Protestant-Roman Unity: 25 Scholars’ Views

For the third consecutive year, the news section ofCHRISTIANITY TODAY’s anniversary issue features a panel of 25 of the world’s foremost religious scholars responding to a timely question:

Do you see any hopeful basis of Protestant-Roman Catholic church unity?

KARL BARTH, professor, University of Basel: “Certain indications seem to point to a possible, perhaps already operative, inner renewal in today’s Roman Catholic church. The holy Scriptures are being read and studied, are being expounded academically and also in preaching with greater delight and accuracy than before. In connection therewith is a deepened attention to Jesus Christ, only Lord and Saviour, as the center and object of all church life and teaching. And we must not fail to appreciate a more earnest understanding of God’s free grace and therefore of the sinner’s justification by faith alone among some forward-moving Roman Catholic theologians, and also many efforts toward a more kerygmatic form of the mass. If and how all this will some day lead to a change with reference to a new interpretation of the Roman Catholic concepts of the mediatorial role of the virgin Mary and of the saints; of the merit of tradition; of the authority of the church, and particularly of the pope; and above all of the sacraments we cannot contemplate at the moment. In our opinion even the best Roman Catholics in no case could and would be expected simply to put aside these peripheral considerations. But neither can we expect them to find those central truths (Scripture, Christ, grace) better preserved and better championed in our Protestant churches than in their own. We ourselves would need to be, think, teach, and live more evangelically, if our Protestantism is to have any attraction whatever for today’s Roman Catholic Christianity that perhaps is newly seeking the gospel. On the other hand, we cannot therefore suppress our estrangement in view of peripheral matters of the Roman Catholic system (Mary, the church, the pope, the sacraments) as they have come to us thus far, inasmuch as we cannot conceive how they (these peripheral matters) can be joined to the central teachings. Therefore church unity between Rome and us cannot yet be in prospect today, but there is possibly a new brotherly discussion concerning what can unite Rome and us, and concerning that which always must divide Rome and us. At the same time we must reckon with the strange possibility that some day it might be apparent that what must and could unite Rome and us is comprehended in certain Roman spheres just as well, if not better, than in large segments of our own Protestant constituency.”

G. C. BERKOUWER, professor, Free University of Amsterdam, Netherlands: “The future of the Roman church is determined by its past. The very structure of Rome, especially its claim to infallible teaching authority, would seem to exclude an open future. New considerations of unity are restricted by the constitution of Rome. Unity must involve the profoundest conversion for Rome. In view of this, possibility of church union seems nil from the human perspective. My own answer, nonetheless, is that of 2 Timothy 2:9: ‘The Word of God is not bound.’ We would be guilty of unbelief and a failure of faith if we allowed ourselves to limit the future to the past. The Word of God is not bound!”

ANDREW W. BLACKWOOD, professor emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary: “With countless Catholic laymen and some clergymen we Protestants can cooperate in various movements not ecclesiastical. But since that church does not recognize Protestants as Christians, or permit her priests to worship with us, I see no hopeful basis for church unity between Rome and followers of the Reformation.”

F. F. BRUCE, professor, Manchester University: “While there are many welcome signs of increasing and fruitful interchange and cooperation between Protestants and Roman Catholics in a number of fields, not least in biblical and theological studies, I see at present no hopeful basis at all of church unity between them in any proper sense of these two words.”

EMIL BRUNNER, professor, University of Zürich: “If the question is put in these terms, then the answer is a flat no. The churches can never unite. But within the churches there are some who have seen that the Bible knows of no church but of the ekklesia, the people of God, the brotherhood of men united in Christ. This rediscovery of the ekklesia, totally different from anything which is called ‘church’ is a real basis for a hope of progressing unity between Protestants and Catholics. It was this rediscovery which was on the origin of Reformation and which at present is a fact in both camps. It was always the emphasis upon the church which separated. The totalitarianism inherent in ‘churchism’ is what separates. He, Jesus Christ alone, is our peace.”

EMILE CAILLIET, professor emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary: “Rome can only offer integration by unconditional surrender. The reason our Reformed tradition is losing sight of this basic fact is an insidious one. Loss of first love for the Lord has resulted in a drift to ‘churchism’ encouraged by self-seeking organization men filled with ambition to rule and covetous of worldly honors. Let therefore a prophetic Christianity reassert itself and give the Woman on the Beast a wide berth.”

EDWARD JOHN CARNELL, professor, Fuller Theological Seminary: “The Roman claim to infallibility precludes the possibility of unity through gestures of mutual repentance. But this grim fact should not prejudice the value of sincere, exploratory conversation. A more perfect understanding of the issues will bring sweeter attitudes into what is and will remain a tragic division in the body of Christ.”

GORDON H. CLARK, professor, Butler University: “Chapter 25, section 6, of the Westminster Confession reads as follows: ‘There is no other head of the Church but the Lord Jesus Christ. Neither can the Pope of Rome in any sense be the head thereof; but is that anti-christ, that man of sin and son of perdition, that exalteth himself in the Church, against Christ, and all that is called God.’ For true Presbyterians this is the authoritative answer to questions of union with Rome.”

OSCAR CULLMAN, professor, the Sorbonne: “Based on that collection of primitive Christianity (Gal. 2:9–10), the reciprocal collection (Protestants for Catholics, Catholics and Protestants), I proposed as the foundation of unity, has actually been realized for three years in various European countries during the ecumenical week of prayer. [See CHRISTIANITY TODAY, April 13, 1959, page 30—ED.] It has become known also in America through my publication, A Message to Catholics and Protestants (Eerdmans). Next to theological discussion (especially mutual biblical studies) this collection, it seems to me, is the only hopeful basis of unity in Christ, since a genuine unity of the church is impossible among those Protestants and Catholics who remain true to their inmost convictions concerning the structure of the church. Oversimplified statements of my suggestion have resulted in misunderstanding, as if we were dealing merely with some humanitarian benevolence. In actuality, it is intended to be an ecumenical symbol of unity. The answers I have given in my booklet to all criticisms should be carefully examined. There is good prospect that the Roman Catholic Ecumenical Council will take some position concerning this basis for unity, inasmuch as it is beginning to bear fruit in many places.”

FRANK E. GAEBELEIN, headmaster, The Stony Brook School: “Despite a few apparently encouraging signs, such as attendance of Roman Catholic observers at Protestant councils, there seems to be no real expectation of Protestant-Roman Catholic church unity. The doctrinal intransigence of Romanism is a hard fact of history, current as well as past. Moreover, it is highly questionable whether any union could be consummated short of surrender of vital convictions. Such union would be far less desirable than the present state of separation.”

JOHN H. GERSTNER, professor, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary: “Since the Roman Catholic church considers herself the only true church and since the Protestant churches do not consider themselves false churches, the only hopeful basis I see for Protestant-Roman unity is for the Roman church to cease to be Roman or the Protestant church to cease to be Protestant.”

CARL F. H. HENRY, Editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY: “I do not find in a Bible a basis for discussing ‘Protestant-Roman Catholic church unity,’ but simply the unity of regenerate believers in the spiritual body of which the crucified and risen Redeemer is authoritative head. On this scriptural basis we may rest confident in a unity against which hell’s gates will not prevail, and which will survive into the eternities.”

W. BOYD HUNT, professor, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary: “Though the lines of communication between ‘catholic’ minded Protestants and the less sectarian Romans are multiplying, any organic unity between main line Protestantism and papal Romanism is inconceivable in the foreseeable future. The most encouraging contemporary development in ecclesiology is the deepening realization that Christianity stands in judgment over every aspect of institutional Christendom, both Roman and Protestant.”

W. HARRY JELLEMA, professor, Calvin College: “Meaningful unity would on both sides require more than the current sporadic, even though genuine, evidences of profound Christian spirituality and historical understanding. But, equally, a greater measure of these than is generally discernible is needed if we are to remain responsibly divided.”

HAROLD B. KUHN, professor, Asbury Theological Seminary: “The differences between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism are not superficial but fundamental. Any achievement of Protestant-Roman Catholic unity becomes thus a question of the negotiation of basic differences through mutual adjustments and concessions. There are limits to the kind and degree of adjustments to which Protestants can and will agree. And it remains to be seen whether the Roman church is willing to correct her assumption that she alone possesses the Truth, so that a beginning can be made.”

J. THEODORE MUELLER, professor, Concordia Seminary: “I see no hopeful basis of Protestant-Roman church unity, since, on the one hand, the Roman church at the Council of Trent (1545–1563) has once for all rejected the two fundamentals of the Evangelical Church Reformation, namely, 1. that Scripture is the only source and rule of faith, and 2. that sinners are justified and saved solely by divine grace through faith in Christ without works. By declaring these two Scripture doctrines anathema, the Council has fixed an impassable gulf between Romanism and believing Protestantism.”

REINHOLD NIEBUHR, professor emeritus, Union Theological Seminary, New York: “I see many hopeful signs of more Catholic-Protestant dialogues than there have been and I think these dialogues could be creative. I see no sign whatever of a Catholic-Protestant church unity.”

BERNARD RAMM, professor, California Baptist Theological Seminary: “The decrees of the Council of Trent, the papal dogmas of the nineteenth century, and the Marian dogma of the twentieth show that the Roman Catholic church cannot discipline her theological life by the word of God, and therefore any proposed unity of the Roman church and the Protestant bodies is not difficult, but impossible.”

W. STANFORD REID, professor, McGill University: “No, I do not. The Roman Catholic church’s insistence that it is the sole repository of grace and the sole interpreter of Divine Revelation means that the only possible unity which can come between Protestants and Roman Catholics is the unity that Jonah had with the whale, namely that the Protestants should be swallowed. Moreover, there is no evidence at all that the Roman Catholic church is prepared to change its approach or modify its exclusivist claims. Until Romanism ceases to claim exclusive authority and is prepared to modify and even reject some of its doctrines, unity would seem to remain as far away as ever.”

WILLIAM CHILDS ROBINSON, professor, Columbia Theological Seminary: “There is hope in the very way you have phrased this question. You have not asked the question on the Roman Catholic or horizontal basis, which would be, ‘Is there any hope of organizational unification?’ To such a question one could only answer, ‘No, we have no expectation of recognizing the Pope as the head of the church, or of becoming a part of his system.’ You have asked the question on the Protestant or vertical basis, ‘Is there any hope of church unity?’ Yes, there is hope that the Lord Jesus Christ will bring his people of every name to recognize their unity in him. We find the one Church wherever the Gospel is preached in its biblical character and its promises sealed by the sacraments Christ instituted.”

HERMANN SASSE, professor, United Evangelical Lutheran Church seminary (Australia): “No! the question calls to mind the tragic situation of Christendom today. Roman Catholicism needs the witness of the Reformation to counteract the pagan elements it has assimilated. Modern Protestantism is no longer able to bear this witness since it has abandoned too many of the doctrines of the Reformation. The true Church knows that its unity is not a human hope, but a reality in this world which will become manifest when with the glory of Christ the hidden glory of his body, the Church, will be revealed.”

JAMES S. STEWART, professor, University of Edinburgh: “I do not see any hopeful basis of Protestant-Roman Catholic Church unity at the present time and under present conditions. The most hopeful basis on a long-range view will be the realization that the things Christians hold in common—the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection—are so stupendous, so divinely and shatteringly wonderful, that they far outweigh the things that disrupt the Body of Christ.”

MERRILL C. TENNEY, dean, Graduate School, Wheaton College: “Unity between the Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic church can be achieved only by accepting reconciliation on Rome’s terms. The price of doctrinal compromise and of hierarchical absorption is too high to pay. Organic unity would be the funeral of free Christianity. Rome’s unchanging attitude makes discussion futile. Until there is a thoroughgoing reformation within the Roman church that returns that body to the Scriptures as the final authority, and that strips it of the pagan accretions that have gathered during the centuries, we cannot hope for any unity.”

CORNELIUS VAN TIL, professor, Westminster Theological Seminary: “The dynamic categories of Romanism and the activist categories of such Protestant theologians as Karl Barth, Paul Tillich and others alike involve the rejection of the Reformation principle of the sole and direct revelation of God in Christ and the Scripture. Both parties appeal finally to self-sufficient human experience. Why should they not ‘bury the hatchet’?”

H. ORTON WILEY, president emeritus, Pasadena College: “I see no possibility of union between Protestantism and Catholicism. First, the essentially Protestant principle of justification by faith alone is not shared by Catholicism. Second, Roman Catholicism regards itself as the only true church, and apparently seeks to dominate the religious world. It will make no adjustments with Protestantism.”

Venture for Victory

The Venture for Victory basketball team, made up of Christian college all-stars, achieved 76 victories against 4 losses in its eighth annual tour of the Far East.

In addition to the 80 games played under all kinds of weather and court conditions this year, the team conducted 55 religious services, ministering to an aggregate audience of 200,500 in Formosa, Hong Kong, and the Philippines.

The team now has overall won-lost record of 586–11 for its eight years of overseas play.

Florida Bound

Billy Graham’s next major evangelistic effort is scheduled for Florida, beginning in January. Graham will tour key resort cities during January and February, winding up with a three-week series in Miami Beach’s Exhibition Hall.

Following his return from Germany Graham was slated for a “Spanish-American Crusade” in New York City’s Madison Square Garden. The three-night crusade, October 7–9, was geared to the metropolitan area’s Spanish-speaking population, estimated at 250,000, under sponsorship of the Protestant Council of the City of New York.

Tokyo Crusade

Use of radio and television may make the Tokyo World Vision crusade the most effective evangelistic campaign in Japanese history. The month-long series is scheduled for the 10,000-seat Meiji Auditorium May 6–June 5, 1961. World Vision President Bob Pierce will speak.

Selection and training of a 1,000-voice choir is already under way. At least 2,000 counsellors also will be trained for the crusade.

Tokyo, with 9,100,000 inhabitants, is the largest city in the world.

Second Chance

U. S. clergymen are getting a second chance to participate in the Social Security program.

Under a new amendment to the Social Security act, members of the clergy can initiate voluntary coverage anytime between now and April 15, 1962.

Back in 1954, when Congress first enacted legislation providing Social Security coverage to clergymen who wanted it, a cut-off date of April 15, 1957 was set for filing. Some confusion over the provisions developed, prompting Congress to create a new opportunity.

Complete details of the new program are found in “Social Security for the Clergyman,” available for five cents from the Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C.

Clergy Travel Aid

An inter-airline coordinating agency for clergy fares won recognition from the Civil Aeronautics Board last month.

The agency, known as the Airlines Clergy Bureau, is now issuing identification cards which will enable clergymen to travel (first class or tourist) at 50 per cent of the regular fee. Under this arrangement, the clergyman is listed as a standby passenger and travels on a space-available basis.

The only major carrier currently offering such a clergy discount is Northeast Airlines, which serves the eastern seaboard, and which sponsored creation of the Airlines Clergy Bureau. But negotiations are under way to cover six central states and all western states from Alaska to Arizona by the end of the year.

The Airlines Clergy Bureau has also negotiated with 39 independent hotels and motels across the nation and four hotel chains for “special consideration” of 25 per cent discount off regular room rate when the identification card is presented.

Army and Religion

The Army is launching what it terms “the most ambitious program” in its history for the training of lay religious leaders.

Six-day schools are being conducted at 31 Army posts across America this fall under the leadership of civilian religious educators. Dr. J. Gordon Chamberlin, professor of religious education at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, is overall director of the project.

The current series is for Protestant personnel. Roman Catholic and Jewish programs are being developed.

Chapel in the Ice

Chapel services were held for the first time last month in an ice tunnel 70 feet below the surface of the Greenland ice cap. The worshippers were U. S. servicemen stationed at Camp Tuto, a research and development post more than 500 miles above the Arctic Circle.

The “chapel” had been hand-mined out of ice estimated to be 2,000 years old. Carved in the round, it is 8 feet in diameter and 20 feet long.

Conducting the initial services for Protestant men were Chaplain (Captain) Jack Cutbirth and Chaplain (First Lieutenant) Grover G. DeVault. Catholic services also were held.

During the summer, services can be held above ice, but with the coming of winter it is necessary to “go below.”

Call to Worship

The twelfth annual Religion in American Life campaign, aimed at promoting church and synagogue attendance, will again have the benefit of some $8,000,000 worth of space and time donated by the major communications media.

The drive will reach its peak next month with the appearance of newly-designed RIAL posters bearing the caption, “Worship together this week.” The posters will appear on more than 6,000 billboards. Another 85,000 will be seen on buses, street cars, subway and commuter trains.

Simultaneously with the nation-wide advertising program, community campaigns will be held in more than 500 cities and towns.

RIAL advertising, distributed through the Advertising Council, a public service agency, is created voluntarily by the J. Walter Thompson Company.

A sample packet of community or congregational campaign materials is available for 25 cents from RIAL, 184 Fifth Avenue, New York 10, New York.

Honoring Gabriel

Plans are under way for a $3,000,000 basilica in Nazareth, which promises to be the biggest Roman Catholic shrine in the Middle East.

Vatican authorities have already approved the blueprints, according to a Religious News Service report.

The new basilica will replace an eighteenth-century church, razed six years ago, that occupied the site where the Archangel Gabriel is said to have announced to Mary that she was to be the mother of Christ.

Banquet Evangelism

Churches and religious organizations conducting promotional banquets can find a wealth of advice in Come and Dine, a 460-page handbook based upon the successes and failures of nearly 200 banquets.

The book is being published this month by the W. C. Jones Publishing Company of Los Angeles, whose owner and operator authored the book on the basis of banquets he has conducted from coast to coast, most famous of which is the annual “Presidential Prayer Breakfast” in Washington.

A minutely-detailed analysis of the art of sponsoring a banquet, Come and Dine warns of pitfalls and points out essentials (“at 9:30 p.m., the human body tires to the point of diminishing returns”) (“wisecracking is hazardous”) (“rheostatic control of the lights is an important factor”).

Come and Dine is basically a reference work which offers rules, comments, and suggestions according to such criteria as the purpose of the banquet, locale, type and number of guests, and financing.

“Do not pursue the idea of an banquet unless conditions ensuring success can be established,” cautions Jones. “Being conversant with all phases of organizing a banquet is the prerequisite to success.”

He says that “almost any banquet can be guided to a successful conclusion, if rules and suggestions are followed.”

‘Unity in Christ’

The twenty-first North American Liturgical Week of the Roman Catholic church, held in Pittsburgh this past summer, featured an invitation to Protestant and Orthodox clergymen to share in an emphasis on “Unity in Christ.”

“This is a new climate,” said the Rev. Robert L. Kincheloe, executive director of the Council of Churches of Christ in the Pittsburgh Area.

Monsignor Andrew J. Pauley, rector of St. Paul’s Cathedral and chairman of the welcome committee, stated in the letter of invitation to non-Roman religious leaders: “We wish we were as sure of heaven as we are sure that you will receive this invitation in the same spirit in which it is offered—a spirit of charity, affection and good will.”

Monsignor Pauley reported that 200 clergymen responded to the invitation and were observers at the exhibits and general sessions of the liturgical conference which drew about 5,000 delegates from the United States, Canada and Cuba.

At a mass in Point State Park, Bishop John J. Wright of the Pittsburgh diocese, referring to Christ’s resurrection appearances recorded in the Gospel of Luke, declared that Christ was not fully disclosed to his disciples in dialogue or discussion but in the breaking of bread.

Quoting the late Episcopal leader, Bishop Manning of New York, who said, “Reunion will come not by compromise of faith and conviction, not by throwing aside creed and doctrine, but by a fuller appreciation of the truth revealed in Christ,” Bishop Wright affirmed, “The central reality in Christianity is and must always be Jesus Christ … but as in the days of the first disciples, so today Christ is most vividly and perfectly recognized in the breaking of bread, in the liturgy which perpetuates his presence among us in the manner that He ordained and ordered.”

Their annual liturgical conference is now the third largest rallying point of U. S. Roman Catholics. Its attendance is surpassed only by the numbers who attend the Catholic educational and charities meetings.

The conference was signalized by a special greeting from Pope John XXIII whose message caused Protestant observers to see a connection between the cordiality shown by the local diocese and papal policy.

Following the conference, this distinction was underscored:

“The one fear,” said Bishop Wright, “is that our intellectual judgments concerning the theologies and philosophies of groups carry over unjustly and irrelevantly into moral judgments of the persons who hold the ideas which we reject.” He added that he could understand how Roman Catholics and Protestants might regard each others’ convictions in some areas as absurd, but that this did not justify the regarding the persons holding these convictions as absurd.

C.N.W.

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