ECT PG.18

ECT

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

COMMENTARY

This sentence places two entirely different gospels side by side and says that they are essentially the same. The Gospel is not a matter of how we choose to understand it; it is a matter of what the Bible says. A "new birth" that is supposedly "originally bestowed in the sacrament of baptism" is not the new birth of the Gospel of Christ; it is an entirely other gospel, a perversion of the Gospel of Christ. Amazingly, as far back as May 26, 1994, one of the men who was involved in the drafting and editing of this ECT document, Dr. Larry Lewis, has said of this statement,

"...this perverted doctrine of baptismal regeneration... where it is written into the text of the document in this fashion, it appears that those of us who have endorsed the document (ECT) are lending credence to that heresy."

This being the case, one would think that Dr. Lewis would be obliged for the sake of the Gospel of Christ and for the sake of lost individuals, both Catholic and evangelical, to publicly repent of his endorsement of this document which even he admits contains heresy. On the contrary though, according to Charles Colson in his new book, EVANGELICALS AND CATHOLICS TOGETHER: Toward a Common Mission, Dr. Lewis "maintains his strong personal endorsement of the (ECT) statement."

There are, of course, several "common tasks" mentioned in this ECT document, some of which are worthy of our attention. Some "common tasks" mentioned, though, are of grave concern. One such common task (agenda) is mentioned on page 17, third paragraph. This stated task is for the evangelical endorsers of this document to correct the "corruptions of Christian witness" of their respective groups. This recklessly broad statement can be interpreted to define as corrupt the efforts of evangelicals to persuade Roman Catholic individuals to a biblical faith, something lamented even recently by the Roman pontiff.

This document amounts to a betrayal of the Gospel and of the Christian brethren who are, or who ever have been throughout history, in the trenches of the conflict for the souls of Roman Catholic men and women.

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