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We're in the flow and flux of it all. It's really hard to evaluate where we are or how historians will look at our times. But there is a sea change that has happened, particularly among evangelicals and Catholics. I think the Evangelicals and Catholics Together movement is evidence of that. Clearly something momentous is afoot. Evangelicals are not Roman Catholics. But we are Catholics in that we affirm the historic orthodox faith. And we want to call the Roman Catholic Church, as we call ourselves, to a further reformation on the basis of the Word of God. That's what we ought to be about.

Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom have just written a book called Is The Reformation Over? In my endorsement I said, "The Reformation is over only in the sense that to some extent it has succeeded." Which is to say that Roman Catholicism has taken on many, but not all, of the main emphases that come out of Luther. There's a clear movement in that direction, and I think evangelicals can celebrate that and see our commonalities.

Certainly the Protestantism of Martin Luther was quite different from that of Jonathan Edwards. Martin Luther did not intend to start a new church. By Edwards's time, it's taken for granted that the bishop of Rome is the Antichrist.

Exactly. He's writing a couple of hundred years later, and you've got the hardening of the arteries that has set in on both sides. He's not just reacting against the pope in Luther's day, he's reacting against the Council of Trent and the Counter-Reformation. And that makes it all the more remarkable that we've been able, as it were, in the last 30, 40, 50 years, to find some way to reach out across this great chasm.

Collin Hansen is assistant editor for Christianity Today.

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See our full coverage area on Pope John Paul II.

Recent Christianity Today articles on Pope John Paul II include:

Pope Gave Evangelicals the Moral Impetus We Didn't Have | Timothy George discusses how "the greatest pope since the Reformation" changed evangelicalism without us knowing. (April 06, 2005)

Pope 'Broadened the Way' for Evangelicals and Catholics | Theologian Tom Oden sees continued cooperation ahead. (April 05, 2005)

Pope Saw His Final Pain as Public Suffering | John Paul II embodied the "culture of life." (April 05, 2005)

How the Pope Turned Me Into An Evangelical | A Christianity Today associate editor recalls growing up Catholic in John Paul II's Poland. (April 04, 2005)

Pope John Paul II and Evangelicals | Protestants admired his lifelong admonition to "Be not afraid! Open the doors to Christ!" An interview with George Weigel. (April 04, 2005)

He Was my Pope, Too | Now that John Paul II is gone, I am even more of an orphan than the Christians in the Roman church. (April 04, 2005)

Protestants Laud Pope for Ecumenical, Social Stands | He was 'unquestionably the most influential voice for morality and peace in the world during the last 100 years,' says Billy Graham. (April 04, 2005)

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April (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49