CAN CATHOLICS AND EVANGELICALS AGREE - EVEN ON BASICS?
A Critical Examination to Expose the False Ecumenism of Today
© 1997 Tower of David Publications
A division of Tower of David Ministry
11910 Wonder Ct.
Monrovia, MD 21770
CONTENTS
Introduction
1. The Authority of God
2. The Same God?
3. The Church of Christ
4. Ecumenism and the Attributes of God
5. Misinterpretation (is no excuse)
6. Conclusion
If someone does not hold fast to this unity of Peter, can he imagine that he still holds the faith? If he desert the chair of Peter upon whom the Church was built, can he still be confident that he is in the Church, when the blessed Apostle Paul teaches this very thing and displays the sacred sign of unity when he says: one body and one Spirit, one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one God?... He cannot have God for his Father who does not have the Church for his Mother. -St.Cyprian (200-258; "The Unity of the Catholic Church" 4,6)
Tower of David Ministry is a lay Catholic apostolate dedicated to Our Lady for the purposes of promoting and expanding on earth the Kingdom of her Divine Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, which is found only in the Roman Catholic Church.
INTRODUCTION
We hear of ecumenism (i.e., the cause for Christian unity) everywhere today in Christian circles. The cause for Christian unity is, or should be, motivated by the prayer of Our Lord Jesus in the Gospel of John, chapter 17, where Jesus prays that all His disciples would be one as He and the Father are one.
It should be made clear from the outset that the Church established by Jesus Christ is NOT divided, but has always been, is now, and always will be one: one in Faith (doctrine-teaching), one in authority (government), one in morals (life), and one in worship. This is so by the fact that Jesus Christ is not divided and the Church is His Body. Therefore, the divisions which exist are between those who profess to believe in and follow Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.
Our concern here is with the divisions between Catholics and Protestants, particularly, Evangelicals. The reason why is because it is said that while Catholics and Evangelicals disagree on many issues and doctrines, our common profession of the Creed, the Holy Trinity, the Deity and Incarnation of Christ, His propitiatory death on the cross, among other truths, means that we profess the same essentials of the Christian Faith; and this cannot be said of most of the main-line Protestant denominations today. But on a closer look we will see that this is not at all the case even between Catholics and Evangelicals.
There is only one Lord and only one Faith (i.e. set of doctrines) revealed by God (Eph.4:5). This must mean that different and contradicting faiths do not lead to, nor come from, the same Lord; and Catholics and Evangelicals have different and contradicting faiths. Both cannot have the one true Faith revealed by God for our salvation, for divine truth can never be self-contradictory.
What this short work shall demonstrate is that Catholics and Evangelicals disagree on the very basics and essentials of revealed religion, of the Christian Faith. In fact, Catholicism is completely incompatible with any and all forms of Protestantism because there is disagreement on 1) the very nature of the Christian Faith, 2) the content of God's revelation to mankind, and 3) the very God and Lord in Whom we believe and worship. These facts have been ignored, even out-right denied, by the vast majority of those involved in ecumenism today. Yet they must be recognized if truth really matters.
Because of this, there can be no mere cooperation between a Catholic and an Evangelical, or any Protestant for that matter, unless one denies, or at least ignores, his own beliefs. But no honest Christian can do this. There can be no "spiritual unity" (whatever that means) by the very fact that spirituality itself depends on the Spirit of Truth. In fact, any and all types of unity first depend on the three points stated above.
Our beliefs, as will be shown, are completely irreconcilable, and true ecumenism must be founded on truth. Pope John Paul II made this clear in his encyclical on ecumenism, "Ut Unum Sint" (1995): that only by bearing witness to the truth unity is served (# 95).
This booklet does precisely that.