Even a decade ago, much of this would have been a surprise. It is true that for Catholics, the Second Vatican Council in the 1960's set the stage for Catholic acceptance of ecumenicism. But the evangelicals still had a long way to go.
Exactly 10 years ago, a group of evangelical and Catholic leaders and scholars released a document called "Evangelicals and Catholics Together." It was the result of a dialogue started by two men: the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, a Catholic priest in New York who edits the journal First Things, and Charles Colson, the former Nixon aide who became a born-again Christian while doing time for the Watergate cover-up.
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Mr. Colson said in a recent interview that he had reached out to Father Neuhaus because he had admired a book by the priest, "The Naked Public Square," which argued that public life was slowly being stripped of the religious. The two men convened a group of prominent theologians and religious leaders. The evangelical side included the late Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, the religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and theologians like James I. Packer. The Catholic side included the late Cardinal John O'Connor of New York and the theologian Avery Dulles, now a cardinal.
Their manifesto was primarily theological, but it included overt political pledges to work together on issues like abortion, government aid for religious schools and strengthening the "traditional family," in part a reaction to the growing gay rights movement.
The document shook the evangelical world. "Friendships and institutions were blown apart," Father Neuhaus recalled in an interview. One hundred evangelical leaders signed a statement denouncing it. Mr. Colson said his organization, Prison Fellowship Ministries, lost about a million dollars in contributions. He received more than a dozen letters a week from angry evangelicals.
But over the next several years, the letters stopped. By 2000, Mr. Colson and James Dobson, the broadcaster who founded Focus on the Family, were invited to the Vatican to address the bishops on the breakdown of the family, the first such appearance ever. Evangelical institutions like Wheaton College in Illinois and Gordon College in Massachusetts began inviting Catholics to speak on campus, Mr. Colson said.
Father Neuhaus said he has been among the Catholic leaders urging bishops to publicly confront Catholic politicians like Mr. Kerry who defy church teaching on abortion. The dialogue group has continued meeting, and is at work on another statement on the meaning of holiness. This is not to say that everyone sees eye to eye. There is plenty of anti-Catholic residue among evangelicals. Christian bookstores still sell books arguing Catholics are apostates. The best-selling "Left Behind" series, so popular among evangelicals, featured a distasteful Catholic cardinal who assists the Antichrist.
On political matters, evangelicals and Catholics will not fall on the same side of the divide on every issue. The Vatican opposed the war in Iraq, while many evangelicals were hawkish. And many Catholics still profess a strong social-justice, pro-union, Democratic orientation that makes them natural antagonists of evangelicals, who largely swing Republican.
Father Neuhaus confided, "There is much in the evangelical culture that grates against me - the overly confident claims to being born again, the forced happiness and joy, the awful music."
But the alliance, he said, is "an extraordinary realignment that if it continues is going to create a very different kind of configuration of Christianity in America."
I was around in 1960 and I didn't hear one single evangelic protestant leader say that. What I did see and hear was the liberal media at the time saying that's what was happening in protestant churches.
I'm NOT denying that that feeling didn't exist among some protestants. Just that as usual the NYTimes has no source for their so called statements of fact. They blatently make a statement that they can't back up and then build a whole story on the original fabrication.
I love Father Neuhouse
Ping. (As usual, if you would like to be added to or removed from my "conservative Catholics" ping list, please send me a FReepmail. Please note that this is occasionally a high volume ping list and some of my ping posts are long.)"
I percieve a very powerful voting block here.
"The best-selling "Left Behind" series, so popular among evangelicals, featured a distasteful Catholic cardinal who assists the Antichrist."
I saw this in the Newsweek article on the Left Behind series. My the time that this cardinal is involved, the RC church as we know it was gone. In fact, the Pope at the time of the rapture is raptured, disappears. These books are NOT anti-Catholic. I'm a Born again Catholic and I've read all of them.
I'm Catholic and I'm not voting for Johnny Kerry.
Ecumenism of the trenches. I like the sound of that. It's about time we as Christians realized that our enemy is not each other. Here we are, given the whole armor of God, yet we spend entirely too much time either polishing our armor or fighting each other.
Ping for later
Hmmm. LOL! I've never witnessed that myself. LOL! Interesting to read what he thinks is happening in evangelical churches. Oh well. Personally, I'd much rather send my kid to a Catholic school and just need to explain some religious doctrinal differences to him rather than send him to public schooling where, if he gets an education at all, I will have to set him straight on so much more.
Let's give credit where credit is due. Both Catholics and Evangelicals embraced The Passion of the Christ , recognizing in it, Mel Gibson's attention to biblical authenticity. Unlike previous Hollywood attempts, this version of Christ's passion was not watered down with political correctness.
Catholic Ping - let me know if you want on/off this list
**Polls of the 2000 election showed traditionalists and centrists breaking away to join conservative evangelicals in voting for George Bush.**
Isn't it wonderful to join together to defeat the liberal dimocrats?