In 1994, a group of religious leaders in America signed Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium (ECT). Though advocating "unity in Christ," the document was nothing but an attempt to get the almost five centuries of theological antipathy between these two faiths out of the way so they could pursue a common political agenda. Though criticism was harsh, the harshest was over ECT's compromise on the key issue of the Reformation: justification by faith alone (ECT conveniently ignored another key Reformation issue-the Protestant reformers' almost unanimous naming of Papal Rome as the "anti-Christ").

In response, many of the good souls who signed onto ECT have penned their names to a shrewder and more subtle document than its crude predecessor. Called The Gift of Salvation, the new statement says, basically, that 500 years of bitter dispute was all for nothing, and that Catholics and Protestants really believe the same gospel after all!

After a well-done explanation of the Fall and its consequences, the document gives a cogent and biblical explication of righteousness by faith. "We agree that justification is not earned by any good works or merits on our own," The Gift of Salvation states. "It is entirely God's gift, conferred through the Father's sheer graciousness, out of the love that He bears for His Son, who suffered on our behalf and rose from the dead for our justification ." The document also says that, "In justification, God, on the basis of Christ's righteousness alone, declares us to be no longer His rebellious enemies by His forgiven friends, and by virtue of His declaration it is so."

Luther couldn't have expressed it better himself. However, there's one problem: the end of the document subtly negates all this wonderful talk of justification by faith alone. "While we rejoice in the unity we have discovered and are confident of the fundamental truths about the gift of salvation we have affirmed, we recognize that there are necessary and interrelated questions that require further and urgent exploration." Among those are: "the meaning of baptismal regeneration, the Eucharist, and sacramental grace; the historic uses of the language of justification as it relates to imputed and transformative righteousness; the normative status of justification in relation to all Christian doctrine; the assertion that while justification is by faith alone, the faith that receives salvation is never alone; diverse understandings of merit, reward, purgatory, and indulgences; Marian devotion and the assistance of the saints in this life."

This is doublespeak with a halo. Catholics and Protestants sign a document strongly affirming salvation by faith alone, but then list things that still need "further and urgent exploration," things that, by their very nature, conflict with the truth the document purports to uphold. The Gift of Salvation is like someone who expresses absolute fidelity to laissez-faire economics but refuses to give up Marxism.

If we are saved by faith alone, what's the purpose of sacramental grace? And even more important, why does one need a church to administer that grace? Also, it would take a Protagoras to engage in the kind of sophistry needed to harmonize indulgences with justification by faith alone. As Mark Coppeneger, president of the Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, expressed it: "How can those matters [of a sacramental system and purgatory] be open when the matter of 'faith alone' is settled?" In fact, as long as its basic structure is founded on the notion that only through it, the church, can the merits of Christ be continually applied, Rome will never be able to accept biblical justification, no matter the sophisticated language used in the document to blur the differences between what are, essentially, irreconcilable theological positions.

In his famous book The Nature of Mathematics, Philip E. Jourdain wrote that, "Law of logic … cannot be broken. These laws are not, as they are sometimes said to be, laws of thought; for logic has nothing to do with the way people think. . . . Somebody might think that 2 and 2 make 5; we know, by a process which rests on the laws of logic, that they make 4."

In the same way, the Protestants who signed their names on The Gift of Salvation might think that they have found common ground with Rome on justification by faith, just as some might think that 2 and 2 equal 5.

Ecumenical Evangelism

Not long after The Gift of Salvation was released, First Things published a presentation by Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy-president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity-that addressed the thorny issue of Catholics and Protestants evangelizing each other's flocks (after all, if we're all brothers and sisters in the Lord, all believing in the same gospel, why should we be stealing each other's sheep?). In it, the cardinal expressed happiness over the growing sense of unity between Evangelicals and Catholics, and said that "much progress has been made in the second half of this century in establishing a new type of relationship among Christians." Nevertheless, he stressed that there were still areas of tension, especially in Latin America, where the bishops complain that their faithful are "being stolen" by Evangelicals. This is painful, he explained, because the Catholic Church had come to Latin America first, and with much suffering, cost, and energy had been evangelizing the continent for 500 years. He then said that Christians need to evangelize "with-not against-one another."

How is this "ecumenical evangelism" to be accomplished? The cardinal gave a list of four principles that could help Catholics and Protestants move "towards evangelization in an ecumenical spirit." The first is most interesting: "It is surely just," he said, "that the church that has evangelized a country of people should be held in respect by others who come later on the scene. This sense of respect would seem to require that newcomers not target for their evangelizing work the active, baptized members of the church that has been responsible for the original evangelization, and that they seek to enter into contact and dialogue with those that have preceded them."

In other words, Evangelicals (the "others who come later on the scene") should not seek to lure Catholics ("the active, baptized members of the church that has been responsible for the original evangelization") to Protestant churches.

The cardinal would say that, of course, especially because a lot more Catholics are becoming Protestants than vice versa in Latin America, a point he doesn't mention but that greatly distresses Rome. Instead he talks about how Catholics and Protestants have found themselves on the same side in "the cause of Christ against a new paganism" and should thus work together to reach those "who wander in the darkness of sin and unbelief."

And though Cardinal Cassidy does uplift the common ground between Evangelicals and Catholics, he nevertheless says that "it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone … that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained."

"Through Christ's Catholic Church alone"? Wait a minute. Hasn't Cardinal Cassidy read The Gift of Salvation, which claims that Catholics believe that we're saved by faith alone? Or, instead, is the cardinal just being honest about what Roman Catholics really believe, which is not justification by faith as taught by Paul and Luther? If so, then there's no doubt that Catholics and Protestants don't believe in the same gospel after all, and that Protestants must continue evangelizing, even among "the active, baptized members of the church that has been responsible for the original evangelization."

Nuremberg Revisited?

In a law somewhat reflective of the one recently made into law in Russia, the Austrian Parliament passed Western Europe's strictest statue regarding minority faiths. The law states that to be registered as "official," a religion must have at least 16,000 members, and that those which don't have those numbers can seek for the category of "public corporation," a status that can take up to 20 years to obtain. Though lawmakers backing the law say that it would clarify the legal status of a growing number of religious communities in the country, critics-including some of Austria's smaller political parties, and religious liberty advocates in the U.S.-see the law as part of a growing anti-cult movement in Europe that could endanger religious liberty in general. "It's a mania for registration and government control of religious groups," said Karen Lord, religious liberty counsel for the Helsinki Commission, a human rights organization. Among the groups who don't have enough registered members to be an "official" religion are the Jews, whose numbers were greatly diminished the last time the Austrians passed a law restricting minority faiths.

Saved from Faith?

The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a divorced father cannot continue to take his kids to church because it alienates them from their Jewish mother. According to the decision, Jeffrey Kendall's three children face "stress" when they go to Sunday services because they're told there that non-Christians (like their mother) "are destined to burn in hell." Though courts do take into consideration any religious practices that can harm the welfare of children, this is an interesting case in that it's pure theology alone that's deemed enough to stop a parent from taking his kids to a religious service, a rare but not unique occurrence. "The court effectively has established a religion for these three children," said Kendall's attorney, Michael Greco. Well, not quite, but there are some troubling implications in a decision in which a court rules that a parent cannot take kids to a church based solely on the church's theology.