Catholic Policy

The reason we do not allow Catholics to represent Setting Captives Free in ministry is because their beliefs are at odds with the biblical gospel, as revealed in the 66 books of the Bible. The following letter was written by the executive director of The Setting Captives Free Lord’s Table, Jason Chamberlain, in response to a student’s question, and is helpful in explaining some of the reasons for our position.

Dear friend,

Thank you for sharing your heart about this. From time to time, we get this question regarding our policy on prohibiting Catholics from mentoring. Hopefully I can help you understand our position on this.

As I'm sure you've noticed from the lessons and all the other material on the website, we seek to exalt Christ. We consider His gospel to be precious. In fact, it is life itself. We know that we are dead, apart from His grace in our lives, amen?

In your letter, you stated some of the problems we have with the Catholic Church, but the gospel is really the main one. I'm not sure if you saw it, but on 29 June, 2007, the pope put out a document clarifying the Roman Church's position on how one is justified before God (you can read a great perspective on it here: http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=973). This document reaffirmed the belief of the Catholic Church that it is necessary for someone to keep the Holy Sacraments if one hopes to be saved. However, we take what we believe is the biblical position, that one is justified purely by faith, which is a gift of God (Ephesians 2).

Galatians 1 contains the heart of the conflict:

The official Roman Catholic teaching is that I am accursed for what I believe, because I understand and preach the gospel fundamentally differently than they do. I would say the same thing in the other direction. So, while it is great that there has been some striving toward unity, the gospel is a fundamental issue that cannot, nor should be, ignored.

We understand that not all Catholics believe the same way. However, if anyone wants to identify himself as a Roman Catholic, then we must assume that he recognizes the authority of the church and its position on the gospel. They haven't changed their position on this since the Council of Trent in the 16th century.

Of course, we agree with Catholics on many moral issues. I would say the same thing about Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses. We may end up protesting the same causes, but we probably wouldn't have the same prayer meeting before we do so. How could we, when we have fundamentally opposed views of the gospel?

I hope this helps to clarify our position. We are not as concerned about someone's denomination, as we are about his understanding of the gospel. However, a person's denomination speaks to what he believes.

grace and truth,
Jason Chamberlain
Team Member, http://www.settingcaptivesfree.com