When you venture back into the
19th century you'll find an ever present fear among Protestants...
Roman Catholicism.
Little did they realize the
pope's political power would soon end. The Unification of Italy was a disaster
for the papacy. The popes would strike back at Enlightenment Republicanism and
Nationalism by claiming Papal Infallibility even as their lands were about to
be taken from them. The Papal States, the kingdom in central Italy ruled for
centuries by the popes was no more. And the dream of a Holy Roman Empire, a
united Catholic Christendom had already been consigned to the dustbin of
history.
Many are afraid of
the present pope. I hear many Dispensationalists and Evangelicals expressing
fear that Francis is the Antichrist, the one that will unite the religions of
the world.
Of course this assumes the
Dispensational mindset which is not granted and I think must be rejected if we
are to follow Scripture. It also assumes a particularly American perspective on
politics and sociology but that's for another discussion.
All of this said, there is a
new ecumenicalism afoot. Actually there are several but the movement that's
most striking in the United States and in a growing segment of the world is
rallying around political action. Political Theology is the basis of the new ecumenical
movement.
For these people this pope is a
tremendous disappointment. They appreciate the fact that he's reinvigourating
Rome and healing some of the wounds inflicted by the pedophilia and homosexuality
scandals so prevalent among their clergy. Nevertheless in terms of politics he
represents a force that many conservative Catholics and Protestants are
against.
The genius of the new
ecumenicalism is of course the now deceased Chuck Colson. He built on and in
some ways hijacked the teachings and legacy of Abraham Kuyper and Francis
Schaeffer.
Though the Reformed are often
on the fringes of the movement, they are in many ways and perhaps unwittingly
its intellectual inspiration.
Kuyper's terms and turns of
phrase are now freely employed in Evangelical circles, though few understand
their theological origin. And Colson capitalized on Schaeffer's culture war
legacy by recasting/stealing his famous book title and putting his own broad
ecumenical spin on it. Well it wasn't actually Colson, it was Nancy Pearcy. He
didn't really write most of his books but they reflect his ideas... his recast
Dominionism inherited from the Reformed tradition. Pearcy to my astonishment
claims unfamiliarity with this school of thought. Does she really not know? Or,
as some have suggested is it just considered orthodoxy at this point? To many
it's not something you put under a
label, it's simply (to them) historic and Biblical Christianity.
How has Colson tied this all
together and created a new form ecumenicalism?
Basically if you're on board
with the Christian political project then no matter what your doctrine... you
are a Christian.
'Christian' is divorced from Biblical
theology in Colson's new paradigm. It's defined in terms of culture. Anyone who
stands for the Western tradition is basically a Christian. If there is a
theology, it's really more a sociological outlook or set of political theories.
It's actually very reminiscent
of Liberal Theology's Social Gospel.
Perhaps re-cast in a
Reactionary rather than a Progressivist mold?
Protestant, Catholic, Liberal,
Cultist, Unorthodox... it doesn't matter as long as you sign on to the socio-political project. If you're willing to fight the Culture War then you are reckoned a member of Christ's Body.
He had to employ some
astounding mental gymnastics and leaps of logic to tie together people like
Kuyper, Chesterton, Aquinas, Bonhoeffer, Hugo, Lewis, Calvin and Dickens.
But he did it and now his followers
do the same. The only reason it works is because they're banking on the fact
that their audience is pretty ignorant. In many cases the people their
promoting weren't really Christians at all. It's only by using their modified
and thus watered down definition that they can put it all together.
I can never say it too many
times. The Constantinian Shift redefined terms like Christian and Church.
Rather than being defined Biblically and theologically, they came to possess
sociological definitions and categories, something wholly foreign to Scripture.
Everyone always assumed the
dangers of ecumenicalism flowed from Rome and its Big Tent catholicity or from
Liberalism's lowest common denominator approach to theology.
And yet Colson managed to use
politics as the new Catholicity and has brought together diverse groups of
people to wage the Culture War.
He recognized this in the 1980s
and launched his project in 1994 with Evangelicals and Catholics Together or ECT.
As I said in a previous post I think the crowning victory for him was the Evangelical
endorsement of Rick Santorum in the 2012 presidential race. Colson died just
after Santorum finally backed out of the race but the fact that the endorsement
happened at all was a victory for him. The Evangelical backing of Santorum indicated
the massive shift brought about by the birth of the Christian Right had not
only changed politics after the 1970s, but had fundamentally changed the nature
of the American Protestantism itself.
While I wouldn't be surprised
to learn that Colson was a Jesuit agent, his vision actually transcended Rome.
He was happy enough to refer to the pope as 'His Holiness', but didn't seem to
envision everyone coming under the papal umbrella or a Protestant one for that
matter. His vision was of a political bloc based on trans-denominational
Ecumenicalism. I think he envisioned an Ecumenical Magisterium. He must be
acknowledged as a visionary that wanted to see a new type of Church built atop
a renewed Christendom.
Even those who opposed ECT on
the grounds that it was wrong to ally with Rome, nevertheless have still
largely bought into the vision of the project. In the end they share the same
political vision, they're just uncomfortable establishing any kind of formal
relationship with the Papacy.
Little do they realize a
redefined Church means a redefined gospel to go with it.
If there is to be an Antichrist
par excellence, a supreme manifestation of the Man of Sin before the Second
Coming of Christ, and if indeed the hour is drawing near, then it would seem
that Colson did much to lay the foundations for this final and perhaps greatest
apostasy of all.
