Is Their an Ethics of Conversion?

Deal Hudson

This past week some 30 Catholic, Evangelical, Pentecostal, and Protestant theologians met in Toulouse, France to devise a "code of conduct" for those who seek conversions.

This Vatican-World Council of Churches meeting was the first time Evangelicals and Protestants joined in the discussions.

Mainstream Protestants and Catholics, it seems to me, are trying to protect themselves from "poaching" by Evangelicals and Protestants. The problem is especially bad in South America, as most people know.

Is their such a thing as an ethics of seeking conversions?

I think so, even if the attempt to define it is probably a defensive effort.

Catholic and Protestant leaders would be better off asking themselves what makes their membership vulnerable to other denominations rather than pointing a finger at the direction of the proselytizers.

What is about those churches that make some members feel attracted to the more "enthusiastic" Christian denominations?  It's a question worth discussing, but it's constantly avoided and dismissed by most church leaders.

The old fear of enthusiasm in religion was best discussed by Ronald Knox in his book of the same name.

There is a certain irony that this meeting was held at the center of what was medieval Catharism, a Christian heretical sect that was known for the strictness of religious observance.  The Cathars were not converted back into the Church but were slaughtered in the Albigensian Crusade. (Definitely an ethics problem there!)

But seriously, a proselytizer must be truthful.  He or she will usually be faced with the question, for example, "why should I leave the Catholic Church?"  There is an obligation to answer that question without caricaturing Catholics or perpetuating myths.   

But beyond that, I'd say anything goes -- it's a laissez-faire playing field in the "economy" of various religious sects.