by Alexei Laushkin

The call to unity is right out of the scriptures (Ephesians 14, John 17, Psalm 133) . It’s re-enforced out of our liturgies and our worship.

In the past few years Kingdom Mission Society has partnered with Glenmary Home Missioners to host a dialogue between Evangelicals and Catholics. The heart of this dialogue, and the fruit of our labor, is a document called “The Gift of Being Christian Together,” a single-page statement that is now being recommended for study by the U.S. bishops’ committee on ecumenical affairs. It is a work that humbly thanks God for the gift of being made into Christians through Jesus’ saving Cross, His Resurrection, and the sending of the Holy Spirit.

This work, this statement, is not about ignoring our differences. Nor is it about one church being absorbed into another. Instead, it offers a path forward for greater unity as we journey and work together on the way of Christ, recognizing the faith present in another.

Our dialogue began with what seemed like a ridiculously simple question: “How do we, Evangelicals and Catholics, see one another as Christian?”

I can imagine a laugh or a shrug from many of you reading this. Of course, we are all Christian! But to hurry past the question is to miss the decades—centuries, even—of division, mistrust, and theological accusations that have plagued our communities. As our dear friend and brother, Nathan Smith of Glenmary Home Missioners, shared with me, families are still being torn apart by one Christian telling another that they are “not Christian” simply because of their tradition. Our divisions are a daily reality, a living testament to the wounds we have inflicted upon one another, a scandal that we are all called to heal. The document itself puts it plainly: “We repent of all absences of familial love between Evangelicals and Catholics, among which has been the theologically dubious claim that either Evangelicals or Catholics are not Christians.”

Our group of theologians and pastors came from six traditions—Catholic, Methodist, Reformed, Wesleyan, Anglican, and Free Church—and we sought to address this wound head-on. We gathered in two remarkable places that, for me, symbolize the very heart of the unity we seek.

First, we met at St. Meinrad Archabbey, a Benedictine monastery in Indiana. For many of my Evangelical colleagues, this was a whole new world. In many ways, it was an encounter with the roots of our shared faith—the prayers of the monks, the stillness, the tradition that shapes a common past and insights to be offered into the present.

A year later, we convened at Asbury Theological Seminary, a place that had just experienced the “Asbury Outpouring,” a completely unplanned, weeks-long revival of prayer and repentance. For our Catholic participants, and indeed for us all, this was a profoundly new experience—a pilgrimage into a space hallowed by the raw, unplanned presence of the Holy Spirit. We heard the stories of students and felt the power of a modern-day movement reminiscent of the early legacies of John Wesley and Francis Asbury.

Central to our work was to acknowledge this experiential reality of faith. As Nathan shared with me, an elder bishop once told him that the great shift in ecumenism was moving the question from church structure to “our own experience of Jesus.” In the quiet prayers of the monks and the spontaneous worship of the students, we experienced another’s love for Christ, and this became our new starting point.

Through our conversations, we found our dialogue drawing out the implications of this perspective by centering on one powerful word: attunement.

How do our communities—how do we as individuals—continually attune ourselves to the image of Christ? This is the deeper, more profound question that emerged. It is the flowering of that experiential shift. The document, “The Gift of Being Christian Together,” is a testament to this shared commitment. It highlights how faith is a gift through “Jesus’ saving Cross, His Resurrection, and the sending of the Spirit” and recognizes that even with our “substantial” liturgical and doctrinal differences, we presume “a shared, even if contested commitment to Christ.”

We ended the statement with a call to repentance for our failures to recognize the faith of the other, particularly the martyrs who, as Pope Francis has said, share in an “ecumenism of blood.” This is a somber but necessary recognition, particularly for us who are engaged in peacemaking and justice efforts around the globe, and for our brothers and sisters in places like Nigeria, Congo, Nicaragua, and India who face persecution. Their ultimate witness is a common bond that shames our divisions.

The reception has been a true gift. In addition to the recommendation from the U.S. bishops, Evangelical groups have endorsed the document, it has been translated into French for a study group in Switzerland, and I have even received unexpected emails and notes of encouragement from Catholics and Evangelicals.

This is the power of being Christian together. It is not something that can be mandated by one or two. It is a work of the Holy Spirit, often experienced first-hand, that compels us to move past our divisions and desire greater unity with those whose faith in Christ we can actually see. This is why our final call is a communal one, echoing Christ’s own prayer in John 17: “that the world would know that he was sent from the Father for the redemption of all creation.” Our unity is a witness to the world, a powerful sign of God’s reconciling love.”

Let us pray that this desire only continues to grow. Learn more about the work here.

Ways to Get Involved:

• Endorse the Document: We invite all Christians to read and endorse the full statement on our website (here).
• Host a Study Group: Download the study guide and begin a conversation between your own church and the churches in your city, neighborhood, and village.