Mike Timmis and Between Two Worlds

BreakPoint WorldView » December 2008

In the preface to his memoir, Between Two Worlds: The Spiritual Journey of an Evangelical Catholic, Mike Timmis, chairman of Prison Fellowship USA and Prison Fellowship International, puts his finger on the tension at the heart of his story:

Catholics still speak at times of evangelicalism as another religion, while evangelicals often suspect that Catholics are saved, if at all, despite their church and not because of it. I am a cradle Catholic, a committed Christian, and the chairman of a global ministry that works across the denominations. I’ve experienced both sides of the confessional divide as few others have, and my story and the lessons I’ve learned may help those who want to set aside disagreements, change antagonistic attitudes, and find common ground.

As his words indicate, Timmis has had the unusual experience of seeing Christianity from both a Catholic and evangelical viewpoint at the same time. For the benefit of those who might not think such an experience even possible, Timmis’s book traces the extraordinary path he’s taken over the years, guided by a wide variety of both Catholic and Protestant influences—including his close friend Chuck Colson.

For much of his life, Timmis never would have believed that he would one day be involved full time in a global Christian ministry (let alone a ministry founded by a Protestant). Though he never left the Catholic faith in which he was born and raised, his faith was far from the central part of his life. Nor was he very good at putting his wife, Nancy, and their two children first, much as he loved them. It was his law career that meant the most to him, and his talent and tenacity earned him a partnership in five years at a law firm where it took most lawyers seven or eight years to earn that honor.

But Timmis’s excitement was short-lived, as he realized that “the great anticipated moments in life rarely provide lasting satisfaction.” In fact, he was having trouble finding satisfaction anywhere. His long, intense hours at work were turning him into an “aggressive, angry, combative person” and damaging his relationships with his wife and children. He found little support or solace in his faith. “Each Sunday,” he writes, “as I went forward to take Communion, I would beg God to help me feel His presence even as I felt myself moving further and further away from Him.”

It was Nancy’s determination to attend a special “religious” dinner at the local country club that changed everything. Despite her husband’s reluctance, she insisted they both go. At the dinner—which Timmis didn’t know until later was sponsored by the Executive Ministries division of Campus Crusade for Christ—a local accountant named Bob Orr testified about how he had come to faith in Jesus Christ. Timmis was strangely moved, to the point where he found himself praying the sinner’s prayer along with the emcee at the end of the evening.

Looking back on that event, Timmis reflects:

That night at the Country Club of Detroit, November 10, 1983, I wasn’t thinking about the world of things my prayer of commitment might imply. I wasn’t thinking about my Catholic upbringing or my life as a lawyer and businessman. I didn’t need to inquire too closely into the brand of Christianity being represented at the dinner either. I felt moved to pray—to reach out to God as Bob had once done—and so I did, sincerely and with all my heart. I knew I was dying inside, and I wanted to live.

In short order, Timmis found himself attending a Bible study, learning about Christian worldview, and growing in his faith as he never had before—experiencing a new peace and a heightened understanding of Scripture. But none of this inspired him to leave Catholicism behind. Instead, he began to explore it anew, realizing that there was much in his faith about which he had never even known. Reading the Vatican document Dei Verbum, he found that the Catholic Church strongly encourages all Catholics to study the Scriptures faithfully.

Timmis came to see that while the Church’s teaching on reading the Bible was sound, it was not being regularly taught in all parishes, and he and Nancy begin focusing on evangelizing within their own Church—not seeking to draw Catholics away from Catholicism, but rather to help them draw closer to Christ in the practice of their own faith.

Timmis was soon working with organizations around the world, including Doug Coe’s The Fellowship, to help the poor, and giving his own testimony at Executive Ministries’ dinners. It was at one such dinner that he met Chuck Colson.

“You’d never know he’s Roman Catholic unless you see him in church,” Colson says of his friend, “because he talks more like an evangelical soul-winner than 95 percent of my evangelical friends.” But the fact that Timmis was a Catholic was important to Colson. Since the 1980s, when evangelical Protestants and conservative Catholics working together on the abortion issue and others had discovered how similar their worldviews were, Colson had made it a priority to “make common cause” with Catholics. He quotes Timothy George of Samford University, who dubbed this movement “an ecumenism of the trenches.”

“And that’s really what gave rise to Evangelicals and Catholics Together, which started in 1992, when I was at a . . . conference with [Father Richard] Neuhaus,” Colson explains. “It’s now become really a passion with me because the bottom is falling out of the American society in terms of its fundamental view of life, and if there is not a religious foundation without which we can’t maintain a viable free society. And the only place that you’re going to get this is from evangelicals, who are reformers basically, and conservative Catholics.”

As Timmis recounts in his book, Colson worked for years to persuade him to join the board of Prison Fellowship in the United States, reminding him that it would be a way both to help “the poorest of the poor,” and to demonstrate that brothers in Christ could reach across the divide between Protestant and Catholic and “stand together in this time of cultural crisis.” When Timmis finally joined in 1990, Colson recalls, “There were some evangelicals who asked how he could sign our statement of faith, and then I explained to them that he did, and did it in good conscience, because it’s based on the creeds . . . and the Scriptures.” (Colson points out that prominent theologian Avery Cardinal Dulles has reviewed PFM’s statement of faith and declared it “essentially consistent” with Catholic beliefs.)

Timmis was so effective as a board member that by the time Colson decided to cut back on his workload and find a new chairman for Prison Fellowship International, he knew that Mike Timmis was “the only American that would have been okay with the rest of the board, which is all internationals. They would rather [have] him than an international.” Today, Colson says, “In the international area he is so strong on relationships that he has turned us from an organization into a genuine fellowship.” Two years ago, Timmis also added the chairmanship of Prison Fellowship USA to his duties.

Their unity of purpose doesn’t mean that the two men don’t have their disagreements, even as they’ve learned some unexpected things from each other. “As a teetotaling Baptist, I’ve also learned that Catholics can have fun at cocktail time that I don’t have,” Colson quips. “But I’d rather have a clear mind. Mike and I have had long theological discussions—I remember one evening at dinner we just kept wrestling over the priesthood of the believers and some other contentious issues; he must have conceded he lost because he wrote me a letter afterward and he said, ‘We should have never had the discussion over dinner after I had a glass of wine!’”

But despite their differences, the friendship between these two men is a testament to the essential strength of the body of Christ. Timmis’s book is well worth reading not just as the story of one man’s rediscovery of and recommitment to his faith, and the impact of that faith on the world, but also as the story of a friendship that helps show the way for Catholics and Protestants everywhere who want to work together to find common ground.

Gina R. Dalfonzo is editor of The Point and a writer for BreakPoint Radio.