9. What Shall We Make of Ecumenism?
Ecumenism has done much to foster increased understanding between evangelicals and Roman Catholics, allowing them to work together in a number of important areas, especially concerning personal and social ethics. However, some fundamental differences remain, the doctrine of justification being the most important. Some of these differences have stemmed from misunderstandings, others from genuine disagreements.
What is the relation between the official teachings of the Roman Catholic Church and the private views of individual Roman Catholics? How will this affect the form future relations between evangelicals and Roman Catholics will take? The long-term implications are considered.
ESSAY 9
WHAT SHALL WE MAKE OF ECUMENISM?
Alister McGrath
Following World War II, the word ecumenism achieved saturation coverge in the Christian media and beyond. The agenda of the mainline Christian churches was dominated by the need for denominations to come back together after the disruptions of the war.1 The World Council of Churches (WCC) emerged as a focus for these endeavors. Ecumenism attracted attention for some time, being widely seen as the most important item on the mainline Protestant agenda; now it is receding into the background as other more pressing issues come to the fore. “Ecumenism,” a colleague remarked to me a few years ago, “has become the last refuge of the theological bore.” Whether he was right or not is open to debate, but he certainly identified a widespread feeling of weariness over the ecumenical agenda in recent years. In part, this disillusionment is due to the totally unrealistic attitude of those who were convinced that Christian unity was just around the corner. Doctrinal differences could be swept to one side in a euphoric drive to come together.
An excellent example of this can be provided from the English scene. On September 18, 1964, the First British Conference on Faith and Order surprised itself by declaring that it would work for the union of all the British churches “not later than Easter Day, 1980. ”2 That date has long since passed, as have the hopes of those who so naively believed that reunion could be achieved without addressing the deep doctrinal issues that divided the churches in the first place. Too often, ecumenism appears to rest on a doctrine of “cheap grace,” refusing to address the real issues in order to achieve a cheap ecumenical fix in which a paper-thin and artificial “unity” is gained at the price of ignoring or sidestepping the questions that really matter. “Unity at any price” seemed to be the philosophy underlying scene of the more irresponsible projects of that era.
The issue of doctrinal divergence is of special importance to the relationship between Protestant and Roman Catholic churches. Such dialogues have discovered that the agenda of the Reformation obstinately refuses to go away and that the central questions of scriptural authority, the role of Mary, and the assurance of salvation remain controversial today. There is thus a new atmosphere of realism: only by facing theological issues honestly can any progress toward Christian unity be made. The agenda of the Reformation cannot be ignored by any who hope to bring Protestants and Roman Catholics closer together. This point is stressed in an important recent essay by Don Carson (Trinity Evangelical Divinity School).3 While noting substantial points of agreement between evangelicalism and Roman Catholicism, he rightly points out that issues of major importance remain to be addressed and resolved—such as the locus of revelation, the means of grace, the nature of the church, and the significance of Mary. The agenda of the Reformation remains on the ecumenical table today.
Despite these reservations, however, there is clearly a growing feeling among some sections of evangelicalism that increased collaboration between evangelicals and Roman Catholics, at least (Hi some issues and at some levels, is going to be of increasing importance in the future. If Astern culture continues to slide into an increasingly secular outlook, should not those who believe in, for example, the divinity of Christ and the reality of the Resurrection join forces, despite their differences chi other matters, in order to ensure that the Christian voice is heard cm these vital issues? Again, given that evangelicals and Roman Catholics share a common concern for the unborn, should they not join forces to form a coalition on this issue? To work together on such issues does not imply agreement on a larger scale but a willingness to work together in those limited areas where agreement on ideas or values makes it possible.
Many evangelicals have sensed hostility toward theological liberalism in Roman Catholic circles and welcomed this as an antidote to liberal trends within historic Protestantism, which they believe, with justification, to be destroying those former bulwarks of evangelicalism. Thus, where the WCC has tended to dismiss evangelism as “Christian imperialism,” Pope John Paul II has stressed the importance of evangelism for the church as it seeks to make the good news of Jesus Christ known to the world. In his encyclical letter Redemptoris Missio, John Paul II stressed that “proclamation is the permanent priority of mission. The Church cannot elude Christ’s explicit mandate, nor deprive men and women of the ‘Good News’ about their being loved and saved by God.”4 The encyclical speaks movingly of the full riches of the gospel in terms with which most evangelicals can sympathize:
The subject of proclamation is Christ who was crucified, died and is risen: through him is accomplished our full and authentic liberation from evil, sin and death; through him God bestows “new life” that is divine and eternal. This is the “Good News” which changes humanity and their history, and which all peoples have a right to hear.5
It is no accident that some evangelicals have chosen to become Roman Catholics, sensing that there is an institutionalized orthodoxy over a series of vital issues that the mainline Protestant churches have betrayed.6 A further issue is that of “evangelical catholicity,” a theme classically associated with the Mercersburg theology but which has begun to reemerge as significant for some evangelicals.7
In the light of these developments, a real need exists to reappraise the ecumenical endeavor, especially to identify its positive and negative potential for evangelicals. In what follows, I shall explore the issue with special reference to one doctrine of fundamental importance: justification by faith. My reason for doing so is simple: it is the doctrine with which I am most familiar and which allows us insights into both the European Reformation of the sixteenth century, and the ecumenical discussions of the twentieth.
JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH: A CASE STUDY
In recent years, a number of ecumenical discussions have focused on the doctrine of justification by faith. On September 30,1983, the U.S. Lutheran -Roman Catholic dialogue group released a 24,000-word document that represented the fruit of six years of discussions on the doctrine of justification. This document, entitled Justification by Faith, is by far the most important ecumenical document to deal with the theme of justification to date and represents a landmark in ecumenical discussions. This has been followed by the report of the Second Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission (ARCIC II) titled Salvation and the Church, published on January 22, 1987. In this section, I propose to examine some difficulties in the modern discussion of justification, with particular reference to these documents.8
The European Reformation of the sixteenth century saw the battle lines drawn between Roman Catholics and Protestants over the doctrine of justification by faith alone. For the Protestant Reformers, the doctrine of justification was the “article by which the church stands or falls.”9 The Roman Catholic Church, in their view, had fallen over this doctrine and thus lost its credibility as a genuinely Christian church. For the Reformers, this more than adequately justified breaking away from the medieval church in order to return to the authentic teaching of Scripture. The Reformers, by reclaiming the insights of the New Testament and Augustine of Hippo, were able to assert that they had recovered the biblical doctrine of justification by faith.10
But what were the differences between Roman Catholic and Protestant teachings on justification in the sixteenth century? We may make an immediate distinction between two types of differences: those that were actually misunderstandings (where both sides were saying more or less the same thing but misunderstood each other); and those that were disagreements (where both sides understood precisely what the other was saying and regarded it as unacceptable).
SIXTEENTH-CENTURY MISUNDERSTANDINGS
It is clear that both Protestants and Roman Catholics agreed on the following (although their discussion of them was confused by some difficulties that we shall note below):
1 We cannot take the initiative in beginning the Christian life—it is God who moves first. Original sin prevents our finding our way back to God unaided by grace. Popular Catholic religion in the later Middle Ages was obsessed with the doctrine of justification by works, however, pointing to a radical divergence between what theologians taught and what the common people believed. Although some evangelicals continue to insist that the Roman Catholic Church officially teaches justification by works, that is not the case."
2 The foundation of the Christian life is the work of Christ and not anything we ourselves can do. Once more, popular Catholic piety tended to lay considerable emphasis upon merit and showed an obsessive interest in the various ways in which this merit could be gained and stored, rather like funds in a bank account.
3 Although the Christian life is not begun on the basis of good works, good works are the natural result of and expression of genuine Christian faith.
4 The Christian life takes place at the communal, not just the individual, level. By beginning the Christian life, the believer finds himself within a community of faith.
None of these points was the subject of dispute between responsible informed theologians in the sixteenth century; the difficulties arose primarily in relation to how these points were expressed.
An excellent example of these difficulties is provided by the term justification itself. Following Augustine of Hippo, the Council of Trent defined justification in terms of “making righteous.” Trent’s comprehensive definition of justification makes clear that “justification” includes both the initiation and the subsequent development of the Christian life, as the believer grows in holiness and righteousness. Augustine’s interpretation of the post-classical Latin term iustificare as iustumfacere reveals his celebrated etymological shortcomings, although the importance of this point would not be appreciated until the sixteenth century.12
On the basis of the new advances in philology associated with the Renaissance, and especially the new interest in the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, both Lutheran and Reformed theologians recognized that the verb to justify was forensic, meaning “to declare or pronounce to be righteous,” and not “to make righteous.”13 Although the Reformers had a great respect for Augustine, they had no hesitation in criticizing him when the direct study of the Hebrew and Greek texts of Scripture showed him to be wrong. Augustine’s definition of what justification itself actually was came to be recognized as a classical case of an error arising from the use of the Latin version of Scripture, rather than Scripture in its original language.
The Reformers, therefore, rejected the tradition hitherto predominant within the Astern church concerning the meaning of the term justification and, by doing so, added considerably to the difficulties of the sixteenth-century debates on justification. For the simple fact was that Protestants and Roman Catholics used the term justification to mean rather different things. For the Protestant, justification refers to the external pronouncement on the part of God that the sinner is regarded as righteous in His sight (coram Deo), thus marking the beginning of the Christian life. For the Roman Catholic— who, in this matter, continues the common teaching of the Astern church, deriving from Augustine—justification means both the event by which the Christian life is initiated and the process by which the believer is regenerated. In other words, Trent understands by justification what the Protestant understands by justification and sanctification (or regeneration) taken together. This semantic difference led to enormous confusion at the time, as it still does to this day.
To illustrate this point, consider the following two statements.
1. We are justified by faith alone.
2. We are justified by faith and by holiness of life.
In terms of popular polemics, the former is generally identified as the Protestant position and the latter as the Roman Catholic position. To the Protestant, the first statement stipulates that the Christian life is begun through faith alone, which is obviously right, in that it corresponds to the New Testament teaching on the matter. To the Roman Catholic, however, the same statement implies that the Christian life is begun through faith alone and continued in faith alone, which is obviously a travesty of the New Testament teaching on the matter, which makes explicit reference to the Christian life being continued in holiness, obedience, and good works.
Now consider the second statement. To the Roman Catholic, this would naturally mean that the Christian life is begun through faith and continued in holiness of life, which is obviously an excellent summary of the New Testament teaching on the matter. To the Protestant, however, the same statement means something very different: that the Christian life is begun through faith and holiness of life, which is virtually Pelagian and a gross distortion of the New Testament teaching (hi the matter. In fact, it will be obvious that the first statement (understood in the Protestant sense) and the second (understood in the Roman Catholic sense) are actually saying more or less the same thing, but the convergence is obscured by the different understandings of the term justification.
It will be obvious that Protestant theologians were not for one moment suggesting that it was possible to be justified without being sanctified: they were simply insisting upon a notional distinction between the two concepts, distinguishing at the conceptual level two ideas that had hitherto been regarded as essentially the same thing. On the basis of their new and more reliable knowledge of Hebrew philology, the new understanding of justification was totally justified, making correction of Augustine on this point both necessary and acceptable. Although the Reformers vigorously upheld Augustine’s ideas on grace, they felt perfectly free to correct his interpretation of Scripture where it was based on bad Hebrew.
SIXTEENTH-CENTURY DISAGREEMENTS
As we noted in the previous section, there was an important degree of agreement between Protestants and Roman Catholics on the doctrine of justification in the sixteenth century. Perhaps we could summarize the situation by suggesting that both were committed to anti-Pelagian Christocentric theologies of justification. Nevertheless, alongside this real, if obscured, agreement was genuine disagreement, where each side understood perfectly well what the other was saying, and took exception to it. It is here that the real focus of the Reformation controversies is to be found. Two matters regarded as being of central importance at the time were:
1. The nature of justifying righteousness (sometimes also referred to in the
period 1575-1700 as the “formal cause of justification”).
2. The question of assurance (which is closely linked with the nature of justifying righteousness).
We have space to consider only the first of these two issues, although their organic connection should be noted.
Luther insisted that justifying righteousness was iustitia aliena Christi, a righteousness extrinsic to believers, covering them protectively in much the same way a mother hen might cover her chicks with her wing.14 Substantially the same position was taken up by both Lutheran and Reformed theologians, who held that justifying righteousness is not a righteousness inherent to believers but one outside us. God effects our justification from outside us, prior to effecting our renewal within us. The righteousness of justification is
perfect and imputed, whereas that of sanctification is imperfect and inherent. The point the Reformers wished to emphasize was that the righteousness of the saints was permanently imperfect and therefore could not function as the basis of the divine verdict of justification. We are accepted on the basis of a perfect righteousness—the righteousness of Christ.13
The Council of Trent, however, meeting in 1546-1547 to formulate the Roman Catholic response to the Reformation doctrines of justification, insisted that the single formal cause of justification was an inherent righteousness, a righteousness within the believer. Although stressing that this righteousness was provided by God, Trent equally insisted that it was located within the believer as part of his person. The Reformers found this idea inconsistent: if God’s verdict of justification was not to be a legal fiction, it would have to be based on a perfect righteousness, and if this righteousness was inherent to believers, how could Trent speak of believers growing in righteousness when they already possessed a perfect righteousness? It seemed to the Reformers that any inherent righteousness was, by its very nature, imperfect and in need of supplementation—and the imputation of the alien righteousness of Christ dealt with this difficulty.
For the Reformers, it was necessary to know that one was a Christian, that the Christian life had indeed begun, that one had been forgiven and accepted by God, and, on the basis of this conviction, the living of the Christian life (with all its opportunities, responsibilities, and challenges) could proceed. Being justified on the basis of the external righteousness of Christ meant that all that needed to be done for an individual’s justification had been done by God. So the believer could rest assured that he had been accepted and forgiven. The Reformers could not see how Trent ensured that individual believers were accepted, despite being sinners. For if believers possessed the perfect righteousness that ensured their justification, they could no longer be sinners—yet experience (as well as the penitential system of the Catholic Church!) suggested that believers continually sinned. For the Reformers, the Tridentine doctrine of justification was profoundly inadequate in that it could not account for the fact that believers were really accepted before God while still remaining sinners. The Reformers were convinced that Trent taught a profoundly inadequate doctrine of sin, with an equally inadequate doctrine of justification as a result. The famous phrase, due to Luther, sums up this precious insight with brilliance and verbal economy: simul iustus et peccator—“righteous and a sinner at one and the same time.” Luther is one of the few theologians ever to have grasped and articulated the simple fact that God loves and accepts us just as we are—not as we might be, or will be, but as he finds us.
As the Tridentine debates on justification make clear, Trent recognized exactly what Protestant theologians were saying on this matter—and explicitly rejected it. Although a number of theologians present at Trent clearly sympathized with the Protestant position, they were outnumbered and out-maneuvered by their colleagues.16 This was no misunderstanding but a deliberate, weighed, and explicit rejection of the Protestant position.
Here, then, is an area where there was genuine and apparently insuperable disagreement between Trent and the Reformers in the sixteenth century. As even the most superficial survey of Protestant and Roman Catholic polemical writings from 1SS0 on makes clear, it is in relation to these two questions—the nature of justifying righteousness and the question of assurance—that the real divisions were perceived to lie. It is thus of some considerable interest to note that it was precisely these two questions (originally not on Trent’s agenda, incidentally; they had to be added later, when it was obvious that they could not be avoided) that caused the long delay in the formulation of the decree on justification. (Indeed, at one point it seemed that Trent would not be able to say anything about the question of assurance, so difficult was it proving to reach agreement).
It will therefore be clear that any attempt to engage with the real differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics over the doctrine of justification must be addressed to these two questions, which historically were regarded as central. There is little to be gained from recapitulating what was agreed in the sixteenth century (although that agreement was, of course, ob scured by polemics and terminological differences), unless it can be showr that these two issues are no longer of any importance.
JUSTIFYING RIGHTEOUSNESS IN THE LUTHERAN-ROMAN CATHOLIC DISCUSSIONS
The U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue group report noted above, Justification by Faith,11 represents a landmark in ecumenical discussions. Earlier, I pointed out how sixteenth-century controversies on justification were of two types: those that rested upon misunderstandings, and those that reflected genuine disagreements. This document addresses both. Misunderstandings are resolved along the following lines:18
1 Christians have no hope of final salvation and basis for justification before God other than through God’s free gift of grace in Christ, offered to them through the Holy Spirit. Our entire hope of justification and salvation rests on the promises of God and the saving work of Jesus Christ, expressed in the gospel.
2 As a result of original sin, all human beings—whoever they are and whenever and wherever they live—stand in need of justification.
3 Justification is a completely free act of God’s grace, and nothing we can do can be said to be the basis or ground of our own justification. Even faith itself must be recognized as a divine gift and work within us. We cannot turn to God unless God turns us first. The priority of God’s redeeming will and action over our own actions in bringing about our salvation is expressed (and its mystery safeguarded) by the doctrine of predestination.
4 In justification we are declared righteous before God, and the process of making us righteous in His sight through the renewing action of the Holy Spirit is begun. In that justification, we receive by faith the effects of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as we respond personally to the gospel (the power of God for salvation), as we encounter the gospel through Scripture (the proclamation of the Word of God) and the sacraments, and as it initially awakens and subsequently strengthens faith in us.
5 Whoever is justified is subsequently renewed by the Holy Spirit and motivated and enabled to perform good works. That is not to say that individuals may rely on these works for their salvation, because eternal life remains a gift offered to us through the grace and mercy of God.
The document goes further than this, however, by dealing at some length with real questions of disagreement, and it is to be applauded for doing so, instead of attempting to marginalize or ignore them. It is the willingness to engage with these genuine points of difference that earns this document its abiding [dace in the ecumenical discussion of justification. The question of the nature of justifying righteousness is dealt with in detail (e.g., §§ 98-104), and no attempt is made to disguise the fact that real differences between the churches remain on this issue. It is recognized that the concepts of justification by an extrinsic and intrinsic righteousness are totally different: although neither excludes the other, they are not identical. The dialogue group expresses the hope that they may be complementary, but the gross error of suggesting that they are substantially the same, reflecting only verbal differences, is avoided. The fact that there are “remaining differences” (§§ 88,154,157) between the two churches on a number of important aspects of the doctrine is explicitly acknowledged; this is interpreted, however, in terms of complementary rather than contradictory approaches to the doctrine. In this way, the document recognizes the quite distinct approaches to the doctrine associated with the two churches, arguing that they are complementary and convergent, rather than contradictory and divergent.
This elimination or resolution of misunderstandings and disagreements allows the dialogue group to make the following affirmation, in which the tension between the two ways of understanding justification is maintained:
Our entire hope of justification and salvation rests on Jesus Christ and on the gospel whereby the good news of God’s merciful action in Christ is made known; we do not place our ultimate trust in anything other than God’s promise and saving work in Christ. Such as [sic] affirmation is not fully equivalent to the Reformation teaching on justification according to which God accepts sinners as righteous for Christ’s sake on the basis of faith alone; but by its insistence that reliance for salvation should be placed entirely on God, it expresses a central concern of that doctrine. Yet it does not exclude the traditional Catholic position that the grace-wrought transformation of sinners is a necessary preparation for final salvation.19
The document thus affirms that the quite distinct ideas of forensic justification and justification by inherent righteousness are two ways of conceptualizing essentially the same theological principle:
It must be emphasized that our common affirmation that it is God in Christ alone whom believers ultimately trust does not necessitate any one particular way of conceptualizing or picturing God’s saving work. That work can be expressed in the imagery of God as judge who pronounces sinners innocent and righteous . . . , and also in a transformist view that emphasizes the change wrought in sinners by infused grace.20
The crucial question of the formal cause of justification—the real crux of division in the sixteenth century—is thus resolved by suggesting that both positions (justification by an alien or extrinsic righteousness, and justification by an intrinsic righteousness) are appropriate (but not identical) ways of conceptualizing the ultimate foundation of our justification in the action of God in Jesus Christ. The document recognizes that this is no mere difference of words—it amounts to quite distinct theological frameworks, vocabularies, hermeneutics, emphases, and manners of conceptualizing the divine action. The fundamental point the document wishes to affirm is that both positions are legitimate ways of attempting to safeguard the same crucial insight.
THE ISSUE OF INDULGENCES
The doctrine of justification is not a purely theoretical affair, touching the minds of theologians but not the practices of the church. The early sixteenth century witnessed the culmination of a number of highly questionable trends in popular piety. Salvation was widely regarded as something that could be earned through good works. The confused and vague theology of indulgences lent weight to the suggestion that it was possible to buy either or both the remission of sins and the remission of purgatorial penalties, whereas the practice of paying for masses for the dead seemed to suggest that it was possible to buy salvation, or at least a diminished period of residence in purgatory.
Though such practices and beliefs may have at times been in conflict with the teachings of the more responsible schools of Catholic theology, the fact remains that no serious attempt was made to criticize or suppress them. In fact, the evidence suggests that they were tolerated to the point of being
unofficially incorporated into the structures of the church in that the power and income of the ecclesiastical establishment was linked with the continuance of such practices and beliefs. Thus, in the early sixteenth century indulgences were a major source of papal revenue, and the practice of paying for masses for the dead provided a welcomed supplementation to clerical income. In an era in which ecclesiastical offices were frequently purchased, the buyer generally felt justified in at least looking for an appropriate return on his investment. As study after study of the late medieval church confirms, the idea that an individual could, for certain monetary considerations, ensure his salvation (and facilitate its progress) was of central importance to the financing of the ecclesiastical establishment.
The doctrine of justification by faith, with the associated idea of the “priesthood of all believers,” thus assumed an importance that far transcended the sphere of academic theology. The doctrine effectively cut the ground from under the vested interests of these groups, threatening the basis of the practices and beliefs that secured their income and power. It is quite impossible to treat the doctrine of justification as if it were of purely academic interest, ignoring its obvious relevance to church life and practice, including such sixteenth-century practices as the selling of indulgences or beliefs such as purgatorial penalties upon which certain practices were based—because the doctrine calls such sixteenth-century practices and beliefs, as well as their modern-day equivalents, into question. Thus, Tom-maso de Vio (Cardinal Cajetan) feared that Luther’s emphasis upon the righteousness of Christ in justification would minimize the role of the church in mediating forgiveness to sinners. In treating the doctrine of justification as articulus stands et cadentis ecclesiae (“the article by which the church stands or falls”), Luther stipulated that the doctrine of justification was the criterion by which the doctrine, structures, and practices of the church were to be evaluated, with a view to reforming them. This insight, it must be added, is incorporated into the chief confessional writings of Lutheranism, including the Augsburg Confession and the Schmalkaldic Articles.
The role of indulgences was thus of major importance at the time of the Reformation. But what role do indulgences play in Roman Catholicism today? In a final section, the Anglican-Roman Catholic document Salvation and the Church moves on to deal with “The Church and Salvation. ” This is by far the weakest section of the document. The entire discussion of the bearing of the doctrine of justification upon the life of the church—in other words, the practical questions that so aroused the Reformers—is abstract and unfocused. It is in this section that we have every right to look for, and find, a discussion of indulgences. After all, the historical origins of the Lutheran Reformation are linked with this practice, and there appears to be some degree of confusion within modern Catholic theology as to what the role of indulgences actually is. It is therefore of considerable importance that we have a magisterial pronouncement on indulgences, not just the views of some individual Roman Catholic theologians (the reliability of which varies considerably), but an authoritative statement by the teaching office of the Roman Catholic Church as to what the function of indulgences actually is. ARCIC II cannot flee from history: attention must be given to the question of what was actually at stake in the indulgences controversy of the sixteenth century and how such differences may be, or have been, resolved.
As John Frith, the greatest of the neglected English Reformers, pointed out, the doctrine of justification by faith necessarily called the doctrine of purgatory into question. Indulgences, purgatory, and prayer for the dead (which Salvation and the Church apparently brings into the debate at § 22 for reasons that are not clear)—all these ideas and practices, brought into the discussion on account of the broadening of the theme from “justification” to “salvation and the church,” point to areas of continuing divergence. As cme leading Lutheran ecumenist points out, the question of how the doctrine of purgatory may be reinterpreted or revised in the modern period is an inevitable part of any genuine engagement with the doctrine of justification. “Catholic interpretations of purgatory leave Lutherans with nagging questions: was Christ’s work insufficient, and do our works somehow have merit?” Paul VI may have refined Trent’s stipulations on indulgences, but the basic framework it presupposes (purgatory and purgatorial penalties, for instance) remains as unacceptable to Protestants, whether Anglican or otherwise, as it has always been.
Once more, the wisdom of Justification by Faith must be noted. In discussing the question of how an individual may be said to apply the satisfaction of Christ, this document noted:
Further study will be needed to determine whether and how far Lutherans and Catholics can agree on these points, which have far-reaching ramifications for traditionally disputed doctrines such as the sacrament of penance, Masses for special intentions, indulgences and purgatory. These questions demand more thorough exploration than they have yet received in this or other dialogues.
It is a pity that ARCIC II did not seize this opportunity to pursue this study, with a view to clarifying the bearing of the doctrine of justification cm these beliefs and practices. For the indulgence question remains of importance. It is at this point that the interaction of theology (the doctrine of justification) and the life of the church (for example, the practices of praying for the dead, the obtaining of indulgences, and so forth) becomes clear, indicating that the doctrine of justification cannot be discussed in a purely theoretical manner. It must be grounded in the life and practice of the church.
The simple fact of the matter is that indulgences are not some obscure and antiquated sixteenth-century practice that can be dismissed as no longer of any importance or relevance in ecumenical discussion. The modern Roman Catholic teaching on indulgences has been stated and clarified in three documents, dating from 1967 (Indulgentiarum doctrina, of Paul VI), 1968 (The new Enchiridion of Indulgences, issued by the Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary), and 1983 (the new Code of Canon Law of the Roman Catholic Church). This last, it must be noted, was not taken into account by the U.S. Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue Group, simply because it had not appeared by the time their deliberations on justification were complete. Let me quote two sections from this new code of canon law.
992. An indulgence is the remission before God of the temporal punishment due for sins already forgiven as far as their guilt is concerned. This remission the faithful, with the proper dispositions and under certain determined conditions, acquire through the intervention of the church which, as minister of the redemption, authoritatively dispenses and applies the treasury of the satisfaction won by Christ and the saints.
994. The faithful can gain partial or plenary indulgences for themselves or apply them for the dead by way of suffrage.
The casual reader of ARCIC IPs report might gain the impression that the sixteenth centuiy debate in indulgences had led to the matter being resolved. Yet here we have the same basic ideas being restated in substantially the same form within the last ten years. How, one wonders, can agreement be reached when this matter is so obviously outstanding?
It seems to me that there is only one answer to this question, and that it rests on a single phrase in § 32. “We believe that our two communions are agreed on the essential aspects of the doctrine of salvation.” This phrase “the essential aspects of the doctrine of salvation” seems to hold the key to ARCIC II’s approach to the sixteenth-century debate on justification: indulgences are not to be regarded as an essential aspect of the doctrine of salvation. I think we must ask ARCIC II to be honest on this point and ask this very specific question to which we have a right to a very specific answer: Are the 1983 canons on indulgences an essential aspect of the Roman Catholic doctrine of salvation? I think ARCIC II would be obliged to say no. But as a historian, I have to say that the sixteenth-century answer given by the representatives of the Roman Catholic Church to its Protestant critics, in England and elsewhere, was rather different. After all, John Frith was burned at Smithfield in 1533 for denying that purgatory was a necessary dogma! There are clearly some difficult questions that need to be addressed here.
THE NEW UNOFFICIAL ECUMENISM: THE SHAPE OF THE FUTURE?
In the above analysis, I have indicated reasons for suggesting that there are deep issues that remain unresolved within Protestant-Roman Catholic ecumenical discussions. I have limited my analysis to the doctrine of justification; had I extended this analysis to include, for example, the issue of the authority of Scripture, the role of Mary in salvation, or the theology of the sacraments, similar concerns would have emerged along a much wider front. For this reason, it is necessary to express a certain degree of skepticism concerning the future of such official discussions between the Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic Church. They have gotten as far as they can.
Yet there is a flaw in my analysis, and it is possible that the identification of the flaw in question may help us understand why there is growing collaboration between individual Roman Catholics and evangelicals. My analysis thus far rests on the assumption that individual Roman Catholics accept the authority of the official teachings of their church. The empirical evidence available suggests that large numbers of them do not. The widespread refusal to obey the Vatican’s explicit teachings on artificial methods of birth control is simply one symptom of something much deeper: a tendency to value the Roman Catholic ethos, at least in part, while being selective concerning those aspects of its teaching that are appropriated.21 The result is that many Roman Catholics, especially in the United States, remain outwardly and publicly loyal to their church, while inwardly and privately embracing some of the leading ideas of evangelicalism. (This contrasts sharply with the situation in Latin America, where a growing sympathy with evangelicalism has led to a public rejection of Roman Catholicism and an equally public embrace of the theological ideas and styles of worship of various forms of evangelicalism.)22
This observation is of major importance, as it relates directly to the conditions under which evangelicalism became of significance in the early sixteenth century. The term evangelical originally dates from the sixteenth century and was used to refer to Catholic writers wishing to revert to more biblical beliefs and practices than those associated with the late medieval church. Writers such as Barry Collett (University of Melbourne) have shown how evangelical attitudes toward the personal appropriation of salvation and the spiritual importance of the reading of Scripture emerged during Italian Benedictine monasteries in the late fifteenth century. The attitudes and approaches he describes parallel directly those of modern evangelicalism.23 Similarly, E. M. Jung and other scholars of the later Italian Renaissance have identified a major spiritual movement—which becomes particularly important among the Italian aristocratic laity in the 1520s— placing an emphasis on a personally-appropriated salvation.24 Through an obvious lack of familiarity with Christian spirituality, Jung used the term evangelism to refer to this movement. It is clear that it is simply a form of evangelicalism, which can be paralleled throughout Europe during this period. In short, as Clair Davis has shown in chapter 2, there is now ample historical evidence to the effect that evangelical attitudes were espoused, whether privately or publicly, by leading figures of the Catholic Church in the late Middle Ages.
One of the most important features of the late Renaissance is the growth of lay religion, and the increased demands on the part of a Christian laity throughout Astern Europe for a form of Christian spirituality that was of direct relevance to their personal spiritual concerns. It must be remembered that much medieval spirituality was developed by monastic writers and intended to be read within a monastic context. There was an urgent need for the evolution of forms of the Christian faith that related to the spiritual needs and concerns of an increasingly demanding laity.25 Martin Luther’s doctrine of justification, with its emphasis upon the faith and assurance of the individual, proved to be what they were looking for.
It can be shown without difficulty that such evangelical attitudes were not initially regarded as a threat by ecclesiastical authorities; indeed, they were even welcomed in some areas as making an overdue and positive contribution to the renewal of the spiritual vitality of a tired church. The Italian church in particular was deeply and positively affected by the emergence of evangelicalism during the 1530s. Several cardinals of the period were profoundly influenced by evangelical attitudes, which they did not regard as inconsistent with their senior positions within the church. It was only in the mid-1540s, when an increasingly anxious church, alert to the growing threat posed by northern European Lutheranism, condemned such attitudes as destabilizing, that evangelicalism went off-limits. The reason for this development? The church authorities had become convinced that to be an evangelical was to be a Lutheran and, hence, to be anti-Catholic.
The term evangelical is especially associated with the 1520s, when the French term evangelique and the German evangelisch began to feature prominently in the controversial writings of the early Reformation. In the 1530s, the term Protestant came to become more significant; increasingly, this came to be understood simply as anti-Catholic. However, it must be appreciated that this term was imposed upon evangelicals by their Catholic opponents and was not one of their own choosing. The term Protestant referred originally to the “protest” of the six princes and fourteen south German cities at the second Diet of Speyer (1529) against the rescinding of the guarantee of religious freedom set out by the first Diet of Speyer, three years earlier. In the German language, for historical reasons, the term evangelisch has now become more or less equivalent to Protestant and has lost it!
original meaning; this has not happened in English, on account of the deliberate decision to prevent this confusion from taking place. (Since the 1940s there has been a determined, and largely successful, effort on the part of the English-speaking heirs of the Reformation to recover the older term, and rehabilitate it, evident in the formation of the National Association of Evangelicals in 1942).
Evangelical is thus the term chosen by evangelicals to refer to themselves, representing most adequately the central concern of the movement for the safeguarding and articulation of the Evangel—the good news of God, which has been made known and made possible in Jesus Christ. The term Protestant too easily implies an obsession with some system of church government (such as presbyterianism), which can come to overshadow more important concerns relating to the gospel itself. Evangelicalism refuses to allow any matter of church government to take precedence over the gospel itself; the term evangelical, by placing emphasis upon this gospel, conveys both the emphasis and the substance of the movement. All else is deliberately subordinated, as a matter of principle, to this central theme.
Evangelicals generally are aware of the need for a well-informed biblical model of the church; they remain generally unpersuaded, however, that the New Testament intended to lay down precise details of church polity. A corporate conception of the Christian life is not understood to be specifically linked with any one denominational understanding of the nature of the church. In one sense, this is a “minimalist” ecclesiology; in another, it represents an admission that the New Testament itself does not stipulate with precision any single form of church government that can be made binding upon all Christians. Those who accuse evangelicals of having “immature” or “underdeveloped” theories of the church might care to ask themselves whether they might not have hopelessly overdeveloped theories. More recently, even Roman Catholic biblical scholarship—traditionally wedded to static and highly authoritarian concepts of the church—has recognized that the New Testament portrays the church in dynamic and evolving terms, using a variety of images to represent it.26
And it is for these reasons that many Roman Catholics appear to be attracted to evangelicalism. They sense that its concern for the gospel overshadows the lesser issue of church order. A disinclination to obey blindly each and every aspect of their churcII’s official teaching allows them to embrace privately many of the ideas and values of evangelicalism, while retaining at least the vestiges of an outward loyalty to their church. (Interestingly, the term “Nicodemism” was used in the sixteenth century to refer to Roman Catholics, especially in France, who were outwardly loyal to their church, while privately admiring and responding to the writings of John Calvin.)
If this analysis is correct, it follows that evangelicalism can expect to gain a growing hearing within Roman Catholicism in the next decade. It will do so, not on account of any official institutional sympathy for the movement, but on account of a growing interest in and admiration for the movement mi the part of individual Roman Catholics.
CONCLUSION
So what are we to make of ecumenism? I am convinced that talking to Christians of different persuasions is of major importance. We must acknowledge that there is a real danger of misunderstanding and misrepresentation; talking with others is one way of ensuring that we do others the justice that we would like them to do us. It helps clear up those misunderstandings and allows us to see how different terminologies can sometimes conceal at least some degree of agreement. In the past, evangelicals have misrepresented Roman Catholicism (not, I think maliciously; more out of confusion over the terminology used by the Council of Trent); ecumenical dialogue has sometimes helped us see them in their true light. We owe it to Roman Catholics to take the trouble to get them right, instead of perpetuating, whether by accident or design, inaccurate stereotypes of their beliefs.
Yet I have indicated that there are limits to how far official ecumenism will take us. For there comes a point at which misunderstandings are removed and a hard core of real disagreements over issues of major substance still remains unresolved. The radical agenda of the Reformation remains on the table, with Luther’s Wittenberg hammer-blows still resounding throughout the church. Although there are theoretical models available to allow Roman Catholicism to take on board the Reformation agenda without significant loss of face,271 do not expect these to be taken up in the near future. The official dialogue between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism has probably gone as far as it can go, and it would be unrealistic to look to it for further progress.
But what I do expect to happen is this: an “unofficial” ecumenism will grow in both its extent and influence, with individual evangelicals exploring the attractions of Roman Catholicism (as shown by Kim Riddlebarger) and increasing numbers of individual Roman Catholics being drawn to evangelicalism while generally remaining publicly loyal to their church. In the short term, this will probably lead to a growing warmth between individual evangelicals and Roman Catholics, despite the substantial official doctrinal divide between them. I would expect this to be catalyzed by a growing sense that Christianity as a whole needs to stand up at every level against an increasingly militant secular culture, with local collaboration being seen as a legitimate way for Christians to come together and fight for their mutual rights. It is not my intention to defend or criticize this trend; I am simply reporting it and assessing its basis and potential impact. It is something that evangelicalism needs to be aware of.
I may be wrong. Ecumenism is yesterday’s idea and is widely seen as a spent force. But the kind of ecumenism that seems to be emerging at street level is of a very different kind. It could well be a major force in the shaping of America’s religious future in general and the evangelical future in particular. It is imperative that we understand this new ecumenism if our evangelical churches are to retain their theological distinctives in a healthy way.
Notes
1. See Ruth Rouse and Stephen C. Neill, A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517-1948 (London: SPCK, 1954).
2. For an eyewitness account, see John Wenham, The Renewal and Unity of the Church in England (London: SPCK, 1972), 10-12.
3. Donald A. Carson, “Evangelicals, Ecumenism and the Church,” in K. S. Kantzer and C. F. H. Henry, eds., Evangelical Affirmations (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990), 347-85.
4. Redemptoris Missio: Encyclical Letter of the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II on the Permanent Validity of the Churches Missionary Mandate (London: Catholic Truth Society, 1991), par. 44.
5. Ibid. I have altered the translation at one point to allow for inclusive language.
6. It must be noted, however, that other issues are involved. Many evangelicals feel that evangelicalism has a deficient sense of history, a limited appreciation of the role of liturgy in public worship, and no awareness of the importance of the sacraments, and believe that these deficiencies are corrected by Roman Catholicism. Anglicanism is proving attractive to some evangelicals for such reasons, especially on account of the growing evangelical presence within its ranks: see Robert E. Webber, Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1985); Alister E. McGrath, The Renewal of Anglicanism (Wilton, Conn.: Morehouse, 1993).
7. See Linden J. De Bie, “Saving Evangelical Catholicism Today,” New Mercersburg Review 6 (1989): 11-21; Gabriel Fackre, “Evangelical Catholicity,” New Mercersburg Review 8 (1990): 41-50. Donald Bloesch describes “catholic evangelicalism” in Future of Evangelical Christianity (Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1983).
8. “Justification by Faith,” Origins: NC Documentary Service 13/17 (1983): 277-304; Salvation and the Church: An Agreed Statement (London: Church House Publishing/ Catholic Truth Society, 1987).
9. On this, see Alister E. McGrath, “The Article by which the Church stands or falls,” Evangelical Quarterly 58 (1986): 207-28. I also explore the centrality of this doctrine in “Karl Barth and the articulus iustificationis. The Significance of His Critique of Ernst Wolf within the Context of His Theological Method,” Theologische Zeitschrift 39 (1983): 349-61, and “Der articulus iustificationis als axiomatischer Grundsatz des christlichen Glaubens,” Zeitschrift fir Theologie und Kirche 81 (1984): 383-94.
10. The historical development of the doctrine of justification is exceptionally complex. See Alister E. McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986).
11. The origins of this evangelical belief are difficult to trace. As Peter Toon (Evangelical Theology 1833-1856: A Response to Tractarianism [London: Marshall, Morgan
and Scott, 1979], 141-70) has shown, it is certainly present in English evangelical polemics of the first half of the nineteenth century.
12. See McGrath, lustitia Dei, 1:40-51; 2:1-3.
13. See ibid., 2:23-6, 31-2, 68-72.
14. See ibid., 2:10-13.
15. For a full analysis, see Alister E. McGrath, Luther's Theology of the Cross: Martin Luther's Theological Breakthrough (Oxford/Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1985).
16. Cardinal Reginald Pole is an excellent example: see Dermot E. Fenlon, Heresy and Obedience in Tridentine Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1972).
17. “Justification by Faith,” Origins: NC Documentary Service 13/17 (1983): 277-304.
18. Ibid., §156, pp. 297-98, which I have paraphrased at this point.
19. Ibid., §157, p. 298.
20. Ibid., §158, p. 298.
21. For a witty literary exploration of such themes by a leading English Roman Catholic novelist, see David Lodge, How Far Can You Go? (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1980). (American edition published under the title Souls and Bodies.)
22. See David Martin, Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990); David Stoll, Is Latin America Turning Protestant? (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1991). For an excellent assessment of still more recent developments, see Karl-Wilhelm Westmeier, “Themes of Pentecostal Expansion in Latin America,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research 17 (1993): 72-78.
23. Barry Collett, Italian Benedictine Scholars and the Reformation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1985).
24. E. M. Jung, “On the Nature of Evangelism in Sixteenth-Century Italy,” Journal of the History of Ideas 14 (1953): 511-27.
25. For the emergence of Reformation spirituality and an assessment of its distinctive features, see Alister E. McGrath, Roots that Refresh: A Celebration of Reformation Spirituality (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1992). A revised version of this book appeared under a different title in the United States in 1994 (Zondervan).
26. See Avery Dulles, Models of the Church: A Critical Assessment of the Church in All Its Aspects (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1974).
27. Such as that set out in Alister E. McGrath, The Genesis of Doctrine (Oxford/Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1990).