Nearly 100% of Italian evangelical churches and bodies (85% of Italian Protestants) on July 19 signed a common statement reinforcing evangelical commitment to the gospel of Jesus Christ, as well as providing biblical standards to assess the mounting ecumenical pressure coming from the Roman Catholic Church.
Following a round table on ‘An evangelical perspective on Roman Catholicism’, promoted by the Italian Evangelical Alliance and held in Aversa on July 19, the Federation of Pentecostal Churches, the Assemblies of God in Italy, the Apostolic Church and the Pentecostal Congregations, concerned by recent ecumenical initiatives between national and international evangelical and Pentecostal circles and the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope, believe that a church which operates as mediator of salvation and presents other figures as mediators of grace is incompatible with the teaching of Scripture, since God’s grace comes to us by faith alone in Jesus Christ alone (Ephesians 2.8) and without the agency of other mediators (1 Timothy 2.5).
Incompatible with Scripture
They also believe that it is incompatible with Scripture to have a church that: took the liberty to add dogmas (such as the Marian ones) to the faith once and for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3; Revelation 22.18); at heart is a political state that is a legacy of an ‘imperial’ church from which it has inherited titles and prerogatives.
