A new trend in Arab evangelical life is to seek better relationships with the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. What are the strengths and weaknesses of doing this?

Let’s begin with the strengths. Evangelicals belong to the Reformed theological tradition that is derived from the western, or Roman Catholic, tradition in terms of its basic theological thought. Although the Reformation challenged certain aspects of Catholic tradition, evangelicals affirm the value of the Church Fathers as theological teachers and uphold the great confessions of faith in the early church such as the Apostolic and Nicene Creeds. Evangelicals are also committed to the divine inspiration and infallibility of Holy Scripture and, unlike such cults as the Mormons or Jehovah Witnesses; do not regard any other teacher or writing as having a similar authority. It is often assumed that evangelicals are against episcopacy but in fact there are many evangelicals in the worldwide Anglican Church where the historic episcopate is maintained. Evangelicals are, in short, traditional Christians in the western tradition with certain disagreements with our fellow Christians in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions.

For this reason, it is altogether good for evangelicals to maintain as friendly as possible relations with other traditional Christian Churches. First, we should be open to theological discussions such as exist in the USA under the banner ‘Evangelicals and Catholics Together’. Such discussions will reveal how much we share in common both with the Catholic and the Orthodox traditions as well as our differences, and discussing our differences openly and honestly will build better understanding even in disagreement. For example, it will help other Christian theologians to realise how far evangelicalism is from being a dangerous cult movement as some of them have wrongly assumed. Secondly, we can work together for common moral causes in society such as issues of justice and freedom in this country and internationally. Our moral agendas are often the same. Thirdly, in our beleaguered state as Christians in the Holy Land, we need to defend and advocate the rights and values of the Christian community to our Jewish or our Muslim neighbours.

Having said all that, we must realise that evangelicals stand the other side of the Reformation from Catholics and those issues will not go away. In the first place, we regard Scripture as the supreme authority for faith and life above any other church tradition however revered it may be. We do not believe that revelation continued in the same way after the original apostles, although we have deep respect for the Church Fathers. An evangelical seeks apostolic authority for today in the writings of the New Testament apostles. Secondly, evangelicals are Protestants and therefore accept only two sacraments in baptism and the Lord’s Supper. We do not believe that even those sacraments convey grace apart from personal faith. In particular, we reject the idea of baptismal regeneration.

We hold that Scripture teaches the ‘new birth’ of regeneration to require personal repentance from a life of unbelief and sin and a life commitment of equally personal faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour, Lord and the divine Son of God. Most evangelicals in Israel have also rejected infant baptism as unscriptural and regard proper baptism to be by immersion upon a definite profession of faith in Christ – the ‘good confession’ as it is called by the Apostle Paul. A third fundamental difference is that evangelicals regard the atonement for sin achieved by our Lord Jesus Christ as an unique historic event that neither can be nor needs to be repeated in the consecration of the bread and wine at the Lord’s Table.  Some hold that the Lord’s Table is purely commemorative, while others regard both baptism and the Eucharist as conveying grace to the believer, but not saving grace and not regardless of the recipient’s faith.

These differences make for a different presentation of the gospel message and a different kind of church life for evangelicals. We regard none as saved automatically because of their religious commitment or even their Christian baptism but call upon every person to find Christ personally in order to be born again of His Holy Spirit. We believe that the Christian life is lived by the inner authority of Christ and the outer authority of Scripture, manifested in a deep and serious commitment to the local church and to righteous living with love for all in our hearts. Catholics and Orthodox are sometimes offended that evangelicals refuse to accept them as right with God when they are already baptised, but the fact is that evangelicals do not regard each other in that way either – someone may profess to be genuinely converted and have been baptised in an evangelical church, but unless they demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit in their lives they will not be received as true believers.

Evangelicals maintain a high spiritual and ethical emphasis and this is why we challenge ‘easy-believism’ as we call it. Evangelicals strongly disagree with the current popularity of universalism – the idea that all will eventually be saved regardless of their personal response to God.

So how should evangelicals relate to Christians of other traditions? We hold with them the Divine Lordship of our Only Saviour Jesus Christ. We receive with them the Holy Scriptures as God’s infallible Word. We honour a past we share with them in the Church Fathers and with the western Catholic tradition in particular. However, there are some things we cannot do. We cannot deny what is essential to the faith we believe is the authentic, historic, biblical Christian message revealed by Christ and taught by His apostles under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit.

This means for example, that we cannot regard baptism as the way of salvation, nor can we refuse to evangelise those who put their faith in their baptism. Nor can we ignore the great command of our Lord Jesus Christ to go into the world and make disciples from all nations. The time of evangelism is now, the field for evangelism is every religion in the whole world, and our duty to obey begins with those around us who do not know Christ for themselves as their personal Saviour and Lord.

Christian of other traditions must understand this about evangelicals and we must understand that the day when we cease to say this frankly will be the day we begin to kill the spiritual inspiration and life of our churches and of our own souls.  

Revd Phil Hill,
Head of Ministerial Formation,
Nazareth Evangelical Theological Seminary.