November 27, 1996 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - Michael Card, an evangelical musician in the Contemporary Christian Music world, and John Michael Talbot, a Roman Catholic charismatic monk, have jointly released an album titled "Brother to Brother." They also embarked on a concert tour this fall which included concerts in eight cities, "with the audience mix estimated at 50 percent Catholic and 50 percent Protestant" (Charisma, December 1996, p. 29). In March they performed together for the largest gathering of Catholics in America at the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress. Roughly 20,000 "clergy and laity" attended this congress. Both men also spoke at the formation retreat for the Catholic Musicians Association. Talbot is the president of this new association.

On the new album they sing: "There is one faith/ One hope and one baptism/ One God and Father of all/ There is one church, one body, one life in the spirit/ Now given so freely for all."

What one faith, baptism, and church? The Roman Catholic faith is not the Bible faith. Consider what the Vatican II Council said about purgatory:

"The doctrine of purgatory clearly demonstrates that even when the guilt of sin has been taken away, punishment for it or the consequences of it may remain to be expiated or cleansed. They often are. In fact, in purgatory the souls of those who died in the charity of God and truly repentant, but who had not made satisfaction with adequate penance for their sins and omissions are cleansed after death with punishments designed to purge away their debt" (Vatican II documents, Apostolic Constitution on the Revision of Indulgences, 3).

Purgatory means to cleanse or purify. It is a plain and open denial of the perfect sufficiency of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ to take away all sin. The Bible says, "For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified" (Heb. 10:14). Rome has a faith, a baptism, and a church, but it is not the one we read about in the Holy Scriptures. The hour is very, very late, Brethren. "Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober" (1 Thess. 5:6).