Catholic-Evangelical Alliances and the Divisions They Produce

https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/italian-jesuit-magazine-criticizes-political-attitudes-some-us-catholics

Fundamentalism's voice of protest continues to weaken. Evangelicals and Catholics are allies now. The seeds planted by Francis Schaeffer and watered by Chuck Colson – and the architects of Vatican II have come to fruition. For good or ill we've come a long way from Chick tracts and Hislop's The Two Babylons. The last bastions of anti-Catholicism are today found in connection with Ulster and the (equally dubious) heritage of Ian Paisley.

Confessionalists have functionally abandoned their one-time confidence that the pope was antichrist. Rejection of Catholic doctrine remains, but the Culture Wars have a strong pull and many are happy to form alliances even if left in 'informal' terms. Additionally for those determined to transform society there is a great attraction found with Catholicism and its deep heritage within the Western cultural and intellectual tradition.

That said, these impulses and alliances (both de facto and de jure) have produced growing confusion in Evangelical and even Reformed churches. Some years ago at a PCA we attended one elder's wife to my surprise referred to 'Catholic Christians', and I've interacted with many Evangelicals and even quasi-Fundamentalist types who seem taken aback and offended when I in the course of conversation assume Catholics are not Christians – which is the historic position and one very common (if not a given) just a few decades ago.

Vatican II allows Catholics to view Protestants as 'separated brethren' but Traditionalists still take a hard-line and insist Protestants are lost. That said, the political alliance has proven convenient and has also exposed the reality that many 'Traditionalist Catholics' are not true Traditionalists in the anti-modernist vein of Pius IX. Many Traditionalists have also embraced Classical Liberalism and while advocating conservative Catholic doctrine they have also embraced American idealism, capitalism and have even played the revisionist hand, some of them (laughably) trying to argue for Thomist influence on the American Founders and the documents they produced. If they were true Traditionalists (as opposed to simply being Right-wing Catholics) they would abhor 'Americanism' as a modernist child of the infidel Enlightenment, they would recognise the Founders were espousers of Freemasonic doctrines, and capitalism and its consumerist-libertarian ethics would be viewed as morally base and unworthy of conscientious Christianity and thus to be rejected by the architects of Catholic Christendom.*

And so we find a mix or blend. There are genuine Traditionalists out there but in the American context more likely than not they're Right-wing (as opposed to conservative) and as such they find much in common with other Christians who (like these Catholics) are really political creatures at their core - it being their true religion. And thus we're witnessing a kind of Right-wing ecumenical movement – regardless of religion, denominational affiliation, or even lack thereof, the commonality of socio-political ideology (which again is the true religion for all these types) is enough to bridge all their doctrinal divides. It's not about God as much as it is flag and mammon and the guns to protect both.

Catholics (generally speaking) are not overly keen on providing political support for ultra-Protestant or Evangelical types but as the endorsement of Rick Santorum demonstrated in 2012, Evangelicals will happily get behind Right-wing Catholics and even those who are on the Catholic fringe allied with Opus Dei and the like. Once again, the Right-wing impulse which (as a religion) governs epistemology and ethics is enough to easily bridge the divide.

This article proved captivating because it offered the rarely heard critique of Catholic ecumenical compromise coming from within Catholicism – attacking the notion that Catholics should be forming such alliances.

https://www.laciviltacattolica.com/evangelical-fundamentalism-and-catholic-integralism-in-the-usa-a-surprising-ecumenism/

The Jesuit newspaper (with the Vatican imprimatur) also touched on the subject but I found the commentary to be a little more confused. Dominionism and Integralism are cut from the same cloth but to use Fundamentalism in such a context is misleading as was the assessment of Fundamentalism's 20^th century history, not to mention the use of Weber's flawed thesis. And yet as a quick survey the article has some value, especially for a Catholic audience that more likely than not finds some of the names and concepts to be unfamiliar.

The article is in part critical of this new ecumenical arrangement. Though it fails to identify the problem (or point of unity) as being rooted in Right-wing politics, the sentiment is there. However I get the sense that the authors are probably located more on the liberal spectrum as opposed to genuine Traditionalists that recognise the real problem of Catholics (like Church Militant or Taylor Marshall) 'throwing in' with the likes of Trump and his Evangelical allies.

Catholic intellectuals, historians, and theologians ought to be particularly aware of the problems associated with this given the relationship between Catholicism and Fascism a century ago. History is starting to repeat itself not only with Trumpism but with the recent surge in Right-wing politics in Latin America and Europe.

I expect less from American thinkers since mainstream American thought and especially Christian thought has failed to understand or reckon with European Fascism. There are few barriers to its ascent in the American context and in fact as recent years have shown, it's likely to be met with open arms – and hands holding a cross and a flag.

These are all issues that bear watching and I would think some of the leading voices would want to be 'on the record' so to speak. Depending on the course of events over the next several years I would think they would hate to be remembered as weak, unclear, or uncommitted in their thinking and analysis – not to mention their ethical judgment.

History tells us we are moving toward crisis both within Western culture and in terms of global conflict.

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*But given that few seem to understand that there are alternatives to both Capitalism and Socialism, they are trapped by the false binary that seems to dominate our present milieu. Nevertheless there are a few Traditionalist Catholics that will (at least among themselves) promote old Throne and Altar Christendom ideology which is the antithesis of the Classical Liberalism that America is founded upon. They might still wave the flag and profess patriotism even though this is inconsistent. Given their ideology, most American intellectuals and historians would view them as holding to subversive and certainly counter-revolutionary views – an unpatriotic ideology incompatible with American idealism. The same is true in Protestant circles with movements such as Theonomy.

New Testament Christians must reject Throne and Altar ideology, the false system of Rushdoony-ite Theonomy – and American idealism. They all stand in opposition to apostolic and Kingdom doctrine.

See also:

https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2012/01/colsons-victory.html