Article Mar. 30, 1994

Six years ago, many believers, and especially those who have spent time on foreign mission fields, must have been as shocked as I was upon reading the headline, CATHOLICS, EVANGELICALS SIGN 'TRIUMPHALISTIC' PACT. The Associated Press story datelined New York, March 30, 1994, begins

"They toiled together in the vineyards of the movements against abortion and pornography, and now leading Catholics and Evangelicals are asking their flocks for a remarkable leap of faith: to finally accept each other as Christians.

"In what's being called a historic declaration, evangelicals including Pat Robertson and Charles Colson joined with conservative Roman Catholic leaders Tuesday in upholding the ties of faith that bind the nation's largest and most politically active religious groups."

The pact strengthens joint political activism, while virtually silencing the gospel in many areas by eliminating "aggressive proselytizing of each other's flocks."

Those who preached the gospel in Columbia in the sixties remember the burning of evangelical churches by Roman Catholic mobs led by their priests. And lest someone think we are talking ancient history, it may be well to remember that the present Pope, within the past fifteen years has been to Mexico twice, advocating the persecution of evangelicals. Missionaries in that country are quick to agree that the greatest barrier to the gospel is Roman Catholicism. The worshipers of the Queen of Heaven persecuted Jeremiah 500 years before Christ, and nothing has changed other than that they now call themselves Christian.

The kind of organizational unity advocated by these "leading Evangelicals" always has to be at the expense of Truth. The promotion of it comes from a misunderstanding of the Body of Christ––failing to see that the Church is the mystery spoken of by Paul in his letters to the Ephesians and the Colossians.

The true church is not an organization. Although many of its members are found in organizations, they are least likely to be found in those like Catholicism that do not preach the gospel. Nearly five hundred years ago the reformers, trying to rid the Catholic Church of its heresies, embraced gospel truths that believers who were never in Catholicism had always believed. The result was that they, and the gospel they embraced, were rejected, and Protestantism was born.

Everywhere Catholicism went it mixed the myths of its own superstitions with those of the existing religions, producing a syncretic "gospel" and a darkness that has kept multitudes blinded to the truth of salvation through Jesus Christ for centuries. And now, certain influential evangelicals, respected by many, signed a pact which virtually declares that we will not interfere with the "faith" of these benighted masses who are claimed by the Catholic church. They call it "Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium."

Many evangelical Christians have viewed this as a spiritual document that should be honored, and with which God is pleased. This is not the case. This pact, where honored, will has an adverse impact on missions because it camouflages the enemy's camp. Uniting Evangelicals and Catholics is not the Christian mission in the third millennium. Our mission is the same now as when Jesus assigned it.

They toiled together

The opening paragraph of the AP news story throws light on that which has aggravated the problem. "THEY TOILED TOGETHER IN... MOVEMENTS AGAINST abortion," etc. Conservative moral and political positions are often viewed as synonymous with spiritual life. Camaraderie in activism becomes synonymous with Christian fellowship. Religious fervency replaces truth. Biblical doctrine is subordinated to areas of agreement. Otherwise it interferes with the "unity" of "Christian fellowship." Compromise becomes the norm so that we can present a "united witness for Christ."

Communism taught its subjects to form alliances with its enemies to defeat a common foe. When they had succeeded they would then destroy their unsuspecting ally. Catholicism subscribes to that philosophy also. But Jesus instructed us differently.

We are called to be "separate" (II Cor.6:14-18). Those who have another gospel cannot be accomplices in fulfilling the commission of Jesus Christ today any more than they could in Jesus day, or in the time of Martin Luther.

Call to unity. Call to compromise.

According to the article, John White, former president of the National Association of Evangelicals said the statement [signed by evangelicals and Catholics] represented a "triumphal moment" in American religious life after centuries of mistrust. He seems to have forgotten the reason for the mistrust, which is still alive and well in the Church of Rome.

Evangelicals who embrace this deception may find themselves less ill received in catholic countries, but in fact the compromise will be the great neutralizer of their mission.