The central points of divergence that surfaced in our recent Roman Catholic and Evangelical dialog were made very clear as our discussion proceeded. The most obvious one, put in the simplest manner, was our ecclesiology. I am not downplaying how serious this difference really is by putting it in one word. The doctrine of the church is at the very heart of our major theological differences.

Matthew 16:18-20 was discussed and we all four agreed that the best exegesis of this text leads us to conclude that Jesus is telling Peter the Church is rooted in the revelation of God to Peter and thus in his human person as well. Various Protestant attempts to explain away the text fail and thereby show that they are rooted in over-reaction to Roman Catholicism. But what we did not agree upon, very obviously, was whether or not Peter was the first pope, at least in the sense that he became the head of Christ’s Church on the earth and that this office, the papacy, continues down to the present day through the successors to the […]

The ACT 3 Catholic and Evangelical Forum moved from four opening presentations to serious questions about where we agreed and disagreed about subjects such as salvation and the doctrine of the Church. We also touched on issues like the doctrine of Mary, the sacraments and universal salvation, or salvation for those who do not have explicit faith in Christ as Lord and Savior. The pace was fast and engaging. The context allowed for us to talk in a dignified and courteous way. This was clearly not an old-fashioned “take no prisoners” debate with real winners and losers. Nor was it an evangelistic event, though I would like to think that unbelievers clearly heard enough good news to truly believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior if they were so inclined by the Spirit’s gracious work in them. The gospel was presented and freely and openly discussed. 

Alan Krashesky, our moderator, began the middle section of our dialog (which was about forty minutes) with the following comment: “It seems obvious to me that you are all four comfortable with calling each […]

The ACT 3 Catholic and Evangelical Forum provided a wonderful opportunity for four of us, representing two different Christian approaches to faith and life, to have an honest dialog that was gracious and winsome. The tone seemed right, at least to most of us, and the subject matter, though weighty in many cases, was handled in ways that allowed non-theologians to grasp some of our agreements and disagreements. I will address some of these in forthcoming blogs.

P. Andrew Sandlin gave the opening word from our side of the dialog about the good news. He stressed the evangelical Protestant concern that it is the gospel that defines and creates the Church. He asked: “What is the bad news?” His point was to help us understand that the really good news is not good until we have understood the bad news about our sin and God’s broken law. He called our sin both a moral rebellion and a disease. “Sin sets man not just against his fellow man and against his environment, but also against himself. Man is at war with himself because […]

The Catholic–Evangelical Forum began with a welcome and opening statement by our moderator Alan Krashesky, followed by a prayer by Father Wilbur Ellsworth, the chairman of the ACT 3 board. Each of the four of the speakers gave an eight-minute opening.

My comments addressed the ecumenical question from the perspective of my own evangelical journey of faith, revealing how I came to embrace this kind of public dialog and effort for unity among Christians. I shared about my own childhood background in the South, my narrowly anti-Catholic perspective, and then my days as an evangelical minister who made no real public effort at all to converse with Catholics other than with an intention to convert them to my evangelicalism. (There were two exceptions as I recall. As a teenager, one of my best friends was a Catholic and we talked about faith issues constantly, which made me realize that we did share a great deal in common. The other was a rather close friendship with an excellent priest, now deceased, who I got to know during my first church-planting ministry in Bolingbrook, […]

On the evening of September 16 ACT 3 sponsored our first Roman Catholic and Evangelical Dialog, hosted graciously by North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. (I say "first dialog" because we may do more such events in the days ahead but this one was, for us at least, a historic beginning.) This unique event was well attended, with about 200 people in the audience coming from many churches and several colleges: North Central, Illinois Benedictine, Wheaton and Elmhurst. (Students from the University of St. Mary of the Lake, Mundelein Seminary, also came down for the event.) The moderator was Alan Krashesky, the anchorman for ABC television in Chicago. He served as an excellent leader for the evening keeping it on track and very fairly conducted. Alan grew up a Roman Catholic, converted to Evangelical Protestantism, and is respected by people on both sides of this kind of dialog. In fact, my Catholic friends requested that he moderate our event for three reasons: (1) They knew he is would be fair and generous; (2) He is intelligent and leads such events most professionally, and; (3) […]