Evangelicals and Catholics Together is a 1994 ecumenical document signed by leading Evangelical and Roman Catholic scholars in the United States. The co-signers of the document were Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus, representing each side of the discussions. It was part of a larger ecumenical rapprochement in the United States that had begun in the 1970s with Catholic-Evangelical collaboration during the Gerald R. Ford Administration and in later para-church organizations such as Moral Majority founded by Rev. Jerry Fawell at the urging of Francis Schaeffer and his son Frank Schaeffer during the Jimmy Carter administration.
Contents
- Evangelical signatories
- Roman Catholic signatories
- Evangelical Protestants
- Roman Catholics
- Criticism
- References
The statement is written as a testimony that spells out the need for Protestants and Catholics to deliver a common witness to the modern world at the eve of the third millennium. It draws heavily from the theology of the New Testament and the Trinitarian doctrine of the Nicean creed. It does not mention any specific points of theology, and instead seeks to encourage what is known as spiritual ecumenism and day-to-day ecumenism. The document was signed at a time when Protestants and Catholics were still fighting each other in Northern Ireland, long after the ecumenical movement had begun.
Evangelical signatories
Roman Catholic signatories
Evangelical Protestants
Roman Catholics
The agreement was reached a few years before the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (between Lutherans and Catholics), which in substance says many of the same things as ECT in that it emphasizes Sola gratia over Sola fide.
Criticism
Many evangelicals, while appreciating the goal of social agreement in the ECT document, are still opposed to the theological wording of the document. Theologians such as doctors John Ankerberg, D. James Kennedy, John F. MacArthur, and R. C. Sproul, have published concern about it being "a step in exactly the wrong direction" and "going too far" in claiming theological agreement. They emphasize that sola fide is a fundamental distinctive of evangelical theology, which fundamentally divides evangelicals and Catholics theologically, as Rome condemned sola fide at the Council of Trent and has never lifted that condemnation (anathema). Further they argue that it 'attacks the very foundation of absolute truth' by concessions to relativism and post-modernism, belying its profession of joint commitment to the Gospel, thus rendering that Gospel moot. They claim, 'It falls lock-step into line with our culture’s minimalist approach to truth issues'.