Your Word Is Truth Project: Review - Part 1

Your Word Is Truth Project

  From early on as an Evangelical Christian, it has been a personal longing of mine to see the Church be united as One, according to Jesus' High Priestly Apostolic prayer in John 17, and to witness

a greater fulfillment of this in our day.

Having journeyed into the Catholic Church, I feel as though I am grasping the understanding and implications of this longing in increasing measure.

Upon recently trotting the path of reading the initiatives of the Catholic and Evangelicals Together statements, it was now turn to read the "Your Word is Truth: a Project of Evangelicals and Catholics Together", edited by Charles Colson and Richard Neuhaus...on Scripture and Tradition.

I appreciate what seems to echo my own longing, and to be one of the end goals of the Evangelicals and Catholics together initiative, including the Your Word is Truth project, when it states: "By God's Grace we will continue to pray for one another, to seek greater mutual understanding ...making manifest our unity...so that the world may come to believe" (John 17:21), (pg.7).

Concerning the conciliatory tone of the Your Word of Truth project, I have noticed perhaps a softening in acceptance and an increasing dawning of realization in our commonality, (without necessarily reaching resolve) concerning the need for many Evangelical circles to not divorce historical and theological tradition, in the context of its Scriptural backdrop; and the need for many Catholics to learn to appreciate the Evangelical love and zeal for Scripture.

As is affirmed in the statement itself: "Catholics...believe... Evangelicals have an inadequate appreciation of certain elements of truth that, from the earliest centuries, Christians have understood Christ to have for His Church" (pg.6).

On the other hand it states: "Catholics [should learn from] the Evangelical emphasis on group Bible Study and commitment to the majestic and final authority of the written word of God" (pg.5).

In relation to the formation of the language in this endeavor, it is also important for the reader to know that this sincere effort launched by Evangelicals and Catholics Together, (including the Your Word is Truth project - on Scripture and Tradition) "is an unofficial initiative...[that] speak from and to the communities of which [they] are apart, but...do not presume to speak for them", even though this initiative has received "appreciated encouragement from official sources" (pg.vii,viii).



Even Cardinal Dulles in opening his essay, "Revelation, Scripture. and Tradition", alludes to this distinction when he states that "this paper is composed for an inter-confessional exchange of views, [and gives] primary attention to the official doctrine of the Catholic Church rather then to my personal theological opinions" (pg.35).

Thus. it is important to understand from all of the latter, that what is addressed by the Evangelical and Catholic theologians in the statement and in their supporting essays, (including the language of the possibilities formulated) are not necessarily reflective of all the Evangelical and Protestant communities, nor do the Catholic theologians make official pronouncements beyond the Council of Vatican II.

Nevertheless, there is a positive tone in the statement and in the supporting essays, demonstrating a genuine effort for Catholics and Evangelicals in understanding each others positions, in "serving as a kind of advanced scouting party to explore possibilities" (pg.ix).

As Evangelical theologian Timothy George asserts: "The ECT process itself is a sign that we are moving beyond what Cardinal Cassidy has called '"the dialogue of the deaf"', in our efforts for greater mutual understanding"(pg.26).