One of the prime movers in the effort to bring Christians together in common cause spoke in Vancouver October 15. Father Richard John Neuhaus explored the topic "Evangelicals, Catholics and Others: Why we Need Each Other," at Robson Square Conference Centre. The event was sponsored by the Centre for Cultural Renewal.

Neuhaus stated that something "unprecedented" has been happening between evangelical Protestants and Catholics, something he called an "ecumenism of the trenches." This phenomenon grew largely out of prolife protests by both groups, he stated. As evangelicals and Catholics "walked, prayed and even went to jail together, they realized their [pro-life] position was only explicable in the faith they held together."

Neuhaus used the term "PanOrthodox alliance" to describe this developing phenomenon. Individuals from various denominational backgrounds are finding themselves in an isolated position within culture, he said, which in turn causes them to realize the aspects of faith which they have in common. He explained that Catholics and evangelicals have found themselves "besieged" as the world of public discourse has become increasingly "cleansed of explicit moral judgments."

However, the "most interesting thing on planet earth" today is the "desecularization" of world history, Neuhaus asserted. "The militantly anti-religious stream of thought entrenched in our textbooks has turned out to be false - not only here, but globally, " he said, pointing to the worldwide resurgence of religion into the "vacuum" of the "naked public square."

It is within this "culture war" context that Catholics and evangelicals have recognized their shared cultural and political tasks, said Neuhaus. He stressed the importance of unity in Christ. He declared that the most controversial element of the 1994 declaration, Evangelicals and Catholics Together: Toward a Common Mission, was the statement "We are brothers and sisters in Christ.""Our co-belligerency has to be grounded in more than cultural goals," he emphasized. "It has to be grounded in a sense of our common obedience to the God of Israel."

The task of the church, he asserted, is to "revivify" politics - which is meant to be the open exchange between mutually respectful citizens.

Neuhaus declared that Christians need to realize that we hold within our beliefs a true tolerance, the belief that we cannot exclude anyone from the public square, because we have a deep understanding that they are made in the image of God.

"God has thrown us together in these experiments in which human future is being formed. This is why we need each other." He added, "We do not know what will happen with our proposal," and recalled Mother Teresa's famous statement that we are called "not to be successful, but to be faithful." Neuhaus concluded with a line from T.S. Eliot: "For us, there is only the trying; the rest is not our business."

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