About ten years ago, in the wake of Chuck Colson and Fr. Neuhaus’s “Evangelicals and Catholics Together" document, I attended a Christian education convention sponsored by the Northern New Jersey Sunday School Association at Hawthorne Gospel Church in Hawthorne.
In all fairness, the workshop on Evangelization given by the radio personality, David Virkler, does not stick out in my mind as representative of the convention’s overall tenor, even though the church affiliation (“St. Dorothea”) displayed on my nametag won for me some polite inquiries ("and who is Saint Dorothea, anyway?”) not to mention my overtly Catholic-sounding given name.
But when Virkler began his lecture with a critique of Colson, calling it false ecumenism and an offense to the call to full evangelization, I boldly objected, telling Virkler in the midst of everyone, that he doesn’t know that these Catholics are not Christians. To which he replied, “I question the sincerity of anyone’s faith unless I personally lead them to Christ.” Utter bombast designed to squelch the heckler.
1 comment:
Thanks for your comment.
I can't know whether you know the whole back-story on the ECT alliance.
Virkler would be of the school that teaches that the only good Catholic is a dead Catholic ... uh, I mean, one who leaves the Catholic church upon becoming a Christian, getting saved, etc., etc.
And Virkler isn't alone in his conviction. Colson gets alot of heat for fraternizing with Catholics, prominent Catholics like Neuhaus, who has the dubious distinction of being a convert to Catholicism from the Lutheran church.
In some cases, it's two degrees of separation: not only not associating with Catholics but also not associating with otherwise exemplary Christians who themselves associate with Catholics.
In arguing with Virkler, I didn't have a leg to stand on because by virtue of the fact that these Catholics remain in the Catholic church, Virkler and his ilk know know know that these Catholics are not, cannot, would not be Christians. The two professions, as a friend recently remarked, are mutually exclusive, as evidenced by their "ringleader" Neuhaus who himself went so far as to leave a legitimate Christian denomination in which he was an ordained minister and become a Catholic ... a Catholic priest!
Of course, you know that I don't believe Virkler is right. And I'm not really sad that I spoke up. In the least, I let him know that he ought to be more careful about who may be in his audience.
And I wish that the NNJSSA still existed or still held these conventions because otherwise I learned a great deal.
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