ECUMENISM CANNOT REALLY HELP UNITE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES

ECUMENICAL CONVERSION TRICKS

Ecumenism is different religions coming together in friendship, learning from one another and in working for social justice. Often, they have prayers in common. The chief aim of ecumenism is religious unity.

There is ecumenism that is really just a plot to convert other religions. It seeks religious unity by converting outsiders to the one faith. And there is ecumenism that does not worry about doctrinal differences but just wants different religions to learn from one another and be friends but is not geared towards converting other religions. I call the first Ecumenical Proselytism and the second Ecumenical Indifferentism which considers evangelism unnecessary for one religion is as good as another or at least that other religions are good enough but not as good as the true religion. Ecumenical indifferentists may still continue with evangelism.

Let’s study Ecumenical Proselytism.

Ecumenical Proselytism hopes that when a Church and the other Churches get pally the latter will put down their defences making it easier for the Church to have a go at stealing their sheep. The Roman Catholic Church is the most important force in that kind of ecumenism and no one can doubt that its involvement in ecumenism is just a ploy for bringing all people “home to Rome”. There is a lot of deceit and manipulation in this approach.

The supporters of ecumenical proselytism claim their ecumenism is about charity and love and anti-fanaticism. This is nonsense for they adore a Bible as the word of God himself. This book commands murder and genocide and killing heretics and those who don’t belong to the “true faith” for God commanded it and God must be obeyed for God is never wrong. The Bible is more explicit and clear on this being God’s will than the Koran. The fact that some Christians assume these teachings are the Old Law the Jewish Law and Jesus has given us a new law means nothing for the new law doesn’t forbid these murders. Also Judaism which is the religion of the Old Law is the one true faith. All Christians believe that except they add that their own faith is the fulfilment of Judaism, the completion of the true religion. There are two true religions and you have to belong to the most up to date one which is Christianity. Logically if you can’t get people converted to Christianity you have to advise them to go to Judaism instead. This means that the Christians are claiming that the true faith has the right to kill and stir up religious wars if God commands it for they and Judaism are the one religion except that Christians are up to date. They are taking responsibility for those murders. It also means that Christians if they should give any religion freedom should give it to Judaism and insist that Judaism has its legal rights to stone homosexuals and adulterers and so on. Christianity is a murderous religion in a real sense.

Ecumenical Proselytism is false ecumenism for it isn't founded on charity. The goal of each participating religion is to get other religions to doubt their own teaching and join it. They all condemn doubting their own doctrines as sinful so this ecumenism is just every religion trying to get the rest to sin. Then, infuriatingly, they have the nerve to call sin the worst evil. True charity does not endorse sin. There is no real union between the religions for each one thinks that every religion should be questioned but their own. This ecumenism is just like enemy motley crews all tied together and called a unity. A deceiving religion leads to violence.

If you believe that when people hear the truth the Holy Spirit makes them know that it is true or know they should investigate then this type of ecumenism should not exist simply because it is superfluous. The Spirit wants all to believe in “correct” teaching (1 Timothy 2:4) and according to the Bible faith in the “truth” is a gift from God meaning that God makes you see that the faith is true so if you don’t see it then it is because you haven’t cooperated with him. All get the invitation to believe which means he forces them to believe to let them accept or reject it. Ecumenical Proselytism would be sinful for it is calling the Spirit incompetent.

The mystical knowledge doctrine means that ecumenists of each religion must suspect anyone who knows what their religion teaches of refusing to accept the true religion. It results in a most unecumenical spirit. It seems that the better ecumenism gets the closer it gets to collapse.

The Christian cliché is that faith has nothing to fear from criticism or error. So looking for the truth about God cannot destroy your faith. The unkind arrogance in this attitude is clearly apparent. There are billions of creeds they could believe and they assume that the one they believe can survive any intellectual dissection or assault. That is putting a lot of faith in their own ability to work out what God has said and in the validity of their interpretation of the evidence both pro and con. So that is the false humility that lies behind their noble godliness! The alternative is to hold that the faith is not supported well enough to stand up to criticism so it is necessary to sweep the problems under the carpet and instead of being nice to other religions to try and outnumber and finally destroy them. This approach which is certainly the one the likes of Jesus endorsed is just plain nasty and puts creeds before facts. So whatever approach you make your own it is clear that ecumenism is just like a politician’s smile – false and concerned only with appearances in order to deceive the naive.

ECUMENICAL INDIFFERENTISM

What I call Ecumenical Indifferentism is different religions coming together in friendship and each participating cult not trying to propagate what it terms the truth to the other cults. This kind is clearly stating by its actions that beliefs don’t count no matter what it states vocally or publicly.

The philosophy of this brand of ecumenism is, forget about differences and concentrate on what unites. That says the differences don’t matter. But they do for that is why separate religions exist. If the differences don’t matter then how could the truth matter either? It is evil and insincere to say that truth is only important when other people agree with it. If the differences do matter it is the ecumenical proselytism camp they should be in.

They are saying that the agreements are more important than the disagreements. It is hypocritical to say that some doctrines are more important than others for if God speaks everything he says is important for if one iota is wrong the whole thing is shown to be doubtful.

If you really respect others you will not want them to err.

When a good person thinks they have the truth they will each it to others for it is best to have it. This ecumenism is evil.

Nobody has a valid excuse for not knowing if their religion is false if it is wrong. The thought that it might be untrue crosses every person’s mind at some stage and if they won’t act on this thought and conduct an investigation they are to blame for their error. If ecumenists do not encourage each religion to learn the truth then they are encouraging them to be truth-hating bigot societies. The result? A travesty of unity.

In practice, to implement this ecumenism is to fall into full-blown apostasy. By it you automatically proclaim your religious doctrine dubious for you are making it out to be insignificant. To embrace it is to make a shipwreck of your faith.

A religion that teaches a definite creed and practices pluralism has no right to ask anyone to suffer for it or take it seriously for it is devoid of real faith. It is unfair for different churches to have differing articles of faith and then to lecture people about unity when they see no value in dogma. Different dogmas are divisive so they should all bond together and become anti-dogma.

Each Church makes no great effort to make sure there is unity of belief about faith and morals in itself. Telling people to keep informed is useless for it won’t be done. As long as the Church gets people controlled enough to put money on the collection plate and to advance its power it does not care. It is sinful for a religion to seek a union or other religions to amalgamate with it as one when it is indifferent to truth. The priority is uniting its own in belief. Buddhists know that the world prefers the world to Nirvana so because of these both Christianity and Buddhism cannot have any time for ecumenism. Many other religions are in the same boat.

The Bible warns that the faith comes first and so precautions must always be taken to preserve it from infiltrators who pretend to be disciples but who are really trying to subvert it. The Bible says that the tendency even for Christians is to depart from the faith and destroy it. Obviously, the Bible prefers an atmosphere of division and suspicion to one that puts the faith in danger. It is anti-ecumenical.

Fundamentalists think that the Devil needs to promote pluralist ecumenism to accelerate the corruption of the truth and to work up prejudice against those who love the truth.

Prayers to God offered by pluralist ecumenists would not be pleasing to God as long as they maintain their self-deception.

A religion like the Catholic Church that claims to be the only true Church cannot honestly believe that Protestants can be saved for to say they are in the Church but not in full communion makes membership in the Catholic Church optional. Then there is the problem of it being easier to get saved the less dogmas and moral rules you have for then the clearer your conscience will be. And Rome has enough of both to fill ten dictionaries. Other religions and some Christian sects have very little essential dogma. From this it follows that it is best not to be born a Catholic or to become a Catholic. The Church cannot agree with this. Not only would it imply that God wants everybody to stay out of the true Church but also that Christianity should be abandoned if something simpler comes up. This would challenge the claims of Christ and the divinity of his mission. So if any religion claims to be the true religion there is no way on earth it can get involved in any kind of ecumenism or even wish it could have a good relationship with other religions. The only relationship it can have with them is a hostile and competitive one.

SOCIAL ECUMENISM

If different religions cannot pray together or have any relationship on the religious level can they be friends and work together for the benefit of humankind? It seems that each religion can agree to look for the truth, continue to claim to be the only true religion, protect their members from defecting to other cults, evangelise one another and still be on friendly terms and cooperate in many ventures. This is not ecumenism but just religions tolerating one another.

It is indifferentism for religions to have social projects in common for it means each one is helping to bring new converts in to the other for people are attracted to a religion because of what it does more than by its doctrine. A religion that does that does not care about dogma.

Each cult is best advertised by its good works so each would have to outdo the others in holiness to get converts. If it does not it is into indifferentism. Thus, no cult will engage in social ecumenism because it is just a dog eat dog thing.

Social ecumenism puts material help before helping people to the truth so it would be anti-God in doing that. Every religion has to put faith first.

Some say, “Social Ecumenism is not indifferentism. How can it be when all the religions participate? Each one is recommending itself and not itself and the rest for the people can’t convert to them all. They are doing the same good works.”

But when it is actions that speak not dogmas they are encouraging other religions to get converts when any religion that pretends to be sincere will have to try and grab these people for itself. Each religion may mean to offer itself but in practice this cannot happen. It will not mean to do that for long.

Why would religion want to help others in union with other religions when it can do it on its own? The reason must be for the promotion of Ecumenical Indifferentism or Ecumenical Proselytism both of which are unacceptable. But their being wrong will be of no consequence to the religions which participate for they just want to delude the world into thinking that they are nice and friendly and warm to outsiders.

The Church of Christ states bluntly that though Christians are commanded to do good to everybody on earth (Galatians 6:10) Christians must help their own in preference to helping outsiders. See the booklets Church Supported Orphan Homes and Marching Feet and Sounding Trumpets. From them we learn the following. The Bible never says that the Church must have hospitals and orphan homes. But it does say that the Church must evangelise. The Church did raise money for the poor Christians in the Bible but it gave it to them to look after themselves. It did not give it for the creation of homes and hospitals. Scripture never authorises the Church to give funds to outsider organisations to help others be they Christian or not. The Church of Christ says that the rule to help all applies to the individual Christians and not the Church which is only to help itself.

CONCLUSION

Ecumenism is frequently just a cynical scam to nab members from sister Churches and to promote the harm Christianity would enforce on us all through Churches uniting against secularism. It seeks to do good public relations for the Churches by blurring the plainness of the scandal of disunity. When ecumenism isn’t that, what it is, is an attempt to convert all religions to indifferentism to some degree. When it is not the full-blown denial that belief matters it might take the form of believing that one religion might be the best and only true one and then saying that other religions are good enough. In all its forms, ecumenism is contrary to the command of Christ to regard your Christianity as the fullness of divine truth and to keep away from other influences. The Church says that Christ gave his life to promote and sanction and advertise the truth and that God valued truth so much that he died for it.