During last year’s 500th anniversary of the Reformation, many groups asked: Is it over? The loudest “no” has come from the conservative Protestants closest to Rome.
Last month, the national evangelical alliances of Italy, Spain, and Malta—all members of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA)—wrote an 8-page open letter charging their parent organization with “moving away from its historic position” of holding the line against Catholic and liberal Protestant theology.
“In recent years we have sensed that the leadership of WEA has moved away from the outlined historic position of the Alliance on unity by endorsing a more ‘ecumenical’ attitude,” the three alliances stated in December. “Unity has become a blurred term to refer to any relationship even beyond the principles that have always characterized evangelicals. Leaders have become less cautious in talking about unity with the Catholic Church as such and have tended to bypass the historic boundaries.”
The alliances stated the result has been “undiscerning, wrong-headed, and emotionally-driven statements on Popes and ecumenical activities” that have “caused embarrassment in our constituencies.”
In fact, the national evangelical alliances of Italy, Spain, France, and Poland threw up a red flag to the WEA as early as October 2013, several months after Pope Francis’ election excited many evangelicals worldwide. “We are concerned with some totally uncritical assessments that we are reading and that are coming from some provinces of the evangelical world,” the three alliances stated (excerpted in the December 2017 open letter). Francis uses language like “personal relationship” with Christ, “conversion,” and “mission,” but “there is no hint that he wants to change any dogma that is contrary to Scripture.”
The next year, after WEA leaders met with Pope Francis, the Italian Evangelical Alliance stated that there were “insurmountable” doctrinal obstacles with the Catholic Church, and asked the WEA for a “clarification on the inside line to take against Roman Catholicism.”
WEA global ambassador Brian Stiller explained at the time: “In places where evangelicals are marginalized, having this official connection allows us to raise issues and ask for responses we would never otherwise get.”
But Italian evangelicals remained wary, and warned American evangelicals to do the same. Church leaders representing a “near totality of evangelicals who have a conservative Protestant theology and a strong evangelistic commitment” signed a statement in July 2014 pointing out doctrinal differences between evangelicals and Catholics.
Evangelical leaders in Spain have also been apprehensive. Last fall, the Spanish Evangelical Alliance distanced itself from a joint document between the WEA and the Vatican meant “for promoting Christian unity.”
Though the alliances can work with the Catholic Church on social matters like abortion or persecution, and though the two share some common theological ground, the Spanish alliance stated it “cannot ignore the fact that the Roman Catholic Church continues to maintain fundamental doctrines that are not found in Scriptures.”
The growing closeness of the WEA and the Catholic Church—emphasized by a joint Reformation commemoration in 2016 that Thomas Schirrmacher, chairman of the European Evangelical Alliance’s theological commission, called a sort of “peace treaty” between Catholics and Lutherans—has caused “growing concern,” the Spanish alliance stated.
Last May, the top leaders of the WEA, the World Council of Churches (WCC), the Pentecostal World Fellowship, and the Vatican met for two days to “meet and build up each other” in “Christian unity.” Four months later, the four groups met again to work on a “common statement” against proselytizing each other’s members.
“It seems, therefore, that WEA is about to sign a statement with the WCC and the Roman Catholic Church on unity, even on ‘great oneness’!” the December letter from the three European alliances stated. “We are puzzled by what is happening. We see a radical shift taking place.”
“We therefore plead with you to stop the process,” the alliances wrote [emphasis theirs]. The WEA responded to these concerns over its alleged “ecumenical agenda” with its own open letter this month.
“These are serious charges, but they bear no resemblance to what the WEA is actually doing,” the WEA stated. The alliances “apparently conflated the two reports from two different meetings and drew the conclusion that the WEA was planning to sign a common statement on unity with the WCC and the Vatican” [emphasis theirs].
But the WEA got the point.
“We recognize that beneath this specific misunderstanding lies a deep-seated, ongoing concern about the WEA’s intra-faith relations and particularly its relationship with the Roman Catholic Church,” the WEA stated. “The EAs (Evangelical Alliances) responsible for the open letter fear that too close a rapprochement and collaboration with the Catholic Church could undermine our ability to articulate the historic evangelical faith in an uncompromised way.”
The WEA said it is not looking for “ecclesial or sacramental unity” with the Catholic Church. Schirrmacher—the WEA’s Associate Secretary General for Theological Concerns—explained on his blog that the WEA is pursuing “collaboration without compromise.”
“Our theology has not changed as a result of talking with Catholic, Orthodox, or Coptic leaders,” stated Schirrmacher alongside cowriter Thomas Johnson.
Not all yet “wonder after the beast.” See Revelation 13:3. Some still see the need to remain separate from Rome’s false teachings and practices.