Last Friday was the March for Life in Washington, D.C. I went with Penn State Students for Life, a club I’m in at school. Someone paid for us to go with a pro-life group from Centre County, PA. The funnest part was building relationships, especially since the bus ride was three and a half hours each way.
Most of the members of Penn State Students for Life are Catholic and I am Protestant. We discussed many spiritual issues, not just our differences. Some of the stuff he had to way was deep. All Christians could agree with it. I saw these Catholics as brothers and sisters in Christ.
There is less of a strained relationship between Catholics and Protestants. There has been some improvement. Christians still need to do some work to improve the relationships.
Part of the problem with relationships between denominations is ignorance. We believe stereotypes about other denominations. Here’s an example. I’m Pentacostal and my best friend is Presbyterian. Non-Pentacostals think there is a lot of speaking in toungues at a Pentacostal church. You might be surprised by how little I’ve seen people speaking in tongues at church.
We also don’t fully understand the theology of other denominations. I’ve discussed predestination with my Presbyterian friend. Pesbyterians are strong supporters of predestination. I didn’t find it logical, but didn’t think that it was a major issue. Predestination seemed to have a conflict with free will and God’s desire for everybody to be saved. If God wanted everybody to be saved, why would he only choose some people. God decides to save everyone, but a person must choose to accept that gift. My friend agreed with those points, but said that God already knows who will accept the gift, therefore having predetermined who he will save. I then realized that that form of predestination is quite logical.
That uniting of Christians of different denominations is powerful. It is often done by working with non-profit organizations. It happens between Catholics and Protestants in the pro-life movement. In fact, it is one of my favorite parts of the pro-life movement.
In Christ,
James Tuttle
