Could Catholics & Protestants Unite? Was Pastor Rick Warren Accurate?

            On 2^nd December 2014 “The Christian News Network” reported Pastor Rick Warren’s¹ apparent apostasy through their article, “Rick Warren’s Call for Christians to Unite With Catholics, ‘Holy Father’ Raising Concerns”²

            These were Pastor Rick Warren’s words contending for unity between Protestants and Catholics, “We have far more in common than what divides us. When you talk about Pentecostals, Charismatics, Evangelicals, Fundamentalists, Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, on and on and on and on. Well they would all say we believe in the trinity, we believe in the Bible, we believe in the resurrection, we believe salvation is through Jesus Christ. These are the big issues. Sometimes Protestants think that Catholics worship Mary like she’s another god. But that’s not exactly catholic doctrine. There’s the understanding, and, and people say well what are the saints all about? Why are you praying to the saints? And when you understand what they mean by what they’re saying there’s a whole lot more commonality. Now there’s still real differences, no doubt about that. But the most important thing is if you love Jesus, we’re on the same team." ³

            Pastor Rick Warren proposed not a structural unity, but a unity of mission. Yes, there are glaring disagreements between Protestants and Catholics.⁴ Should these theological disagreements prevent unity?

We Live In Unity

            Leave aside Catholics for a moment. Can we live independent of our non-Christian brothers and sisters in this world? Unity, I believe, is the creational intent of God (Cf. Psalm 133:1; Matthew 22: 39 etc.)

            God knew that people would either accept or reject HIM, and HIS omniscience entailed HIS command to love our neighbors. Thus God mandates unity.

            Consider our workplace. Don’t we live in unity with our non-Christian brothers and sisters at our work place? Isn’t there a unity of purpose within our workplace among people belonging to multi-faceted religious worldviews?

            Whether we like it or not, we ought to live in unity at our workplace, else we wouldn’t survive in the job. So let’s assume that the possibility of being jobless motivates us to live in unity. But don’t you agree that the possibility of something bad happening to us is not the real reason to live in unity?

            How do we get motivated to love our non-Christian brothers and sisters for the right reasons? We are motivated to love everyone because God loves everyone – those who accept HIM and those who reject HIM. God loves even those who hate HIM.

            When God loves everyone and when people subscribing to varied religious thoughts can unite to work for a living, what prevents Protestants and Catholics to work together? What prevents Christians to work alongside Hindus or Muslims or those from other religious persuasions on common missions?

Theological / Doctrinal Unity Between Catholics & Protestants Is Impossible

            But let’s get this straight.

            Salvation is a fundamental teaching of any religion. Unfortunately this is where Protestants and Catholics hold opposing views.

            Protestants rely solely upon Christ for salvation. We believe salvation cannot be earned, but it is a gift of God through God’s grace and man’s belief in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

            On the contrary, Catholics combine belief in Christ, doing good works, and in certain instances they teach that belief in Christ is not even necessary for salvation.

            With such a sharp non-reconcilable disagreement in existence, a theological or a doctrinal unity between Protestants and Catholics is impossible. There are many such disagreements between Protestants and Catholics, so to expect a theological unity is to expect purple geese to lay golden eggs.

            Furthermore, no sane protestant would consider the Pope as his spiritual leader. On the other hand, a protestant who knows his Bible will only believe in the triune God and in the incarnate Lord Jesus Christ and follow HIM all through his life.

A Missional Unity Is Realistic

            Pastor Rick Warren denies the possibility of a structural unity but advocates missional unity, "The unity that I think we would see realistically is not a structural unity but a unity of mission. And so, when it comes to the family we are co-workers in the field on this for the protection of what we call the sanctity of life, the sanctity of sex, and the sanctity of marriage. So there’s a great commonality and there’s no division on any of those three.”⁵

            Why shouldn’t the Catholics and Protestants unite to fight against homosexuality, abortion and other rampant evils? Protestants should unite not only with Catholics but also with other religions to fight against evils that destroy the world - poverty, pornography, human trafficking etc.

            Such a unity is necessary because of the magnitude of the problem at hand. Poverty is so rampant that it’s virtually impossible for one religious group to facilitate its eradication. Similarly the evil of pornography is so enormous that it’s impossible for one religious group to eradicate this evil.

            So let’s unite with those who share the passion to save this world from rampant evils, and let’s to the best of our abilities, transcend religious barriers to save our fellow brothers and sisters from pain and suffering.

            I am not advocating that Christ is unnecessary for our salvation. Christ is necessary for salvation. Without Christ, none can be saved. Only belief and obedience to the Lord will save us and grant us a life eternal with our Lord.

            However, it is our love for the Lord Jesus Christ that motivates us to live in unity with everyone irrespective of our religious differences. We should also unite with everyone who is willing to be a means to eradicate evil that destroys human life. Every individual Christian and the Church of Jesus Christ should know and play their role to live in unity and to eradicate evil. Amen.

Endnotes

¹ Pastor Rick Warren authored the much acclaimed ‘Purpose Driven Life’ and a host of other bestselling books. He is the founder pastor of the Saddleback megachurch.

² http://christiannews.net/2014/12/02/rick-warrens-call-for-christians-to-unite-with-catholics-holy-father-raising-concerns/#sthash.0mjOGJf2.dpuf

³ http://carm.org/rick-warren-and-catholicism

⁴ Ibid.

⁵ Ibid.

Will Christian Denominations Ever Unite? (Was the Lord’s Prayer For Unity Ineffective?)

            Make no mistake; Christianity is not the only religion with divisions.

            Here is a cursory look at the denominations of the other three largest religions of the world. The Hindu denominations are Vaishnavas, Shaivas, Shaktas, Smartas etc. The Islamic denominations are Sunni, Shia, Sufi, Ahmadiyya, Ibadi, Mahdavia, Quranists etc. The Buddhist denominations are Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana etc.¹

            Although within the Christian perspective, the varied interpretation of the Bible contributes to these denominations, one cannot remain blind to the deeds of man’s pride and selfishness in the establishment and upkeep of these denominations.

            It’s not only about the differences between denominations. There are divisions within every church, or should I say most churches. Divisions within the churches largely explain the contemporary growth of churches.

            Sadly most new churches are born not as a result of new believers coming into the kingdom of God, but because those in the kingdom of God are unable to tolerate the ideas, practices or the doctrines of their fellow believers. Hence, they move out and start new churches.

            These divisions violate the Lord’s commandments, which is to love our neighbor as we love ourselves and as Christ loved us (Mark 12: 31 & John 13: 34, 15: 12).

            Denominations existing to worship God in a variety of flavors are acceptable. These denominations would not contradict unity, for they would be united in their belief and theology.

            On the contrary, we observe denominations sharply divided on the basis of doctrines. Importantly, these denominations, while arguing for their own truthfulness demean the so-called errors of the other denominations (I am not referring to the heretics or the cults).

            Divisions are our focal point especially in the light of the high priestly prayer of our Lord where HE prays for the unity of Christians, “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17: 20b-23, NIV).

            So our dilemma is not merely if the Christian denominations would unite, but the efficacy of Christ’s prayer could be suspected as follows:

            1. The Lord Jesus prayed for the unity of Christians.

            2. Christian denominations are not a portrayal of unity in any sense of thought or imagination. (Some denominations consider others as abominations, and I am not even referring to those termed cults or heretics.)

            3. If Christ prayed for the unity, and if unity isn’t exactly portrayed either in the denominations or within every church, was the prayer of the Lord Jesus ineffective?

            Obviously, Christ foreknew the impending divisions/denominations; else HE would not have prayed. In other words, if Christ knew that Christians would stay united, HE obviously would not have prayed for the unity of the Christians. Therefore, we reasonably posit Christ’s foreknowledge about the impending divisions among Christians.

            Then we wonder the delay in God’s answer to Christ’s prayer for unity. The answer remains rather simple to comprehend – the freewill of man. God has given man freedom to operate. As good as a man can be, he uses this freedom to believe in God, but as bad as he can be, he gives into sin when he uses the very same freedom to create divisions in the church.

            Because God loves the man, HE respects man’s freedom. Hence, God would not ruthlessly stamp HIS sovereignty to eliminate man’s freedom to achieve HIS purpose. This implies that the loving God would allow a man to disobey HIM. Therefore man’s failure to love his neighbor, which is his disobedience to the Lord Jesus, brings about divisions within Christianity and in the world at large.

            These divisions do not help the Christian cause because Christians are the most visible and the most read gospel - the fifth gospel. When a non-Christian observes the extent of internal strife among the Christians, he does wonder the relevance of the Lord Jesus, especially in the context of the Lord’s prayer in John 17, the Lord’s command to love the neighbor and the contrasting existence of divisions/denominations within Christianity.

            These painful divisions exist because Christians do not remain in the Lord in a perfect sense. This is amply clear in the Lord’s prayer, “May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17: 21b, NIV, Emphasis mine). The responsibility here, therefore, is on the believer and not on God.

            So the writing is large on the wall that these divisions are here to stay. As long as this world exists, sin will exist because of freewill. As long as sin exists, divisions will exist because man will not perfectly love his fellow man. 

            While we are on the subject, we could think of unifying situations that could motivate Christians to bury their differences and animosity towards each other. One such situation is persecution.

            In 2013 there was a meaningful endeavor by Christians in Egypt towards unity. In February 2013, the heads of the five largest denominations – Coptic Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Greek Orthodox, and Anglican – united to create Egypt's first Council of Churches.² From what I read on the internet this alliance seems to be doing well even to this day. This seems to be a legitimate first step towards unity.

            This unity endeavor was a consequence of the prominence gained by Muslim Brotherhood in 2012 as an elected political party in Egypt. Needless to say, Muslim Brotherhood is considered a terrorist outfit by Egypt, Bahrain, Syria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Russia.

            Therefore persecution does play a vital role in uniting the otherwise battling Christian denominations. These persecutions are either ordained or allowed by the sovereign God. Hence it’s evident that God is active in bringing HIS people together even amidst the pain of persecution. If we don’t learn in good times, then it does seem that we learn well in bad times.

            Forming a council of churches a.k.a World Council of Churches with the active representation of denominations is merely the first step in ushering unity. Perfect unity will be achieved when individual denominations (such as Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, CSI, CNI etc) are invalidated and merged into one Christian entity. Forgive my pessimism, but this, I think, would never happen for the simple reasons of money and power.

            Some Christian denominations are so wealthy that they would render some secular businesses as insignificant. In this context, the poorer denominations may agree towards a merger but the wealthier denominations may think twice and negate any moves towards Christian unity.

            Moreover, those in the realms of power would refuse to quit their prominence to become an ordinary servant in the mold of the incarnate Lord Jesus. Therefore, I firmly believe that money and power would be the biggest impediments towards achieving Christian unity, although I wish and hope to be proven incorrect.

            God could still bring about the Christian unity through various forms of persecution such as a powerful government edict demanding merger of all individual denominations. But having said that, I believe the mainline denominations (and the sideline denominations too) would not think of a global merger during the peaceful era.  

            Therefore I conclude the following:

            First, the denominational differences and internal animosity will remain due to man’s freewill and until the Lord comes again.

            Second, the ecumenical movements such as the World Council of Churches is merely scratching the surface of unity, but are light-years away from achieving real unity. A merger of likeminded denominations is, according to my simple knowledge, the realistic method to achieve unity. This, I believe, will not happen because of Christians’ greed for money and power, but could happen because of persecutions.

            Last but not the least, the Lord’s prayer for Christian unity will not be rendered ineffective because of God’s ineffectiveness. The biggest impediment to that prayer is the Christian leaders, who refuse to humble themselves in the mold of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of God’s infinite love for man, HE allows a man to disobey HIM, and as a result, a perfect Christian unity remains far from fruition and that by the will of God. Amen. 

Endnotes:

¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_schools_and_branches 

& 

http://www.religionfacts.com/buddhism/sects.htm 

& 

http://dabuddhabudda.weebly.com/buddhist-denominations.html 

& 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_denominations 

& 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schools_of_Buddhism

² http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2013/february/egypts-five-largest-denominations-unite-for-first-time.html?paging=off