What Is Ecumenical Jihad?

Our question this week is, "What do you think of the book, Ecumenical Jihad, by Peter Kreeft and the endorsements by leading evangelicals on the back?"

Dave:

Well, Ecumenical Jihad, is an interesting title. Jihad, of course, is a religious war that loosens--it’s their only way of getting to heaven really. Being sure you die in Jihad.

Tom:

Wait a minute. I had somebody write to us with a correction. They said the other way for a Muslim to get to heaven is to die on his way to Mecca or on a religious pilgrimage.

Dave:

That could be, yeah. But he is out for ecumenism and he’s working very hard for it. First of all, Peter Kreeft, Dr. Kreeft is a philosophy professor at Boston University, which is a Catholic university. He was a former evangelical supposedly, he’s a convert to Catholicism. He’s written a number of books, some of them have been published by Intervarsity Press and in his books he even acknowledges--he says that he asks his Catholic students--these are university students now, they are Roman Catholics. They have been raised in Catholicism, they have gone through catechism, grammar school, junior high and high school and now they are in a Catholic university. He says he asks them how they hope to get to heaven. And he says almost all of them don’t have a clue. He says most of them don’t even mention Jesus. He doesn’t tell us what all they say about how Mary will get them there or what. But you were a Catholic, and you can imagine many of the ideas these people would have. But now he wants to bring all religions together. Ecumenism, we used to think of it as the Methodist, Presbyterian and so forth will all get together. The World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches, that was an ecumenical movement to bring all of the denominations back together. The Catholics were never a part of it. In their wildest imagination they never thought of Buddhists, Muslims and Hindus and so forth being involved. So this is pretty much what Peter Kreeft is advocating here in this book.

Tom:

Dave, let me just back up just a second. These young Catholics, his students, these he’s interviewing, what does he say? I mean, he was an evangelical and now he is a Roman Catholic, what does he recommend, what is he suggesting?

Dave:

Well, as a former Catholic you know that really isn’t all that serious so long as you are in the church. You’ve been baptized and you go to mass and you’re ingesting the body, the blood of Jesus, you know, each Sunday and you’re involved in sacraments and you’re okay. So he’s sort of bemoaning that they don’t understand the basis of their faith. But as you would know, this is not their faith. They don’t believe in the evangelical gospel, salvation by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone. They don’t believe that but as a former Protestant, I don’t know that he was an evangelical. He at least had some understanding, some concern.

Tom:

So this book lays out that premise, that thesis of ecumenism and the concern here of this writer, the person who wrote to us with the question, is we have evangelicals endorsing it.

Dave:

Well, Kreeft, first of all, is one of the Catholic signers of ECT and ECT2, Evangelicals and Catholics Together. So he’s in there on the same page with Colson, Packer, Bill Bright, Pat Robertson and other evangelical leaders and, in fact, this book is endorsed by two of them, J. I. Packer, and Chuck Colson. On page 96, this is Ecumenical Jihad, now, he has Confucius, quote: "In the outskirts of heaven, the place you call purgatory on the way to heaven, the Catholic way of course, through purgatory. Buddha and Mohammed are already in heaven--that’s pages 96 through lll, that I am quoting from---having been God’s prophets all along and many of their followers. Mohammed for example, he hopes that most of his pious followers will make it--that’s page 105. They are also Crypto-Christians--he says that Gorbachev is a Crypto-Christian. Now, I have studied cryptography. Cryptography is a secret message so I presume this would be a secret Christian. They don’t even know that they are Christians themselves. Gorbachev doesn’t know that he’s a Christian, in fact he claims to be an atheist. Kreeft considers these guys, Buddha, Mohammed and Confucius and so forth to be Crypto-Christians. In fact, he says Buddha and Mohammed are already in heaven and they will be around the throne of the Lamb. This is the Lamb of God that they rejected, that they didn’t know. Jesus said: Whoever climbs up another way, tries to climb up another way is a thief and a robber. He’s not going to get there but Peter Kreeft has them getting there. Mohammed of course, the reason Mohammed, he’s sure is in heaven already, is because of his veneration of Mary. She is mentioned 34 times in the Koran and he speaks of these pagans, pagan religious leaders, as being: "Closer in spirit to the touchstone of Catholic truth than most Protestants."

Tom:

We would agree with that but not closer to God’s Word.

Dave:

He suggests that there is: "A hidden Christ in Hinduism"--- you’ll find that on pages 156 to 160--"and a hidden Christ in other pagan religions and that pagans and even atheists and agnostics may be secret believers in Jesus without knowing it." Finally, he opts for Teilhard de Chardin’s idea that the transubstantiation affected by Catholic priests in the Eucharist is inexorably transforming the entire universe into one giant, cosmic Eucharistic Christ, (you find that on page 158) and that ultimately everyone including even evangelicals will be united in the Eucharist and in Mary, (you would get that on pages 145 through 155). Now this is about as outrageous as you could possibly get, as much opposed--you know, Jesus said, the disciples asked him, Master, are there many that be saved? Jesus said: Very few. Strive to enter into the strait gate, for strait that means "type" in the Old English, "...strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it for broad is the road that leads to destruction and many there be that go in there at." And in contradiction in the face of the clear words of Jesus Christ who ought to know, Peter Kreeft says, No, they are all going to make it. Tom, here’s how ridiculous it is. It’s like saying that Kruschev was a Crypto-Republican. It’s like saying that Mao Tse-tung was really at his heart a Democrat. I mean, that’s so ludicrous and he didn’t even know it but what he really espoused was democracy and yet these vicious dictators--now, what is most shocking is then how can J. I. Packer and Charles Colson give their enthusiastic stamp of approval on the back cover of this book?

Tom:

You see, the responsibility, I mean, even if you say, well, these men had their reasons. If they are going to put their name on something it’s going to advance the book, the cause, the view, whatever it might be and they are leading believers down this path.

Dave:

And they are leading non-believers to remain in their unbelief and their false religions and they are going to be okay in the end. That’s deadly.