The RADEN Report                       April 6, 2001

special...

Several articles have been published recently reporting the end of the Southern Baptist/Roman Catholic Dialogue. Associated Baptist Press posted an article today. I believe it is worth your time. This ABP article may be viewed at: http://www.abpnews.com/abpnews/story.cfm?newsId=2684

The attached article appeared this week in the Texas Baptist Standard. The whole article is here. I have inserted my own comments in brackets. The original article may be viewed at: http://www.baptiststandard.com/2001/4_2/pages/catholic.html

'We're not ecumenists,' SBC says
in breaking off Catholic dialogues
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor

___Apparently bowing to pressure from a small group of Southern Baptists who stridently oppose ecumenical dialogue, the Southern Baptist Convention has announced it will end dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church. [Rather than simply "bowing to pressure from a small group of Southern Baptists," what's happening is that SBC leaders are brining this activity in line with the historic stance of Southern Baptists as expressed in Resolution #13 from the 1996 Convention meeting in New Orleans.]

___The ongoing dialogue between Baptist and Catholic theologians has not been aimed toward changing the theology of either group but toward gaining mutual understanding. [This is an editorial comment. It is prudent to take into consideration the fact that Vatican II documents and post Vatican II documents clearly explain such dialogues are purposed to eventually bring other groups into conformity and visible unity with the RCC. This would require considerable changes in theology.]

___The latest round of formal talks has been ongoing since 1994. Other dialogues, both formal and informal, have been held over the last 30 years.

___"We're not ecumenists. We're evangelicals committed to sharing the gospel," Phil Roberts, president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo., told the Associated Press. Roberts previously directed interfaith witness efforts with the SBC's North American Mission Board. [Exactly... the problem is that such official ecumenical dialogues give the impression that we are interested in ecumenism. Inadvertently, this gives a false impression to Roman Catholics, which can make reaching them with the Gospel even HARDER.]

___Although the SBC as recently as 1994 endorsed talks with the Catholic Church, "many Southern Baptists became suspicious of these discussions," Roberts said. ["Suspicious?" When two members of the SBC team are involved in drafting ECT documents that contain the endorsement of heresy, there is reason for concern. My observation is that most Southern Baptists do not even know that this official dialogue has existed. If I remember right, it was Timothy George who tacked on a sentence to another resolution in order to get Convention messengers to OK the "ongoing" official "conversation." As I see it, Timothy George, already a member of the SBC dialogue team, successfully slipped this past Convention messengers in this way.]

___Another Baptist participant in the talks, Timothy George, told AP a small faction of Baptists had "a strong and somewhat strident reaction against this."

___George, dean of Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala., told AP, "Ecumenism is not a high priority for most Southern Baptists." [Resolution #13, SBC in New Orleans 19956, stated "WHEREAS, Historically, Southern Baptists have resisted ecumenism while embracing Christian brotherhood and cooperation with other evangelicals...." Apparently, resisting ecumenism is the historic stance of Southern Baptists, not just the personal opinion of a "small faction" of us. It seems to me that Dr. George is making conflicting remarks here... first, he wants people to think that opposition to ecumenism is just the viewpoint of a "small faction of Baptists," and then he says that "Ecumenism is not a high priority for most Southern Baptists." Could it not be that ecumenism is not a high priority because the majority of Southern Baptists still hold to their historic stance?]

___Rudy Gonzalez, current director of NAMB's interfaith evangelism team, said that while the talks have been beneficial for both groups, the meetings do not facilitate the pursuit of NAMB's goals and priorities.

___"The Roman Catholic-Southern Baptist conversations have given us an opportunity to come to a very clear understanding that there are some marked and clear theological differences between us," Gonzales said.

___"We're focused on our mission first and foremost. Any future conversations that might develop will have to fit within the parameters of what the North American Mission Board has been charged to do, which is to assist Southern Baptist Churches to evangelize North America."

___For several years, a small band of highly vocal Southern Baptist conservatives have doggedly sought to end any relationship between the SBC and certain other faith groups, especially Roman Catholics. [Official relationships or cooperative involvements in evangelism with faith groups that present perverted doctrine or another gospel is the relevant issue that we have addressed.]

___Jerry Moser, pastor of Bayou DuLarge Baptist Church in Theriot, La., first criticized Southern Baptist leaders several years ago for signing on to an "Evangelical and Catholics Together" document that, among other things, defined Christians as either those who are born again or receive grace through sacraments. [A very good, clear statement. One important addition... it was our church who publicly confronted the ECT heresy, not just me alone.]

___Pressure from him and others forced some SBC leaders to back away from supporting the document, which was intended to highlight agreement on moral and social concerns such as abortion. [This is a partial explanation that has been used by some to distract people from the real issue. Here is a statement from Dr. Larry Lewis, ECT endorser, in a May 1994 letter to HMB Trustees, "THE PRIMARY ISSUES ADDRESSED IN THIS DOCUMENT (ECT) ARE MISSIONS, EVANGELISM, SOCIETAL CONCERNS, AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY." (emphasis in original.) And from what I have been told by SBC leaders, there has not been any action of any SBC agency head in the past 15 years that has solicited such a broad opposition as did endorsement of the ECT by two SBC agency heads. Pressure has come from many more Southern Baptists than the way this sentence makes it sound.]

___Bill Streich of Wichita Falls and Roger Moran of Missouri also have been leading critics of anything appearing ecumenical.

___More recently, Moser has questioned SBC involvement with umbrella evangelistic groups like Mission America and AD2000 that he says include organizations with radically different views than Southern Baptists. Cooperating with those groups, he said, raises questions about what Southern Baptists believe.

___A motion Moser made at last summer's SBC annual meeting resulted in all SBC agencies and institutions certifying that they are "maintaining the historic position of Southern Baptists as they cooperate with various other groups in appropriate evangelistic enterprises or moral-advocacy initiatives."

___That was not enough, however. Moser told Associated Baptist Press in a subsequent interview that the self-study conducted by SBC agencies did not achieve all he intended. He said in September he intended to keep pressing the issue.

___"I am going to continue to appeal to the convention on this issue of ecumenism," he vowed. [There was no vow involved. I simply said that I am going to continue to appeal to the Convention... for as long as any of our agencies or leaders are involved in ecumenical efforts that contradict our historic beliefs. As a matter of fact, the SBC Executive Committee unanimously passed a motion this February that purposefully left the door open for discussion and consideration of additional relevant information. This indicates that the Executive Committee is taking seriously their responsibility to operate by the SBC Constitution and Bylaws.]

___One Texas Baptist who participated in the dialogues for 20 years expressed dismay but not surprise at the abrupt end to the conversation.

___This is "another knee-jerk reaction to minority protests," said Bill Hendricks, professor of Baptist studies at Texas Christian University's Brite Divinity School and former theology professor at SBC seminaries.

___Hendricks, who lives in Fort Worth, described the dialogues as a "fertile interchange of theological ideas and scholarly concerns and ways in which our mutual communities could agree on social ministries and theological affirmations."

___The purpose, he said, was "to learn more about them and help them learn more about us." [Obviously, this is simple enough to do without official dialogues that can be - and have been - used to give a false impression about the beliefs of Southern Baptists. And if after 20 years of involvement with these RCC ecumenical operatives, Professor Hendricks never learned that Roman Catholicism preaches another gospel, then I personally have to doubt that continuing this official dialogue would help him to understand.]

___The irony, he said, is that in the years since the Baptist-Catholic dialogue began, "the Catholic community has become more ecumenical and certain segments of the Baptist community have become more closed to interfaith dialogue." [I think this will continue to be the case as Southern Baptists learn more about the teachings of the RCC and their officially stated purposes in ecumenism. The more this generation of Southern Baptists learn about Roman Catholicism, the more we will realize that Catholicism officially teaches another gospel altogether. Far from shutting down evangelism, as Dr. Timothy George has claimed, the reintroduction of this historic truth has the potential to help Southern Baptists regain their passion to share the true Gospel of Jesus Christ with the largest religious group in the United States. (Sacramental faith - falsely claiming to present the true "Christian" gospel - is the single largest religious designation in the world.)]

___The last formal conversation between Southern Baptists and Catholics is slated for September at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

___Frank Ruff, the Catholic bishops' liaison with the SBC, expressed sadness at the news.

___"I'm confident that this whole movement toward Christian reconciliation is not something we dreamed up," he said. "It's something the Holy Spirit is breathing in the churches. It's an activity of God that is bigger than all of us. One decision of one group to stop dialogue is not going to be the end of the work of the Spirit." [According to RCC/SBC Dialogue member Dr. Albert Mohler, the Catholic Church preaches another gospel (Larry King Live, March 2000). If that is so - and Southern Baptists have historically believed this - then the "spirit" that RCC priest Frank Ruff is talking about is not the "Holy Spirit," as he claims, but rather a counterfeit spirit. The Holy Spirit does not move true Christians toward a false "Christian reconciliation" with those who promote another gospel.]

___After the 1994 resolution, Ruff said, "there was a great deal of hope and enthusiasm. We had outlined a long-term plan for dialogue, starting with Scripture. We thought it would happen, we thought we could work through these topics quicker than we have."

___Planned topics for future discussion, he noted, included such things as missions and religious liberty. "We thought those were significant issues."

___Ruff said he understands that NAMB's mission is focused on evangelism rather than ecumenism. However, "the unity Jesus prayed for at the Last Supper certainly connected unity and evangelism." [In the promotion of ecumenism, this is THE identifying misinterpretation of Scripture. The unity that Jesus prayed for at the Last Supper is not an unholy union of those who present different gospels. Rather, it is a unity in the one true Gospel of Christ of which Jesus is speaking.]

___He takes consolation, he said, in private support from individual Southern Baptists and SBC churches.

___"The call to unity is felt by lots of believers, and lots of them are Southern Baptists," Ruff concluded. The decision to break off talks "is the policy of NAMB, but I don't see this as the position of all SBC churches. That tempers the disappointment."

The truth is that this RCC/SBC Dialogue is a left-over from the days of moderate/liberal leadership of the SBC. It is inconsistent with the historic stance of Southern Baptists who have "resisted ecumenism while embracing Christian brotherhood and cooperation with other evangelicals...." Apparently, SBC leaders are simply continuing to lead the Convention back into line with its historic biblical roots.

The RADEN Report is a news and commentary service purposed to inform and educate the body of Christ regarding the dangers of ecumenism. For our purposes, ecumenism is defined as cooperative ventures of an evangelistic nature with individuals and/or groups which promote errant doctrine. Much of the New Testament was written to oppose the false doctrines of men who claimed to be Christian teachers, yet were bringing in "destructive heresies." According to Jude we are to "earnestly contend for the Faith that was once for all delivered unto the saints." This we aim to do and to encourage others in this part of God's work. If we can be of assistance to you in this way, please let us know. Additional copies (hard-copy) of RADEN are available, as well as other resources. Why not pass RADEN on to a friend? If you would like to read the ECT document, click here.  We also have the ECT put together into booklets, if you would like for us to send you one or more, request it by email.   Please include your home address and how many you would like.

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