Further Discussion With Father McDonnell

Fr. McDonnell,

Labels can be deceptive. First Things is "ultra conservative" according to you? Isn't that a label? First Things is not a "magazine" but a theological journal. Magazines are written for popular audiences while journals like First Things are written for those who have an understanding of theology, sociology, psychology, etc. I am not Roman Catholic but I find the articles written there to be well thought out and honest for the most part. Had you bothered to read the article I sent you, you would have seen that the author holds a similar view to yours--that Protestants are moving closer to the Roman Catholic view.

My point stands. The Protestant Reformers are still under the anathemas of Rome and so are all who still agree with them. As Dr. Michael Horton puts it:

• The language is, of course, more conciliatory, but the point is not the tone but the content of what is affirmed and denied. My own criticism of the impressive initiative known as “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” (ECT) some years ago was not that such dialogue should not exist or that real consensus on many issues was impossible from the outset, but that the consensus reached affirmed agreement in the gospel while acknowledging disagreement on justification, merit, purgatory, indulgences, and the redemptive intercession of anyone other than Christ. Yet, in step with other recent agreements, here it is only the evangelicals who have moved, accepting the view that justification by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone is not essential to the gospel.
  
  http://www.modernreformation.org/mh05unity.htm

Why should you be surprised that there are conservative Evangelicals who still adhere to the 5 solas of the Protestant Reformation, who are not willing to move away from what we consider to be the very essence of the Gospel? I suspect it is because you are on the "ultra liberal" end of the spectrum.

Sincerely,

Charlie J. Ray

----- Original Message -----
From: McDonnell, Fr. Kilian
To: Charlie Ray
Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2006 8:43 PM
Subject: RE: Post pentecostal/charismatic

Dear Mr. Ray: Labels can be deceptive, and if you stay with them you miss a lot…..The Missouri Synod theologians in the dialogue were not there on their own initiative. They were officially appointed by the Missouri Synod to be its representatives…..The lifting of the anathemas might be online. Go to Google and do a search on “Catholic anathemas lifted” or something like that. Sincerely, Kilian, osb