Lux Lucet

Futility. For many, the sight of poor Charlie Brown’s failure to kick the football is the very image of it. Ever trusting, he was always Lucy’s tool .

Ecumenical Evangelicals are a lot like Charlie Brown. They just never get it. The Vatican announces its latest ecumenical conference on this or that hot button issue and, zip, like moths to a flame, or Charlie Brown to Lucy’s siren song, the ecumenical tools come a running.

The latest Vatican con job is a confab called An International Interreligious Colloquium on The Complementarity of Man and Woman. And the ecumenical tools of the hour are Southern Baptists Russell Moore and Rick Warren. The conference, to be held in the Vatican Nov. 17-19, is described by its organizers thus,

The Complementarity of Man and Woman: An International Colloquium is a gathering of leaders and scholars from many religions across the globe, to examine and propose anew the beauty of the relationship between the man and the woman, in order to support and reinvigorate marriage and family life for the flourishing of human society.

Witnesses will draw from
 the wisdom of their religious tradition and cultural experience as they attest to the power and vitality of the complementary union of man and woman. It is hoped that the colloquium be a catalyst for creative language and projects, as well as for global solidarity, in the work
 of strengthening the nuptial relationship, both for the good of the spouses themselves and for the good of all who depend upon them.

The Colloquium is sponsored by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and co-sponsored by the Pontifical Council for the Family, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, and
 the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity. (emphasis added)

The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. It sounds innocent enough. But like so much the emanates from the Vatican, a little digging reveals things are not what they seem at first. As it turns out, The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith is a new name for an old organization within the vast bureaucracy of the Roman Catholic State-Church. Prior to 1985, this same body was known as The Sacred Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. This was itself a new name for an organization that from 1904 until 1965 was called the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office.

What, you may ask, was the name of this august body prior to 1904? From its founding by Pope Paul III in 1542 until 1904, it was known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition. Yes, you read that right. Evangelicals are going to a conference, the host of which is none other than the Inquisition.

Ignoring the command of the voice from heaven in Revelation 18 which enjoined, “Come out of her [the Roman Catholic Church State], my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues,” Russell Moore believes he can too join in ecumenical alliance with Antichrist and not suffer loss. In this, he evidences a serious lack of discernment.

The decision by Moore and Warren to attend this Vatican conference represents an enormous betrayal of Christ and his Gospel. Not that this is anything new for high profile Evangelical leaders. But to allow themselves to be used as a tool of the Inquisition shows a truly remarkable lack of discernment on the part of these men. By comparison, Charlie Brown looks like a genius.