Related
Translate
Previous entry: Healing event at CSU draws several thousand
Next entry: Preacher Fined For Failure To Marry
Get RNB via RSS
 |
RNB's RSS feed What is this? |
Get RNB via Email
 |
 Subscribe by Email What is this? |
Follow: Twitter
Most Popular
This Week:
- Guyana’s Jonestown suicide site gets plaque
- Scientology practices ‘putting people at risk’
- Recession: Muslim schools in UK under threat of closure
- World’s oldest ocean-going passenger ship, ministry ship Doulos, to stop sailing
- Scientology’s feet held to the fire in Australia: Struggle between a church and the state
- 1-year prison term for man who participated in cyber attack on Church of Scientology Web sites
- Australian police take up complaints about Scientology
- Born in U.S., a Radical Cleric Inspires Terror
- ‘World’s biggest animal sacrifice’ begins
- Pakistan Militants Bomb CD Shop For Selling ‘Jesus Film’
U.S. Evangelical Protestants Favored Pope
Apr. 4, 2005
Richard N. Ostling, AP Religion Writer
www.guardian.co.uk
More articles on this topic: Catholic ChurchJohn Paul II was probably the most popular pope ever among America’s evangelical Protestants, while leaders of more liberal mainline denominations looked upon him more warily than his three papal predecessors.
John Paul inherited a Catholic-Protestant situation that had changed almost instantly with the Second Vatican Council’s 1964 decree on ecumenical involvement with non-Catholics and 1965 declaration endorsing religious freedom.
One sign of the thaw: Protestants had long made it inconceivable for the United States to extend diplomatic recognition to the Holy See but raised little ruckus when President Reagan sent the first U.S. ambassador to John Paul’s Vatican.
After Vatican Two, Rome had launched formal unity talks with the Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans and other non-Catholics. But there were few contacts with the burgeoning evangelical movement, which was highly decentralized, firmly opposed to certain Catholic teachings and strongly resented by Catholic bishops in Latin America.
In the John Paul era, many U.S. evangelicals became much more aware of the papacy – and much more favorable toward it – attracted by his anti-communist background and strong stands against abortion and euthanasia.
The Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision establishing the right to an abortion lit the fuse that sparked evangelical activism on the issue – often coordinated in tandem with Catholics – just at the time John Paul was beginning his pontificate.
In ensuing years, the Polish pope became a key player in ending Europe’s Cold War.
“His strong stand against totalitarianism and communism made him a friendly presence for all freedom-living people,” says the Rev. Timothy George of Alabama’s Beeson Divinity School, the only Southern Baptist on the World Council of Churches theology commission. And on moral issues like abortion and mercy-killing, “he didn’t speak for evangelicals, but he spoke with evangelicals.”
Analyzing John Paul’s pronouncements, Wheaton College historian Mark Noll said Protestants would dissent on matters such as reverence for the Virgin Mary, but “people who’ve taken the time to read these should come away impressed with his classically orthodox Christian stance,” as well as the pope’s intellectual depth and familiarity with the Bible.
Meanwhile, says George, “for some of the same reasons evangelicals liked the pope so much, mainliners were distant and suspicious, more aligned with Roman Catholic progressives who saw the pope as regressive.”
The Rev. William Rusch, former theology director with the National Council of Churches, said that during John Paul’s reign, disagreements over issues like homosexuality and women clergy sharpened the divide between mainline Protestants and Catholicism.
But Rusch says one landmark of John Paul’s leadership was his 1995 encyclical on ecumenism, “Ut Unum Sint.”
He thinks the pope did all Christians a service by candidly defining the issues that divide Catholics and Protestants, especially his own papal office. One notable passage asked non-Catholics to identify papal practices that are obstacles to Christian unity.
Rusch also credits John Paul with the ground-breaking 1998 joint declaration between Catholicism and the Lutheran World Federation on the faith-vs.-works problem that sparked the Reformation.
The nub of the accord said, “By grace alone, in faith in Christ’s saving work and not because of any merit on our part, we are accepted by God and receive the Holy Spirit, who renews our hearts while equipping and calling us to good works.”
By speaking of the 16th century birth of Protestantism, in George’s opinion “John Paul II was the most significant pope since the Reformation, period.”
What You Can Do From Here
|
Read More Articles On These Topics
Share, Blog About, Bookmark, or Email This Article
Subscribe
Read Another Article
Previous entry: Healing event at CSU draws several thousand Next entry: Preacher Fined For Failure To Marry
RNB Homepage with latest headlinesFind Related Information
Find Related Books
|
Share This Article
To share this page simply copy and paste one of these URL's:
