Catholic and Evangelical elites in dialogue and alliance.
IntroductionFor several centuries the leadership, let alone the in-the-pews adherents, of both the Catholic and Evangelical religious identities have looked on each other as anathema. Only in the last three decades have significant steps been taken towards each other by some persons identified as "elites" in both communities who share common political and social goals. Only in the past few years have these elites reached out and actually joined hands in the realm of the social and political, even though some of their own fellow believers still look on the other side of the theological gulf with suspicion and the remnants of historic distrust.
The fact that these self-identified elites are talking with one another - "dialoguing" - is an important development. This study focuses on it by examination of one recent significant event therein: the Evangelicals and Catholics Together statement (ECT) of 1994 (Neuhaus, 1994) (the statement is presented in full in Appendix 1 by permission of First Things). For an understanding of this occurrence it is of central import to discover who the elites are and for whom they speak, what they are professionally and vocationally and which vision they pursue personally and corporately. There is a necessity for a narrative to offer a texture of meaning and a sense of developmental movement. It is argued, however, that beyond the answers to these queries, understanding in a broader perspective can be aided by reference to established theory within the discipline, in this case to elite theory. This study attempts to advance that contextual understanding and to frame a hypothesis to facilitate study of "elites-in-dialogue" through the differentiated reference to elite theory. In sum, this examination is an endeavour at hypothesis generation within a focused study of two small sets of opinion makers (micro-elites) from two major religious identities in contemporary North America.
The recent studies by Fournier and Watkins (1994) and by Colson and Neuhaus (1995)[1], as well as articles and opinion pieces in various journals, give testimony to the interest in this specific and singular dialogue of unity among the historically divided. Strangely, however, nothing significant in a theoretical manner has been published concerning these self-actuating small elites themselves, qua elites, who initiated and developed this historic undertaking in the realm of North American (both US and Canadian) political experience. Thus, a narrative context about the origins and developers of the ECT movement over the past three years would be of value to a case study of it and the theoretical canvass of its elite structure and interrelationships. It seems important to set the stage and identify the actual persons and the proximate events which led to the present state of the dialogue between the two sets of elites.
Context
While the attempt of Christians in North America to construct some kind of a political common front against what is perceived as an unfriendly and aggressively secular - even pagan - culture has roots going back about 30 years it is within a shorter time frame that the present ECT movement arose. Richard John Neuhaus, now editor-in-chief of First Things (which announces itself as "a monthly journal of religion and public life") was, until his recent conversion to Catholicism, a Lutheran minister and scholar. Msgr. William Murphey was and still is Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Boston. While Neuhaus was still a Lutheran and Murphey was newer to his archdiocesan duties they jointly became active in bringing together those who ultimately would become participants and signatories to the statement. As noted by the authors at the beginning of the statement itself, it is "the product of consultation, beginning in September, 1992, between Evangelical Protestant and Roman Catholic Christians". Charles Colson, now chairman of the Prison Fellowship (his own effort and organizational achievement after his release from prison on Watergate charges) played a critical role on the Evangelical Protestant side. He bears the credentials of an Evangelical in good standing, is a lead opinion editorialist in Christianity Today, and is a person trusted by his religious fellow believers who is yet understanding of and in close contact with Catholic scholars and observers of the US social/political scene. In the interview with Bishop Francis George OMI he, Colson, was described as "pivotal"[2].
The precipitating event for the present dialogue between the two elites grew out of the friction - the increasing conflict - in Latin America between the more established Catholic churches and missionary efforts and the increasingly vigorous, even "pushy" missionary activities of the US Evangelical churches in the countries south of the Rio Grande, particularly in Mexico, Guatemala, Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. Colson, Neuhaus and Murphey were vocal in expressing their desire to do something to prevent an escalation of confrontation between Catholic and Evangelical missionary efforts[3]. This seemed desirable for it appeared that except in matters theological both sets of workers-in-the-harvest-fields had so much in common: they appeared to have the same or very similar social and political viewpoints, and to support implicitly or explicitly the same social and political agendas in their various countries of assignment. Both were opposed by the power of a secular and outrightly hedonistic "modernity" in local societies under threat from the virulence of contemporary culture. Why could they not work together for those things in which they shared a common vision?[4]. Why could they not be Christians together in the realm of Caesar? The ECT statement authors, then, started out by focusing on a single problem in the area of Central and South America, i.e. on the need to erect a mechanism to help alleviate present, and facilitate the avoidance of potential, conflicts in the missionary fields. The scandal of Christian versus Christian in some sort of missionary body was simply unacceptable to thinking people in both communities[5]. While some believers in each camp, missionary and local, may have accepted or even desired such conflict, the elites in the two faith communities understood that it would be ultimately harmful, even destructive, to both and to their separate missionary efforts, particularly at the social and political levels. The real confrontation is not with each other but rather with the world, the flesh and the devil. It is with the toxic reality of modern morality and the free-fall from religiously based ethics in the public sphere. In the res publica only mutually supportive efforts would be successful ones. Neuhaus and Murphey, in consultation with Colson, looked for those persons, those elites from Catholic and Evangelical groupings, to whom they could appeal to join them in their efforts. Francis George was sought out because as a missionary order member he had been Superior General of the Order of Mary Immaculate missionaries in Latin America before taking the episcopal hat and his seat (cathedra) in the Diocese of Yakima. Juan Diaz-Villar, SJ, was director of Catholic Hispanic Ministries. Brian O'Connell led the World Evangelical Fellowship. John White was president of the National Association of Evangelicals. Others active in ecumenical or religio-political research and activities were sought out: Avery Dulles, SJ of Fordham University; Kent Hill of Nazerene College; Richard Land of the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention; Larry Lewis of the Home Missionary Board of the Southern Baptist Convention; Jesse Miranda of the Assemblies of God; Herbert Schlossberg of the Fieldstead Foundation; Archbishop Francis Stafford of the Archdiocese of Denver; George Weigel of the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
A desire to co-operate brought them together - via post, long-distance telephone, fax, electronic-mail and numerous luncheon and dinner conversations. Bishop George identified it as "the Spirit moving". Others, no doubt, would say that is was mutual self-interest at work in exactly the way it is described in the undergraduate course in interest group politics. In any analysis it was the mutual realization that they could not address those on another side of the earth without first addressing each other. They had to understand each other, and where possible work with each other, in the identification of, contending with, and seeking solutions for, problems; problems in form social and political and at base moral and religious.
Out of that dialogue, that understanding, that mutual discussion process grew - rather quickly - an understanding among the participants that problems (of society, culture and the polity) to be addressed mutually in some sort of co-operative effort are found not only to the South of the Rio Grande river or the equator. It is in the perception of sharpening confrontation here in North America that these small (micro) elite groups among Catholics and Evangelicals have called for mutual support in a more common effort to witness to and contend with our own society. Over the months after 1992 this realization of mutual interest led the original group, the first self-identified elites, to broaden their focus from overseas missions to all regions wherein the gospel is preached and the Christian faith taught, but especially here at home in North America.
That they are "notables", both leaders and members of elite status and function in their own faith communities, may be questioned by some in each community - and beyond. However, they are prima facie the operative persons who took the field and launched the interaction between the communities. This self-definition through action is what designates them ultimately as elites. They alone are the makers, the shapers, the directors of the dialogue.
Twenty-five others endorsed the ECT statement as signatories. These included such readily recognizable names as Pat Robertson, James Hitchcock, William Bently Ball[6], Michael Novak, Mary Ann Glendon, Bill Bright and Elizabeth Achtemeier. Most of the 25 hold positions of some influence or visibility in contemporary religious, theological or academic life in North America. The endorsement of some of those who signed has been questioned of late by their own co-religionists, especially in light of the announced displeasure with the endorsers' action of literally subscribing to (i.e. underwriting) the statement (Packer 1994)[7]. In an ironically dissimilar perception, others have held the signers and endorsers are not recognized academically and genuine intellectuals (usually defined by the critics as persons with academic appointments at major research universities). However, in the real world of political elites the luminaries of academe are, in reality, seldom included. The elites here considered are self-identifying, self-actuating and result productive. They are political - not merely intellectual or academic - notables and leaders.
Who, then, are these elites? For whom do they speak? Overwhelmingly they are pastors, theologians, seminary, college and university administrators and ecclesiastics. There are social critics, journal editors and institute directors. They are in some cases holders of positions of some power (bishops, theological seminary deans, editors, directors) but by and large their power base is much less than their personal visibility and denominational renown. They are not in any official position to speak for a large denominational or theological base, nor to take on themselves the mantel of dicta officialis. They are clear in their declaration in ECT that "[t]his statement cannot speak officially for our communities. It does intend to speak responsibly from our communities and to our communities. In this statement we address what we have discovered both about our unity and about our differences" (Neuhaus, 1994).
What positions do these people hold? How do they identify themselves professionally/vocationally? By cohort grouping the ECT statement participants and endorsers are categorized as in Table I.
Eight of the 15 participants are from the Protestant identity, and seven from the Catholic; 13 endorsers are identified as Catholics and 12 as Protestants; overwhelmingly they are white males; two of the cohort are females. They are generally middle and upper middle class, English speaking and non-radical in terms of ideology and theology. In the vocabulary of contemporary university undergraduates they are all "suits".
The vision shared is that of affirming together, hoping together, searching together, contending together, witnessing together as far as individual conscience will allow. "As Christ is one, so the Christian mission is one" (Neuhaus, 1994). The central vision is that of co-operation in the social and political realms in North American society and throughout the world. Recognizing that theological and doctrinal differences will remain, there is a call for co-operation rather than conflict, love rather than animosity, trust over suspicion, truth in place of propaganda and ignorance...all this to the benefit of the people in the local society, including the people of our own[8]. The vision is one of alliance. It looks for mutuality, support, and a sense of concord and accordance in the encounter with a massive, mighty, and often malignant cultural value system that must be confronted jointly[9]. Two challenges arise from this vision. The first is can this sort of micro-elite co-operation continue in any significant manner over a significant period of time? Next, can these elite persons succeed in their vision?
Discussion
In the domain of political theory, that known as elite theory is both of long standing and well established. It goes all the way back to Plato. An elite is composed of persons. Elite persons are in some larger group of people. They are pre-eminent in that larger group by reason of some standard of value, i.e. they form or come from the superior or more highly regarded levels of that greater group. In political science and sociology today elite theory is used to describe and analyse organized political and social life among and between human groups. For practically any human activity and its coinciding realm of social activity there is an elite. This is the sense in which Pareto (1903) among others (e.g. Bucolo, 1988) utilized the theory as an analytic and explanatory mechanism. Yet some elites are more "elite" than others. Ruling elites are able to engage in "the authoritative allocation of values (Easton, 1965, 1966, 1971). Some elite levels are often referred to as "strategic" elites because they can lay claim to or are assigned duties and corresponding powers over their society as a whole, in contrast with sectional elites which have similar powers but only over a section of the whole society or lesser power of value allocation in all of the society.
Table I. Cohort groups of the participants and endorsers of the ECT statement
Identity as listed in ECT statement: Participants Endorsers
Ecclesiastics/ministers 4 2 College/theological institute/university 3 17 Centres/institutes/programmes 3 3 Foundation 1 Missionary office of a denomination 1 2 Missionary society 3 Private person 1
Political science and sociology differentiate between the following major elite edifices:
(1) ruling caste;
(2) aristocracy;
(3) ruling class;
(4) strategic elites (Keller, 1968).
These are commonly identified as "structural" elites. Elites also may be classified according to the four functional problems which every society must resolve: social and political goal attainment, societal and cognitive adaptation, values and knowledge integration and pattern maintenance and values conservation. Accordingly, four functional types are found within the (structural) strategic elites. These functional elites may include a far larger number of sub-elites. Four major functional elites have been identified:
(1) the political or ruling elite (elites of goal attainment through the authoritative allocation of values);
(2) economic, military, diplomatic and scientific elites (elites of societal or cognitive adaptation);
(3) elites of moral, religious, philosophical and educational pre-eminence (elites of value and knowledge integration);
(4) elites of society preservation who "knit together" the social fabric (pattern maintenance and value conservation elites).
In the theory all elites, structural or functional, are posited to be motivated by rewards. In highly specialized societies such as those in our western world these rewards can become highly specialized. Power, wealth, achievement and fame often serve as both the goals and the glue binding together the structural and the functional elites in the modern society (Bottomore, 1964; Mosca, 1939). This, establishes and maintains their mutually beneficial interactions. Higher motivations, such as national and cultural survival, ethical imperatives of the "good", and religious duty/obligation offer no less tangible rewards, i.e. those of successful fulfilment of external and internal expectations.
For functional elites of integration and pattern maintenance the rewards can be indeed tangible although usually of that higher motivational type. Or they can be very sparse. These elites have little or no inhering power to allocate values authoritatively. They receive no palpable rewards of authority and wealth in their own time and place except as are bestowed on them by other (ruling) elites. Like the prophets of biblical times they can serve as givers of witness in their own time to their own society. In extremis they can be but voices crying in the wilderness in fulfilment of those demands of duty, religion and expectation.
The persons who affixed their signatures to ECT belong to two separate small elites, but would seem to fall as a single cohort within the last two working classifications of functional elites, i.e. integrative and pattern maintenance strategic elites. Because of their comparatively small number they can be termed two micro-elites (although there is a slight chance that this might be in error as they may be but the here visible tip of a larger number of like-minded co-religionists). The rewards these persons, these two micro-elites, hope to receive are comparatively remote and minimal, yet prized. What they offer is witness. What is sought is influence, opportunity to call for (to prophesy in the best meaning of the Old Testament term): a change in behaviour of like integrative and pattern maintenance elite persons in Catholic and Evangelical communities; and a change in the perceptions, behaviour and expectations of their fellow religionists far beyond these small elite groups themselves, both the broad mass of the membership and the ruling and adaptive elites in the various denominations. In other words, they seek to be opinion makers, reality shapers[10]. These two rewards for the practice of elite accommodation by both micro-elites result, it is the great hope, in a third reward: the successful mounting of the successful challenge to the perceived immoralities and wrongs of contemporary society and polity; that mutual "contending" that is jointly envisioned as a co-operative effort in the name of what is perceived to be the "good", the moral, and (yes) the religious[11].
Elite theory in political science, as in sociology, focuses on societies at large; their rule, their maintenance, their mass population interactions with their elites and among them. That is, the corpus of the literature is sparse in applications of the theory at the nexus of smaller elite group interactions. A review of elite theory literature leaves one with the conclusion that it focuses overwhelmingly on entire societies and political systems at the macro level rather than on top elites. This is especially the case in those elites of small size, and their relationships with one another. There are some studies, of course. Inevitably they centre on elite interactions within legislative bodies, higher state bodies (ministries; departments), or on the courts[12]. However, such studies are thin on the ground in political science. Instead, it is the historian who is left this turf with some anthropologists on the fringes (studies of tribal elders, etc.). Nonetheless this study ventures a bit on this ground in its selective referral of elite theory to what is here termed micro-elite interaction and the search for a guiding hypothesis to help compass such research. If for naught else that makes this venture a bit singular. Comment is made as well, below, in the form of observation rather than postulate generation concerning the utility of pluralist theory in the generation of a hypothesis.
As applied to whole societies and politics, elite theory suggests that elite accommodation, compromise among major leadership groups, is the commonplace style of decision making instead of the pluralist model of conflict and competition. Pluralist theory, of course, contends that competition among elites betters the society and the political system and, thus, the individuals within them. Alternatively, elite theory sees strategic elites (in particular the ruling goal attainment and societal/cognitive adaptive functional types) governing in their own spheres to the benefit of both polity and society without undue outside interference. As understood through reference to elite theory, then, accommodation rather than competition is the prevailing style of elite interaction. Taking this central premiss of elite theory as the given in regard to this study's context and focus two questions arise. They are: first, can two select, small elites of the other types of accommodating elites - integrative and pattern maintenance - maintain their co-operation of effort and their mutuality of intent for a significant period of time? Which is to say can value and pattern maintenance micro-elites accommodate each other and share mutually in the rewards of accommodation over time? Second, can they achieve the ultimate reward sought, i.e. bringing about a change in the perceptions, behaviour and expectations of the much larger population bases, the mass populations, from which each micro-elite arises? Can they "make waves" and "change established behaviour patterns" in the society and its polity? Thinking through the implications and ramifications of these two queries should help us frame the sought hypothesis. This accomplished, it might then serve as a compass for continued research and be testable across a range of micro-elite interrelations and accommodations beyond this study.
Framing a hypothesis
Immanuel Kant once remarked on "the crooked timber of humanity from which nothing straight can be built". Elite theory tends to confound this pessimistic observation. Instead it channels analysis to the outlining of a possible hypothesis of mutuality of intents and goals. Such an outline views these functional elites of integration and pattern maintenance as accommodational, as elite theory suggests. It would hold that all elites - and therefore top-level micro-elites - can accommodate and can attain the desired unity and mutuality of effort, and shared rewards among like elite persons. It is argued that this concept of classic elite theory works in a study of elites in the Catholic and Evangelical communities even though the accommodations be built of "crooked timber". Thus, it should follow that accommodating elites, even micro-elites, can maintain their co-operation and mutuality of intent for a significant period of time with mutual benefits.
However, can the same be said of the much larger population bases from which they arise, their co-religionist communities at large? This second question simply is not well addressed by elite theory and certainly not by the reference of elite theory to micro-elites of the integrative and pattern maintenance variety. No, here the operative theoretical approach verges on pluralist theory, for here are deep and historically significant conflicts and perceptions of confrontation among mass population bases (Dahl, 1958; 1967).
Pluralist theory suggests that there will be disputes and conflict within each religious identity and between them even as the micro-elites of influence and witness accommodate one another. There will be continuing fracture lines and breakage leading to a denial of the desired reward in the longer term. But why?
Because this theory predicates that the centre cannot hold because it is built of crooked timber: disparate theological and doctrinal basics, it is observed, must lead to disparate policy demands and political programmes. Political alliances among historically competing religious identities are immensely difficult to maintain for a moderate period of time let alone over the long haul. Harmony can be achieved among the micro-elites because they: focus on their own goals as distinct from those of their identity bases; and those goals are mutual, i.e. consonant with the goals sought by the other micro-elite (di Zerega, 1991). However, even as micro-elite accommodation progresses the larger and disparate bases remain separate and essentially unchanged. No permanent mutuality of goals, no permanent or even long-term programme of integration and pattern maintenance, is observed where the undergirding theological, doctrinal and value systems are so strikingly and traditionally in outright conflict[13].
As in a chiaroscuro a hypothesis begins to emerge. It suggests elite accommodation as an explanatory mechanism. Elite theory would posit accommodation about defined issues in recognized areas "at home and around the world" (George, 1994)[14]. It would propose that between these two sets of functional type micro-elites it is possible, and will continue when underway. It will continue because through it they are both able to achieve their own intents, and those intents are compatible (accommodated) in major aspects with the other micro-elite. As long as this mutuality of intent and achievement continues the micro-elites will accommodate one another, continue to give witness, and perhaps even grow in size and impact. For they now begin to share a common purpose, a common sense of "movement", and a common stage. Referring to elite theory, we can say that they would build on this commonality and utilize it to their own and, thus, their mutual benefit, and would continue seeking their mutual rewards.
It is difficult to argue in this manner, however, concerning the much larger base communities, the mass religious (and denominational) identities, from which the subject micro-elites arise. Elite theory is not heuristic as an explanatory device here. Decision making in these grander groups is a process of multiple interests-in-competition and countervailing centres of power. Competition does reduce the influence of persons, and it does allow for so many interests, institutions and mass identities to engage in the fray that accommodation becomes more hortatory than possible. Mutuality of interests is more short-term, shifting and always subject to the relentless push of events. In answer to the second question, above, the hypothesis at this point has to turn more on pluralist theory, and this suggests that our micro-elites cannot themselves achieve the final reward sought: bringing about that longer term change in the perceptions and behaviour of the much larger population bases from which they arise (see Appendix 2).
There is nothing startling here. This is the classic pluralist construct: it sees shifting political alliances and the exchange of support among a huge array of mass population interests for shared, short-term gains in the value allocation process (governance). Yet the pluralist construct is a broad brush. Does it really merit reference here? Yes, it does, although only as observation. However, the observation is allowable because it anticipates the failure of mutuality of purpose (goals) and effort at the mass population level. This anticipation is based on the undergirding assumption of the pluralist formulation, that is, the inevitability of conflict among goal oriented interests in a polity, society, or the institutions within them. This formulation would permit for limited cooperation but theoretically debilitating conflict must and would occur in alliances among competing interests in the larger society and polity. Examples of such competing interests among organizations within the society must include - and are observed in - well established and historically antipathetic religious identities and their institutions. Their size, their historical rootage and the sheer momentum of their mass demands precludes assumption of meaningful accommodation except among and between their elites. In other words, we are forced back on elite theory.
Hypothesis and observation
It is now possible to distinguish the form of a hypothesis concerning what we have titled micro-elites within the general boundaries of elite theory. The hypothesis which emerges can be framed along the lines of seven postulates:
P1. Micro-elites are elites, and can be studied and explained through reference to elite theory.
P2. Elite theory suggests that micro-elites engage in elite accommodation like any other elites.
P3. Elite accommodation allows for mutuality of interests, goals and rewards among micro-elites.
P4. Mutuality tends to maintain co-operation and shared intent for a significant period of time because of the rewards offered and received.
P5. Thus, micro-elites (as other functional elites) can be expected to seek accommodation with other elite groups (including other micro-elites).
P6. Other elite groups' perceptions and behaviours will change as a result of this adaptive process, and will themselves be changed by it.
P7. This change itself is adaptive, allowing for the continuation of mutuality and accommodation in the face of conflicts over historic and discrete issues.
The postulates establish seven markers within a hypothesis which should enable us to answer our first question: can the accommodating elites maintain their co-operation and mutuality of intent for a significant period of time? Working through the hypothesis the answer would appear to be that they can, at least in the light of elite theory. Further research designed to test the hypothesis should move to confirm or confound it.
The answer to the second question is less clear in reference to elite theory. A hypothetical construct based on elite theory is more difficult to frame because it does not appear to fit nor to work. Rather, one observes that pluralist theory perhaps seems more explanatory at the macro-level. This is not a hypothesis, of course, but rather must be left to stand only as an observation.
Context redux
The process of accommodation within and between the micro-elites examined herein continues apace. That it does so is a testimony to elite theory as used to examine such micro-elites. In January 1995, a small gathering of "Evangelical leaders" met to thrash out problems arising from the ECT statement. The meeting was hosted by an influential Evangelical elite leader and critic of the statement, pastor D. James Kennedy, at his Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Joseph Stowell, the president of the Moody Bible Institute and a critic of the statement, moderated the meeting. Those present included principal members of the Evangelical micro-elite examined in this study. Charles Colson, Bill Bright, J.I. Packer and others - all signers or endorsers of ECT - met with critics of the statement who expressed great concern over its apparent disregard for the distinctness and centrality of important doctrines in Evangelical faith and theology. That problem, said the critics, remained unaddressed in the statement. They charged that ECT "blurs doctrinal lines on key issues, including salvation by faith alone" (Maxwell, 1995).
Some present called the meeting historic. In a process of mutual accommodations they had managed to avoid what Colson had worried might become a "serious rift" in Evangelical ranks over the "contentious statement". Although the first sessions in Fort Lauderdale were "marked by sharp exchanges", both sides finally agreed on a five-point statement (Appendix 3) designed to explain and make acceptable both the thinking of, and the commitments made by, the Evangelicals who put their signatures on the ECT. The accommodation process worked as the theory would have it work - successfully:
Colson has written each evangelical ECT backer, urging support for the second statement. He says the second statement "fully clarifies the Protestant distinctives without in any way detracting from what [evangelical signatories] affirmed in ECT". Colson, in a letter to original ECT supporters, said that critics at Fort Lauderdale "expressed their support for this clarification". It was a beautiful example of how Christians should deal with their differences (Maxwell, 1995, p. 52).
It was also a beautiful example of the intra micro-elite accommodation process at work, as elite theory says it will work; and of the inter micro-elite accommodation process as well:
Catholic ECT signatories are commending the Fort Lauderdale discourse as representing the sort of healthy ongoing discussion they hoped ECT would stimulate. Neuhaus, of the New York-based Religion and Public Life organization, says it "is in accord with ECT's clear declaration that there are many questions that need to be more fully explored". Catholic ECT signer Keith Fournier...lauded the Fort Lauderdale outcome, saying it represents the "true spirit of ecumenism" that honestly considers both commonalities and differences (Maxwell, 1995, p. 53).
There are rewards for both sets of micro-elites in the accommodation process, and they seek those rewards through mutuality of intent and co-operation of effort. This is so even though the meeting underscored (still existing) deep differences in the Evangelical rank and file, out there in the pews and the non-elite pulpits, over the whole movement. Packer (1994) notes that "...critics at Fort Lauderdale showed no sign of seeing any benefit from ECT itself", although by their accommodating actions they did "in fact, concede that parachurch co-operation is appropriate. They conceded it implicitly" (Maxwell, 1995, p. 53). The micro-elite and its critics, then, did what the two micro-elites had already done. They accommodated one another, and did so for the better benefits each will take away from the classic process of adaptation presented in the explanatory vision offered by elite theory.
Micro-elites of adaptation and integration give witness. Their ultimate reward comes in the heed others pay - other elites and the mass populations out of which they speak - to that witness. Their insights inevitably are ahead of the mass population and often disturbing to other elite persons because of their timing and uniqueness of vision. Their witness, then, will be a hard one more often than not. The loneliness of that witness is ameliorated by faith, by hope, and not a little by the support of others outside the community - others who come from a separate identity and mass population base; another micro-elite which can support and be supported in a mutual witness that they now can share. Here is a novel alliance of Evangelical and Catholic micro-elites. It is, indeed, a novel alliance in the new post-communist world of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Notes
1. This work is currently under way with contributions from Charles Colson, Avery Dulles, Mark Noll, James Packer, and George Weigel among others. See First Things, No. 49, January 1995, p. 94.
2. Telephone interview with Bishop Francis George OMI, Bishop of the Diocese of Yakima, 8 December 1994. Bishop George was a participant in and signatory of the ECT statement.
3. At the February 1995 meeting in Concepcion, Chile, of the Consejo Latinoamericano de Iglesias, CLAI, 500 Evangelical Protestant missionaries gathered. For the first time in the 14 year history of the Council no representatives from the Catholic church were invited, even as observers. A measure was passed dictating that when the Catholic church is mentioned it must henceforth be identified as "the Roman Catholic church", see Christianity Today, 6 March 1995, p. 58.
4. Others, Orthodox and Jewish, have signalled their interest in and support of the alliance in pursuit of economic, social and political goals based on ethical, moral, and (indeed) religious norms. Don Feder, Daniel Lapin, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Hadley Arkes, Leon Kass and Howard L. Hurowitz are prominent examples. "What has brought these three previously antagonistic traditions into a mutually respectful alliance is the massive attack by the secular, neo-pagan society on the very core of religious life in Western civilization" (Vitz, 1995).
5. "The two communities in world Christianity that are most evangelistically assertive and most rapidly growing are Evangelicals and Catholics. In many parts of the world, the relationship between these communities is marked more by conflict than by co-operation, more by animosity than by love, more by suspicion than by trust, more by propaganda and ignorance than by respect for the truth. This is alarmingly the case in Latin America, increasingly the case in Eastern Europe, and too often the case in our own country" (Neuhaus, 1994, fifth paragraph of the Introduction). Also see Schultze (1992) which is a special issue devoted to "Public relations and religion". Schultze offers a unique examination of the "public relations" confrontation between the two missionary activities.
6. Ball (1993), more than any other work, is credited with "raising the curtain" on the final stage of the ECT movement, i.e. the statement. See also the review of this work by Reily (1994) of the Catholic University of America.
7. Packer (1994) notes that "I was surprised at the violence of initial negative Protestant reaction, but I should not have been. Years ago I came to realize that fear plays a larger part in North American motivation than is ever acknowledged... I ought to have realized that some Protestants would say bleak, skewed, fearful, and fear-driven things about this document - for instance, that it betrays the Reformation...". Packer holds an established chair as professor of systematic theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
8. The statement makes clear that "our common resolve is not based merely on a desire for harmony. We reject any appearance of harmony that is purchased at the price of truth. Our common resolve is made imperative by obedience to the truth of God revealed in the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, and by trust in the promise of the Holy Spirit's guidance... The mission we embrace together is the necessary consequence of the faith we affirm together" (Neuhaus, 1994).
9. "ECT, then, must be viewed as fuel for a fire that is already alight. The grass-roots coalition at which the document aims is already growing. ...ECT is playing catch-up to the Holy Spirit, formulating at the level of principle a commitment into which many have already entered at the level of practice" (Packer, 1994, p. 36).
10. "The hope, however, clearly is that the document will make waves and change established behavior patterns. In this way its strategic importance could be far-reaching, for the lead it gives has not been given before" (Packer, 1994, p. 34).
11. ECT states this boldly. "Christians individually and church corporately also have a responsibility for the right ordering of civil society. We embrace this task soberly; knowing the consequences of human sinfulness, we resist the utopian conceit that it is within our powers to build the Kingdom of God on earth. We embrace this task hopefully; knowing that God has called us to love our neighbor, we seek to secure for all a greater measure of civil righteousness and justice..". And a little further on, "Together we contend for the truth that politics, law, and culture must be secured by moral truth... To propose that securing civil virtue is the purpose of religion is blasphemous. To deny that securing civil virtue is a benefit of religion is blindness" (Neuhaus, 1994. p. 18).
12. Studies of small elites in dialogue with another, however, are still rare. Those that are available focus almost completely on ruling and adaptive elites and almost never on integrative and pattern maintenance elites.
13. As an example, in the largest Protestant denomination in the USA, the Southern Baptist Convention, "rumblings of discontent" surfaced within days after two SBC leaders, Dr Larry Lewis and Dr Richard Land, signed the ECT. The Foreign Mission Board unanimously passed a resolution expressing concern. Along with doctrinal problems there was distress that the statement was seen to prohibit "sheep stealing", i.e. future proselytizing of Catholics. "We don't want to make Baptists out of everybody, but we do want to make Christians out of everybody, including Catholics" said the Home Mission Board. To some in this denomination Catholics may not yet be generally perceived as close allies, nor even as "saved" fellow Christians (Anon, 1994, pp. 16-17).
14. Timothy George, Dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University, calls it the "ecumenism of the trenches". He writes: "Here is an ecumenism of the trenches born out of a common moral struggle to proclaim and embody the gospel of Jesus Christ to a culture in disarray. This is not merely the case of politics making strange bedfellows. It is more like Abraham bargaining with God for the minimal number of righteous witnesses required to spare the sinful city of Sodom" (George, 1994).
References and further reading
Anon. (1994), "New political alliance could help convert Evangelicals to Catholicism, says writer", Church and State, Vol. 6 No. 11, p. 16.
Ball, W.B. (1993), In Search of National Morality: A Manifesto for Evangelicals and Catholics, Ignatius Press and Baker Book House, New York, NY.
Bottomore, T.B. (1964), Elites and Society, Watts and Co., London.
Bucolo, P. (Ed.) (1988), Vilfredo Pareto: Collected Works, translated by Bucolo, P. and Bucolo, G., St. Martin's Press, New York, NY.
Colson, C. and Neuhaus, R.J. (1995) (Eds), Evangelicals and Catholics together: Toward a Common Mission, Ward Publishing, New York, NY.
Cromartie, M. (Ed.) (1993), No Longer Exiles: The Religious New Right in American Politics, Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington, DC.
Dahl, R.A. (1958), "A critique of the ruling elite model", American Political Science Review, Vol. 52 No. 4, pp. 369-463.
Dahl, R. A. (1967), Pluralist Democracy in the United States: Conflict and Consensus, Rand, McNally and Co., Chicago, IL.
di Zerega, G. (1991), "Elites and democratic theory: insight from a self-organizing model", The Review of Politics, Vol. 53 No. 2, pp. 340-72.
Easton, D. (1965), Systems Analysis of Political Life, Wiley and Sons, New York, NY.
Easton, D. (1966), Varieties of Political Theory, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Easton, D. (1971), The Political System: An Inquiry into the State of Political Science, Knopf and Co., New York, NY.
Fournier, K.A. and Watkins, W.D. (1994), A House United? Evangelicals and Catholics Together - A Winning Alliance for the 21st Century, NAVPRESS, Colorado Springs, CO.
Frame, R. (1994), "Evangelicals and Catholics pursue new co-operation: a statement of accord", Christianity Today, Vol. 3 No. 6, p. 53.
George, T. (1994), "Catholics and Evangelicals in the trenches", Christianity Today, Vol. 38 No. 6, pp. 16-7.
Keller, S. (1968), "Elite theory", in Sills, D.L. (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, Crowell, Collier and Macmillan, New York, NY, p. 26.
Kosmin, B.A. and Lachman, S.P. (1993), One Nation Under God: Religion in Contemporary American Society, Crown, New York, NY.
McBrien, R.P. (1987), Caesar's Coin: Religion and Politics in American, Macmillan, New York, NY.
Maxwell, J. (1995), "Evangelicals clarify accord with Catholics", Christianity Today, Vol. 39 No. 3, pp. 52-3.
Mosca, G. (1939), The Ruling Class, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY.
Noll, M.A. (1994), The Scandal the Evangelical Mind, Inter-Varsity Press, Leicester.
Neuhaus, J.R. (Ed.) (1994), "Evangelicals and Catholics together: the Christian mission in the third millennium", First Things, No. 43, pp. 15-22.
Neuhaus, R.J. (1995), "Nobody said it would be easy", First Things, No. 53, pp. 78-9.
Packer, J.I. (1994), "Why I signed it", Christianity Today, Vol. 38 No. 4, pp. 34-7.
Pareto, V. (1903), Social Systems, Giard, Paris.
Reichley, A.J. (1985), Religion in American Public Life, The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC.
Reily, P. (1994), "Evangelicals and Catholics on the the barricades", Crisis, Vol. 12 No. 5, pp. 52-5.
Schmalzbauer, J. (1993), "Evangelicals in the new class: class versus subcultural predictors of ideology", The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 32 No. 4, pp. 330-43.
Schultze, Q.J. (1992), "Catholic vs. Protestant: mass mediated legitimation of popular Evangelicalism in Guatemala", Public Relations Review, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 257-78.
Vitz, P.C. (1995), "At the edge: the battle of Mount Sinai", Crisis, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp. 12-13.
Wald, K.D. (1992), Religion and Politics in the United States (2nd ed.), CQ Press, Washington, DC.
Weigel, G. (1992), "The new anti-Catholicism", Commentary, Vol. 93 No. 6, pp. 25-31.
Welch, M.R. and Legge, D.C. (1991), "Dual reference groups and political orientation: an examination of evangelically oriented Catholics", American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 35 No. 1, pp. 28-56.
Appendix 1: Evangelicals and Catholics Together: The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium
The following statement is the product of consultation, beginning in September 1992, between Evangelical Protestant and Roman Catholic Christians. Appended to the text is a list of participants in the consultation and of others who have given their support to this declaration.
Introduction
We are Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics who have been led through prayer, study, and discussion to common convictions about Christian faith and mission. This statement cannot speak officially for our communities. It does intend to speak responsibly from our communities and to our communities. In this statement we address what we have discovered both about our unity and about our differences. We are aware that our experience reflects the distinctive circumstances and opportunities of Evangelicals and Catholics living together in North America. At the same time, we believe that what we have discovered and resolved is pertinent to the relationship between Evangelicals and Catholics in other parts of the world. We therefore commend this statement to their prayerful consideration.
As the Second Millennium draws to a close, the Christian mission in world history faces a moment of daunting opportunity and responsibility. If in the merciful and mysterious ways of God the Second Coming is delayed, we enter on a Third Millennium that could be, in the words of John Paul II, "a springtime of world missions" (Redemptoris Missio).
As Christ is one, so the Christian mission is one. That one mission can be and should be advanced in diverse ways. Legitimate diversity, however, should not be confused with existing divisions between Christians that obscure the one Christ and hinder the one mission. There is a necessary connection between the visible unity of Christians and the mission of the one Christ. We together pray for the fulfillment of the prayer of Our Lord: "May they all be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, so also may they be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me" (John 17). We together, Evangelicals and Catholics, confess our sins against the unity that Christ intends for all his disciples.
The one Christ and one mission includes many other Christians, notably the Eastern Orthodox and those Protestants not commonly identified as Evangelical. All Christians are encompassed in the prayer, "May they all be one". Our present statement attends to the specific problems and opportunities in the relationship between Roman Catholics and Evangelical Protestants.
As we near the Third Millennium, there are approximately 1.7 billion Christians in the world. About a billion of these are Catholics and more than 300 million are Evangelical Protestants. The century now drawing to a close has been the greatest century of missionary expansion in Christian history. We pray and we believe that this expansion has prepared the way for yet greater missionary endeavor in the first century of the Third Millennium.
The two communities in world Christianity that are most evangelistically assertive and most rapidly growing are Evangelicals and Catholics. In many parts of the world, the relationship between these communities is marked more by conflict than by co-operation, more by animosity than by love, more by suspicion than by trust, more by propaganda and ignorance than by respect for the truth. This is alarmingly the case in Latin America, increasingly the case in Eastern Europe, and too often the case in our own country.
Without ignoring conflicts between and within other Christian communities, we address ourselves to the relationship between Evangelicals and Catholics, who constitute the growing edge of missionary expansion at present and, most likely, in the century ahead. In doing so, we hope that what we have discovered and resolved may be of help in other situations of conflict, such as that among Orthodox, Evangelicals, and Catholics in Eastern Europe. While we are gratefully aware of ongoing efforts to address tensions among these communities, the shameful reality is that, in many places around the world, the scandal of conflict between Christians obscures the scandal of the cross, thus crippling the one mission of the one Christ.
As in times past, so also today and in the future, the Christian mission, which is directed to the entire human community, must be advanced against formidable opposition. In some cultures, that mission encounters resurgent spiritualities and religions that are explicitly hostile to the claims of the Christ. Islam, which in many instances denies the freedom to witness to the Gospel, must be of increasing concern to those who care about religious freedom and the Christian mission. Mutually respectful conversation between Muslims and Christians should be encouraged in the hope that more of the world will, in the oft-repeated words of John Paul II, "open the door to Christ". At the same time, in our so-called developed societies, a widespread secularization increasingly descends into a moral, intellectual, and spiritual nihilism that denies not only the One who is the Truth but the very idea of truth itself.
We enter the twenty-first century without illusions. With Paul and the Christians of the first century, we know that "we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6). As Evangelicals and Catholics, we dare not by needless and loveless conflict between ourselves give aid and comfort to the enemies of the cause of Christ.
The love of Christ compels us and we are therefore resolved to avoid such conflict between our communities and, where such conflict exists, to do what we can to reduce and eliminate it. Beyond that, we are called and we are therefore resolved to explore patterns of working and witnessing together in order to advance the one mission of Christ. Our common resolve is not based merely on a desire for harmony. We reject any appearance of harmony that is purchased at the price of truth. Our common resolve is made imperative by obedience to the truth of God revealed in the Word of God, the Holy Scriptures, and by trust in the promise of the Holy Spirit's guidance until Our Lord returns in glory to judge the living and the dead.
The mission that we embrace together is the necessary consequence of the faith that we affirm together.
We affirm together
Jesus Christ is Lord. That is the first and final affirmation that Christians make about all of reality. He is the One sent by God to be Lord and Savior Of all: "And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4). Christians are people ahead of time, those who proclaim now what will one day be acknowledged by all, that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2).
We affirm together that we are justified by grace through faith because of Christ. Living faith is active in love that is nothing less than the love of Christ, for we together say with Paul: "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Galatians 2).
All who accept Christ as Lord and Savior are brothers and sisters in Christ. Evangelicals and Catholics are brothers and sisters in Christ. We have not chosen one another, just as we have not chosen Christ. He has chosen us, and he has chosen us to be his together (John 15). However imperfect our communion with one another, however deep our disagreements with one another, we recognize that there is but one church of Christ. There is one church because there is one Christ and the church is his body. However difficult the way, we recognize that we are called by God to a fuller realization of our unity in the body of Christ. The only unity to which we would give expression is unity in the truth, and the truth is this: "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all" (Ephesians 4).
We affirm together that Christians are to teach and live in obedience to the divinely inspired Scriptures, which are the infallible Word of God. We further affirm together that Christ has promised to his church the gift of the Holy Spirit who will lead us into all truth in discerning and declaring the teaching of Scripture (John 16). We recognize together that the Holy Spirit has so guided his church in the past. In, for instance, the formation of the canon of the Scriptures, and in the orthodox response to the great Christological and Trinitarian controversies of the early centuries, we confidently acknowledge the guidance of the Holy Spirit. In faithful response to the Spirit's leading, the church formulated the Apostles Creed, which we can and hereby do affirm together as an accurate statement of scriptural truth:
I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
We hope together
We hope together that all people will come to faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. This hope makes necessary the church's missionary zeal. "But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent?" (Romans 10). The church is by nature, in all places and at all times, in mission. Our missionary hope is inspired by the revealed desire of God that "all should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2).
The church lives by and for the Great Commission: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Matthew 28).
Unity and love among Christians is an integral part of our missionary witness to the Lord whom we serve. "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13). If we do not love one another, we disobey his command and contradict the Gospel we declare.
As Evangelicals and Catholics, we pray that our unity in the love of Christ will become ever more evident as a sign to the world of God's reconciling power. Our communal and ecclesial separations are deep and long standing. We acknowledge that we do not know the schedule nor do we know the way to the greater visible unity for which we hope. We do know that existing patterns of distrustful polemic and conflict are not the way. We do know that God who has brought us into communion with himself through Christ intends that we also be in communion with one another. We do know that Christ is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14) and as we are drawn closer to him - walking in that way, obeying that truth, living that life - we are drawn closer to one another.
Whatever may be the future form of the relationship between our communities, we can, we must, and we will begin now the work required to remedy what we know to be wrong in that relationship. Such work requires trust and understanding, and trust and understanding require an assiduous attention to truth. We do not deny but clearly assert that there are disagreements between us. Misunderstandings, misrepresentations, and caricatures of one another, however, are not disagreements. These distortions must be cleared away if we are to search through our honest differences in a manner consistent with what we affirm and hope together on the basis of God's Word.
We search together
Together we search for a fuller and clearer understanding of God's revelation in Christ and his will for his disciples. Because of the limitations of human reason and language, which limitations are compounded by sin, we cannot understand completely the transcendent reality of God and his ways. Only in the End Time will we see face to face and know as we are known (1 Corinthians 13). We now search together in confident reliance on God's self-revelation in Jesus Christ, the sure testimony of Holy Scripture, and the promise of the Spirit to his church. In this search to understand the truth more fully and clearly, we need one another. We are both informed and limited by the histories of our communities and by our own experiences. Across the divides of communities and experiences, we need to challenge one another, always speaking the truth in love building up the Body (Ephesians 4).
We do not presume to suggest that we can resolve the deep and long-standing differences between Evangelicals and Catholics. Indeed these differences may never be resolved short of the Kingdom Come. Nonetheless, we are not permitted simply to resign ourselves to differences that divide us from one another. Not all differences are authentic disagreements, nor need all disagreements divide. Differences and disagreements must be tested in disciplined and sustained conversation. In this connection we warmly commend and encourage the formal theological dialogues of recent years between Roman Catholics and Evangelicals.
We note some of the differences and disagreements that must be addressed more fully and candidly in order to strengthen between us a relationship of trust in obedience to truth. Among points of difference in doctrine, worship, practice, and piety that are frequently thought to divide us are these:
* The church as an integral part of the Gospel or the church as a communal consequence of the Gospel.
* The church as visible communion or invisible fellowship of true believers.
* The sole authority of Scripture (sola scriptuta) or Scripture as authoritatively interpreted in the church.
* The "soul freedom" of the individual Christian or the Magisterium (teaching authority) of the community.
* The church as local congregation or universal communion.
* Ministry ordered in apostolic succession or the priesthood of all believers.
* Sacraments and ordinances as symbols of grace or means of grace.
* The Lord's Supper as eucharistic sacrifice or memorial meal.
* Remembrance of Mary and the saints or devotion to Mary and the saints.
* Baptism as sacrament of regeneration or testimony to regeneration.
This account of differences is by no means complete. Nor is the disparity between positions always so sharp as to warrant the "or" in the above formulations. Moreover, among those recognized as Evangelical Protestants there are significant differences between, for example, Baptists, Pentecostals, and Calvinists on these questions. But the differences mentioned above reflect disputes that are deep and long standing. In at least some instances, they reflect authentic disagreements that have been in the past and are at present barriers to full communion between Christians.
On these questions, and other questions implied by them, Evangelicals hold that the Catholic Church has gone beyond Scripture, adding teachings and practices that detract from or compromise the Gospel of God's saving grace in Christ. Catholics, in turn, hold that such teachings and practices are grounded in Scripture and belong to the fullness of God's revelation. Their rejection, Catholics say, results in a truncated and reduced understanding of the Christian reality.
Again, we cannot resolve these disputes here. We can and do affirm together that the entirety of Christian faith, life, and mission finds its source, centre, and end in the crucified and risen Lord. We can and do pledge that we will continue to search together - through study, discussion, and prayer - for a better understanding of one another's convictions and a more adequate comprehension of the truth of God in Christ. We can testify now that in our searching together we have discovered what we can affirm together and what we can hope together and, therefore, how we can contend together.
We contend together
As we are bound together by Christ and his cause, so we are bound together in contending against all that opposes Christ and his cause. We are emboldened not by illusions of easy triumph but by faith in his certain triumph. Our Lord wept over Jerusalem, and he now weeps over a world that does not know the time of its visitation. The raging of the principalities and powers may increase as the End Time nears, but the outcome of the contest is assured.
The cause of Christ is the cause and mission of the church, which is, first of all, to proclaim the Good News that "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation" (2 Corinthians 5). To proclaim this Gospel and to sustain the community of faith, worship, and discipleship that is gathered by this Gospel is the first and chief responsibility of the church. All other tasks and responsibilities of the church are derived from and directed toward the mission of the Gospel.
Christians individually and the church corporately also have a responsibility for the right ordering of civil society. We embrace this task soberly; knowing the consequences of human sinfulness, we resist the utopian conceit that it is within our powers to build the Kingdom of God on earth. We embrace this task hopefully; knowing that God has called us to love our neighbor, we seek to secure for all a greater measure of civil righteousness and justice, confident that he will crown our efforts when he rightly orders all things in the coming of his Kingdom.
In the exercise of these public responsibilities there has been in recent years a growing convergence and co-operation between Evangelicals and Catholics. We thank God for the discovery of one another in contending for a common cause. Much more important, we thank God for the discovery of one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Our co-operation as citizens is animated by our convergence as Christians. We promise one another that we will work to deepen, build on, and expand this pattern of convergence and co-operation.
Together we contend for the truth that politics, law, and culture must be secured by moral truth. With the Founders of the American experiment, we declare, "We hold these truths". With them, we hold that this constitutional order is composed not just of rules and procedures but is most essentially a moral experiment. With them, we hold that only a virtuous people can be free and just, and that virtue is secured by religion. To propose that securing civil virtue is the purpose of religion is blasphemous. To deny that securing civil virtue is a benefit of religion is blindness.
Americans are drifting away from, are often explicitly defying, the constituting truths of this experiment in ordered liberty. Influential sectors of the culture are laid waste by relativism, anti-intellectualism, and nihilism that deny the very idea of truth. Against such influences in both the elite and popular culture, we appeal to reason and religion in contending for the foundational truths of our constitutional order.
More specifically, we contend together for religious freedom. We do so for the sake of religion, but also because religious freedom is the first freedom, the source and shield of all human freedoms. In their relationship to God, persons have a dignity and responsibility that transcends, and thereby limits, the authority of the state and of every other merely human institution.
Religious freedom is itself grounded in and is a product of religious faith, as is evident in the history of Baptists and others in this country. Today we rejoice together that the Roman Catholic Church - as affirmed by the Second Vatican Council and boldly exemplified in the ministry of John Paul II - is strongly committed to religious freedom and, consequently, to the defense of all human rights. Where Evangelicals and Catholics are in severe and sometimes violent conflict, such as parts of Latin America, we urge Christians to embrace and act on the imperative of religious freedom. Religious freedom will not be respected by the state if it is not respected by Christians or, even worse, if Christians attempt to recruit the state in repressing religious freedom.
In this country, too, freedom of religion cannot be taken for granted but requires constant attention. We strongly affirm the separation of church and state, and just as strongly protest the distortion of that principle to mean the separation of religion from public life. We are deeply concerned by the courts' narrowing of the protections provided by the "free exercise" provision of the First Amendment and by an obsession with "no establishment" that stifles the necessary role of religion in American life. As a consequence of such distortions, it is increasingly the case that wherever government goes religion must retreat, and government increasingly goes almost everywhere. Religion, which was privileged and foundational in our legal order, has in recent years been penalized and made marginal. We contend together for a renewal of the constituting vision of the place of religion in the American experiment.
Religion and religiously grounded moral conviction is not an alien or threatening force in our public life. For the great majority of Americans, morality is derived, however variously and confusedly, from religion. The argument, increasingly voiced in sectors of our political culture, that religion should be excluded from the public square must be recognized as an assault on the most elementary principles of democratic: governance. That argument needs to be exposed and countered by leaders, religions and other, who care about the integrity of our constitutional order.
The pattern of convergence and co-operation between Evangelicals and Catholics is, in large part, a result of common effort to protect human life, especially the lives of the most vulnerable among us. With the Founders, we hold that all human beings are endowed by their Creator with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The statement that the unborn child is a human life that - barring natural misfortune or lethal intervention - will become what everyone recognizes as a human baby is not a religious assertion. It is a statement of simple biological fact. That the unborn child has a right to protection, including the protection of law, is a moral statement supported by moral reason and biblical truth.
We, therefore, will persist in contending - we will not be discouraged but will multiply every effort - in order to secure the legal protection of the unborn. Our goals are: to secure due process of law for the unborn, to enact the most protective laws and public policies that are politically possible, and to reduce dramatically the incidence of abortion. We warmly commend those who have established thousands of crisis pregnancy and postnatal care centres across the country, and urge that such efforts be multiplied. As the unborn must be protected, so also must women be protected from their current rampant exploitation by the abortion industry and by fathers who refuse to accept responsibility for mothers and children. Abortion on demand, which is the current rule in America, must be recognized as a massive attack on the dignity, rights, and needs of women.
Abortion is the leading edge of an encroaching culture of death. The helpless old, the radically handicapped, and others who cannot effectively assert their rights are increasingly treated as though they have no rights. These are the powerless who are exposed to the will and whim of those who have power over them. We will do all in our power to resist proposals for euthanasia, eugenics, and population control that exploit the vulnerable, corrupt the integrity of medicine, deprave our culture, and betray the moral truths of our constitutional order.
In public education, we contend together for schools that transmit to coming generations our cultural heritage, which is inseparable from the formative influence of religion, especially Judaism and Christianity. Education for responsible citizenship and social behavior is inescapably moral education. Every effort must be made to cultivate the morality of honesty, law observance, work, caring, chastity, mutual respect between the sexes, and readiness for marriage, parenthood, and family. We reject the claim that, in any or all of these areas, "tolerance" requires the promotion of moral equivalence between the normative and the deviant. In a democratic society that recognizes that parents have the primary responsibility for the formation of their children, schools are to assist and support, not oppose and undermine, parents in the exercise of their responsibility.
We contend together for a comprehensive policy of parental choice in education. This is a moral question of simple justice. Parents are the primary educators of their children; the state and other institutions should be supportive of their exercise of that responsibility. We affirm policies that enable parents to effectively exercise their right and responsibility to choose the schooling that they consider best for their children.
We contend together against the widespread pornography in our society, along with the celebration of violence, sexual depravity, and antireligious bigotry in the entertainment media. In resisting such cultural and moral debasement, we recognize the legitimacy of boycotts and other consumer actions, and urge the enforcement of existing laws against obscenity. We reject the self-serving claim of the peddlers of depravity that this constitutes illegitimate censorship. We reject the assertion of the unimaginative that artistic creativity is to be measured by the capacity to shock or outrage. A people incapable of defending decency invites the rule of viciousness, both public and personal.
We contend for a renewed spirit of acceptance, understanding, and co-operation across lines of religion, race, ethnicity, sex, and class. We are all created in the image of God and are accountable to him. That truth is the basis of individual responsibility and equality before the law. The abandonment of that truth has resulted in a society at war with itself, pitting citizens against one another in bitter conflicts of group grievances and claims to entitlement. Justice and social amity require a redirection of public attitudes and policies so that rights are joined to duties and people are rewarded according to their character and competence.
We contend for a free society, including a vibrant market economy. A free society requires a careful balancing between economics, politics, and culture. Christianity is not an ideology and therefore does not prescribe precisely how that balance is to be achieved in every circumstance. We affirm the importance of a free economy not only because it is more efficient but because it accords with a Christian understanding of human freedom. Economic freedom, while subject to grave abuse, makes possible the patterns of creativity, co-operation, and accountability that contribute to the common good.
We contend together for a renewed appreciation of Western culture. In its history and missionary reach, Christianity engages all cultures while being captive to none. We are keenly aware of, and grateful for, the role of Christianity in shaping and sustaining the Western culture of which we are part. As with all of history, that culture is marred by human sinfulness. Alone among world cultures, however, the West has cultivated an attitude of self-criticism and of eagerness to learn from other cultures. What is called multiculturalism can mean respectful attention to human differences. More commonly today, however, multiculturalism means affirming all cultures but our own. Welcoming the contributions of other cultures and being ever alert to the limitations of our own, we receive Western culture as our legacy and embrace it as our task in order to transmit it as a gift to future generations.
We contend for public policies that demonstrate renewed respect for the irreplaceable role of mediating structures in society - notably the family, churches, and myriad voluntary associations. The state is not the society, and many of the most important functions of society are best addressed in independence from the state. The role of churches in responding to a wide variety of human needs, especially among the poor and marginal, needs to be protected and strengthened. Moreover, society is not the aggregate of isolated individuals bearing rights but is composed of communities that inculcate responsibility, sustain shared memory, provide mutual aid, and nurture the habits that contribute to both personal well-being and the common good. Most basic among such communities is the community of the family. Laws and social policies should be designed with particular care for the stability and flourishing of families. While the crisis of the family in America is by no means limited to the poor or to the underclass, heightened attention must be paid those who have become, as a result of well-intended but misguided statist policies, virtual wards of the government.
Finally, we contend for a realistic and responsible understanding of America's part in world affairs. Realism and responsibility require that we avoid both the illusions of unlimited power and righteousness, on the one hand and the timidity and selfishness of isolationism, on the other. US foreign policy should reflect a concern for the defense of democracy and, wherever prudent and possible, the protection and advancement of human rights, including religious freedom.
The above is a partial list of public responsibilities on which we believe there is a pattern of convergence and co-operation between Evangelicals and Catholics. We reject the notion that this constitutes a partisan "religious agenda" in American politics. Rather, this is a set of "directions oriented to the common good and discussable on the basis of public reason. While our sense of civic responsibility is informed and motivated by Christian faith, our intention is to elevate the level of political and moral discourse in a manner that excludes no one and invites the participation of all people of good will. To that end, Evangelicals and Catholics have made an inestimable contribution in the past and, it is our hope, will contribute even more effectively in the future.
We are profoundly aware that the American experiment has been, all in all, a blessing to the world and a blessing to us as Evangelical and Catholic Christians. We are determined to assume our full share of responsibility for this "one nation under God", believing it to be a nation under the judgment, mercy, and providential care of the Lord of the nations to whom alone we render unqualified allegiance.
We witness together
The question of Christian witness unavoidably returns us to points of serious tension between Evangelicals and Catholics. Bearing witness to the saving power of Jesus Christ and his will for our lives is an integral part of Christian discipleship. The achievement of good will and cooperation between Evangelicals and Catholics must not be at the price of the urgency and clarity of Christian witness to the Gospel. At the same time, and as noted earlier, Our Lord has made clear that the evidence of love among his disciples is an integral part of that Christian witness.
Today, in this country and elsewhere, Evangelicals and Catholics attempt to win "converts" from one another's folds. In some ways, this is perfectly understandable and perhaps inevitable. In many instances, however, such efforts at recruitment undermine the Christian mission by which we are bound by God's Word and to which we have recommitted ourselves in this statement. It should be clearly understood between Catholics and Evangelicals that Christian witness is of necessity aimed at conversion. Authentic conversion is - in its beginning, in its end, and all along the way - conversion to God. in Christ by the power of the Spirit. In this connection, we embrace as our own the explanation of the Baptist-Roman Catholic International Conversation (1988):
Conversion is turning away from all that is opposed to God, contrary to Christ's teaching, and turning to God, to Christ, the Son, through the work of the Holy Spirit. It entails a turning from the self-centeredness of sin to faith in Christ as Lord and Savior. Conversion is a passing from one way of life to another new one, marked with the newness of Christ. It is a continuing process so that the whole life of a Christian should be a passage from death to life, from error to truth, from sin to grace. Our life in Christ demands continual growth in God's grace. Conversion is personal but not private. Individuals respond in faith to God's call but faith comes from hearing the proclamation of the word of God and is to be expressed in the life together in Christ that is the Church.
By preaching, teaching, and life example, Christians witness to Christians and non-Christians alike. We seek and pray for the conversion of others, even as we recognize our own continuing need to be fully converted. As we strive to make Christian faith and life - our own and that of others - ever more intentional rather than nominal, ever more committed rather than apathetic, we also recognize the different forms that authentic discipleship can take. As is evident in the two thousand year history of the church, and in our contemporary experience, there are different ways of being Christian, and some of these ways are distinctively marked by communal patterns of worship, piety, and catechesis. That we are all to be one does not mean that we are all to be identical in our way of following the one Christ. Such distinctive patterns of discipleship, it should be noted, are amply evident within the communion of the Catholic Church as well as within the many worlds of Evangelical Protestantism.
It is understandable that Christians who bear witness to the Gospel try to persuade others that their communities and traditions are more fully in accord with the Gospel. There is a necessary distinction between evangelizing and what is today commonly called proselytizing or "sheep stealing". We condemn the practice of recruiting people from another community for purposes of denominational or institutional aggrandizement. At the same time, our commitment to full religious freedom compels us to defend the legal freedom to proselytize even as we call on Christians to refrain from such activity.
Three observations are in order in connection with proselytizing. First, as much as we might believe one community is more fully in accord with the Gospel than another, we as Evangelicals and Catholics affirm that opportunity and means for growth in Christian discipleship are available in our several communities. Second, the decision of the committed Christian with respect to his communal allegiance and participation must be assiduously respected. Third, in view of the large number of non-Christians in the world and the enormous challenge of our common evangelistic task, it is neither theologically legitimate nor a prudent use of resources for one Christian community to proselytize among active adherents of another Christian community.
Christian witness must always be made in a spirit of love and humility. It must not deny but must readily accord to everyone the full freedom to discern and decide what is God's will for his life. Witness that is in service to the truth is in service to such freedom. Any form of coercion physical, psychological, legal, economic - corrupts Christian witness and is to be unqualifiedly rejected. Similarly, bearing false witness against other persons and communities, or casting unjust and uncharitable suspicions on them, is incompatible with the Gospel. Also to be rejected is the practice of comparing the strengths and ideals of one community with the weaknesses and failures of another. In describing the teaching and practices of other Christians, we must strive to do so in a way that they would recognize as fair and accurate.
In considering the many corruptions of Christian witness, we, Evangelicals and Catholics, confess that we have sinned against one another and against God. We most earnestly ask the forgiveness of God and one another, and pray for the grace to amend our own lives and that of our communities.
Repentance and amendment of life do not dissolve remaining differences between us. In the context of evangelization and "reevangelization", we encounter a major difference in our understanding of the relationship between baptism and the new birth in Christ. For Catholics, all who are validly baptized are born again and are truly, however imperfectly, in communion with Christ. That baptismal grace is to be continuingly reawakened and revivified through conversion. For most Evangelicals, but not all, the experience of conversion is to be followed by baptism as a sign of new birth. For Catholics, all the baptized are already members of the church, however dormant their faith and life; for many Evangelicals, the new birth requires baptismal initiation into the community of the born again. These differing beliefs about the relationship between baptism, new birth, and membership in the church should be honestly presented to the Christian who has undergone conversion. But again, his decision regarding communal allegiance and participation must be assiduously respected.
There are, then, differences between us that cannot be resolved here. But on this we are resolved: All authentic witness must be aimed at conversion to God in Christ by the power of the Spirit. Those converted - whether understood as having received the new birth for the first time or as having experienced the reawakening of the new birth originally bestowed in the sacrament of baptism - must be given full freedom and respect as they discern and decide the community in which they will live their new life in Christ. In such discernment and decision, they are ultimately responsible to God, and we dare not interfere with the exercise of that responsibility. Also in our differences and disagreements, we Evangelicals and Catholics commend one another to God "who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think" (Ephesians 3).
In this discussion of witnessing together we have touched on difficult and long-standing problems. The difficulties must not be permitted to overshadow the truths on which we are, by the grace of God, in firm agreement. As we grow in mutual understanding and trust, it is our hope that our efforts to evangelize will not jeopardize but will reinforce our devotion to the common tasks to which we have pledged ourselves in this statement.
Conclusion
Nearly two thousand years after it began, and nearly five hundred years after the divisions of the Reformation era, the Christian mission to the world is vibrantly alive and assertive. We do not know, we cannot know, what the Lord of history has in store for the Third Millennium. It may be the springtime of world missions and great Christian expansion. It may be the way of the cross marked by persecution and apparent marginalization. In different places and times, it will likely be both. Or it may be that Our Lord will return tomorrow.
We do know that his promise is sure, that we are enlisted for the duration, and that we are in this together. We do know that we must affirm and hope and search and contend and witness together, for we belong not to ourselves but to him who has purchased us by the blood of the cross. We do know that this is a time of opportunity - and, if of opportunity, then of responsibility - for Evangelicals and Catholics to be Christians together in a way that helps prepare the world for the coming of him to whom belongs the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
PARTICIPANTS: Mr Charles Colson, Prison Fellowship; Fr. Juan Diaz-Vilar, SJ, Catholic Hispanic Ministries; Fr. Avery Dulles, SJ, Fordham University; Bishop Francis George, OMI, Diocese of Yakima (Washington); Dr Kent Hilll Eastern, Nazarene College; Dr Richard Land, Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention; Dr Larry Lewis, Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention; Dr Jesse Miranda, Assemblies of God; Msgr. William Murphy, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Boston; Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, Institute on Religion and Public Life; Mr Brian O'Connell, World Evangelica Fellowship; Mr Herbert Schlomberg, Fieldstead Foundation; Archbishop Francis Stafford, Archdiocese of Denver; Mr George Weigel, Ethics and Public Policy Center; Dr John White, Geneva College and the National Association of Evangelicals.
ENDORSED BY: Dr William Abraham Perkins, School of Theology; Dr Elizabeth Achtemeier, Union Theological Seminary (Virginia); Mr William Bentley Ball, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Dr Bill Bright, Campus Crusade for Christ; Professor Robert Destro, Catholic University of America; Fr. Augustin DiNoia, OP, Dominican House of Studies; Fr. Joseph P. Fitzpatrick, SJ. Fordham University; Mr Keith Fournier, American Center for Law and Justice; Bishop William Frey, Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry; Professor Mary Ann Glendon, Harvard Law School; Dr Os Guinness, Trinity Forum; Dr Nathan Hatch, University of Notre Dame; Dr James Hitchcock, St. Louis University; Professor Peter Kreeft, Boston College; Fr. Matthew Lamb, Boston College; Mr Ralph Martin, Renewal Ministries; Dr Richard Mouw Fuller, Theological Seminary; Dr Mark Noll, Wheaton College; Mr Michael Novak, American Enterprise Institute; John Cardinal O'Connor, Archdiocese of New York; Dr Thomas Oden, Drew University; Dr James J.I. Packer, Regent College (British Columbia); The Rev. Pat Robertson, Regent University; Dr John Rodgers, Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry; Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla, SJ Archdiocese of San Francisco.
Appendix 2
In just one issue of Christianity Today, 6 March 1995, the letters to the editor contained the following among many submissions anguishing over or outraged by the ECT statement and the movement it signifies:
...Speaking as a pastor who has worked in a predominantly Catholic city for 21 years, let me urge McGrath and Packer to do more personal evangelism. Both in official teaching and practice, Romanism assures a mixture of faith and works Perhaps "mountaintop" theologians do not travel often to the "lowlands" of the valleys where real people live - especially real Roman Catholics (the pastor of the Maranantha Bible Church in River Ridge, Louisiana).
If I could provide a song title for the tune being sung in the December 12, 1994, issue of CT it would be "Ode to Rome", or maybe an appropriate subtitle, "The Church of the AntiChrist gathers her chicks" (an Evangelical Christian in Eau Claire, Wisconsin).
...we cannot help but feel betrayed. [The Catholic] doctrine of justification has not changed an iota...Does this not clearly, on the basis of Paul's Spirit-inspired warning in Galatians 1, show us that to unite with, or to form an alliance with, a body whose doctrine of salvation leads people away from Christ and not to him is displeasing to God? [italics in the original]...ECT is a dangerous document to the church's long-term commitments to the truth (a believer in Colorado Springs, Colorado).
Truth is, Roman Catholicism has not moved closer to evangelical thinking. We have moved accommodatingly closer to theirs as our God has become smaller and our fears of the world larger (a faithful Evangelical Christian in Beaumont, California)
Two months earlier, in the 6 January 1995 issue of Christianity Today, much the same tone is found in some of the letters:
Chuck Colson wants evangelicals to "gather in the central hallway" with Roman Catholics ("Why Catholics Are Our Allies", CT, November 14 1994). How he gets us in the front door with them he never discusses, but he has to throw away sola scriptura, sola gratia, and solafide to do it ... Those who embrace Roman Catholics as brothers and sisters in Christ, like Colson (and CT), need to go through an elementary course on the gospel (the pastor of the Grace Baptist Church in Madison, Alabama).
Colson's assumption is that ultimately those doctrines that unite evangelicals and Rome make us relatively closer than the separation between evangelicals and pagans. From a worldly standpoint, I agree. From an eternal standpoint, our doctrinal difference is the difference between life and death ... justification by faith alone is the doctrine by which the church stands or falls. The Scripture, and the supposed infallible councils of Rome, have not changed [italics in the original]...all the social activism ever done, combined, is not worth putting aside, even for a moment, the gospel of Jesus Christ, which includes salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, as revealed by the Holy Spirit (an Evangelical Christian in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania).
From Wheaton, Illinois, a correspondent worried (in the May 1995 issue of First Things) that
The concern of many Protestant evangelicals - that the price of the proposed ecumenism is the renunciation of the great biblical truths of the Reformation - appears, in spite of the placations of J.J. (sic.) Packer and others, to be well-grounded. I can only imagine that many Catholics, well aware of the Council of Trent, will be similarly suspicious of the cost Catholic teaching will likewise pay for the proposed theological convergence.
It must not be assumed that only evangelicals reacted. Some Catholics are indeed "similarly suspicious" if in fewer numbers and a less vocal manner. The November 1994 issue of First Things carried a continuation of letters to the editor concerning ECT. One reader protested:
As I read through "Evangelicals & Catholics Together" (May), I was amazed at the compromising attitude of the Catholic participants toward Evangelicals. The declaration indicated no intention of the Evangelicals involved joining the Catholic Church. We Catholics then waste our time on them instead of going where converts are possible. ...[T]he general use of the word "Christian" causes much doubt in my mind. Who is meant? Are Catholics simply to coexist with Evangelicals? They no doubt have part of the Truth, but know nothing "of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacraments, or other doctrines of the Catholic Church. Why lump us together as though we were alike? The essentials are missing in their religion. We are Catholic. Please distinguish (a Catholic religious in O'Fallon, Missouri).
John Schmalzbauer has argued that there is "new class stress" separating most evangelicals from those who have moved into professional-managerial positions in recent years. He found that the powerful liberalizing effects of working in and attaining the social status of professional or managerial position can cause such intradenominational estrangement. He tested the relative importance of class and religious subculture in predicting political and social attitudes by analysing the views of evangelicals working successfully in the new class. Multivariate regression analysis revealed that religious subculture and class were both highly significant predictors of ideological/theological positions on issues of sexual morality, abortion, proper sex roles and civil liberties. But, significantly, evangelical new class members resisted the liberalizing effects of class more than all other new class members on matters associated with sexual morality but were more accommodating than the norm on gender roles and general implementation of civil liberties (Schmalzbauer, 1993).
Appendix 3
The Fort Lauderdale statement of January 1995 clarified and brought agreement as delineated in the five points.
We Protestants who signed ECT took this action to advance Christian fellowship, co-operation, and mutual trust among true Christians in the North American cultural crisis and in the worldwide task of evangelism. The same concern leads us now to elucidate our ECT commitment by stating:
(1) Our para-church co-operation with evangelically committed Roman Catholics for the pursuit of agreed objectives does not imply acceptance of Roman Catholic doctrinal distinctives or endorsement of the Roman Catholic church system.
(2) We understand the statement that "we are justified by grace through faith because of Christ" in terms of the substitutionary atonement and imputed righteousness of Christ, leading to full assurance of eternal salvation; we seek to testify in all circumstances and contexts to this, the historic Protestant understanding of salvation by faith alone (sola fide).
(3) While we view all who profess to be Christian - Protestant and Catholic and Orthodox with charity and hope, our confidence that anyone is truly a brother or sister in Christ depends not only on the content of his or her confession but on our perceiving signs of regeneration in his or her life.
(4) Though we reject proselytizing as ECT defines it (that is "sheep stealing" for denominational aggrandizement), we hold that evangelism and church planting are always legitimate, whatever forms of church life are present already.
(5) We think that the further theological discussions that ECT promised should begin as soon as possible.
We make these applicatory clarifications of our commitment as supporters of ECT in order to prevent divisive misunderstandings of our beliefs and purposes (Neuhaus, 1995).
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| Title Annotation: | The Future Without Marx: Part II |
|---|---|
| Author: | Rutan, Gerard F. |
| Publication: | International Journal of Social Economics |
| Date: | Sep 1, 1995 |
| Words: | 15379 |
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