In 1846 – a year after the ex-Evangelical John Henry Newman became Catholic – an Evangelical alliance was founded in London. It was “for the expression of unity amongst Christian individuals belonging to different churches” – and they did not mean Catholics, or for that matter liberal Protestants.
The group, which would become the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), expanded from 10 countries to 129, and claims to embrace 600 million Evangelicals around the world. But they don’t all agree, and it is increasingly difficult for the WEA to hold everyone together.
That is evident from a stinging letter written by the local Evangelical Alliances of Italy, Spain and Malta at the end of last year. There has been “a progressive implementation of an ecumenical agenda in WEA”, they allege, on which local associations have not been consulted. And it is “about to reach a tipping point in 2018”, with a forthcoming statement affirming common ground with Catholics. (The WEA say this statement is not in fact happening.)
The protesting Evangelicals are happy to collaborate with Catholics on protecting unborn babies and persecuted Christians, or on works of social justice. But they do not believe there can be a joint effort in evangelisation, when Catholics and Protestants hold such different beliefs.
For instance – the Italians, Maltese and Spanish Evangelicals say – Catholics have different views of the Bible, justification, Mary and the Eucharist (for Catholics, they observe, the Mass re-presents Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross).
Along with these familiar Protestant objections are concerns which have also been heard among Catholics. Many have been baffled by the cheerful, hail-fellow-well-met tone with which the Reformation was marked – a bafflement shared, if from an opposite direction, by more than a few Protestants.
In Malmö in October 2016, the Pope hugged the (female) leader of the Swedish Lutherans and pledged “to set aside everything that divides and estranges us, and to find ever new ways to advance along the path of unity”. A year later, to widespread astonishment, the Vatican proudly displayed a Luther statue and issued postage stamps of the Crucifixion in which the figures of St John and Our Lady were replaced with the figures of Luther and Melanchthon.
It turns out that some Protestants have also been alarmed by these developments. “In recent years,” the Evangelical Alliances say, “Leaders have become less cautious in talking about unity with the Catholic Church”.
The “wrong-headed and emotionally driven statements” about unity are defended by appealing to a 1999 Joint Declaration on Justification, signed by Lutherans and Vatican representatives. But that document – here the Evangelical Alliances echo previous remarks from Catholics and Protestants alike – seems to reject Luther’s view and uphold the Catholic one. The difference is bridged with ambiguous language – and, the Evangelical Alliances claim, “This ambiguous context is Pope Francis’s framework when he speaks on this topic.”
Previous statements from Evangelical Alliances have also cautioned against rushing into talks with Catholics. In 2013 four national associations warned the WEA that the Pope was “strongly pushing the idea that what really matters is what one’s conscience says, an old liberal idea” and emphasising “the brotherhood of all men” over the Gospel.
That statement was signed by the Alliances of Italy and Spain, like the latest statement – and by those of France and Poland. It seems to be Protestants in historically Catholic cultures who are most keenly aware of theological divisions.
After the latest protest, the WEA responded in conciliatory fashion: it issued a statement admitting that there was “concern” among Evangelicals and that the WEA leadership could do more to listen to grassroots opinion. But they also said that some of the alliances’ concerns were unfounded, and based on incorrect reports about possible joint statements.
Is this, as the three alliances say, the “beginning of the end” for the WEA? It seems hard to hold together the relentlessly upbeat tone of modern ecumenical statements with the historic commitments of Catholics and Protestants alike. Some Catholic officials have done a great deal to foster that tone, by constantly stressing unity and glossing over the past. In so doing, they might have accidentally helped to split the Evangelical world.
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