalls. “I had many invitations from the Pentecostals. I was shocked! It never occurred to me that I should leave. I wanted to help other Roman Catholics to share my experience and joy. I thought that what I was doing was completely compatible with what I had learned as a Catholic.”

Doctrinal Departures

Bartholomew F. Brewer, executive director of Mission to the Catholics, a San Diego—based evangelistic organization, sees the matter differently. A former Roman Catholic priest, Brewer was convinced by the Scriptures that he could not remain in the church. He left nearly 25 years ago and now speaks widely to conservative Protestant groups around the country on how to witness effectively to Roman Catholics. The purpose of his ministry is to “respectfully disturb Catholic people with the gospel.”

According to Brewer, a person who has had an authentic born-again experience has no choice but to leave the Roman church: “A Catholic, if he is to be true to his beliefs, finds that the bottom line is an implicit obedience to the pope, not to the Scriptures.” An evangelical convert cannot last long in the church. He would have to leave because of this conflict over authority—the authority of the church versus the authority of the Scriptures. “Anyway,” says Brewer, “the born-again believer may not be tolerated very long in the parish. He’s a threat.”

Brewer himself left the Roman Catholic church for doctrinal (not relational) reasons. “As I read the Scriptures, I started to question two major Catholic teachings,” he recalls, “mandatory celibacy for priests and auricular [private] confession. I began to see that these two issues had no warrant in Scripture.” Then, like Luther, he discovered the doctrine of justification by faith through grace. “That’s when I became a biblical Christian, when I was born again,” he says, “and when I left the Roman Catholic church.”

Although a major portion of those participating in Hoge’s study stated that they left because they were generally dissatisfied with the Catholic church or its teachings, the number who cited specific doctrines or practices was small (only 14% of those age 23 and over; a negligible portion of the younger group). Even here their quarrel was not theological but experiential, citing inadequate Bible study, lack of relevance, and boring sermons. Other factors cited included finding spiritual help or religious counsel elsewhere (17% of the younger group; 18% of the older group); and having a personal conversion experience that led them out (16% of the younger group; 13% of the older group).

Ghezzi has met few Catholics who seek to leave the church over doctrinal issues. “I want to know if a person has been influenced by mistaken, misinformed, or ignorant views of the Roman Catholic church,” he says, “especially if they’re ignorant of developments in the church since Vatican II. I want them to consider rationally what the church actually teaches. I want them to consider biblical and evangelical bases in the church.” If the person still chooses to leave, says Ghezzi, then “they have thought through the matter, and the Lord may be leading them out.”

Nathan Hatch, a leading Protestant historian and associate dean of the College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame, recognizes that the relational element of faith is important, but says doctrine must not be given short shrift. “Some Catholics are more evangelical than I am, in the sense that they readily share their faith in Christ as Lord,” he says. “But to be evangelical in the more European sense means that you have to deal with the doctrine of justification. If you understand that the church is sacramental, that sacraments mediate saving grace and that the church is the repository of grace—that it is found in no other way—then it is impossible to be classically evangelical.”

The differences in doctrinal approach are important, he says. But Protestants must remember that Catholics are Christian, and some Catholics who have been reborn in the Spirit choose to stay.

Roots

In places where cultural Catholicism remains vital, the Roman Catholic church is experiencing a surge of returnees, mostly men and women under 40 who had dropped out for a while, but had not been attracted to another church body.

In a front-page article in the New York Times (July 27, 1986), Joseph Berger reported on one parish experiencing this phenomenon: Saint James Cathedral in Brooklyn has more than quadrupled in size, due almost exclusively to the influx of younger families, many of them returnees. These families find a strong sense of community, a transcendent worship experience, spiritual immediacy for their daily lives, and, perhaps most important, a sense of the familiar, of coming home.

In turn, the parish leadership strives to reflect a new kind of Catholicism, which seeks to relate to parishioners where they are. There is little sign of authoritarian teaching and moral strictures. Instead, congregants think for themselves as they hear God’s Word and worship together. According to Berger, doctrine was not a major issue for these returnees. They were hungry for relationship—with each other and with Christ. This parish sought to meet the need.

Notre Dame’s Hatch comments on the strength of religious roots: “A weakness of evangelicalism is that we believe one can too readily break roots and ties by a sheer act of will. A Catholic—or anyone considering leaving his or her religious background for another—must consider the repercussions.” Each person has a unique religious history, says Hatch, and the inquirer must come to terms with it. “You don’t cut those roots without some cost.”

For me, leaving the Catholic church meant alienation from my family for several years. I could not explain the change and my conversion in doctrinal terms. Even when I began to find some clear distinctions, they did not contribute to reconciliation. And because I saw my own family’s faith as deep and authentic, I chose not to mount a crusade to “convert” them from the Lord they already knew. Some time later, after my parents experienced a personal spiritual renewal, and after I had increased in maturity, reconciliation did come. Then we were able to accept the integrity of each other’s Christian faith. We served the same Lord, but from different points of view.

Catholics Like Me

I still have points of difference with Roman Catholic teaching and practice. I cannot accept an equal pairing of the authority of Scripture and of tradition. But there are Catholics who, like me, stress the primacy of the authority of Scripture. I cannot accept the veneration of Mary. But some Catholics can’t, either. I cannot accept a doctrine of ministry that promotes priestly celibacy or exalted clerical hierarchy. But a lot of Catholics I know feel the same way. I believe that each person must come to a personal, saving faith in Christ. Some Catholic colleagues of mine believe that with equal passion. They stayed. I left.

In most cases, relationship is indeed a stronger factor than doctrine in decisions about staying or leaving. And doctrine, so important to leaders in Catholic and Protestant circles, may be mere Monday-morning quarterbacking for the average Catholic who is making a decision about his church. It is most often the presence of a believing person at a key moment in a person’s spiritual search that makes the difference. “Evangelization is matchmaking,” Hoge told the bishops in his report. For me, that was true. My Protestant roommate opened the door for me to leave. Had he been Catholic, my story might well have been different.

Which Way Did They Go?

In researching their book, Converts, Dropouts, Returnees: A Study of Religious Change among Catholics (Pilgrim, 1981), Dean Hoge’s survey team found some interesting patterns:

• Did taking part in a mainline Protestant group facilitate decisions to leave? No dropouts who were 22 and younger, and only 3 percent of those 23 and older said yes. But participation in a fundamentalist, Baptist, Mormon, or Pentecostal group influenced 13 percent of the younger dropouts and 15 percent of the older ones.

• Objection to Catholic moral teachings was the most frequent predisposition to dropping out among those 23 and older (26%). Writes Hoge, “For most people, moral teachings are more consequential than doctrinal teachings.… The battlegrounds are birth control, abortion, sexual freedom, divorce, and sex roles.” Among younger dropouts the most frequent predisposition was “tension in parental family” (52%).

• Just under half of all inactive Catholics cited a personal relationship that facilitated their decision to drop out.

• Twenty percent of the 22-and-under group are now in non-Catholic religious groups—a large variety of Protestant denominations (and in one case Judaism). Nearly the same proportion of older dropouts (19%) are active in other religious groups, but there is a trend: most are in Pentecostal, Assemblies of God, Baptist, or nondenominational churches. Only 3 percent are in mainline denominations.

• Neither personal influence nor theological argument is generally effective in wooing a person away from the Roman Catholic church. By and large such efforts succeed “only when the personal ties of a Catholic young person to family and parish are already weak for other reasons.”

An interview with the chairman of the National Council of Catholic Bishops, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin

Joseph Cardinal Bernardin has clearly established himself as one of the unquestioned leaders of the Roman Catholic Church in America. His position as archbishop of the Chicago archdiocese, one of the largest in the U.S. with over two million Catholics, and his involvement with the Catholic bishops and their controversial pastorals on war and peace and on the economy (still in draft form), have thrust him into the national spotlight as a soft-spoken yet determined champion for renewed spiritual commitment and social responsibility on the part of the church.

Recently Cardinal Bernardin met with CT editors to discuss the spiritual/social dynamic at work in the church today, as well as to offer some general thoughts on the challenges facing the church in the days ahead.

What are the three most critical challenges facing the Catholic church today?

The first challenge we face is evangelization. How do you proclaim Christ in a world where gospel values have become countercultural? We live in a society shaped by consumerism, materialism, secularism, and a practical, if not an intellectual or conceptual, atheism. People say they believe in God, but act as though he does not exist.

A second challenge is understanding and knowing how to put our social responsibilities into practice. When we talk about justice, human dignity, and peace, some think we’re moving away from the gospel and talking more about political matters. I don’t deny that social issues have a political dimension. But they also have a moral dimension. And the challenge today is to sensitize the Christian conscience in such a way that our social responsibilities will be recognized.

A third challenge is specifically Catholic in nature: the matter of collegiality. How do you respect those cultures where the church is present while maintaining church unity worldwide? And what is the relationship between the papacy and this international church?

People today question the place of the papacy in the church more than they have in other generations. However, I think American Catholics are very committed to the papacy. They see it as an essential element in our church, the visible source of our unity. Basically, then, it’s a question of diversity and unity. Because the church—the gospel message—is incarnated in different cultures, there’s a rich diversity. The challenge is finding ways to maintain unity within that diversity.

Will this tension grow?

What is needed is more understanding on both sides. If there’s tension, it should be a creative tension: the occasion for all Catholics to reflect on the realities of this diversity. In last November’s extraordinary session of the Synod of Bishops, one of the recommendations was that this question of collegiality be studied in greater depth.

In the wake of the widely discussed and controversial pastoral letter on war and peace, how do you perceive the relationship between the American Catholic hierarchy and the laity?

First of all, the bishops are supposed to teach and provide leadership. It’s not merely a matter of reflecting what our people think. We have to take that into account, certainly. But there will be times when we will take positions that might be unacceptable to some of the people we serve. It’s always been that way and it always will be.

Were you surprised at the intensity of reaction to the bishops’ letter?

Not really. I fully expected it. However, I was surprised at the positive reaction we got. And I’m happy to say that as time has gone on, and as people have become more familiar with what we actually said, there has been even greater acceptance. They know there are moral implications to what, on the surface, appear to be only political problems.

Will the bishops remain on the cutting edge of church leadership in the days ahead?

I don’t want to toot our own horn, but I think the bishops are key actors. They have given leadership not only in terms of the internal life of the church but also in terms of the church’s outreach to the world.

You mentioned the pastoral on war and peace. We’re also developing a pastoral on the economy. We’ve also taken strong stands regarding human rights in this country and elsewhere. And we’ve taken strong stands concerning abortion. So I think the bishops have been and continue to be key actors.

As long as we’re talking about church leadership, will you comment on the declining levels of men and women entering full-time Catholic vocations. How will this crisis be addressed?

We have fewer priests and sisters and more lay people ministering in the church today. In fact, over the last 20 years we have seen an explosion in lay ministry. Some are working as full-time, paid employees of the church, others as volunteers doing many of the things that priests and sisters used to do. And that’s the way it should be.

However, we haven’t kept in focus the uniqueness of priestly ministry or the ministry of religious [individuals belonging to a monastic order]. We’ve tended to talk about ministry in a global way. Some ask, “If you can minister in the church as a lay person, then why make a special commitment to be a priest or a sister?” We therefore need to show in a credible way that all ministries—including priesthood and religious life—are needed. We’re not talking about some being better than others. But they are different. There is a uniqueness about the priesthood and religious life that is very persuasive, and they are very much needed today.

What role has the celibacy requirement played in these declining numbers?

The church requires it, as you know, for religious reasons. It’s something one accepts for the sake of the kingdom. It’s a gift. It makes us more available for service to our people. But in today’s society, such values are sometimes not understood or appreciated as much as they should be.

Let’s focus our attention back on the laity for a moment. Some have said that faltering attendance can be attributed to reform in the church, such as the lessening of compulsory attendance at different services. Do you agree?

Church attendance is down, and has decreased in recent years among all age groups. But I don’t think that’s because, as some maintain, we’ve “made things easier.” Studies show that many of the ritual changes we have made—like celebrating the liturgy in the vernacular—are supported by a vast majority of our people even though they may not go to church regularly.

What about the charismatic movement in the Catholic church. Is it divisive? Is it growing as a renewal movement?

Let’s take the last first. It is a renewal movement. And I think it has potential. It’s much more understood today than it was 15 or 20 years ago when it first began, and much more accepted.

Is it growing? My sense is its growth in the Catholic church has leveled off. I have special masses with the charismatics periodically and they don’t draw as many people as they used to. However, many charismatics no longer see themselves as a separate group. Instead, they see themselves as part of the church; and they are consequently having an impact on their individual parishes. And that’s all to the good.

Could it be divisive? It could be. But overall, it hasn’t been. It has contributed to the spiritual well-being of the church; and most of the bishops are very supportive of it. I know I am. As a matter of fact, I am working on a pastoral letter on the charismatic renewal addressed to the church of Chicago. It will indicate where the movement fits into the overall life and ministry of the church.

What are some of the similarities and differences you perceive between Catholics and evangelicals?

I think we have many things in common. There is a missionary zeal in both of us. And we are both committed to evangelization. We both consider conversion very important, although our concept of conversion is different. In your churches it’s more a one-time event. For us it occurs in that way, of course, but we see conversion as an ongoing reality.

The way we interpret Scripture is different, too. I hope I’m not caricaturing here, but you approach the Scripture in a more literalist way than we do. We believe that Scripture comes from God; it’s part of God’s revelation, but we see it as a book of religious truth, not necessarily a book of history or a book of scientific truth. Therefore, a certain amount of interpretation is needed in order to get at the truth in Scripture.

We also believe the Scripture was given to the church and that there is an authority in the church, an authority that is inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit, which keeps the church from falling into error in its interpretation of Scripture.

In terms of social issues we would be united on some things and divided on others—or at least our approach to certain issues would be different. We agree, for example, on the evil of p*rnography, abortion, and other issues of that nature.

On some other issues—like war and peace, the economy, some of the human rights stands we have taken—we seem to have different perceptions. I’m not saying evangelicals are for war or against economic justice, but that sometimes we differ in our approach and we see our teaching role in these areas differently.

Have you sensed a growing warmth between Catholics and evangelicals?

Yes. There has been a big change. Now, I have to make a distinction between myself and Catholics generally. I grew up in the South. My sister and I were the only Catholic children on the block. Almost all the kids I played with were Baptists or Methodists. I grew up thinking there were only a few Catholics and many, many Baptists and Methodists. I couldn’t go to church with them, they couldn’t come to church with me, but we got along very well. My parents got along with their parents. And so, in a way, we were experiencing a practical kind of ecumenism without knowing it. From what I’m told, it was very different in places like Chicago and New York where there are large numbers of Catholics—a reality that sometimes led to an adversarial relationship between Catholics and Protestants.

Now, there are still Catholics who say unkind things about Protestants, and I’m sure there are Protestants who say unkind things about Catholics. I’ve seen some terrible posters right here in Chicago condemning the Catholic church. So these fringe elements exist. But in terms of the mainstream, there is much more acceptance on both sides.

How can our readers get to know more about their Catholic brothers and sisters?

Personal contact is critical. We can read all we want, but unless we see people and talk with them, I don’t think we’re going to get very far. I would like to see more emphasis placed on dialogue at the local level. We could then explain our convictions to one another, and little by little we would see there is more agreement between us than disagreement.

This has certainly proved to be the case in the official dialogues we have had with other churches. Both sides have learned a lot. We have all learned we are human, and that in the final analysis, it’s the same Lord we believe in, the same Lord we love. While there are certainly doctrinal differences, we learn that these differences are not as extreme as we once thought, and they should not be an obstacle to a more living and understanding relationship among us.

Catholic doctrine according to Jesuit theologian Avery Dulles

There are cultural differences between Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians, but “the” difference, in the minds of most practicing Protestants, is doctrinal. Inquiring into what Catholics believe can be bewildering, what with centuries of traditions, councils, encyclicals, and so on.

Although no single theologian speaks for the entire Catholic church, an able guide is Fr. Avery Dulles, professor of theology at the Catholic University of America (Washington, D.C.). Father Dulles did doctoral studies in dogmatic theology at the Gregorian University (in Rome) and has written several acclaimed books (including Models of the Church and Models of Revelation). Generally considered a moderate theologian, he is past-president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. He is also experienced in communicating Catholic theology to non-Catholics. He has been a visiting lecturer at Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Episcopal seminaries, and has long been active in ecumenical dialogues.

Father Dulles was at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary for another dialogue last March. In between public dialogues, CHRISTIANITY TODAY joined Father Dulles and his dialogue partner, Dubuque professor and noted evangelical theologian Donald Bloesch, for a discussion of the central doctrinal issues.

I. Papal Infallibility

The doctrine of papal infallibility is one of the main obstacles to a Protestant rapprochement with the Roman Catholic Church. Exactly how would you, as a Catholic theologian, describe this doctrine?

If somebody asked me to say in one word whether or not the pope is infallible, I would say no. To be infallible is to be incapable of falling into error. The pope can fall into error on all sorts of things, so saying the pope is infallible is a poor way of phrasing it.

Now, what if you refine the issue? What if you ask, “Are there any circ*mstances under which the teaching of the pope can be relied upon to be fully in line with the gospel?” Vatican I [1869–70] said that the pope can be relied upon when he is solemnly defining a matter pertaining to the revelation of Christ, as contained in Scripture and tradition.

Perhaps we can agree that somehow God, through his grace, sees that the church as a whole does not fall away from the gospel. Christ said to those he commissioned to preach and baptize in his name, “I will be with you always, to the end of the age.” The Catholic thesis is that Christ is with the church throughout the ages, seeing that it does not fall away from the gospel.

Catholics see infallibility primarily in the church as a whole and secondarily in the church hierarchy as a whole—the bishops. Finally, we say that in certain exceptional situations the pope, as head of the body of the bishops, can act for the whole episcopate. But even in Catholic theology there’s not total agreement on when it is appropriate or possible for the pope to speak for the whole episcopate without consulting it. It would be a total departure from tradition if the pope were suddenly to proclaim a dogma that was not accepted, with virtual unanimity, by the Catholic bishops.

You’ve made some significant qualifications about using the language of infallibility. In the Catholic understanding, can it be said that a pope ever speaks for God?

Only in the case of an infallibly proclaimed dogma do you have the fullest assurance that the pope is expressing the revelation of God. That is a very rare case. Few popes speak infallibly, ex cathedra.

In the normal case, the pope’s authority is similar to that of any pastor or bishop. I would guess most Protestant Christians believe that their pastors help them hear and understand the Word of God. If they do have some doubts about the pastor’s interpretation, they look for supporting evidence. They ask themselves whether or not they find it confirmed by Scripture or the confessional documents of the church, whether or not it makes sense to them in their lives, and whether or not fellow Christians are accepting it as the Word of God. These questions arise in regard to the pope as in regard to any bishop or pastor.

You seem to be saying that much of what the pope and magisterium say is a kind of pastoral advice or guidance. How do we distinguish between pastoral shepherding and infallible statements that all faithful Catholics should adhere to?

The documents themselves are pretty clear. Vatican Council II [1962–65], for example, said that its statements are not infallible unless the council makes it very clear that they are imposing something as infallible doctrine. It made no statements that it declared infallible, so the council produced some 700 pages of documents without a single infallible statement (except for quotation of previously accepted infallible doctrine).

Ii. The Assumption Of Mary

Two other difficulties Protestants have with Roman Catholicism concern the doctrines about Mary: the Assumption and the Immaculate Conception. Let’s begin with the Assumption, the doctrine that Mary was taken up to heaven following her death. How would you describe this doctrine?

The dogma of the Assumption has at least a thousand years of rather unanimous church tradition behind it. Although not in exactly the same terms, it has been believed in the Eastern as well as in the Western church. Essentially, it means that Mary is already in glory with Christ and that her glory is that of a full human person. It does not necessarily—at least as generally interpreted by contemporary theologians—mean there is no body in Mary’s tomb.

Exactly what might the historical event of the Assumption have been if it does not entail the bodily, physical presence of Mary in heaven?

It would imply some full personal existence. But there is plenty of speculation and unclarity about what happens to the dead who die in the Lord. Can human beings function as separated souls without any material element, or is it simply the nature of the human being to be an embodied soul? If you’re going to hold that dead Christians are in the blessedness of eternity now, at least some theologians think that they must have some kind of corporeal existence. [Catholic theologian] Hans Urs von Balthasar suggests that dead Christians are somehow incorporated into the risen body of Christ. But that does not require that their ashes or other remains be transported to some heavenly place.

The Assumption has been described as a special revelation of what happens to every Christian at death. Are you suggesting something similar?

To me that has some plausibility to it. It makes the dogma of the Assumption more comprehensible than it would if you imagined Mary’s body leaving the tomb and being transported through the skies.

Then would Mary’s incorporation differ in some way from that of any other deceased person who died in Christ?

No. At least it’s not evident that it would.

On that view, how does Mary differ in significance from other biblical characters, say Martha or Mary Magdalene?

She has a very special proximity to her son. We believe in Mary’s motherhood as being more than a merely physical motherhood. It is a motherhood in faith, an acceptance of the message of the Annunciation. Mary’s consent to the Holy Spirit was very intimately connected with the salvation of the world itself. Her consent was the condition that made possible the salvation that we enjoy.

So we see her very closely united to the mystery of Christ. Undoubtedly, Mary prays for the church on earth. Because of her proximity to Christ, we believe Mary’s prayers have a special efficacy.

Might not Mary’s assent to the Holy Spirit be better understood as an instrument of the Incarnation than a condition of the Incarnation? Reformed Christians, at least, would want to say Mary was an instrument of God’s electing grace, a sign of the Incarnation rather than a cause of it.

Certainly Mary was not a cause of the Incarnation. But if Mary had said no, it probably wouldn’t have happened.

If we believe in irresistible grace, Mary could only have said yes.

I think God knew she was going to say yes.

Iii. The Immaculate Conception

What about the Immaculate Conception, the doctrine that Mary was conceived without the taint of original sin?

The Immaculate Conception is a still more complicated dogma. It really affirms that Mary, from the point of conception in her mother’s womb, was sanctified by the grace of Christ. She never really contracted original sin, though she was subject to it in the sense that she had to be redeemed from it by the prevenient grace of God.

Now, nobody would claim either of these Marian dogmas was directly founded in Scripture. But indirectly it could perhaps be worked out in terms of the holiness and the closeness to Christ that the Scriptures ascribe to Mary.

Protestants are uncomfortable with the description of Mary as a co-Redeemer, and there is speculation that this might be declared a dogma of the church. Do you want to speak to that?

That is not likely to happen. Vatican II repeatedly said that Christ is our only Redeemer.

But if it were defined as dogma, it would have to be interpreted as meaning that Christ is active through Mary, that her sufferings and prayers are effective through Christ. It would only be a very subordinate, derivative kind of redemptive activity. Christ gives it all the efficacy that it has.

As Paul says, “I make up in my body what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ” [Col. 1:24]. Of course, that’s a somewhat difficult passage, but there does seem to be a claim on Paul’s part that his sufferings are somehow taken up into those of Christ. They have a redemptive efficacy: not alongside of Christ, but with Christ working through Paul as a member of the body.

This is a rather blunt way of asking the question, but it may help us to go a bit further on the subject: Would you be happy with a Christianity that held no special esteem for Mary?

A matter of devotion can’t really be legislated. Catholic individuals are very free. It is their decision whether or not they pray to the saints at all, or to which saints they will pray. So I can imagine a Christianity that did not particularly cultivate devotion to Mary. It could be in its way very authentic.

With prayers directly to God?

One certainly can pray directly to the triune God. It isn’t necessary to pray through the saints. Praying to Mary is a particular form of devotion that we think is pleasing to God, but it is not necessary. Provided that one did not reject devotion to Mary and the saints as idolatrous, we could accept a Christianity that practiced a different, purely theocentric or Christocentric form of piety.

Iv. Purgatory

Purgatory is another matter of difference between Protestants and Catholics. What is the current Catholic understanding of that doctrine?

Although it is not specifically taught in Scripture, purgatory is a very ancient belief. It appears in conjunction with the old Christian practice of praying for the deceased. Catholics believe that even those who die in the Lord may not as yet be fully disposed to enter into the joy of heavenly glory. They may have sinful dispositions or affections that still have to be purged.

Now this, as I say, is not explicitly taught in Scripture, but once the practice of praying for the dead is established, there are indications in Scripture that point that direction.

What would some of those be?

The principal text that’s used is one that does not appear in Protestant Bibles. It is 2 Maccabees 12:45, which says it is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be released from their sins. In the New Testament, there are a few passages that could be interpreted as suggesting something like purgatory. One that comes to mind would be 1 Corinthians 3:12–15, which speaks of individuals being saved, as it were, through fire.

Protestants often point to the thief on the cross, who was told by Jesus, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” From this passage, it appears that a simple act of faith is sufficient to bring one into heaven.

We certainly don’t hold that everybody necessarily goes to purgatory. It’s a question of the disposition with which one dies. Possibly the contrition of the thief, especially considering the suffering of crucifixion, might have done for him in this life what purgatory would otherwise do.

V. Scripture And Tradition

You’ve often referred to tradition. Protestants, as you well know, are concerned about the Catholic understanding of tradition and its relation to Holy Scripture. Would you elaborate?

The most basic notion of tradition is that it is the transmission of the gospel in the church. That transmission does not have to be only by means of reading a Book. The gospel has always been preached as pastors and communities understood it, with adaptation and changes of language. A certain amount of interpretation goes into it, and has down through the centuries. As a matter of fact, most Christians, even evangelical Christians, get their gospel through tradition in that sense of the word.

The Catholic interpretation of Scripture depends upon a theological tradition (a tradition nourished by prayer and piety) that has developed over many centuries. In some instances, it has gotten rather far away from the letter of Scripture. But the principle that Scripture is transmitted through tradition enjoys a rather wide consensus today between Protestants and Catholics.

Of course, you do need some criteria to separate good tradition from distorting tradition. Catholics generally rely very heavily on the magisterium, the teaching office of the pope and the bishops.

There probably wouldn’t be much disagreement about tradition as a process that envelops all Christians, whatever their persuasion. But do Catholics have, in a sense, tradition with a capital T, tradition that is not part of the process of handing down the faith, but is a finished deposit that stands on a par with or above the authority of Scripture?

The councils have said that Scripture and tradition have equal dignity and authority. But that does not mean that there are any truths that are known by tradition alone. Whether there are or are not such truths is disputed among Catholics today.

There was a period, from about 1600 to 1950, when most people thought the Catholic position was that there are certain truths that are known by tradition alone. These were thought to be conveyed by word of mouth from the apostles onward. Today that would be a minority view. Vatican II went out of its way to say that Scripture and tradition never stand by themselves alone, but that all Christian truth is known by tradition and Scripture together. Tradition is perhaps best understood as clarifying and interpreting what is already in Scripture.

That’s helpful. Still, it seems hard to avoid the fact that there are two sources of revelation in the Catholic church, tradition and Scripture. You’ve indicated that dogmas such as the Assumption of Mary and her Immaculate Conception really rest on tradition more than on Scripture.

Yes, but Vatican II avoided saying that there are two sources of revelation. What it said in its “Constitution on Divine Revelation” was that Scripture and tradition are inseparable. The church reads Scripture in the light of tradition. And a certain reading of Scripture in the light of tradition gives a deeper sense of the realities that are talked about in Scripture. It’s in this way that doctrine develops.

That sounds distinctly different from a Protestant approach. We would be more prone to speak of interpreting tradition in light of Scripture.

I wouldn’t press the difference too far, because the same is true to some extent for Catholics. We attempt to understand the meaning of Scripture better in the light of tradition. And we revise the formulation of doctrine in the light of a better understanding of Scripture. It works both directions.

Vi. Justification By Faith

Having gained some grounding in your understanding of the magisterium, tradition, and the general approach to doctrine, we can now consider our most basic difference: the doctrine of justification by faith through grace. How far apart on this doctrine are contemporary Catholics and Protestants?

I would say that really we do not greatly disagree on the way in which the individual comes to justification: through the grace of Christ accepted in faith. That’s pretty much common doctrine between our churches, even though it has not been recognized as common doctrine. Many Catholics are astonished to hear this—they think that Catholics are justified by their good works. But that has never been Catholic teaching.

That would be a surprise to many people, and not just Catholics. Please elaborate.

The response to Luther was made official at the Council of Trent [1545–63]. In its “Decree on Justification,” the council described the process of justification and insisted that it is through faith that one is justified.

One is first freely justified by the grace of God, and then one is held to live up to the faith that one professes. Works will follow in the life of a believer. If they flow from faith, they are good in the sight of God and will be rewarded.

That we will be rewarded according to our works is said a number of times in Scripture [see Matt. 16:27, 1 Cor. 3:8, and 2 Cor. 9:6]. So the heavenly rewards do depend somewhat upon the good works that we have been able to perform in the flesh, in this life. But those good works presuppose faith.

It’s interesting that you spoke of the “process” of justification. Protestants think justification is like being pregnant: you either are or you are not.

Catholics believe you either are or are not, but there is normally a gradual preparation for justification, and after you are justified you can be more justified still. It’s partly a question of terminology. Most Catholics and Protestants distinguish between justification and sanctification. In Catholic theology, the increase of justification is commonly called sanctification, and thus there are degrees of sanctification. I guess what you’re really asking about is sanctification.

In Reformation theology, sanctification and justification are described as two separate works of grace. Justification is the foundation, an external imputation of righteousness to the sinner who has faith in Christ. Sanctification is the inward purification of that person. The Reformers were adamant about the two not being confused.

There may be something of a difference, then, between evangelicals and Catholics. We maintain that justification is not simply extrinsic. It originates outside but is received in us, so we are not only reputed just but are made really just or righteous. There is an inner transformation in justification itself. That inner change could also be called sanctification. Thus justification and sanctification, for Catholics, are really inseparable.

We’ve made some distinctions about the words justification and sanctification. What does the word faith mean to an informed Catholic?

There are different Catholic understandings of faith. In medieval scholasticism and up to recent times, faith was commonly understood as an intellectual act of belief. It was contrasted with hope and love, which had more to do with the will than with the intellect.

But one can also understand faith in a more global or inclusive way: faith as a loving, trusting commitment of one’s whole self to God. That is the sense of the term as it was used in Vatican II. If you understand faith in that broad sense, then you can use an expression like “justification by faith.”

But this is an expression used more by Protestants than Catholics. Catholics look to the distinction Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 13 between faith, hope, and love. He says the greatest of these is love, and that if you do not have love, even a faith that can move mountains will profit nothing.

Protestants, too, would say that love is the crown of faith. But faith is the foundation. We first have faith and then we do works of love to demonstrate our faith.

We wouldn’t have any disagreement there. The Council of Trent said that faith is the root and foundation of all justification. So faith is a necessary element but, understood strictly as a matter of intellectual belief, it is not sufficient. There must be an accompanying hope and love.

And of course, Protestants have a centuries-old rallying cry: justification by faith alone. It appears that whether or not a Catholic can accept that dictum depends on the understanding of the term faith. If we define faith in the broad sense, as the commitment of the entire self to God, could you affirm justification by faith alone?

It could be said that faith itself is intrinsically characterized by love. As I mentioned, Vatican II speaks of faith as a loving obedience, and in that sense you could say faith alone is sufficent to justify.

Let’s backtrack again, to the idea of reward. How does the Catholic tradition of merit relate to justification?

Only those who have been freely justified by God’s grace are in a position to merit. We do not merit justification, but having been justified or made righteous in God’s sight, by his favor and grace, we are in a position to perform good works—and those good works will be rewarded. This is indicated in the New Testament many times. Catholics believe there are degrees of glory, which depend upon how one has responded to grace.

Would you say that we do not merit the first grace that comes to us, but we can merit salvation, the final grace?

I was going to say yes. But when you said “final grace” I hesitated, because there is a thesis of Saint Augustine that the grace of final perseverance cannot be merited. It’s a special gift of God and we really cannot control whether we will die in God’s favor or not. But with that reservation I would say yes, we can merit salvation provided that we persevere in grace.

Again we need to examine the meaning of our terms. When Catholics speak of salvation, they are thinking of the end of a process. When Protestants use the word salvation we tend to think of it as something accomplished when the believer accepts Christ as Savior and Lord. We can also recognize the life of faith as a process, as sanctification, and in that sense the Christian is being saved at present and will be saved in the future. Yet the evangelical Protestant would not like to associate merit with any of these stages. There will be rewards, but instead of being based on merit, they will depend on God and the mystery of his providence.

I don’t see any sharp difference between us. The Council of Trent did say, quoting Augustine, that in rewarding our merits God crowns his own gifts. So it really is a meriting from grace: Only because of God’s gifts can we merit at all. The word merit is always used with reservation in theology.

With careful qualifications, then, you would say that Christians merit salvation. In what sense would or would not a Catholic speak of being saved at this moment, before death or the end of the faith journey?

We thank God for having put us on the path that leads to final salvation, but we do not boast that we’ve already been saved in the sense that we can’t be lost. That would lead to a wrong attitude before God. We are always conscious of our sinfulness, which makes it possible for us to fall away.

So we hope we will be saved. It is a firm and confident hope, not a mere wish. Saint Thomas [Aquinas] and others understand hope to include an assurance, though it is not an absolute assurance. There is the possibility of resisting God’s grace. He does not treat us as automatons, but regards us as free people who could turn away and reject his love. As Paul says, we work out our salvation in fear and trembling [Phil. 2:12].

But at the same time, we do believe in a God who is merciful and powerful so that those who trust in him will never be put to shame, as the psalm says [Ps. 31:1]. Thus, we move ahead peacefully and joyfully, with a sense of God’s loving providence over us.

DAVID O’BRIEN¹David O’Brien is professor of history at Holy Cross College, Worcester, Massachusetts. He is the author of American Catholics and Social Reform (Oxford U. Press, 1968) and The Renewal of American Catholicism (Oxford, 1972).

Among the changes in American religious life in the last generation, none has been more noticed than the dramatic events among American Catholics. Given so much ferment, what is contemporary U.S. Catholic life like? And how will the American church develop in the next few years? We can best answer these questions by considering the history of the American Catholic subculture, its recent unraveling, and present practices in faith and ministry.

Background

Four historical factors shaped the life of the American Catholic community.

• Immigration. Catholics were regarded by other Americans as outsiders. They responded not by setting aside their ancestral heritage, but by reaffirming their Catholicism. They used the church to strengthen family ties and provide meaning and identity in the bewildering world of American industrial cities, where most of them settled.

• A blue-collar church. Earlier American Catholics were, for the most part, blue-collar workers. As late as the 1930s, only Southern Baptists, among the nation’s larger denominations, ranked below Catholics in per capita income. Catholics provided the backbone of political machines and trade unions. They expressed social attitudes derived from viewing American society from the bottom up.

• Explosive growth. By the middle of the nineteenth century there were three million Catholics in the United States. On the eve of World War I there were 17 million. In the years between the end of World War II and the opening of the second Vatican Council in 1962, the Catholic population expanded from 20 to 40 million. This steady, rapid growth meant that church leaders had little time or energy to devote to problems outside the Catholic community.

• A minority status. Throughout these two centuries of expansion, Catholics thought of themselves as a minority in a basically Protestant culture. As such, they depended upon their own resources. They stuck together in defense against non-Catholic hostility, and were constantly on the watch for violations of their rights. There was a corresponding emphasis on loyalty and solidarity, expressed in church buildings, ritual practice, and regular celebrations of Catholic unity and power.

A Subculture Unravels

One way of understanding the changes in the American church of the last generation is to see them as the unraveling of the historic American Catholic subculture. Even before Vatican II, the G.I. Bill of Rights and the prosperity of postwar America had begun to erode the sociological foundations of American Catholicism.

Fr. Andrew Greeley has documented the dramatic rise of American Catholics to the middle class and a higher level of education. This success meant it was no longer possible to speak of American Catholics as predominantly an immigrant, working-class church.

Of course, the second Vatican Council (1962–65) clearly contributed to change. The renewal it set in motion brought a new experience of pluralism into the church. American Catholics once regarded their church almost exclusively in institutional terms, emphasizing the clergy and hierarchy. But Vatican II insisted that the church was first of all a community, “the people of God.”

The council’s declaration on religious liberty lessened a tension long felt by American Catholics. Historic papal resistance to church-state separation conflicted with American fidelity to the First Amendment. Vatican II insisted on the duty of each person to follow his or her conscience. But while this lessened tension in one respect, it set up the possibility of conflict in another. With the individual conscience emphasized, church members were more likely to clash with church authority over moral issues.

Social success and Vatican II were not the only pressures on post-World War II American Catholicism. Other factors were the upheavals in American society during the 1960s; the erosion of rural communities and ethnic neighborhoods; and the shift of economic and political power away from the industrial sections of the country, long dominated by Catholics. Considering these profound changes, the period could easily be seen as one of “disintegration.”

The most basic result of the collapse of the older Catholic subculture has been an experience of estrangement. There is a widespread sense that the individual person stands alone, without the support of extended families, ethnic and religious communities, and traditional symbols. In Mary Gordon’s excellent novel, Final Payments, the heroine exclaims after the death of her very Catholic father that she will have to “invent a life” for herself. Andrew Greeley uses a simpler phrase to describe what has happened with the appearance of a more voluntary church. He calls it “do it yourself Catholicism.”

The old Catholic subculture is gone, but the church is far from dead. Among Catholics, Christian faith is more vital than ever. Change is not simply disintegration.

The Practice Of Faith

Two decades ago three out of four Catholics could be found at mass on a typical Sunday morning. Today only one of two attends weekly, while among younger Catholics the number drops to about one in four. Though these numbers are unimpressive, the outlook is not totally bleak. To understand more about the contemporary American practice of Catholic faith, we can consider three important factors.

• Charismatic renewal. The charismatic renewal movement, which spread across the country after its first appearance in Pittsburgh in 1966, introduced many Catholics to the experience of shared prayer. The movement has spawned a variety of spiritual programs. These draw Catholics to a more personal experience of Christ’s presence, to the study of the Scriptures, and to prayer groups. Thus it seems that those who do attend mass regularly are now more likely to have experienced a personal conversion to Jesus Christ.

• Sacraments. Although spiritual renewal flourishes, sacramental practice changes. Few Catholics any longer confess their sins to a priest regularly (this is the most dramatic change in Catholic practice). Most of those who receive the sacrament of penance today do so face to face with the priest, in a reconciliation room rather than a dark box.

The sacraments of initiation dramatically express the reality of a voluntary church. Parents who wish to have their child baptized, for example, now participate in programs fostering consideration of their own faith, their responsibilities as Christian parents, and their role in the Christian community.

• Education. There has always been more to the American church than its parishes and dioceses. By 1965 the Catholic school system was educating over 4,000,000 elementary-school students, 1,000,000 high-school students, and 400,000 college and university students. This is one of the most significant accomplishments of the American Catholic church, or indeed of any church in modern times.

Despite many predictions of doom, Catholic colleges and universities are flourishing, with enrollments well over 500,000. Almost 800,000 students still attend Catholic high schools. Only at the elementary level has there been a steep decline, with enrollments about half of what they were two decades ago.

Religious education has changed in structure and content. In fact, it is almost unrecognizable from what existed 20 years ago. In theory, educators and pastors agree that the effectiveness of religious education in and out of Catholic schools depends upon the family. So continued efforts are made to encourage parents to enrich and deepen their own faith and to share that faith with their children.

Ministry

In 1965 there were over 58,000 priests in the United States. In 1985 the number had dropped slightly to 57,317, but the average age had risen sharply. In 1965 there were almost 54,000 young men in seminaries; in 1985 only 11,000 were studying for the priesthood. Projections suggest that the number of clergy will drop by as much as 50 percent by the end of the century.

The prospects for women religious are even more worrisome. In 1965 there were just under 180,000 sisters in the United States. In 1985 there were 115,000 and, once again, they were a rapidly aging population.

One clear reason for the historic success of the American Catholic church was the large number of religious vocations. Now many dioceses have priestless parishes, and many parishes once served by three or four priests have only one in residence.

While the decline of vocations has stopped in recent years, it has done so at a level that will not even come close to replacing those lost to retirement and death. No factor will be more important in reshaping the face of American Catholicism.

The most important response to this phenomenon has been the growth of lay ministry. An increasing number of men and women fill staff positions in diocesan and parish offices. In addition, many more lay volunteers now read the Scriptures at mass, lead music, and provide leadership in religious education.

The emergence of “lay ministry” provides a window into the tensions that beset contemporary American Catholicism. Bishops and priests welcome lay service because it provides help for the beleaguered priests. In their training programs, the laity are offered a theology of church that highlights the priority of the community and the people of God. The gifts bestowed on all members of the community (not just the clergy) are emphasized.

As sociologist-theologian John Coleman argues, the pre-Vatican II church located all ministry in the clergy and reduced the laity to a supportive role. The current emphasis on the equality of all Christians in their call to holiness and service means that it is the priest who is now “left over.” So the problem of the priesthood is one of identity as well as numbers.

Organization

It is surely accurate to say that the faith of American Catholics has become more Christological. Piety centers more on the Scriptures, and Catholic culture is increasingly evangelical (with emphasis on personal conversion, personalized faith, and voluntary congregations). So what is the point of greatest continuity amid all this change?

American Catholicism is still a church of parishes and dioceses, presided over by bishops and priests. And even the most nonhierarchial Catholics continue to see the Eucharistic celebration as the central event of their religious life, one that can only be conducted by an ordained priest.

The most significant organizational change since Vatican II has been the formation of national and regional episcopal conferences. These draw bishops together to share responsibility for the life of the church. In the United States, the American bishops organized after Vatican II into the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB).

Rome is nervous about the growing strength of national conferences around the world, and some key appointments of bishops in recent years have perhaps damaged the momentum of the American conference. Nevertheless, the NCCB plays a crucial role in mediating between American Catholics and the Holy See. It has also become increasingly visible because of the American bishops’ involvement with the nation’s public life.

Public Life

When the American Catholic bishops published their pastoral letter on the arms race in 1983, many commentators were surprised that they would take a controversial stand against government policy. In fact, the bishops have been speaking out strongly on public issues for many years. As early as 1919 they urged social reforms that went beyond those later brought about by the New Deal.

But the teachings of the church on peacemaking and the pursuit of justice have yet to find their way into Catholic worship, spirituality, or education in other than superficial ways. Catholics deeply committed to justice and peace often find themselves working with organizations outside normal parish programs and schools.

Yet it would be a mistake to think that Catholics in general support all national policy. A huge majority are strongly opposed to the current practice of abortion. On the issue of arms, Father Greeley has noted a decided shift in Catholic public opinion toward disarmament. And his surveys and others have regularly demonstrated that Catholics generally support government assistance to insure minimum levels of income, employment, and housing.

If Catholics have been estranged from the Democratic party, it has not been primarily the result of increased conservativism on social issues. The estrangement comes from a persistent conservatism on cultural issues like abortion, and an equally persistent realism about the limits of government’s role in directing national life.

Problems And Prospects

In the years to come, there are at least five problems that will dominate American Catholic life.

• The American church and the Holy See. Any national church needs a degree of autonomy to respond to its particular pastoral problems. At the same time, Rome has a legitimate concern to maintain the unity of the world church.

Behind the prominent, publicized clashes between American Catholics and Rome are deeper problems. None is more troublesome than birth control and sexual ethics. Here pastoral imperatives come into conflict with sharply defined Vatican norms. The conflict will be lessened if there are reforms that make pastoral experience more central to church policy and moral theology. The church also needs to clarify the role of national bishops and allow greater participation in the selection of new bishops.

• The laity. Another problem is the difficulty of integrating the theology of lay ministry with the theology of hierarchy. Major stumbling blocks exist, none greater than the problem of the exclusion of women from the priesthood and the diaconate. The overwhelming majority of nonordained ministers, professional and volunteer, are women.

They constitute a growing body of persons strategically placed in the organization of the church. Like most sisters, they are not content with the existing teaching and practice that excludes women from positions of real responsibility. Clerical celibacy is another major obstacle to a more thorough integration of ministry and hierarchy in the church.

• Ecumenism. Ecumenism seems to have been placed on the back burner in recent years. On the one hand, Catholics’ practice has become more like the Protestants’, so that many moral, doctrinal, and political concerns cut across the lines dividing Catholics and Protestants. Yet a large distance remains between the two groups.

Organizationally, relations have stalled over questions of intercommunion. Pastorally they have stalled over congregational and denominational loyalties. Almost everyone recognizes common faith and common problems. Almost no one has an idea about how to engage in truly common action, much less share a common life. In the future, dialogue must extend more fully to include evangelical Protestants, and there are barriers to that development on both sides.

• The public role of the church. The initiative of the bishops on armaments and the economy has drawn praise from some quarters. But, as we have observed, these teachings have not been translated into effective programs of education and pastoral action. The bishops must try to enlist Catholic intellectuals and scholars in the effort to influence the public moral dialogue. They must also find ways to help their people translate moral principles into daily life.

This presents a sticky dilemma. To the degree that the Catholic church responds to the demands of voluntarism by encouraging a privatized faith, it will undercut its professed determination to engage the problems of armaments and oppression. On the other hand, moral exhortation alone comes across to parishioners as scolding. Here there is much to be learned from Protestant brethren, who have been wrestling with the problem of social responsibility in a free-church setting for a very long time.

• Nationality and Christianity. Behind all these problems is another, underlying tension wider than the Catholic community. The Catholic church, with its strong tradition of centralized authority, wonders if a free church can church can a person be a man or woman of their age and nation, and at the same time be a man or woman of the church universal?

What the American religious experience constantly comes down to is integrity: to be fully and responsibly American and to participate fully and responsibly in a particular faith tradition. In the past, Catholicism attempted to insure integrity by strengthening the role of bishops and clergy. In the future, it will have to do so by trusting its people. It will not be an easy transition.

The Catholic Subculture: No Going Back

People require the life of ordered Christian communities for worship, for the education of their children, for the support they need for their marriages and families, and for the correctives and checks they need to their own human temptations. Yet every order, fractured by divisions of doctrine, race, class, and sex, is less than God intends. In the past, America’s free churches have been tempted toward a comfortable faith conformed to the biases and prejudices of the faithful. As a people of the Book, however, American Christians regularly found in the Scriptures a call to greater holiness or to more strenuous endeavor.

One can expect that American Catholicism will witness a similar tension in the years to come. Some people at all times and most people at some times will find their parish less compelling or less honest than they wish. Some will drift away for varying lengths of time, others will find a home in an alternative Christian community, such as those found among such movements as the Catholic Worker and charismatic renewal.

The tension between the private and public calls of the church will not make things easier. At times the urgency of problems such as racial injustice, violence, or the arms race make the ordinary life of the church seem complacent, even corrupt. But people in the parishes, struggling with the daily problems of families, marriages, and meaning, naturally resent charges of hypocrisy coming from their more engaged fellow Catholics. It should not be a case of either/or.

A public witness not grounded in authentic faith and loving community proves shallow and short-lived. Yet pastoral practice that is exclusively personal usually proves sectarian and irresponsible. The church must be the church, and therefore attentive to the integrity of its faith and the fidelity of its witness. But it is also true that the church must be the church here and now, in the United States of the 1980s. As such it must face up to the realities of this time and place, including the realities of injustice and violence.

All this is to suggest that Catholicism can reconstruct a subculture only at its peril. The price of turning back in on itself in order to survive, no matter how great the threats that face it in the larger world, will be the surrender of its claims and the betrayal of its promise. American Catholics believe that confession of Jesus as Lord requires commitment to the community of God’s people, not simply for the sake of that community, but for the sake of the human race itself.

All men and women are called to God’s kingdom. Christian faith enlarges, enriches, and completes human life. Coming out of the particularities of nations and churches has always been painful. The discovery of an ever-enlarging sense of peoplehood has never been easy. But this is, as it always was, the call of the gospel. In the future as in the past, morale and energy will come, if they come, by looking forward and not backward.

For the evangelical, the most exciting change in Roman Catholicism is the new freedom for the gospel.

Recent Protestant attitudes toward Roman Catholicism have become cautiously tolerant. We are attracted to the church’s moral agenda, yet confused by its dogma. And arising from this ambivalence is a genuine desire to dialogue with Catholics. The question is, which Catholics?

For example, the Roman Catholics I met in the mountains of Colombia believe in magic more than in the Trinity. Their religion is a form of animism with a faint gloss of traditional medieval Catholicism.

With an appropriate adjustment for a different culture, my university friends were hardly any better Catholics. Though they expected to be baptized, married, and buried in a Roman Catholic church, they seldom darkened its door on other occasions.

The theologians at Saint Mary’s Seminary with whom I attend professional meetings present another kind of Catholicism. They believe all the traditional doctrines, but interpret them so that they sound strangely new and different—quite different from what I read in the classic statements on Roman Catholic dogma.

And none of these Catholics is remotely like the charismatic Roman Catholics I have met who talk, pray, and live like, well—evangelicals.

The Catholic Montage

I find it helpful to see contemporary Roman Catholicism falling into five categories: (1) popular religiosity, (2) nominal Catholicism of the uncommitted, (3) traditional Roman Catholicism—the kind most Protestant theologians have discussed until very recently, (4) liberal Roman Catholicism, and (5) charismatic Roman Catholicism. Even as I name these groups, I realize the labels are just that: convenient handles for discussion. In reality, the distinctions among these categories blur into one another.

The popular religiosity of the Colombian peasant and the worldly minded nominal Catholic dominating the North American church pose no special confusion to evangelicals. Neither is Christian. We are to love them, befriend them, serve them, and, most important, share with them the good news about Jesus Christ. In short, we view nominal Roman Catholics just as we view nominal Protestants who neither understand biblical Christianity nor have committed themselves to Jesus Christ.

Traditional Roman Catholics are a different matter altogether. They retain much of biblical Christianity and possess qualities that I admire and wish to imitate. For example, I treasure their reverence before God, the dignity of their worship, their faithful attendance at church, their frequent celebration of the Lord’s Supper, their loyalty to the Bible, their willingness to stand up and be counted for their faith, their skill in the arts and literature, their educational system, their emphasis on sexual purity, and their stand against divorce, abortion, euthanasia, and hom*osexuality.

Yet, in spite of all the sound Christian elements defended by traditional Roman Catholics, their understanding of salvation places works over faith. The apostle Paul’s warning to the legalistic Jews of Galatia applies here: “A man is not justified by observing the law but by faith in Jesus Christ … by observing the law no one will be justified” (Gal. 2:16, NIV). Salvation is always a gift of God and is received only on the condition of faith or personal trust in Jesus Christ. No religion—no matter how many Christian and biblical elements are to be found in it—is Christian in the biblical sense if it lacks this gospel.

Of course, as an evangelical, I have additional objections to traditional Roman Catholic doctrine: the infallible teaching and ecclesiastical authority of the pope, the doctrine of transubstantiation (which maintains the essence of the bread and wine are miraculously transformed into the true body and blood of Christ in the Mass), the immaculate conception, bodily assumption, and worship of the Virgin Mary, the invocation of the saints, purgatory, and prayers for the dead. But these are peripheral in contrast to the gospel. Long experience proves that attacking these secondary doctrines will not lead traditional Roman Catholics to a personal relationship with Christ. Instead, evangelicals must point the way to faith in Christ alone.

Still another type of Roman Catholic is the liberal theologian who sits loosely on the ancient doctrines of the church. Avery Dulles, for example, represents a moderate liberal who is still trying to remain within the framework of historic Roman Catholicism. He reads in their creeds that “If anyone shall say that … works are merely the fruits and signs of justification obtained, but not the cause of its increase—let him be anathema” (Denzinger, 1574). But he also knows the Bible teaches that being good in no way earns salvation. Therefore, he reinterprets the creed so it may somehow be brought into closer harmony with what the Scripture teaches. To most of us, his reinterpretation neither squares with the clear teaching of Scripture nor means what the original “infallible teaching” of the church taught in its modern creeds.

Roman Catholic theologian Hans Küng is more forthright. He has written against the infallibility of the pope, of the bishops, of the church, and of the Bible, and he calls for the creation of a new Catholic theology based on the revelation of Jesus Christ as set forth in the Bible. Other liberals go much further. Gregory Baum flatly denies the miracles of Christ and rejects the creeds of the ancient as well as the modern Roman Catholic church.

A growing cadre of South American Roman Catholic theologians has forged a “liberation theology” that has caught on in Europe and North America as well. These theologians display an amazing indifference to doctrinal issues. To them, the Christian gospel must deliver all humanity from poverty by reconstructing society (often along Marxist lines).

For the evangelical, the most exciting change in Roman Catholicism is the new freedom for the gospel. In scholarly circles, the “new biblical theology” movement has profited most from this freedom. Bible study groups have spread across almost every parish. To a considerable degree they have identified with the charismatic movement, although Roman Pentecostalism is by no means uniform. Some, like Kevin and Dorothy Ranaghan, have focused upon charismatic piety, with scant concern for doctrine. A few continue to defend traditional Roman Catholic doctrine. Yet the gospel is central to most Catholic charismatics. They have become true evangelicals with varying degrees of concern about bringing their new-found faith into harmony with the church’s teaching.

A Church On The Move

Where, then, is the Roman Catholic church today, and where is it going? Part of it is rigorously defending its traditions, changing only enough to survive. Other segments, particularly its lay members, are becoming evangelical. Much of its leadership is moving in the direction of liberal Protestantism. Pope John Paul II has noticed his theologians’ leaning toward liberalism and has firmly asked them to stand by the content of the traditional faith. His own ecumenical efforts have turned toward the Eastern Orthodox churches. At the same time, he has fostered dialogue with the World Council of Churches.

How does all this affect the evangelical? First, we should continue to dialogue. To refuse to dialogue would be to say two things no evangelical wants to say: (1) We are not interested in our Lord’s desire to have a united church, and (2) We evangelicals have nothing to learn from anyone. Dialogue need not be compromise. It can be an effective means of evangelism, and it can be a great source of humble learning on the part of those who are willing to listen.

Second, we can rejoice with the new-found evangelicals in the Roman Catholic church. We can encourage them. We can learn from them. We need not attack what we deem to be holdovers from Roman Catholic doctrine, but we can exalt the Lord with them and urge them to join us in testing faith by Holy Scripture.

Third, we should take advantage of the freedom newly allowed in the Roman church. We should encourage this freedom in the direction of a saving faith in Jesus Christ and in the authority of Scripture. We should remind those who are sitting uneasily on traditional Roman Catholic doctrine and are attracted by rampant liberalism that true freedom is not freedom from all authority or freedom from truth. Rather, it provides for a voluntary acceptance of truth and leads us to obey the holy and all-wise God of the universe.

Common Goals

Finally, we can work together on those political and social issues where we are in such strong agreement: Human freedom is crucial to the well-being of society. Justice is worth battling for. Democracy cannot save humankind, but it is the form of government most likely to protect human liberty and to bring justice to all. We are all responsible to care for the poor and the downtrodden. We are opposed to war, but in an evil world we know that strength enables us to be our brother’s keeper. And our shared belief in the sacredness of human life demands opposition to free abortions, euthanasia, hom*osexual practice, and complete sexual freedom. Our united efforts in these areas will do much to influence our world to the good.

We must continue our conversations with Roman Catholics. We do not wish to unite at the expense of truth. But we need to learn from each other and examine our common heritage under the light of Scripture. In spite of basic differences, we can use our common Judeo-Christian value system to forge moral leadership that will advance the cause of justice and peace through a stable society in our nation and around the world.

By Kenneth S. Kantzer.