Christianity in America has undergone a remarkable number of changes since the end of World War II. At the opening of the National Association of Evangelicals in 1942, for instance, Harold John Ockenga, pastor of Park Street Congregationalist Church in Boston, declared that Roman Catholicism was as much a threat to American society as communism and secularism. In 1960, to use another example of Protestant hostility to Roman Catholicism, John F. Kennedy needed to explain to Protestant voters why he as president would not have a higher loyalty to the Pope than to the Constitution. But these incidents now seem as dated as the Lincoln-Douglas debates or the Scopes Trial. In 1994, prominent evangelicals such as Charles Colson and J. I. Packer signed the document, "Evangelicals and Catholics Together," a statement in which evangelicals recognized Roman Catholics as fellow Christians and regarded Rome as more of a solution to than a problem for America's woes. Ten years later, members of the so-called Christian Right refused to vote for another JFK, this time, John F. Kerry, in part because he was insufficiently demonstrative about his Roman Catholic faith.
These isolated points of contrast suggest a new era of Christian history in America. Protestant leaders in the early twentieth century could often be heard talking about a new phase of history characterized by ecumenical warmth and common Christian purpose. But that old Protestant ecumenism rarely extended to non-Protestants, and the best it could do was establish some formal mechanisms of cooperation among the largest Protestant denominations in the United States. The new period, however, is actually witnessing the reduction of barriers between two of the United States' most ferociously opposed groups – born-again Protestants and Roman Catholics. It is indeed a significant time, one that has prompted the pre-eminent American church historian, Mark Noll, and his colleague, Carol Nystrom, to wonder, as the title to their new book has it, Is the Reformation Over?
As momentous as the times may be, another possible explanation exists. It could be that the changes between evangelicals and Roman Catholics have less to do with genuine ecumenical breakthroughs than with the weakening resolve of two Christian groups in need of encouragement and support. On the one hand, some evangelicals have begun to show signs of spiritual malnutrition and are willing to look to Rome for sustenance (in which case, despite born-again Christianity's surfeit of media outlets and humongous churches, its vital signs are not good). On the other hand, evangelicalism's improving estimate of Roman Catholicism reveals a growing frustration among born-again Protestants over Protestantism itself. Indeed, books like the one by Noll and Nystrom yield various indications of the factors that have prompted evangelicals, at least, to abandon older hostilities and look upon Rome as an ally if not a member of the family. Seldom do observers comment on it, but during the last sixty years "evangelical" has replaced "Protestant" as a term for Christian identity (yes, the "mainline" still goes by the label Protestant but that is another story.) This shift in branding is indicative of a broader departure from the sources of Protestant identity during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As such, a more favorable evangelical attitude to Rome may be as much a sign of weakening Protestant resolve as it is an indication of growing Roman Catholic vitality. To put it another way, the evangelical change of mind may have as much to do with the bankruptcy of born-again Christianity as with either Rome's resilience or Protestantism's exhaustion. In either case, American Christians may very well be trespassing on territory forbidden since the sixteenth century that is both as rocky and abundant as the land pioneered by the original Lutherans and Calvinists.
Why Rome is More Attractive than Colorado Springs
The factors causing evangelicals to reassess their hostility to Rome are many, some of which are invisible to many Protestants. What many average church-goers do not realize is the number of fraternal exchanges in which Protestants and Roman Catholics have been engaged since 1970. At different stages and in varying degrees of intentionality, Rome has been conducting ecumenical dialogues with Anglicans, Methodists, Pentecostals, Reformed Protestants, Lutherans, Disciples of Christ, Baptists and evangelicals. The controversial statement, "Evangelicals and Catholics Together," was just the tip of the ecumenical iceberg. Some of these dialogues were formal and some had no binding force at all. But as Noll and Nystrom indicate in their new book, these discussions "record a momentous shaking of once-settled ground." Of course, lurking in the wings of these endeavors was the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), the declarations of which seem to have changed the countenance of Rome's curia from a frown to a smile. This difference has in turn encouraged some evangelicals to take another look at Rome, while others, who have looked so long that they have converted to Rome, to long for the older days when the Vatican acted more like the disciplinarian than the counselor. Still, Vatican II is undoubtedly an important factor in the new relations between evangelicals and Roman Catholics in America.
Arguably, the biggest factor in the changes between evangelicals and Roman Catholics is Rome itself. Here the Catechism of the Catholic Church is a good gauge to Roman Catholic assets that attract evangelicals to its teachings and practices. In the estimate of Noll and Nystrom, for instance, Rome provides "a substantial outline of Christian orthodoxy," [121] thoughtful instruction on Christian devotion, wisdom on rearing family and sexual relations, astute approaches to society and public life, and a high view of sin and the supernatural. In other words, Rome has more to offer in the way of a substantial Christian witness than evangelicalism. These are not those features of Roman Catholicism that cause many evangelicals to stumble, such as devotion to Mary, church authority, ordination as the basis for ministry, the celibacy of priests, some aspects of worship (i.e. baptismal regeneration and the Mass), and justification (though evangelicals are hardly unified on this). Sometimes it does appear that evangelical appreciation for Rome borders on condescension; Roman Catholicism looks more attractive than it once did because it is not as Roman Catholic as it used to be (i.e., it has become more user-friendly for evangelicals). Still, Roman Catholicism presents an expression of Christianity that is richer and more profound than the one to which many evangelicals are accustomed.
The flip side of this high regard for Rome is awareness among thoughtful born-again Christians of evangelicalism's weaknesses. In fact, many evangelicals now view Rome as the source for what they themselves cannot find within born-again Christianity, such as, in the words of Noll and Nystrom, "weaknesses in ecclesiology, tradition, the intellectual life, sacraments, theology of culture, aesthetics, philosophical theology, [and] historical consciousness." [71] According to the evangelical biblical scholar, Scott McKnight, Rome provides a way to "transcend the human limits of knowledge to find certainty … to transcend the human limits of temporality to find connection to the entire history of the Church … to transcend the human limits of interpretive diversity to find an interpretive authority." [72] Or, as Noll and Nystrom concede, evangelicalism is "beset with great quantities of practical Pelagianism, lifeless informality, narrowly sectarian Gnosticism, and dangerous capitulation to sub-Christian varieties of both modernism … and postmodernism." [250] If the health of evangelicalism is declining, it has much to do with the extinct Reformation, which is an important context for evaluations that regard Rome as robust.
One additional factor affecting the changes between evangelicals and Roman Catholics is the condition of American society and the politics trying to give it order and legitimacy. Throughout much of the history of the modern West, Rome and Protestants were on different sides of the major changes in politics, law and the economy. Protestants generally came around to embracing the apparent "progress" of modernity, with its freedom for individuals to choose their rulers and the goods and services they could afford; Rome, though often for nuanced and wise reasons, was clearly opposed to the political, economic, and intellectual freedoms modernity promised.
But after the sexual upheaval of the 1960s when the implications of modern notions of liberty became patent, and Rome's attitude to political liberty was modified, Roman Catholicism emerged as a saner source for defending the West and its achievements (both political and cultural) than Protestantism, which in the United States had idealized freedom and stood powerless to respond thoughtfully to the objections of African-Americans, women, and Vietnam War protesters. One could plausibly argue that the American political and cultural situation, coupled with the increasing prominence of faith in electoral politics, is the greatest solvent of the antagonisms between Protestants and Roman Catholics in contemporary America. To the credit of some evangelicals, like the authors of Is the Reformation Over?, they do not discount the mixed motives behind the improved relations between evangelicals and Roman Catholics.
Does Protestantism Have What Evangelicals are Looking For?
As plausible as these changes within Rome, evangelicalism and the United States are for understanding the growing appreciation of born-again Christians for Roman Catholicism, some may still wonder why evangelicals do not give historic Protestantism (e.g., Lutheranism, Reformed, Anglicanism) a closer look. After all, these communions (at least the ones outside the mainline denominations) also have creeds, substantial forms of devotion uncluttered by evangelical kitsch, discipline on sexual and family matters, approaches to politics (e.g. the two kingdoms or the spirituality of the church) that avoid the extremes of the Religious Right, and are more corporate and historically minded than the individualism and presentism that characterizes born-again Christianity. In fact, if one of the besetting difficulties for evangelicals considering Rome is the nature and power of the church, Lutherans, Reformed and Anglicans possess ecclesiologies that regard the church in an objective manner but still make room for subjective expressions within its life. Of course, Lutherans, Reformed, Presbyterians and Episcopalians have their problems, as all Christians do. But for Christianity with substance, the historic Protestant communions have much to offer even if they lack numbers (something for which evangelicals usually fall) or a magnificent and ancient part of a European city devoted to their witness.
What these Protestant communions do lack implicitly from a most evangelicals' perspective is unity, along with the conditions that will make Christian unity more likely. The age-old knock against Protestantism is its chaos and disorder because of its endless divisions. Even reducing those differences to the three historic Protestant expressions – Lutheran, Anglican and Reformed – hardly presents prospects for a unified Christian witness.
But the problem goes even deeper than formal ecclesiastical separations since many of the arguments for harmony between evangelicals and Roman Catholics propose a basis for Christian unity that seriously compromises the idea of Christian truth. For example, toward the end of Is the Reformation Over? the authors offer a way of regarding differences between Roman Catholics and evangelicals that is akin to the differences between various languages. Evangelicals and Roman Catholics speak different languages when talking about Christianity, but over the last sixty years they have begun to learn the other group's language. In so doing, they have begun to see, according to Noll and Nystrom, "…that God has always been bigger than our own group's grasp of God, that he has been manifesting himself at times, in places, and through venues where others have not expected him to be present at all." [246]
This is a model for evaluating other Christian traditions very different from the one that prevailed among conservative believers for most of western Christianity's history up until the rise of Protestant liberalism. The old metaphor was closer to that of a final examination, in which one's own group's conception of Christianity was the best (perhaps an A or B+) and the other groups were inferior (ranging from C's to F's). The exam metaphor still recognized that the other groups were fellow test-takers (Christians) but it provided a way of distinguishing the superior performances on the exam from the inferior. To be fair, the fact that the test-takers were also the grade-givers could skew the results in self-serving ways. But it did protect the substance of the test because getting the questions correct mattered.
The language metaphor of evaluating other Christian groups, it should also be noted, has been tried before. The ecumenical project of mainline Protestantism also tended to regard the different denominations as varying Christian expressions springing from different historical and cultural circumstances. This project did not accomplish much. American Protestant denominations are still divided and for apparently no good reason since the substantial differences between Protestants over sacraments, worship, creed, or polity have been relativized to the accidents of history. What seems to matter more are prerogatives of denominational bureaucracy. Why evangelicals do not consider that ongoing dialogue and exploration of unity between Roman Catholics and evangelicals will not have a similar fate is puzzling. The reason has much to do with those very aspects of Roman Catholicism that attract evangelicals, the substance, the transcendence, the order and discipline. Yet, if these parts of Roman Catholic witness become simply "different ways of approaching, internalizing, articulating, and expressing the Christian faith," [246] and if they are not superior to other Christian ways, then why bother being Catholic? Indeed, what makes them attractive to some born-again Christians is that behind them is the binding address of a church that claims to speak the truth.
In the end, the biggest change in the recent evangelical friendliness to Roman Catholicism is the one within evangelicalism itself. A conservative Presbyterian friend recently told me that if he had to choose a religious home for his children, he would prefer Roman Catholicism to evangelicalism. Of course, the best outcome was for his sons and daughters to grow up and inherit the faith of their dad. But if faced with Rome or Colorado Springs, this friend saw the formers ties to historic Christianity being more substantial than born-again Christianity's. This is a way of posing the question unthinkable even only ten years ago. But it has become plausible given the continuing afflictions within contemporary evangelicalism. Would that their dialogue with Roman Catholics might give evangelicals more substance, a better grasp of Christian truth. But if that dialogue is only a means for appreciating the marvel of differing grammars, or the quirks of pronunciation and accent, then the chances of an evangelical language persevering look grimly dim. For that reason, instead of asking, "Is the Reformation over?" perhaps a better question to ask is whether evangelicalism is finished.
