November 25, 2000 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - The Association of Evangelicals, the Southern Baptist Convention, the modernistic National Council of Churches, and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops signed a ãChristian Declaration on Marriageä earlier this month. Agreeing that marriage is in trouble, the document urges people to marry and urges churches to provide education about the meaning and responsibilities of marriage.

Why do Evangelicals today think that they can achieve good by disobeying the Bible? The Scriptures plainly demand that Bible-believers mark and avoid false teachers (Rom. 16:17; 2 Cor. 6:14; 2 Tim. 3:5; 2 John 10,11; etc.). Instead of this, a majority of Evangelicals today join hands with them in a variety of ecumenical adventures.

This ecumenical document ignores the fact that it is these very same modernistic and unbelieving and heretical churches and denominations that have helped create the morality problem that we have in North America. How can the National Council of Churches in America (NCC), for example, strengthen marriage when many of its member denominations refuse to exercise discipline toward homosexuality and other social perversions and when they support the feminist movement that has undermined the biblical family? In fact, the general secretary of the NCC, Bob Edgar, backed away from the declaration after realizing that it condemned homosexuality in an indirect manner by defining marriage as ãa holy union of one man and one woman.ä He admitted that ãthere is disagreement between and among our member communions on many issues related to sexuality and marriageä and stated that the NCC has ãcome to celebrate the gifts and challenges they [homosexuals] present to us.ä (See the End Times Apostasy Database of the Fundamental Baptist CD-ROM Library for many examples of this.) Further, how can the Roman Catholic Church speak to strong marriages and social morality when its unscriptural tradition forbidding priests to marry has created unspeakable immorality and confusion?Ê

How foolish it is for alleged Bible-believing Christians to associate with such confusion!