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Tensions easing between Catholics, evangelicals
By Richard N. Ostling
The Associated Press
September 3 2005
Almost 500 years after Martin Luther, one of the top U.S. evangelical thinkers has co-authored a book that finds an increasingly warm relationship between Catholics and evangelicals.
Is the Reformation Over? An Evangelical Assessment of Contemporary Roman Catholicism (Baker), by Mark A. Noll and Carolyn Nystrom, argues that not only on contemporary political issues such as abortion but also on matters of spirituality, Catholics and Protestant conservatives have ever more in common.
Noll, a historian at Wheaton College in Illinois, thinks three events in particular fostered harmony:
Catholicism's Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which encouraged contacts with Protestants and abolished for good the papacy's one-time hostility toward democracy and freedom of conscience.
The U.S. Supreme Court's 1973 liberal ruling on abortion, which provoked joint activism, now reinforced by the same-sex marriage issue.
The 1978 election of Pope John Paul II, who became a hero to evangelicals for helping topple European communism and for speaking effectively on behalf of Christian tradition.
Other religious thinkers agree that the climate is warming.
"The admiration for John Paul II is simply astounding given [evangelicals'] historic real hatred for the papacy," says William Shea of the College of the Holy Cross.
His 2004 work The Lion and the Lamb: Evangelicals and Catholics in America (Oxford) parallels the Noll-Nystrom book from the Catholic side. If anything, he thinks, Pope Benedict XVI is closer to the evangelicals' outlook than John Paul II.
Though the culture wars command much of the media attention, Noll and Nystrom are more interested in spiritual links between the two groups, which combined make up more than half of all American churchgoers.
A notable example: When the Rev. Billy Graham first preached in Krakow, Poland, the man who invited him was in Rome being elected as Pope John Paul II.
Like Noll, Shea thinks most ongoing disagreements stem from two radically different views of the church.
"We Catholics are churchy people and we have a stack of beliefs about the church and perceptions of the church that evangelicals don't have," Shea says.
Evangelicals famously break with Catholics on the authority of the papacy and its dogmas about Mary. They also preach "Scripture alone" for religious authority, whereas Catholicism enshrines both Scripture and church tradition.
Yet both Noll and Shea believe the evangelicals are much closer to Catholicism on central Christian teachings than more liberal Protestants.
So, does that mean the Reformation is over? Noll summarizes: "The answer is not yes, but it's moving in the direction of yes."
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