Position Statement of Grace Community Church regarding the Doctrine of Justification and Ecumenical Movements
Grace Community Church rejects the following documents that do not confess the Gospel of grace but declare a gospel of ecumenical unity that will only bring greater division within the evangelical church.
"Evangelicals and Catholics Together" (ECT I); "The Gift of Salvation" (ECT II) Since the evangelical signers and drafters of ECT I and ECT II have not formally responded to the resolution passed at the 1999 Ex-Catholics for Christ (ECFC) conference which called for them to "publicly renounce the ECT accords and ask the church at large for forgiveness for their past participation in these accords," Grace Community Church also rejects the credibility of the following document: "The Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration" Indeed, the Roman Catholic Church has clearly delineated the parameters of her agenda in the "Decree on Ecumenism." "For those who have been seduced (consciously or unconsciously) by the false lexis regarding the doctrine of justification expressed in the North American documents ?Evangelicals and Catholics Together' and ?The Gift of Salvation,' and the European Lutheran-Roman Catholic document, ?The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification,' [Recognizing the emotional power evoked by abortion and many other evils in this world, Christians may genuinely sympathize with the motivations of those who have written and endorsed these documents, but if the church desires to honor and love God in accordance with His Word, Christians cannot allow worthy emotions to generate disregard and/or forsaking of biblical truth] which are both written and endorsed by those who speak of a unity that does not exist . . . and, in the interest of organizational unity [For example, Jesus' prayer in John 17 was certainly answered. John 17:21 was a prayer "that they [the church] may all be one [Body]" and not a prayer for ecumenical (organizational) unity], are willing to create and encourage compromise between the doctrines of Roman Catholicism (thereby ignoring the reasons for the Protestant Reformation) and biblical Christianity (based upon all the inspired and inerrant propositional truth, and logical implications, of Scripture as the sole epistemological criterion for truth) by not accurately representing the beliefs it attempts to make compatible. The ecumenical documents (as with the Promise Keepers credo) require Rome to compromise nothing, while the biblical doctrine of justification by grace through faith in the atoning death of Christ alone is either disregarded or forsaken. Stand boldly, therefore, Christian, against those who are ?are not straightforward about the truth of the gospel' (Gal. 2:14)" [Ron J. Bigalke Jr., "The Theory of Sacrifice in the Mass," The Conservative Theological Journal (May-June 2006): 73-74].
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