Separated brethren by Gordon Margery A confusing contribution to the conversation on relations between evangelicals and Catholics
Are our Roman Catholic friends, relations, colleagues and neighbours our brothers and sisters in Christ? This is a crucial question for all evangelical believers who know and love Roman Catholics. The question concerns the salvation of Roman Catholics. Do they have a saving faith in Christ alone? Are they born again, not through baptism but by believing in Christ? Have they been reconciled to God through the blood of Jesus Christ? It is a weighty question for what is at stake is the eternal destiny of those we love. The answer we give to this question will inevitably determine our attitude towards Roman Catholics. We must of course love Catholics, whether they are saved or not. But should we evangelize Roman Catholics? Should we pray for their salvation and seek to explain to them the message of the Gospel of Christ’s death on the cross for our sins? Or should we assume that an active Roman Catholic is already a saved believer and does not need us to evangelize them, but rather should be welcomed as a brother or sister in Christ?
I live and minister in French-speaking Europe[1] and a book has recently been published in French which seeks to answer these key questions. Gordon Margery, a retired OM Missionary who was a pastor in Evangelical churches in France for many years has written a book entitled “Separated brethren, A look at Catholic-Evangelical relations in France”. [2] Margery is very experienced in Catholic-evangelical dialogue at the highest levels in France and is part of a growing group of French evangelicals seeking to build bridges with Roman Catholics in France.
There are useful aspects of Margery’s book. He helpfully corrects some Protestant caricatures of Roman Catholic theology, notably that Rome believes that people are saved by works. Of course, the Roman Catholic doctrine of salvation is more nuanced than that and it is useful for French-speaking Evangelicals to grasp this. Another point which I found very helpful was his insistence that Roman Catholic doctrine has changed. It is just not accurate to say that there have been no changes in Roman Catholic doctrine since the Reformation. When we, as Protestants, engage with Roman Catholics purely on the basis of the anathema that were pronounced at the Council of Trent, we wildly misunderstand the nature of contemporary Roman Catholicism, particularly since Vatican II.
I write this article however, because this book is confusing and very unhelpful on the very topic that it wishes to address, that of Catholic-evangelical relations in France. In a time when fewer and fewer evangelicals in French-speaking Europe are willing to point out the serious and fundamental errors which still exist in Roman Catholic theology, this book will only accelerate that trend. The book’s title sums up the argument of the book. “Separated brethren” was the phrase that was used in the Vatican II Council documents to refer to Protestants in the 1960s.[3] This marked a great shift from previous language used to describe evangelicals and marked a watershed moment in the attitude of the Catholic church towards evangelicals. We were no longer to be considered heretics, but “brothers”, albeit separated from full communion and the epicentre of grace to be found in the sacramental system of the Roman Catholic Church. Margery argues in his book that many of the traditional debates between Roman Catholics and Protestants are no longer relevant and he maintains (in my opinion without sufficient evidence) that we believe the same Gospel. Indeed, he includes the subtitle “Salvation” in the chapter entitled “What we have in common”. Margery admits that there are Roman Catholic doctrines that he finds deeply problematic (notably the Papacy, Mary, the place of Tradition in the Church and the doctrine of the sacraments). However, he wants to persuade his readers that the overarching agreement which he thinks we share with Roman Catholics should lead us as evangelicals to call Roman Catholics “Separated brethren”. Separated because there are still beliefs which separate us. But brethren, because, despite these differences, Margery maintains that we believe the same Gospel and that a majority of Roman Catholics are already saved and do not need to be evangelized.
As a Pastor in French-speaking Europe, it saddens me to see books like this one published. As I speak with my Catholic friends and with Catholic clergy and as I read Roman Catholic theology since Vatican II and listen to Pope Francis, I cannot join Margery and call Roman Catholics my brothers and sisters in Christ. Roman Catholic individuals may well be saved, but they are saved in spite of the official teaching of the Church. I pray that evangelicals in French-speaking Europe would not give up praying for and evangelizing their Catholic friends, neighbours, colleagues and family members.
As evangelicals, we need to heed Margery’s call to better understand contemporary Roman Catholic teaching and practice. We cannot rely on out-dated caricatures and Protestant slogans wielded with little understanding of the nuance of modern Roman Catholicism. But we cannot assume that Roman Catholics are saved, and we must continue to explain the Gospel to them with love, gentleness, patience and care and pray that if they are not saved, God will open their blind eyes to see the true glory of God in the face of Christ.
[1] To be precise, I am a Pastor of a Church in the Belgian town of Louvain-la-Neuve, home to the Université Catholique de Louvain.
[2]Gordon MARGERY, Frères séparés, Regard sur les relations catholiques-évangéliques en France, Charols, Excelsis, 2022, 266 p. This article is a condensed version of a longer review that I wrote for Le Maillon, the Journal of the Institut Biblique de Bruxelles. The longer review is available here: https://www.institutbiblique.be/article?x=freres-separes-separes-oui-freres-pas-si-vite.
[3] See for example Unitatis Reintegratio, Decree on Ecumenism published by the Vatican II Council.
