c. 1996 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ When two top artists in contemporary Christian music decided to do an album and concert tour together, they thought they were simply celebrating their shared faith and an admiration for each others’ music.

But Michael Card is an evangelical Protestant and John Michael Talbot is a Roman Catholic. It was inevitable that they would be viewed as making an ecumenical statement.

And while many Christian pop music fans found that appealing in this ecumenical era, Talbot and Card were in for some rude jolts. A Protestant church in Arizona canceled their scheduled concert in September. Then Moody Magazine, an evangelical publication that has long prominently covered Card’s music, declined to advertise the joint album”Brother to Brother”(Myrrh Records). And in October, a Protestant church in Toronto canceled a solo concert scheduled by Talbot.”I was surprised by the furor of the anti-Catholicism which we encountered,”said Talbot, who has recorded about 35 albums and written about a dozen books on spirituality. While the joint project was warmly received by most, he said the backlash that did occur”was a wakeup call to me.” Card, who has won seven Gospel Music Association Dove Awards and recorded 18 albums, was equally surprised by the reaction. But while some listeners wanted nothing to do with the project, other evangelicals, he said, wrote reasoned letters asking what he was doing _ or if he was becoming a Catholic.”There are some beliefs within orthodox Catholicism that I cannot agree to,”Card said in a written statement. But he said Protestants can agree on core doctrines with Catholics and learn from their emphasis on”mystery and prayer.””This is not to say that theology does not matter,”Card added.”However, it does say that there are considerations that can come before it.” Talbot said the controversies reflect a fearful, excluding fundamentalism that he sees growing in every religion.”We Catholics have to be honest and ‘fess up that there is a neo-fundamentalism in Catholicism as well,”he said.”We just didn’t encounter it”with this project.

Talbot, a former country-rock musician, became an evangelical Christian before converting to Catholicism. He went on to become a lay Franciscan and founder of a religious community in Eureka Springs, Ark., comprised of monks, nuns and married people like himself. For more than a decade, he has been one of the most popular contemporary Christian musicians in an industry comprised largely of evangelical performers playing to evangelical audiences.

Talbot sings in a clear, high tenor voice, often accompanied by sparse orchestration. His lyrics consist almost exclusively of Scripture, liturgy and centuries-old prayers of everyone from ancient Celts to St. Francis of Assisi.

Card, a balladeer, often bases his lyrics on Bible stories and on his theological studies, which he has also incorporated in seven books.

Yet the two musicians have much in common, including a nimble guitar style and a remarkable physical resemblance in their penetrating gazes and their gentle smiles framed by thick beards.

The idea of playing with an evangelical”brother”is nothing new for Talbot, who often performs with his real-life brother Terry, a fellow Christian recording artist and a Protestant.

Talbot said he delights in seeing Protestants who never would have darkened the doorstep of a Catholic church come to one of his concerts”and all of a sudden they say, `Hey, I feel very much at home here. That doesn’t mean necessarily I want to be a Roman Catholic, but I feel very much at home worshiping God with other people who are not that different from me.'” Ecumenical efforts have been underscored by the 1994 formation of the group Evangelicals and Catholics Together by prominent Protestants such as Charles Colson and Catholics such as Richard John Neuhaus.

But the effort to unite Catholics and evangelicals did not meet with universal approval. Some evangelicals hold serious theological reservations about Catholicism, saying it deviates from biblical Christianity. Others even see diabolical influences in it.

David Hunt’s 1994 book,”A Woman Rides the Beast,”argues that the Roman Catholic Church is the”Whore of Babylon”depicted in the biblical book of Revelation. Similar arguments have been advanced in recent decades by Jack Chick, whose comic books and tracts have circulated widely in Christian circles.

These arguments recall the anti-Catholic pronouncements by Protestant luminaries Martin Luther, John Calvin and John Wesley. Such ideas persisted in the mainstream of Protestant American culture until John F. Kennedy’s election as the nation’s first Catholic president in 1960 and later evangelical-Catholic cooperation on abortion and other political issues.”Although a number of evangelicals have fundamentally changed their minds about this, there is a strong undercurrent”of anti-Catholicism, said Philip Jenkins, a Penn State University professor of history and religious studies who has studied the phenomenon.”The question I’d ask is not so much why do some Protestant churches have such hostility; the question is why a number of evangelical leaders would be prepared to say some good things about Rome. In American history, that’s a real turning point,”said Jenkins, whose 1996 book”Pedophiles and Priests”argues that the public uproar over recent clerical sex scandals can partly be traced to latent anti-Catholicism in American culture.

Leaders of the churches that canceled the Talbot concerts did not specify the reasons, although observers note Talbot may have faced opposition not only for his Catholicism but also for his divorce and remarriage, which is frowned upon by both Catholics and evangelicals.

At the Grace Community Center in Tempe, Ariz., a church music leader said only that the scheduled Card-Talbot concert”did not work out.”Concert organizers came away with the impression that it was because Talbot was Catholic. Another church was found for the Arizona concert.

Senior Pastor Nelson Annan of Bayview Glen Church in Toronto also declined to say why his church canceled a Talbot solo concert in October, saying only that the action resulted from discussions among church leaders. But he said he personally supports Talbot’s music and views him as a”Christian brother and a man who has had a good influence.” Bruce Anderson, general manager and executive editor of Moody Magazine, said he was unaware that an ad had been offered for the”Brother to Brother”album, but he said the magazine would have difficulty accepting advertising for Talbot’s products in any case.”Moody Bible Institute, of which we are a part, is distinctly and purposefully Protestant in its roots and support and traditions, and I think having heard John Michael Talbot, there would be a degree of discomfort with the message,”Anderson said.

Talbot’s director of marketing, P.J. Littleton, said he had arranged to run an ad for the”Brother to Brother”album in Moody Magazine, which has strongly supported Card’s music in the past, and was told only later that it was canceled.

But such obstacles hardly represent evangelicals’ views as a whole, he said, citing surveys that show 60 percent of Talbot’s buyers are non-Catholic.”Obviously, there’s an awful lot of folks in the evangelical world buying John’s music even though they know he’s a Catholic.”

MJP END SMITH