“The Protestant world will learn what the purposes of Rome really are, only when it is too late to escape the snare. She is silently growing into power. Her doctrines are exerting their influence in legislative halls, in the churches, and in the hearts of men. She is piling up her lofty and massive structures, in the secret recesses of which her former persecutions will be repeated. Stealthily and unsuspectedly she is strengthening her forces to further her own ends when the time shall come for her to strike” (The Great Controversy, 581).
On November 23, 2023, the Catholic magazine The Tablet published an article claiming that Protestants and Evangelicals are nearly indistinguishable from one another. Today, Protestants not only share many fundamental beliefs with Roman Catholics, such as Sunday worship, but they also share many styles of worship, liturgy, and social works and have similar views on authority and tradition.
The Protestant clergyman who authored the article for the Catholic magazine stated the following:
• “Catholicity means wholeness – a ‘thick’ concept of wholeness applied to the Christian faith, life, and Church. It is in this wholeness sense that when we recite the Creed, we confess our belief in ‘one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.’ It is in this wholeness sense that the English Reformers claimed (and we in the Church of England today still claim) that the Church of England is part of the Catholic Church.” [1]
• “But ‘catholic’ is not a dirty word: it is a wonderful, sacred word and concept that evangelicals – if they are true to the ecclesial vision of the English Reformers – should treasure, protect, and seek to prosper.” [1]
• “In my chapter in God’s Church for God’s World, I make the case that the Church of England has – however imperfectly – conserved the Catholic canon of Scripture, confessed the Catholic creed, taken part in the Catholic conversation (the Great Tradition flowing from the Fathers through the Doctors of the Church), been guided by the Catholic conscience (upholding the univocal moral vision of the Christian tradition), respected the Catholic cultus (pattern of worship), preserved the Catholic connection (upholding the unity of the church through episcopacy), and ministered within the Catholic circumference (the visible church of all the baptized). The catholic and reformed ecclesiology and method of the English Reformers is a coherent and compelling vision for the Church that safeguards evangelicalism from the spiritual, theological, and missional narrowness to which it can be otherwise susceptible.” [1]
• “Evangelicals should remain in the Church of England for catholic reasons. The Church of England helps keep evangelicals Catholic, and evangelicals help keep the Catholic Church of England evangelical. If ‘Evangelexit’ were to occur, it would inevitably be into churches that are less Catholic than the Church of England. That would be to the detriment of the spiritual health of the evangelical Anglican movement itself, and of the nation as a whole.” [1]
Here we have a member of the Protestant clergy stating in a Catholic publication that we are all Catholics regardless of whether you go to a Catholic or Protestant church. Protestantism is becoming more and more like Rome every day—in terms of appearances, words, actions, characteristics, and faith. The Bible is becoming less meaningful and valuable in our day and age as Protestantism becomes more and more allied with the Catholic Church. This is causing many Protestants to reject the fundamental principle of “Sola Sriptura,” the idea that the Bible is the inspired source of religious authority and the ultimate guide for faith and practice.
What Protestants are doing today is helping to heal the deadly wound. They are fulfilling Bible prophecy, which says:
“The professed Protestant world will form a confederacy with the man of sin, and the church and the world will be in corrupt harmony. Here the great crisis is coming upon the world. The Scriptures teach that popery is to regain its lost supremacy, and that the fires of persecution will be rekindled through the timeserving concessions of the so-called Protestant world” (Bible Commentary, Vol. 9, p. 975).
We are seeing the final chapter of the Reformation as strange events both in the religious and secular worlds unfold before our eyes. The religious stage is being set. Almost all the churches have united. The Roman Catholic Church has apparently had the most to gain from the atmosphere of ecumenism. The entire world is being wooed to join the great apostate fellowship found in Revelation 13, 17, and 18.
The 500 years of rich Protestant history have been rejected, cast down, and “trodden under foot” (Daniel 8:14) as more and more Reformation churches line up to embrace their mother, Rome. Protestants used to reject the Pope’s claims of infallibility and supremacy as blasphemous during the Reformation era. They broke away from Rome because of her false doctrines. And what doctrines have changed in Catholicism since then? None.
The Papacy today still claims primacy and universal supremacy as the Vicar of Christ on earth! Rome has never repudiated any of her doctrines. This event is a shameful betrayal of the Protestant Reformers and was predicted in Bible prophecy.
“And all the world wondered after the beast.” Revelation 13:3.
Pope Francis has done more than any previous Pope to unite Protestants and Catholics. One must grasp the magnitude of what is happening before our eyes: the complete surrender of the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
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The reference site given is not the correct one, or I am missing something. The date of the Tablet from the link is November 21, not November 23. Here is a good link.
https://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/2615/how-evangelicals-can-be-catholic-and-the-catholic-church-evangelical
Yes, We have updated the correct link. Thank you.
“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.” Mark 1:15.
The church that holds to the word of God is irreconcilably separated from Rome. Protestants were once thus apart from this great church of apostasy, but they have approached more nearly to her, and are still in the path of reconciliation to the Church of Rome. Rome never changes. Her principles have not altered in the least. She has not lessened the breach between herself and Protestants; they have done all the advancing. But what does this argue for the Protestantism of this day? It is the rejection of Bible truth which makes men approach to infidelity. It is a backsliding church that lessens the distance between itself and the Papacy. – ST February 19, 1894
It is souls like Luther, Cranmer, Ridley, Hooper, and the thousands of noble men who were martyrs for the truth’s sake, who are the true Protestants. They stood as faithful sentinels of truth, declaring that Protestantism is incapable of union with Romanism, but must be as far separated from the principles of the Papacy as is the east from the west. Such advocates of truth could no more harmonize with “the man of sin” than could Christ and his apostles. In earlier ages the righteous felt that it was impossible to affiliate with Rome, and, though their antagonism to this system of error was maintained at risk of property and life, yet they had courage to maintain their separation, and manfully struggled for the truth. Bible truth was dearer to them than wealth, honor, or even life itself. They could not endure to see the truth buried under a mass of superstition and lying sophistry. They took the word of God in their hands, and raised the standard of truth before the people, boldly declaring that which God had revealed unto them through diligent searching of the Bible. They died the cruelest of deaths for their fidelity to God, but by their blood they purchased for us liberties and privileges that many who claim to be Protestants are easily yielding up to the power of evil. But shall we yield up these dearly bought privileges? Shall we offer insult to the God of heaven, and, after he has freed us from the Romish yoke, again place ourselves in bondage to this antichristian power? Shall we prove our degeneracy by signing away our religious liberty, our right to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience? – ST February 19, 1894
Satan’s masterpiece of deception is popery; and while it has been demonstrated that a day of great intellectual darkness was favorable to Romanism, it will also be demonstrated that a day of great intellectual light is also favorable to its power; for the minds of men are concentrated on their own superiority, and do not like to retain God in their knowledge. Rome claims infallibility, and Protestants are following in the same line. They do not desire to search for truth and go on from light to a greater light. They wall themselves in with prejudice, and seem willing to be deceived and to deceive others. – ST February 19, 1894
But though the attitude of the churches is discouraging, yet there is no need of being disheartened; for God has a people who will preserve their fidelity to his truth, who will make the Bible, and the Bible alone, their rule of faith and doctrine, who will elevate the standard, and hold aloft the banner on which is inscribed, “The commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.” They will value a pure gospel, and make the Bible the foundation of their faith and doctrine. – ST February 19, 1894