Is Christian Dialog Possible?

The Vatican said on Tuesday that Christian denominations outside Roman Catholicism were not full churches of Jesus Christ. Several days this week I had a frustrating dialog about this news and the topic of Roman Catholic communion with Therese at the From the Morning blogsite. Today I read few articles (below) and thought about my dialog with Therese a bit more.

In this article Pope Shenouda III, the head of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox church, criticised Pope Benedict saying his pride in Catholicism was making him enemies. He went on to say:

"The man (Pope Benedict) makes enemies every time. In his first statements a few months back, he lost all the Muslims. And now this time, he lost a lot of the Christian denominations because he has begun to err against Christians themselves," Shenouda told the state-run daily Al-Ahram.

On his blog Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, recently had this to say about Pope Benedict XVI's claim that the Roman Catholic Church is the only true church:

I actually appreciate the Pope's concern. If he is right, we are endangering our souls and the souls of our church members. Of course, I am convinced that he is not right -- not right on the papacy, not right on the sacraments, not right on the priesthood, not right on the Gospel, not right on the church.

The Roman Catholic Church believes we are in spiritual danger for obstinately and disobediently excluding ourselves from submission to its universal claims and its papacy. Evangelicals should be concerned that Catholics are in spiritual danger for their submission to these very claims. We both understand what is at stake.

Stuff like this helps me to understand why it is so hard for me to have a conversation with someone as genuine and authentic as Therese. Leaders everywhere have painted the conversation as a black and white one. I find that to be sad. Faith is hardly ever as black and white as these folks make it to be.