Alaska Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell — a Catholic and parishioner at Holy Family Cathedral in Anchorage — invites a group of Evangelical Protestants to his home to plan the first steps for a ballot initiative requiring parental notice on minors’ abortions. From a dais in front of large crowd, a Catholic Dominican priest in white habit leads the opening prayer for Alaska Right to Life’s convention — a group lead by Evangelical Protestants. Such scenes of Catholic-Protestant collaboration in Alaska and around the nation are more common than one might imagine.
For 500 years, since the rupture of Christian history by the Protestant Reformation, Catholics and Protestants have been on opposite sides of a theological battlefield. Now they are joining arms on some of society’s greatest moral debates — abortion, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, to name a few.
“While they were carrying on these [theological] battles, just a few decades ago, they found out that…the whole social and moral scene had collapsed,” Catholic attorney Bob Flint of Anchorage told the Catholic Anchor in an interview. “The world changed,” he said.
Working across congregations is critical, according to local Christian activists. “We’re under the gun,” Flint explained. “We’re immersed in an aggressive, secular culture that means to push their agenda through on basic social organization like marriage and basic moral issues like the life of people — the old and the very young — and we have to get together.”
“We look for allies, because we need them,” he explained, especially in “big, diverse” Alaska where “Christians are a minority.”
Discovering brothers and sisters-in-arms in different denominations can be an unexpected blessing, added Corrie Schulze, an Evangelical Protestant who has participated in the bi-annual 40 Days for Life pro-life vigil in Anchorage.
“Sometimes we look to our left and right and are surprised who we see,” Schulze said.
‘WE ARE ALL CATHOLICS NOW’
The interreligious collaboration evident here mirrors a broader phenomenon — a response to a growing number of attacks on the sanctity of human life and religious liberty across the nation. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) tracks numerous examples affecting Christians of all stripes. For instance, the cities of Boston, San Francisco and the District of Columbia have forced local Catholic Charities out of providing adoption or foster care by revoking licenses or ending government contracts because the charities refused to place children with same-sex couples or cohabiting opposite-sex couples. And New York City has barred religious groups from renting public school space for services, though non-religious groups can rent for other purposes.
These smoldering fires turned into a flashpoint for Catholics and Evangelicals in January 2012 when under the Affordable Care Act — otherwise known as Obamacare — President Obama’s Health and Human Services Administration issued a mandate requiring that employers, through their health insurance policies, pay for employees’ sterilizations and contraceptives, including those that cause abortions — even when it contravenes their conscience.
The USCCB quickly issued its protest and urged Catholics around the country to do the same. Some Evangelical Protestant congregations and organizations began to speak out, too. A month after the administration’s announcement, before a crowd at the national Conservative Political Action Conference, the Southern Baptist pastor and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee declared solidarity by saying, “We are all Catholics now.”
A number of Catholic dioceses, religious congregations and colleges took the Obama Administration to court — and some Evangelical-run colleges, groups and businesses did the same. Altogether there have been over 100 suits against the mandate. This June, Catholics and Evangelicals rejoiced when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that the federal government could not force two of those Christian-run businesses — Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties — to pay for abortifacients.
COMING TOGETHER IN ALASKA
Anchorage Attorney Bob Flint started seeing Catholics and Protestants come together on such moral issues in the 1990s when he and others worked on passing a constitutional amendment stating that Alaska recognized only a marriage between one man and one woman.
On Nov. 3, 1998, the ballot measure passed by public referendum — 68 to 32 percent.
“Nothing will bring two warring brothers together faster than an attack on one or the other by someone outside of the family,” explained Dave Bronson, Evangelical Protestant co-founder and current Board Chair of Alaska Family Council, an affiliate of the national Focus on the Family, an Evangelical Protestant public policy organization. Flint is one of two Catholics on Alaska Family Council’s board. The group joined forces with Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz and his flock in 2010 to support a ballot initiative to require abortion providers to notify a parent before performing an abortion on a minor child. It passed with 56 percent of the vote. At the time, the group’s director, Jim Minnery, told the Catholic Anchor the Catholic Church “played a crucial role in our success,” and he praised Archbishop Schwietz for his “decisive leadership.” Parishes helped gather signatures for the ballot measure and Alaska’s Knights of Columbus raised over $80,000 for radio and TV ads.
Recognizing a threat to the free exercise of conscience, local Catholic and Protestant Christians came together in 2009 and 2011 to defeat attempts to add “sexual orientation” to factors like race, color, sex and religion already on the books barring discrimination in the provision of goods and services. According to precedents elsewhere and legal analyses, it meant that a Protestant Christian school could be sued for not hiring a homosexual activist who says he is also a Christian. And the Catholic Knights of Columbus could be sued for refusing to rent its hall for lesbian-gay-bisexual-transgender social mixers.
St. Benedict parishioners Ann and Jim Curro have observed this new, growing cooperation between Christians. For 25 years, the Curros have volunteered in pro-life work. They serve as the Alaska Knights of Columbus Pro-Life Couple, keeping the Knights around the state apprised of pro-life events and legislation of import. Each year, they organize an interdenominational prayer service at the Anchorage cemetery, a solemn marking of the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1972 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion on demand across the country.
“Through the years, we have had more and more cooperation from those of other religions to be a part of the prayer service,” Ann Curro observed.
“We have noticed a substantial increase in non-Catholics at the prayer service,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Curros have been fostering good relationships with Alaska Right to Life, run by Evangelical Protestants, and pro-life pregnancy centers around the state. Jim Curro keeps them updated on resources for pregnant women in need and contact information on legislators making policies that affect them and their unborn babies. Alaska Right to Life passes that information out at the Alaska State Fair every year.
WHAT CHANGED?
So what changed from a generation or two ago to allow for greater interfaith collaboration on the pressing moral debates? Ann Curro believes it has been a movement from both sides.
“There was a real opening up with the different Protestant sects to agree on this particular issue and the way we go about it,” she said. Also, Catholics are better emphasizing that “we are there to be of help” than they have expressed in the past, she believes. At the same time, Curro said that Evangelical Protestants are aligning with Catholics — most notably and recently on end-of-life issues — because “Catholics are more willing to be out there in explaining what the church’s stance is on it, where a few years ago, they didn’t. Catholics have become more vocal, but in a compassionate way.”
Evangelical Protestant Dave Bronson of Alaska Family Council believes that greater understanding among the laity about each other’s religions has helped bring Catholics and Protestants together on the moral issues. He believes that has come about through a “more plural and mobile society” that allows the groups to interact more than was the case a few generations ago.
“It also helps that with modern media Protestants are able to see first hand and in real time that the pope is not some grand evil puppeteer trying to take over the world, but a good man trying to do a difficult job well,” he added.
TEAMWORK IS ALWAYS GOOD
To be sure, plurality shows at the Community Pregnancy Center (CPC) in Anchorage, an organization that provides free counseling, ultrasounds and material assistance to help pregnant mothers. It’s headed by Bill Donovan and Heidi Navarro, both Evangelical Protestants — and both with Catholic in-laws. Sometimes pregnant moms in need are referred there by Catholic Social Services, an arm of the Anchorage Archdiocese; in turn, CPC’s Protestant counselors refer adoption-minded pregnant moms to Catholic Social Services.
Donovan and Navarro believe it’s important for Catholics and Protestants to work together on the moral issues.
“This is not just a political hot-button issue,” Donovan said. “It’s not a social issue to us either. It’s a moral core value that life begins at conception, and we want to protect that life.”
“Teamwork is always a good idea,” added Navarro, “because you get the best of who you have, like your best attorneys or your best politicians who stand firm on moral issues and who aren’t afraid to take a punch on the chin if they need to.”
Corrie Schulze believes there’s a broader purpose in working together. The Evangelical Protestant prayed, fasted and kept vigil during the 40 Days for Life campaign in Anchorage in 2012 and 2013, and served as point of contact for the Protestant community. The 40 Days for Life campaign is a worldwide effort to provide a prayerful, pro-life presence outside abortion facilities, like Planned Parenthood’s, to help women choose life for their unborn babies.
“It is not inherently important to work together on these issues just for the sake of cleaning up our culture or resolving issues and to then go back to our respective doctrinal corners to resume comfortable lives,” Schulze explained. It’s important to work together because “it is the will of God to express his love to the world.”
CATHOLIC CHURCH’S UNIQUE STRENGTH
Catholic and Evangelical activists agreed that with its worldwide presence and unified head — namely the pope — the Catholic Church has unique strength in addressing the moral issues.
The myriad individual Protestant congregations “have trouble speaking with one voice,” explained Bob Flint. In contrast, he noted that in the debates over the marriage amendment in the ‘90s and more recently on parental notification and sexual orientation, the Catholic bishops’ public statements had a “powerful impact” and were “very influential.”
Dave Bronson added that “the Catholic Church brings much needed corporate organization and discipline to any effort. If Alaska Family Council needs to get something done, such as support for pro-life or marriage legislation, we only need to call a local priest, and we are confident that the message will get to leadership in short order for a decision.”
But the group has to appeal to Protestant congregations one at a time, a cumbersome process, Bronson noted.
Moreover, he said the Catholic Church brings “intellectual gravitas” to the more complicated debates.
“Once the church articulates a position our opponents can disagree with that position but they know they can’t question the facts as established by the author.”
BRIDGING THE THEOLOGICAL GAP?
Despite the increasing solidarity between Catholics and Evangelicals on the moral debates, there are still centuries of major theological differences between them. Can collaborating on moral concerns help Christians bridge the theological chasm?
“There will always be those theological differences,” CPC’s Bill Donovan said.
Flint replied: “I would say, ‘no,’ but maybe a qualified ‘no.’” He and fellow board members at Alaska Family Council “don’t sit around talking about the Reformation split.” Still, Flint noted that in formulating its statement of faith, AFC board members initially landed on one based on “Sola Scriptura,” the Protestant notion that Christian faith is based on Scripture alone, failing to acknowledge Sacred Tradition and the teaching magisterium of the church that through the power of Christ interprets Scripture. That would have excluded Catholics and Orthodox Christians. They finally adopted the Nicene Creed — the basic foundation of Christian belief and basic theological statement of the Catholic Church.
“We weren’t sitting there arguing the merits, but we were just trying to put together a group that would go forward on these common issues,” Flint explained.
Protestant Corrie Schulze is confident that cooperating Christians are bridging the theological gap, but urged clarity about the end-game: “The goal is not unity in the limited human understanding that simply imbues a warm, fuzzy feeling for each other.” And there are misconceptions to hurdle. “I have found a general lack of knowledge and understanding about what it even means to be a Protestant amongst most of my Evangelical counterparts,” she said. “They are not thinking about these great dividing issues. They know little of church and Reformation history,” she said. “But they are often laboring under false ideas about Catholicism.”
Schulze believes collaboration can dispel the misinformation with most and has the potential to “nudge others to acceptance.”
In fact, the experience of sharing the sidewalk with Catholics during the 40 Days for Life vigil has been clarifying for Schulze. Across the vigil, she became friends with then campaign director Megan Walsted, a Catholic. Afterwards, Walsted and Schulze together took their children to Catholic Family Story Time at Holy Family Cathedral and attended the monthly book club, led by a Dominican priest.
Schulze said the priest “changed my mind about things,” namely “the possibilities of deeper fellowship between Catholics and someone as staunchly Protestant as myself. I always felt a warm reception even as I knew we did not share the same doctrinal convictions.”
At some point, Schulze was spending more time with Catholics than her fellow Protestants — time she considers “a special journey of faith” that “grew me and opened my heart to possibilities of unity.”
'Catholic & Protestant groups come together on common cultural causes'
Be the first to comment on this post!has no comments