The Sin of Ecumenicism thrives in America

ROMAN CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT CHURCHES SIGN AGREEMENT RECOGNIZING EACH OTHER’S BAPTISMS
 

By Ken Silva pastor-teacher on Jan 31, 2013 in AM Missives, Current Issues, Features, Roman Catholicism

With the following piece by Christian Post reporter Michael Gryboski Apprising Ministries now brings you yet another pathetic example of the sinful ecumenicism that’s slithering throughout largely pretending to be Protestant Christendom today.
Now, we’d expect this from the dead mainline denominations referenced below but I’ve also shown you the nauseating examples of major evangelical figures as well in Timothy George Addresses Roman Catholic Synod As “Brothers” And Pope As “Holy Father.”
Then just the other day we saw Rick Warren And His Brother, “His Eminence” Timothy Cardinal Dolan Archbishop Of New York. In Catholic, Protestant Churches Sign Historic Baptism Agreement Gryboski tells us:

Leaders representing the Roman Catholic Church and some American Protestant denominations have signed an agreement in Texas to recognize each other’s baptisms.
After about six years of dialogue, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Reformed Church in America, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Christian Reformed Church in North America, and the United Church of Christ signed a document recognizing each other’s liturgical rites of baptism.
The five denominations signed the “Common Agreement on Mutual Recognition of Baptism,” affirming the baptism agreement on Tuesday evening at a prayer service held at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Austin.
“Together we affirm that, by the sacrament of Baptism, a person is truly incorporated into the body of Christ (I Corinthians 12:13 and 27; Ephesians 1:22-23), the church. Baptism establishes the bond of unity existing among all who are part of Christ’s body and is therefore the sacramental basis for our efforts to move towards visible unity,” reads the document.
“We rejoice at the common faith we share and affirm in this document. We understand that the journey toward full, visible unity depends on openness to the grace of God and humility before the initiatives of God’s Spirit among us.” (source)

O yes, it sounds so very pious; does it not? The “grace of God and humility before the initiatives of God’s Spirit among us.” Why, who’s against “the bond of unity existing among all who are part of Christ’s body,” moving toward “visible unity” with other Christians, and sharing our “common faith?”
No one I know; and certainly not me, personally. However, as a Christian I have no unity with the apostate Roman Catholic Church because, by condemning God’s Gospel in favor of its non-gospel of sacramental works-righteousness, it placed itself outside the Body of Christ under the anathema of God.
This is the critical issue that people in our time just don’t seem to understand: If the Roman Catholic Church is now to be considered as merely another Christian denomination within the Body of Christ then the Protestant Reformation was not of God. In other words, it was wrong; sinful, and should never have happened.
Dr. Ron Rhodes gets to the heart of the matter when he tells us, “One of the greater challenges in engaging in discussions with Roman Catholics involves the issue of salvation.” He goes on to explain, “Certainly Catholics deny that their Church teaches a works salvation.” He then hits the target dead on:

[Roman Catholics] will talk about how their salvation is impossible apart from the grace of God. But though things start out by grace in the Roman Catholic system of salvation,…works do indeed get mixed into the picture. By virtue of the fact that a life of meritorious works is necessary to gain final salvation, it is clear that in reality the Roman Catholic view of salvation is works-oriented.1

This is another gospel, plain and simple; and in His inspired Scripture God Himself has already told us how He feels about such a matter:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.
As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:6-9)