Evangelicals and Catholics Together is a 1994 ecumenical document signed by leading Evangelical and Roman Catholic scholars in the United States. The co-signers of the document were Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus, representing each side of the discussions. [1] It was part of a larger ecumenical rapprochement in the United States that had begun in the 1980s with Catholic-Evangelical collaboration in para-church organizations such as Moral Majority during the Ronald Reagan administration.
The statement is written as a testimony that spells out the need for Protestants and Catholics to deliver a common witness to the modern world at the eve of the third millennium. [2]It draws heavily from the theology of the New Testament and the Trinitarian doctrine of the Nicean creed. It does not mention any specific points of theology, and instead seeks to encourage what is known as spiritual ecumenism and day-to-day ecumenism. The document was signed at a time when Protestants and Catholics were still fighting each other in Northern Ireland, long after the ecumenical movement had begun. [3]
The evangelical signatories include Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ, Os Guinness of the Trinity Forum, Richard Mouw of Fuller Theological Seminary, Mark Noll of Wheaton College, J. I. Packer of Regent College, Pat Robertson of Regent University, Larry Lewis of the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, Richard Land of the Christian Life Commission, Jesse Miranda of the Assemblies of God, and John White of Geneva College. [4]
The Roman Catholic signatories include bishops Francis Cardinal George, William Murphy, Carlos Arthur Sevilla, philosophers George Weigel, Mary Ann Glendon, Michael Novak, Peter Kreeft, and theologians Joseph Augustine Di Noia, Avery Cardinal Dulles, Joseph P. Fitzpatrick, Keith Fournier.
The agreement was reached a few years before the 1999 Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (between Lutherans and Catholics), which in substance says many of the same things as ECT in that it emphasizes Sola gratia over Sola fide. [5]
Many evangelicals, while appreciating the goal of social agreement in the ECT document, are still opposed to the theological wording of the document. Theologians such as doctors John Ankerberg, D. James Kennedy, John F. MacArthur, and R. C. Sproul, have published concern about it "going too far" in claiming theological agreement. They emphasize that sola fide is a fundamental distinctive of evangelical theology, which fundamentally divides evangelicals and Catholics theologically, as Rome condemned sola fide at the Council of Trent and has never lifted that condemnation ("anathema").[6]