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A House United? : Evangelicals and Catholics Together

NavPress published a book in 1994 titled A House United?:Evangelicals and Catholics Together by Keith A. Fournier with William D. Watkins.  The book is basically a road map towards morality with Evangelicals and Catholics joined in this common purpose.  The contents are about what one would expect, except for the begining of the book when Mr. Fournier contrasts evangelicals who do and do not support him.  For evangelicals who support him, he writes the following: 

Dr. Billy Graham is another prophetic leader in  our century.  A beautiful exception to the problem of arrogant Western presumption, he has long worked with native churches and, though criticized by some, was proclaiming the gospel behind the Iron Curtain long before the Berlin Wall showed any cracks.  He readily acknowledges that God is in the midst of Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, not just Protestantism.

One other prophetic voice is Chuck Colson.  Through his numerous writings, ministry outreaches, talks, and other commitments, he has scaled the walls separating believers and courageously stood with Christians of all traditions to confront the darkness of our age.  He and his work embody the spirit of charity and love of Christ that should characterize all believers.  He is so committed to alliance building within the Body of Christ that he took the risk of asking faculty members and students at Franciscan University what they thought of the statement of faith of Prison Fellowship Ministries.  When some concerns were raised about the statement's terminology (not so much about its content), Chuck immediately began reworking the statement to alliviate the stated concerns.

For evangelicals who do not support him, he writes:

Not long ago Moody magazine approached me and asked if I would grant them an interview on recent developments in evangelical Protestant and Catholic cooperation.  They had been intrigued by my first book, Evangelical Catholics, and they wanted to use that along with the interview as a springboard for exploring issues in their magazine.

....The article was published in the November 1993 issue of Moody Entitled "Evangelicals and Catholics:Across the Divide," I thought the article had clearly and fairly articulated what I had said in the interview and in my book.  I also thought the writer had achieved a good balance between the form of cooperation I supported and its critics.  What bothered me was what some of these critics had to say.

Protestant Bible expositor and educator John MacArthur declared that "Roman Catholicism... is unbiblical."   He warned evangelical Protestants against joining "forces with Catholicism, Mormonisn, or even Hinduism... in order to promote the pro-life movement and other common moral aims" because by so doing they "accept precisely the kind of yoke with unbelievers that is prohibited in 2 Cor. 6:14."  To this he added that because "there is no suggestion that Rome will ever reputdiate its stance against justification by faith .. I believe the trend toward tolerance and cooperation is a destructive one because it blurs the distinction between biblical truth and a system of false teaching."  As far as MacArthur is concerned, my faith is unbiblical, full of false doctrines, and I'm an unbeliever on par with Mormons and Hindus.

Another person interviewed was Jim McCarthy, the head of Good News for Catholics, an organization that basically assumes Catholics are not Christians, an organization that had dedicated itself to evangelizing them.  In the article, McCarthy chastised evangelical Protestant Christians (for him, apparently, there are no other kind of Christians) who "defend Catholicism."  He said such people "are simply not informed."  "They don't see the doctrinal error of the [Catholic] church...." So from McCarthy's perspective, I represent a tradition with doctrinal error and people who may see things differently than he does are obviously theologically ignorant and apathetic.  I suppose that must include me.

Reformed theologian and apologist R.C. Sproul was also interviewed.  Though he indicated his pleasure that evangelical Protestants and Catholics are "behaving in a much more charitable  fashion" toward each other, he warned that "the things that divide orthodox Protestantism from official Roman Catholic doctrine are greater today than they were in the 16th century."  Time has not brought the two camps closer together in theology but has created a wider gap... Sproul believes that the doctrinal positions that have led to this deeper divorce are Catholicism's official stance against justification by faith alone and its decrees on papal infallibility and the unique role of Mary.  Sproul was especially adamant about the Reformed doctine of justification: "If justification by faith alone is an essential doctrine of Christianity, then any church [that denies that truth], no matter how virtuous it is ... would have to be viewed as apostate."  Hence according to Sproul, my Catholic convictions are unorthodox, more so now than they would have been if I had been a Catholic in the sixteenth century.  And worse yet, I am a member of an apostate church.

To a degree I can understand Mr. Fournier's confusion.  Some of the evangelical community has allied itself with the Catholic church and indirectly accepts Mr. Fournier, while some of the evangelical community rejects the Catholic church and therefore rejects Mr. Fournier as a Christain.  It quickly becomes evident in his book that Mr. Fournier is a strong Catholic and unregenerate.  As long as he is unregenerate, he will remain confused.  It has been my prayer that he comes to a saving faith - perhaps this time he will write a book that will minister to Christians.  What I cannot understand is why would a Christian publisher such as NavPress print such a book?  Not only does it confuse the gospel, it ignorantly attacks our spiritual leaders who are defending the faith.  During my telephone conversation on April 1, 2003 with Mr. Lauren Libby of the Navigators, I learned that the book is no longer in print, the Navigators have not printed a retraction, the Navigators stand behind printing the book, and Mr. Libby hosts Catholics as part of the fellowship mix in his home Bible study (I guess the Navigators practice what they print).

An excellent review of this book by Mr. Robert N Wilkin in context of the gospel is found at http://www.faithalone.org/journal/1995i/Wilkin.html.




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