'Historical barriers'?

A reader wrote into EN. He was worried.

He wondered what I thought of a talk on YouTube given at this year’s Spring Harvest. If you want to see for yourself what is being said, you can find it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAZ4FKHE9cQ.

The talk is given by Les Isaac, who is involved with Street Pastors ministry, and is about Christian unity. He refers to Revelation 7, which speaks of John’s vision of heaven in which people from every nation, tribe and language worship together before God’s throne. The speaker’s thrust is that a lot of Christians are waiting for such unity in heaven, but God ‘wants us to be one now’.

Anything that divides

He deduced that we must set aside anything that divides professing Christians, from worship styles to ‘theological differences’ (a dirty phrase for today’s post-modern hearers). Much of this we can say ‘Amen!’ to. There are secondary issues which are not essential to the gospel which ought not to act as obstacles to fellowship. However, it soon becomes clear, especially from the subtext, that what Mr. Isaac had in mind specifically is that evangelicals need to accept the Catholic Church and stand with all within it. The main illustrating stories concern a Catholic nun who prayed for Street Pastors and the miracle of Catholic and Protestant communities coming together in Northern Ireland. It is in that context that he speaks of setting aside ‘historical barriers’ which divide us. The Reformation is plainly in view. All this drew bursts of applause from the Spring Harvest faithful.

Though I’m sure the speaker meant well, I would want to ask Mr. Isaac a few questions. First, I have respect for the Catholic Church. They have often been far clearer on issues such as abortion and sexual ethics than evangelicals. And I would want to stand together with them over many social issues and against terrorism in Northern Ireland. But I would also want to stand together in some situations with ordinary Muslims of good heart who believe in the prophet Jesus and who are against terrorism. So where exactly are we to draw the line in this unity thing? It seems it comes down to… ‘theological differences’.

Second, Mr. Isaac appears to say that Christian unity takes top priority. If ‘theological differences’ ought not to divide us, then my question is, why isn’t he encouraging us all to become Roman Catholics? Here is a church with an organisational unity across the entire globe and from which there is (in his view) no reason for any Christian to stand apart. And if he is not telling us to do that, why not?

There is much more that could be said, including the implication that anyone who does not see things Mr. Isaac’s way ‘hates’ Roman Catholics.

Para-church organisations

The truth is that there will always be a dynamic in para-church organisations to relax their theological boundaries. Over time, what they see as the urgency of their mission (or their desire to keep up support) tends to diminish commitment to the truth. But the apostles insist there are such beings as false teachers who we need to avoid and there are doctrines which are of ‘first importance’ and when we don’t hold on to them we have ‘believed in vain’ (1 Corinthians 15.2).

On the positive side, I was encouraged recently at a meeting of our local Christians Against Poverty group. Someone asked, ‘Why can’t we include non-Christians in helping families in debt’. The woman worker was clear in her refusal: ‘We do this ministry in the name of Jesus. I always ask if I can pray with people and I always leave them a gospel tract’.