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The Myth Of Christian Disunity: Bridging the Catholic-Protestant Gap

by | Jan 19, 2015 | Missions Articles

EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is the fifth in a six-part series about unity in the Body of Christ. The views expressed in this series are the author’s and are not necessarily endorsed by Modern Day Missions.

By far, the biggest schism among orthodox believers is between Catholics and evangelical Protestants. This division is maintained for key doctrinal reasons. Catholics hold texts to be sacred (the deuterocanonical books) that Protestants believe to be extra-canonical. Meanwhile, Catholic teaching holds that those outside of its denomination are outside the bounds of the Church that Christ, himself, established. They also encourage their adherents not only to make converts to Christ, but specifically to Catholicism. But even this conflict seems to be softening. Megachurch pastor Rick Warren called Catholics his “brothers and sisters in God’s family” in 2005, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Respected Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias has spoken favorably about Catholic theologians and his website states that “Some of Ravi Zacharias’s favorite authors are Catholic (namely G.K. Chesterton and Malcolm Muggeridge).”

Unity between Catholics and Protestants was demonstrated in an unprecedented way in America after leading figures from the two camps signed “Evangelicals & Catholics Together” in 1994. The document was intended to express and foster solidarity between the sects around the common causes of making disciples, personal holiness, political consciousness and religious liberty. It was signed by Protestants Charles Colson (founder of Prison Fellowship, an organization that seeks to reach inmates with the gospel), Richard Land (then the president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention) and Jesse Miranda (a professor at Vanguard University) as well as Catholics Richard John Neuhaus (a prominent priest and author), George Weigel (Catholic theologian, author and activist) and James Stafford (who would become an American Catholic cardinal).

Not too long ago, being a Catholic would have been an obstacle for anyone with presidential aspirations in the U.S. — especially in states with large populations of evangelical Protestants. But in 2012, former senator Rick Santorum, a Roman Catholic, won presidential nominating contests in four of what the Pew Research Center has found to be the eight most heavily evangelical-Protestant states in the United States. Santorum won in Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Tennessee, all of which have evangelical Protestant populations of at least 47 percent. Three of the other four contests took place after he abandoned his presidential campaign because it would have been extremely difficult to win enough delegates at that point to capture the nomination. His name, however, remained on the ballot.

Youth With A Mission, or YWAM, (one of the world’s largest Christian missionary ministries, of which I am a member) is mostly comprised of evangelical Protestants, but also includes ministries around the world under the “Kerygma” banner designed specifically draw in Catholic missionaries and disciple Catholics. Also late in 2014, YWAM founders Loren and Darlene Cunningham met Pope Francis and discussed (and agreed about) the need to increase the rate of Bible translation and distribution to people groups around the world that currently don’t have Scripture in their own language.

By: Raymond Billy

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