ECT and Beyond: A Plea for the Pursuit of Unity, Irenic Perspicuity, and Sphere Ecumenism -- By: C. Ben Mitchell

Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 05:4 (Winter 2001)
Article: ECT and Beyond: A Plea for the Pursuit of Unity, Irenic Perspicuity, and Sphere Ecumenism
Author: C. Ben Mitchell


ECT and Beyond: A Plea for the Pursuit of Unity,
Irenic Perspicuity, and Sphere Ecumenism

C. Ben Mitchell

C. Ben Mitchell is associate professor of bioethics and contemporar y culture at Trinity International University and Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He serves as a consultant on biomedical and life issues for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Libert y Commission and is a senior fellow with The Center for Bioethics and Human Dignit y in Bannockburn, Illinois. Dr. Mitchell is editor of Ethics & Medicine: An International Journal of Bioethics.

I pray that what you and your colleagues have done is pleasing to God. I cannot praise or condemn it. I expect that this may change forever what generations of Bible-believing Protestants have thought was their mission in relation to Roman Catholicism. I pray that you are right. I tremble to think that you may be wrong.

—Anonymous evangelical theologian to Fr. Richard John Neuhaus

Evangelicals, especially Southern Baptists, have not taken seriously Jesus’s high priestly petition that his disciples “.. . may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21 ESV). Evangelicals and other Christians have settled too easily for the fallen world of Christian division and dissimilation. In fact, in some quarters sectarianism is seen as virtue, unity as vice. The fragmentation of the body of Christ not only denies the power of the gospel of the risen Jesus, but also reveals a shameful immaturity among his disciples.

Furthermore, Jesus’ prayer indicates that Christian unity has a clear missiological implication. Unity among Christians testifies to the unity in the Godhead. If God is one, why are God’s people divided? Christian unity would be a powerful evangelistic witness. Yet those committed to a robust mission are sometimes equally committed to maintaining the fissures among Christians. This is not only inconsistent; it is, in a very real sense, self-defeating. In every generation until Jesus returns, those who call themselves “Christians,” who wear the name of the one who offered the petitions recorded in John 17, should lament these fractures and, rather than tolerating historical divisions, should commit themselves to resolving those divisions—not at the expense of truth, but in pursuit of truth.

The Evangelicals and Catholics Together (ECT) Controversy

Nearly a decade has lapsed since a group of evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics began a discussion that resulted in a convulsion that continues to the prese...

You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
Click here to subscribe
visitor : : uid: ()