Little errors in the beginning, said Aristotle, can lead to big errors in the end. When it comes to Catholics and Evangelicals learning from each other, let’s begin by avoiding two little errors that can lead to big mistakes down the road.
The first error is misunderstanding exactly what ecumenical dialogue is. For some people, “dialogue” refers to a process in which participants compromise on what they affirm in order to come to some sort of agreement. This may work in politics but not in ecumenical dialogue, which concerns Truth with a capital “T.” We can’t compromise in matters of truth because we can’t truthfully say the truth is other than what we affirm it to be.
Genuine Christian dialogue doesn’t compromise on what the various participants regard as the truth. It discusses points of agreement and disagreement honestly. This presentation stresses points of agreement, but that doesn’t mean we should regard as unimportant or illusory matters on which Catholics and Evangelicals differ.
Of course, through dialogue we may come to see that our particular understanding of the truth is inadequate or that what we supposed were irreconcilable differences are not irreconcilable after all. Or we may come away with a sense that the differences, though real, are not as great as we thought. Even so, none of those things amount to turning our backs on the truth for the sake of supposed peace and harmony.
The second error concerns what we hope to achieve by our ecumenical discussion. Catholics and Evangelicals should have reasonable expectations of one another. The general topic of this dialogue is what we can learn from one another, but no one should suppose that we come to the dialogue expecting Catholics to learn to be Evangelicals or vice versa.
Loving another person means willing his good, and having the fullness of Christian truth is better than have only part of it. It follows that if participants genuinely believe what they profess to believe, they will, as a matter of charity, hope that, in God’s own good time and manner, their counterparts will also come to share in the fullness of God’s word. Neither Catholics nor Evangelicals should be bashful or embarrassed by that idea.
Then what should we expect? I hope that Evangelicals will come away with a clearer understanding of what Catholics believe. But I also hope that our dialogue will make Evangelicals better Christians—not over against Catholicism (I don’t think that’s possible)—but with respect to a deeper appropriation of the gospel itself. Similarly, I hope Catholics will come away better Christians in relation to our appropriation of the gospel as Catholics.
Defining “Evangelical”
There are many ways we might define Evangelical Christianity. Here I draw on the descriptive definition of Evangelicalism set forth in the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Modern Christian Thought, edited by the noted Evangelical theologian Alister E. McGrath. Evangelicalism can be characterized by what we might call four “marks” of Evangelical belief: (1) the authority and sufficiency of Scripture; (2) the uniqueness of redemption through the death of Christ; (3) the need for personal conversion; and (4) the need for evangelism. It is my contention that Catholics have something to learn (or relearn) from Evangelicals regarding each of these four points.
Authority and Sufficiency of Scripture
Sufficiency
We’ll get to the term authority shortly. But in order to understand the term sufficiency, consider the following example: I get a flat tire on the road and go to my trunk to replace it. There I find the equipment for replacing the tire—a jack, a tire bar, and a spare tire. But what if I don’t know how to use these things? Is the equipment “sufficient” for changing the tire? In one sense, yes; in another, no.
Likewise, some Catholic theologians affirm what is called the material sufficiency of Scripture. These Catholic theologians hold that all the “equipment” we need to get the job done—that is, to believe what God has revealed to his people and to carry on the Church’s mission to teach all nations what Jesus commanded us—can be found, in one form or another, in the Bible. That’s like the sufficiency of the tire replacement equipment in my truck.
While a Catholic is permitted to affirm the material sufficiency of Scripture, the Catholic Church (along with the Orthodox churches) rejects the formal sufficiency of Scripture. This is the idea that the Bible—apart from any authoritative teaching ministry or definitive interpretation of the Church (i.e., Tradition)—is sufficient to tell us all that God has revealed for his Church. To Catholics, the formal sufficiency of Scripture sounds like the flat tire on my car being able to replace itself. Catholicism affirms the need for Tradition and the magisterium to interpret fully, definitively, and sufficiently the Bible in the community of the Church.
Of course, Evangelicals disagree here, so I would like to focus on the authority or authoritativeness of Scripture.
Authority
The Catholic Church teaches that the Bible alone is the inspired word of God, where inspired refers to the action of the Holy Spirit in guiding the human authors to write what God wanted written, in the precise way he wanted it written. Sacred Tradition, though also the word of God, does not come to us in an inspired (or “God-breathed”) form (cf. 2 Pet. 3:16). Theologians talk about sacred Tradition being “assisted” by the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church, to be sure, as they do the teaching ministry or magisterium of the Church. But only Scripture has God as its primary author and in that sense only Scripture is divinely inspired.
Since Sacred Scripture alone is divinely inspired, according to traditional Catholic teaching, there is a sense in which the Bible can be understood as “the norm that norms all other norms” (to use a Reformation slogan). Catholics believe the Holy Spirit is objectively at work in assisting and safeguarding such expressions of Tradition and the magisterium as develop over time. But the Church does not claim for these expressions divine authorship in the way she claims that God is the author of Scripture. Our understanding of Scripture can deepen over time, but Scripture is what it is; it cannot be amended, refined, or revised. Its teaching—in the very form it comes to us—remains fixed.
The immutability of Scripture is a point on which Catholics and Evangelicals agree, although we differ on some of its implications. Both Catholics and Evangelicals agree that all statements of doctrine are in some sense ultimately subordinate to the inspired word. For the Catholic, even definitions of dogma, which are infallible, are subordinate to the Bible in the sense that the words chosen to express the dogma remain merely human formulations, even though providentially or Spirit-guided, infallible formulations. Where Catholics and Evangelicals differ is over whether there is a teaching office in the community of the Church that can definitively interpret Scripture for the Church, and which can set out doctrinal statements in an infallible form. Catholics believe so; Evangelicals do not.
Becoming More Evangelical about the Bible
I would like to point out three areas in which Catholics can become more evangelical with respect to the Bible.
First, there is the area of personal Bible study. It is sometimes said that the Catholic who attends daily Mass hears more of the Bible read at Mass in a year than the typical Evangelical hears in a year’s worth of Sunday services and Wednesday night Bible studies. That may be true. The question is, how does the Catholic who attends daily Mass compare with the Evangelical who takes seriously a daily commitment to Bible reading? I suspect the Catholic doesn’t fair so well.
It may seem a cliché to quote Leo XIII (who was himself quoting Jerome) that “ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” But clichés are clichés because they’re usually true. There simply is no substitute for studying the Bible.
The second area is biblical scholarship. Evangelical scholars have much to teach Catholic biblical scholars and theologians. To many Catholics, that assertion may seem odd. They think of Catholic biblical scholarship as on a par with the best of Protestant scholarship. In some ways that’s true. But some expressions of contemporary biblical scholarship rest on faulty philosophical and theological presuppositions. Evangelical biblical scholars have led the way in showing some of the flaws in these presuppositions. Catholic scholars can and are learning from them.
The third area is systematic theology. Admittedly, we have progressed a great deal from the old days of the pre-Vatican II theology manuals, where in many instances the Bible was cited merely as a source of proof texts to support scholastically formulated theological theses. Still, some Catholic theologians reduce the word of God to wholly historically conditioned, human theological speculation or opinion, e.g., to Paul’s ideas about sin and grace, or the reflections of the Q-community on the sayings of Jesus. Some even radically relativize Jesus himself such that simply because Jesus taught something doesn’t mean Christians have to accept it. Evangelical scholarship can help Catholic biblical scholars combat these extremes and avoid what we might call a naturalistic fundamentalism and skepticism.
Uniqueness of the Redemption through the Death of Christ
The idea that Jesus’ body was scourged and his blood spilt for our redemption is generally something Catholics would rather not think about in our pleasant Sunday morning worship or in our daily lives. Many of us don’t think much about the passion and death of Jesus, in spite of the fact that every week—indeed every day—the Eucharist is offered in the Catholic Church, the sacrament that Paul calls a communion or participation in the body and blood of Christ (1 Cor. 10:16), the sacred action in which we proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes, as Paul also says (1 Cor. 11:26).
Then there is the issue of our cooperation with the work of Christ on the cross. Evangelicals stress the “finished work of the cross” and decry any human effort to add to it, since it implies that Christ’s sacrifice was insufficient to reconcile God and man. The Catholic response to this affirmation is twofold. First, to add a hearty “Amen.” Second, to insist that the work of the cross needs subjectively to be appropriated by faith and that, once that is done, we are in Christ through the Spirit made agents of the work of the cross, capable of assisting others in appropriating through faith the once-for-all work of the cross. Furthermore, the cross of Christ is so powerful that it enables us more deeply to unite ourselves to Christ in faith and to grow in sanctification by our conformity to Christ.
This is how Catholics understand cooperation with grace and the notion of merit or grace-enabled rewards. This is what we understand Jesus to mean when he says, “Take up your cross and follow me.” Our “cross” has salvific value only in relation to the power of his cross.
The trouble is, we Catholics sometimes miss the carefully qualified Catholic understanding of the atonement of Christ and to fall into a “works-righteousness” view of the Christian life. We begin to think that we can make ourselves acceptable to God by doing things: “If I go to Mass every week and don’t do anything really bad, and say my prayers everyday, and return my library books on time . . . then God will have to accept me.” Few of us put it so crudely, but if we’re honest, I think many of us must admit we can or have fallen into that pattern of thinking. Or at least we’ll admit to knowing others who have.
The Evangelical or Fundamentalist at the door may put it crudely to certain Catholic ears—”Have you been washed in the blood?” But that’s the language of the New Testament. In fact, it’s the language of the Eucharistic liturgy. Evangelical Christians can help Catholics recover and more fully appropriate the price of their redemption—the passion and death of Jesus Christ.
The Need for Conversion
This brings us to the third thing Catholics can learn (or relearn) from Evangelicals: an awareness of the need for personal conversion. Two.aspects of this truth stand out.
First, there is the need to remember that we are sinners in need of a Savior to convert our hearts and minds. We’re alienated from God, from others, from ourselves—even when we don’t realize it. That is the true human condition, apart from Christ.
Unfortunately, the truth of our need for conversion is sometimes lost today. For example, Catholics affirm the universality of God’s grace and the metaphysical goodness of human nature. But some Catholics think mistakenly that these things mean whatever we do that looks like good must be the work of grace and therefore salvific; or that, being metaphysically good, human nature can achieve salutary good on its own.
Catholicism differs with Calvinism with respect to the idea of the total depravity of man. Human beings are existentially fallen, not essentially evil, as some Calvinists claim. Nevertheless, sin is a fact of human existence, and human beings are incapable, apart from grace, of salutary actions. Even faith, in the Catholic view, is the work of grace in us.
Our personal situation as sinners means we all have a personal need for to turn to Jesus Christ for salvation, for release from sin and death, and a need for participation in righteousness and life. Our Evangelical brothers and sisters rightly stress this.
A related problem is the erroneous idea that a “cultural Catholic” is the same as a faithful Catholic because faith is communicated through culture and community. It’s the idea that one can be a Catholic without personally adhering in faith to the word of God as proclaimed by the Church. Such a view overlooks the fact that even though faith is communal, it is also a personal act, one that no amount of cultural identity or communality can supplant or substitute for.
Either we professed Catholics have entrusted ourselves to the Father through Jesus Christ in the Spirit in faith, or we haven’t. And if we haven’t, then we haven’t allowed the spiritual seed planted in us by the Spirit at baptism to come to fruition by our personal appropriation of the grace of the New Covenant.
By asking Catholics, “Have you been born again?” our Evangelical brethren challenge us to look into our hearts to see whether we have given ourselves to Christ truly, something the Catholic Church insists is at the heart of being Catholic.
The Need for Evangelism
To put the matter into popular Evangelical jargon: We need to be saved. Not in the sense of simply praying the Sinner’s Prayer or even in the sense of a once-and-for-all act of surrender that bestows an alleged “eternal security” from apostasy or dying in moral sin. That sort of salvation, with all due respect to our Reformed brethren, is not reflected in the Bible. The salvation we must experience is even more than receiving the forgiveness of sins, as important as that is. Fully evangelical and biblical salvation is communal as well as personal. It is salvation as a member of the community of the Church and it is salvation oriented to the mission of the Church. In other words, salvation is, as John Paul II would say, communion in and with Christ in his Church and a call to mission to the world.
We are to be, in Christ and through him, a sign and instrument of communion with God and of the unity of the human race (Lumen Gentium 1). Among other things, being truly converted to Jesus Christ and united to him in his Church entails a call to mission. This means we who have been evangelized are to evangelize others: “As the Father has seen me, so I send you,” Jesus said (John 20:21). “Make disciples of all nations,” he commanded (Matt. 28:19).
This brings us to the fourth area in which Catholics can learn from Evangelicals: evangelism or, as we Catholics call it, evangelization. Although Evangelicals don’t usually put things this way, they nevertheless rightly see three dimensions to evangelization.
The first dimension involves the individual believer, working on his own, by virtue of his share in the prophetic mission of Christ, inviting others to personal faith in Jesus Christ. Catholics can learn from their evangelical brethren, who excel in “soul winning.”
The second dimension is the work of believers united with one another to call others to personal faith in Jesus Christ. Here we have the example of the energetic and inviting neighborhood Evangelical church community or the Evangelical parachurch organization, such as Campus Crusade for Christ or the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Catholic parishes could learn well by observing how the Evangelical congregations engage in evangelization.
The third dimension involves either individual evangelists or believers united in common evangelical mission, but its emphasis is on bringing the gospel to the totality of life. The sovereignty of God in all areas of life means that Christians should bring their faith to bear on cultural and social matters as well as in their daily decisions and interactions. Vital Christianity is culture-building.
The explosion of Evangelical cultural expressions—from radio stations and TV networks, to best-selling novels, movies, music, and art—should challenge Catholics to recover their own Catholic Christian cultural heritage and to express the gospel in all dimensions of life. There are signs such a Catholic cultural renaissance may be on the horizon. But until Catholics are themselves better evangelized and catechized, such a renewal will not reach fruition.
Conclusion
Evangelicals can help Catholics appropriate or recover the core of their Catholic identity by helping them to be more evangelical or gospel-oriented. Catholics should learn from Evangelical devotion to Scripture as the Word of God. Catholics should do this in personal Bible study. We should learn from Evangelicals in the scholarly study of Scripture. We should seek out the biblical foundations of our faith, and take seriously the Bible’s teaching on doctrine and morality.
Catholics can learn from Evangelicalism’s strong witness to the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. We need to be reminded of the price Jesus paid for our redemption. We must be reminded that redemption is the work of Christ, not a human project, and that everything in the life of the Church that contributes to our holiness does so by virtue of its being in some way a gracious appropriation or application of the redemptive power of Christ to our lives. We must be shaken from a comfortable Christianity that doesn’t grapple with sin and long for redemption.
Evangelicals can teach Catholics to appreciate their church’s teaching on the need for personal conversion. They can help remind us that being Catholic isn’t an ethic identity about which I have no choice or something that I retain in spite of myself. Being a Catholic is a matter of allowing Jesus to convert our minds and hearts, entrusting ourselves to God through him in faith.
Finally, Evangelicals can remind Catholics of their responsibilities to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. This means personally witnessing to Christ in order to bring individuals to personal conversion in Christ. It involves working with other believers to invite and challenge people to conversion. It means bringing the gospel to all areas of life, including the life of culture and society. It means “renewing all things in Christ”; it involves affirming by our thoughts, words, and actions the reign of God over the whole of life. In short, Evangelicals can help Catholics become more evangelical, which ultimately means becoming more truly Catholic.