January 9 1995

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Samuel Escobar's and Samuel Moffet's pieces on mission in the new millennium are extremely significant, because we are all retooling for future ministry. In a seminary connected to a megachurch, we are making some foundational changes. This involves the fast deployment of lay missioners and the high profile use of non-North Americans. (This year we are spotlighting a Sicilian evangelist.)

Your November 14 issue was on the cutting edge of mission. Thanks.

- Wayne Detzler

Southern Evangelical Seminary

Charlotte, N.C.

CATHOLICS AS ALLIES?

Chuck Colson wants evangelicals to "gather in the central hallway" with Roman Catholics ("Why Catholics Are Our Allies," Nov. 14). How he gets us in the front door with them he never discusses, but he has to throw away sola scriptura, sola gratia, and sola fide to do it.

Colson quotes Timothy George, C. S. Lewis, Abraham Kuyper, and even J. Gresham Machen to defend his plea for unity with the Church of Rome. Too bad he didn't quote the apostle Paul. Those who embrace Roman Catholics as brothers and sisters in Christ, like Colson (and CT?), need to go through an elementary course on the gospel.

- Pastor Dean Olive

Grace Baptist Church

Madison, Ala.

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Colson's assumption is that ultimately those doctrines that unite evangelicals and Rome make us relatively closer than the separation between evangelicals and pagans. From a worldly standpoint, I agree. From an eternal standpoint, our doctrinal difference is the difference between life and death. Luther, the Reformers, and ostensibly evangelicals, believe that the Scripture is clear: justification by faith alone is the doctrine by which the church, and its members, stands or falls. The Scripture, and the supposed infallible councils of Rome, ...