A New Movement has arisen
led by the most influential leaders of Christendom
In 1994, noted evangelical Chuck Colson and Catholic John Neuhaus and others * brought us "Evangelicals & Catholics Together:The Christian Mission in the Third Millennium" (text). An examination of this document reveals this overall theme: We ought to overlook differences in such unimportant matters as the nature of faith, salvation, and the Church in order to contend together as "Christians" against the social evils that threaten America.
"Evangelicals & Catholics Together (ECT) proposed a unity not based on the New Testament unity of the Spirit where all who are truly born of the Spirit are one in Christ with Him as our head. Nor did it propose a unity of doctrine since the concept of salvation and authority in the Roman church is irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Reformation (and both fall short of the witness of the New Testament). Rather ECT proposed an ecumenism based on opposition to a common enemy. Or once you filter out all the god talk, let's discard the love of the truth for greater political power. You can obfuscate all you want, but this is still the bottom line. Throughout history this has been the infidelity of Israel, seeking the favors of worldly lovers in preference to staying true to God.
Now, on October 13th 2007, the 1953rd anniversary of Nero's ascension to the throne, a group of 138 Islamic scholars, clerics and intellectuals came together for the first time since the days of the Prophet to declare the common ground between Christianity and Islam: A Common Word between Us and You.
"Muslims and Christians together make up well over half of the world’s population. Without peace and justice between these two religious communities, there can be no meaningful peace in the world. The future of the world depends on peace between Muslims and Christians.
The basis for this peace and understanding already exists. It is part of the very foundational principles of both faiths: love of the One God, and love of the neighbor. These principles are found over and over again in the sacred texts of Islam and Christianity. The Unity of God, the necessity of love for Him, and the necessity of love of the neighbor is thus the common ground between Islam and Christianity." (official web site)
The web site lists many positive responses from Christian and Jewish organizations. One response, coming out of Yale university (web site) was signed by such as:
- Leith Anderson, President, National Association of Evangelicals
- Dr. Don Argue, Chancellor, Northwest University, Former President, National Association of Evangelicals, Commissioner, United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
- David Yonggi Cho, Founder and Senior Pastor of Yoido Full Gospel Church, Seoul, Korea
- Rick Warren, Founder and Senior Pastor, Saddleback Church, and The Purpose Driven Life
- Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church
- Jim Wallis, President, Sojourners
- and hundreds of others
This response ends with these words:
“Let this common ground” – the dual common ground of love of God and of neighbor – “be the basis of all future interfaith dialogue between us,” your courageous letter urges. Indeed, in the generosity with which the letter is written you embody what you call for. We most heartily agree....
We are persuaded that our next step should be for our leaders at every level to meet together and begin the earnest work of determining how God would have us fulfill the requirement that we love God and one another. It is with humility and hope that we receive your generous letter, and we commit ourselves to labor together in heart, soul, mind and strength for the objectives you so appropriately propose.
On March 5th 2008, the Vatican agreed to establish "The Catholic-Muslim Forum," the first meeting of which was held in Rome on November 4, 2008.
 July 4th 2009 WASHINGTON — America’s Pastor Rick Warren speaking to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) has proposed a Muslim-Christian partnership to combat bias and prejudices across the world.
"Talk is very cheap. I am not interested in interfaith dialogue; I am interested in interfaith projects."
"This is the time for action; this is the time for civility; this is the time for respecting each other; it’s the time for the common good."
He urged them to be partners in Warren's Global P.E.A.C.E. Plan, working to end "the five global giants" of war, poverty, corruption, disease and illiteracy. "Some problems are so big you have to team to tackle them."
 Brian McLaren joins Muslims to celebrate Ramadan
Brian McLaren of the Emerging Church writes:
"When I wrote Everything Must Change, I spent over a year studying our world’s biggest challenges. It became clear through my research that three critical social/economic/political challenges underlie the others:
1. How can we develop a reformed and renewed economic system that sustains and regenerates the planet rather than consumes and degrades it? (The challenge of the planet, the crisis of an unsustainable prosperity)
2. How can we deal with the growing gap between rich and poor, where a privileged few live in extreme luxury leaving the many farther and farther behind, with about a sixth of the global population living struggling extreme poverty? (The challenge of poverty, the crisis of growing inequity)
3. How can we learn to address and resolve conflicts with nonviolent means, when more and more groups and nations are being armed with more and more potentially catastrophic weapons? (The challenge of peace, the crisis of security)
But it also became clear that beneath these challenges, there was an even deeper question: why weren’t we dealing with the first three problems, when they are simultaneously so obvious and dangerous? I concluded that our societies are driven by narratives that can be either creative or destructive, and our current narratives drive us away from creative engagement with our biggest challenges..." (his web page)
Like Rick Warren with his global P.E.A.C.E. program, McLaren see the needs of the world in worldly terms (social/economic/political) and offers an worldly solution. If the Christian social gospel can not solve the world's problem's on its own, then we need to join with others (Islam) to solve the "three critical social/economic/political challenges:crisis of an unsustainable prosperity,the crisis of growing inequity,the crisis of security." No mention of sin and salvation, no need to be born again, no need for the Cross at all. All we need is gobal interfaith cooperation. Someone tell Jesus He died for nothing!
 What is interesting is the apparent movement toward a Islamo-Christian common ground where the love of God and love of neighbor constitutes the foundation of a new synthesis based on the same pragmatic considerations as Evangelicals & Catholics Together.
So, the ecumenical movement has been eclipsed by a new pan-monotheism. Now all we need is a new christ to transcend Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed; a common messiah for a common word.
Christianity and Islam have been divided for almost 1400 years by one primary issue: who is Jesus Christ.
 Islam confesses that Jesus is a prophet, that He was born of the Virgin Mary, that He is coming again, and that He was the Messiah. Islam denies He died on the cross and rose again and it denies emphatically that He is the begotten Son of God. That should not be a big adjustment for today's Church to make. Just make Jesus the Christ in a New Age sense: the Anointed of God, the one on whom the Spirit of Allah rested. Most Christians would not even understand the difference.
Shoot, the Catechism of the Catholic
Church says this about Islam: "The plan of salvation also includes those who
acknowledge the Creator, in
first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the
faith of Abraham, and
together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on
the last day." (841) Pope John Paul II kissed the Koran which repeatedly declares God has no Son, and Benedict XVI removed his shoes to visit the Dome of the Rock which declares the same. Why be holier than the Pope?
Both men seem to have no problem ignoring the warning of the Apostle John:
Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also. (1 John 2:22,23 NAS)
And Paul warns:
Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy comes first...
(2 Thessalonians 2:3 NAS)
Apostasy (grk apostasia) in the New testament does not denote a mere growing cold or indifferent to Jesus Christ. It denotes a rebellion, an abandonment of Him for another.
Jesus warned of this time when He said, "And brother will deliver brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. And you will be hated by all on account of My name, but the one who endures to the end, he shall be saved."
Many Christians will embrace the antichrist and in their zeal (which they never had for Jesus) they will deliver up even members of their own families to death.
Of course, this possibility of Christians embracing Islam or an Islamic Antichrist is just speculation. But that many will depart from Jesus is a Bible fact. Whether the Beast is Islam or something else is not the real issue, fidelity to Christ is.
"But keep on the alert at all times, praying in order that you may have strength to escape all these things that are about to take place,
and to stand before the Son of Man." (Luke 21:36 NAS)
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