Jerry Moser pastors Bayou du Large Baptist Church and he and his fellowship have been denied use of their own church building in Louisiana because of their opposition to the 1994 Evangelicals and Catholics Together Document drawn up jointly by Charles Colson and 'Father' Richard Neuhaus.

You can find more details of this and other ecumenical activities involving Charles Colson by visiting Pastor Moser's web site on http://www.pinn.com/ect/RADEN

In particular I would reccomend you to read the articles Charles' Colson's Breakpoint Commentary Charles Colson - 'Modernist Impasse - Christian Opportunity'

These will give helpful background to the following 'OPEN LETTER' that was sent to Charles Colson by Pastor Jerry Moser on 24 June 2000.

I commend Pastor Moser and his fellowship to your prayerful remembrance that God may be pleased to soon restore to them access to the church building that they put up and paid for and that has been so outrageously denied to them.

OPEN LETTER TO CHARLES COLSON

Dear Mr. Colson,

I receive your "Breakpoint Commentary" via e-mail and was intrigued by your personal call (6/13) for Charles Stanley to resign as pastor of FBC Atlanta. Then yesterday (6/23) I read your defense of that call to biblical accountability. As you said, holding Christian leaders accountable is indeed a truly "awesome responsibility."

I know little of brother Stanley's marital problems, but completely apart from that subject, I found myself agreeing with your comments such as "Leaders, in particular, must be in submission to one another, as the Scripture says, out of reverence for Christ," and "sometimes we have to confront one another."

You defended your public call for accountability on the basis that "I believe it my solemn duty because the witness of the whole Church is at stake." Again, I agree with you that there are particularly important situations when we must publicly and personally confront a leader in the Lord's Church and pointedly call him into account. There are times when the action of another Christian is contrary to the Word of God and "makes it much tougher for us" to share the Gospel message with others. It then becomes our solemn duty "to
hold one another to account," encouraging a brother in Christ to back up and "to do the right thing -- which means putting the integrity of the message first, even at his own personal cost."

Again, your comments struck strong accord with me when you said, "I would urge all Christians listening today to take this seriously, to hold one another accountable, in love." That is certainly refreshing to hear from such a prominent and influential leader as you.

Indeed, most Southern Baptists agree regarding this issue of mutual accountability among the brethren, as stated in the recently revised "Baptist Faith and Message." The preamble to this statement of biblical faith says we affirm "both our liberty in Christ and our accountability to each other under the Word of God."

Mr. Colson, I have a high regard for much of what you have done in ministry for prisoners and also your public defense of moral principals. But having now found that we agree on such mutual accountability, it is at this juncture that I must say I find some of your actions contradictory to your own profession. I want to be faithful to Christ and His Word and loving of you as a professing Christian brother. Thus, it is my solemn duty to our Lord and to
you to remind you that you have been called into account on numerous occasions regarding a matter of the Gospel of Christ, and you have yet to reverse your course or correct your wrong.

I am, of course, speaking of your continued promotion of the "ECT alliance" and its foundational statement which you co-authored. The point at which I wish to (again) call you to biblical accountability is your endorsement of the ECT-I statement, which clearly promotes the acceptance of sacramental faith as a valid expression of the Gospel of Christ. Your ECT-I statement says, "Those converted -- whether understood as having received the new birth for the first time or as having experienced the reawakening of the new birth
originally bestowed in the sacrament of baptism -- must be given full freedom and respect as they discern and decide the community in which they will live their new life in Christ."

Dear Mr. Colson, in all of history there has not been one person who has ever experienced the new birth as a result of it being "bestowed in the sacrament of baptism." That is nothing less than a perversion of the Gospel of Christ. This perversion, if believed, results in a person being blinded and confused regarding the true Gospel. In short, Mr. Colson, you are helping to promote another gospel, whether you mean to or not. This spiritual infidelity
regarding the Gospel of Christ is far more serious than the inconsistency for which you have recently called others into account. According to God’s Word, you and I are commanded to call each other into account, but we are also admonished to first take the beam out of our own eye.

Not only have I and the church I pastor confronted you with this and called you into account to the Truth of God's Word, but thousands of other Christian brothers and sisters have voiced to you this same call to biblical accountability. Even so, rather than change your course or correct your wrong, you chose to initiate yet another ECT document which also promotes the assumed biblical validity of sacramental faith. And recently, in your book
How Now Shall We Live, you again promoted this same ECT perversion.

Mr. Colson, you say "I have lived in holy fear for twenty-five years that I might do or say something that could turn someone away from God. Some people, after all, will decide what they believe about God by what they see in you and me, and that's a sobering thought."

With Christ Jesus’ love and compassion for you, yet with the burden of such a solemn duty before God, let me again say to you that your promotion of ECT, with its spiritual perversion, is contradictory to the Word of God. This action is causing confusion among the lost and damage to the Gospel witness of some of your fellow Southern Baptists. This action is causing harm to fellowship among Christians. Thus, as a servant of Christ, I call upon you to publicly correct your endorsement of ECT, to publicly repent of this action.

Even according to your own words, Mr. Colson, you should "do the right thing -- which means putting the integrity of the message first, even at [your] own personal cost."

The reason that this is an "open letter" is because you have not responded to my previous letters, nor have you changed course after many public calls to biblical accountability.

Jerry Moser -- 24 June 2000