MONDAY, May 7, 2007 Monday on the Fifth Week of Easter
As I know from personal experience, when an Evangelical Protestant decides to enter the Catholic Church, his decision is often met with bewilderment, surprise, and even anger from friends and family members. So imagine what the reaction would be if the president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) decided to become Catholic.
Actually, no imagination is required, since exactly that took place this past week. Dr. Francis Beckwith, who is Associate Professor of Church-State Studies at Baylor University and president of ETS, returned to the Church of his youth. In this post on Right Reason, a blog to which he regularly contributes, Dr. Beckwith wrote:
During the last week of March 2007, after much prayer, counsel and consideration, my wife and I decided to seek full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. My wife, a baptized Presbyterian, is going through the process of the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA). This will culminate with her receiving the sacraments of Holy Communion and Confirmation. For me, because I had received the sacraments of Baptism, Communion, and Confirmation all before the age of 14, I need only go to confession, request forgiveness for my sins, ask to be received back into the Church, and receive absolution...As the hundreds of comments on the post readily indicate, the reaction among Evangelicals has been mixed. Many of the comments are very gracious and charitable. Others are far less so, to the point of essentially damning Dr. Beckwith for his decision. Personally, I cannot imagine having to endure some of the harsh comments that have been made about and to Dr. Beckwith. Regardless, every entrance into full communion with the Catholic Church--no matter how quiet or public in nature--is an occasion of joy.The past four months have moved quickly for me and my wife. As you probably know, my work in philosophy, ethics, and theology has always been Catholic friendly, but I would have never predicted that I would return to the Church, for there seemed to me too many theological and ecclesiastical issues that appeared insurmountable. However, in January, at the suggestion of a dear friend, I began reading the Early Church Fathers as well as some of the more sophisticated works on justification by Catholic authors. I became convinced that the Early Church is more Catholic than Protestant and that the Catholic view of justification, correctly understood, is biblically and historically defensible. Even though I also believe that the Reformed view is biblically and historically defensible, I think the Catholic view has more explanatory power to account for both all the biblical texts on justification as well as the church's historical understanding of salvation prior to the Reformation all the way back to the ancient church of the first few centuries. Moreover, much of what I have taken for granted as a Protestant--e.g., the catholic creeds, the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, the Christian understanding of man, and the canon of Scripture--is the result of a Church that made judgments about these matters and on which non-Catholics, including Evangelicals, have declared and grounded their Christian orthodoxy in a world hostile to it. Given these considerations, I thought it wise for me to err on the side of the Church with historical and theological continuity with the first generations of Christians that followed Christ's Apostles.
But not a prideful or triumphalistic joy; after all, as Chesterton once noted, the best reason for becoming Catholic is that we are sinners, and the Church founded by Christ was established for our salvation. No, our joy should be based in humility and thanksgiving, and it should also be, as Russell Shaw, co-author of Good News, Bad News talks about in my interview with him, an impetus for us to evangelize and share the Good News.
Pax Christi,
Carl E. Olson
Editor, IgnatiusInsight.com
E-mail: carl@ignatius.com
P.S.: For those interested in the state of Catholic-Evangelical dialogue and related issues, I've listed below a number of IgnatiusInsight.com articles and interviews that might be of interest.
• Why Catholicism Makes Protestantism Tick - Mark Brumley
• Has The Reformation Ended? - An Interview with Dr. Mark Noll
• Evangelicals and Catholics In Conversation, Part 1 - Interview with Dr. Brad Harper
• Evangelicals and Catholics In Conversation, Part 2 - Interview with Dr. Brad Harper
• Thomas Howard and the Kindly Light - IgnatiusInsight.com
• Objections, Obstacles, Acceptance - An Interview with J. Budziszewski
• Surprised by Conversion: The Patterns of Faith - Peter E. Martin
• Reformation 101: Who's Who in the Protestant Reformation - Geoffrey Saint-Clair
• The Tale of Trent: A Council and and Its Legacy - Martha Rasmussen
5 comments:
David,
Thank you for this post. As an Protestant evangelical who is about to begin a PhD at a Catholic University in Nouvelle Theologie and ecumenism, you can imagine my interest in the developments surrounding Dr. Beckwith's move to Catholicism. What is great about this is that it brings to the surface people's true views on the Protestant evangelical-Catholic relationship. And what I'm finding is that it's much like racism in the South (where I am from) - many people who speak in general terms about integrating black and white suddenly have a problem when it's their daughter dating a black guy. We can talk in broad terms about ecumenism, but when one of your own actually makes a move, it becomes a real problem.
What is most unfortunate about the situation is that it could have been a concrete opportunity to reflect the progress we have made in the evangelical-Catholic relationship. There is nothing in ETS's statement that would exclude Catholics from participating in ETS. Here is the statement: "The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs. God is a Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each an uncreated person, one in essence, equal in power and glory." In fact, Dr. Peter Kreeft at Boston College remarked when asked if he could sign on to this statement: "Of course I affirm your statement. You Protestants affirm it only because we Catholics defined it first. Not only the canon of scripture but also the doctrine that it is inerrant and that it is the only inerrant written Word of God, were first formulated and taught, and still are, by the Catholic Church. The same goes for the Trinity" (Southern Baptist Theological Journal, 8.4 [2004]: 74-81) (you can read the article online at http://www.uu.edu/personal/rvannest/Professional/ets.htm).
Here, then, is an opportunity to reflect ecumenism if Dr. Beckwith stays with ETS; it shows that there are, in fact, many places where we agree and can work together as evangelicals (whether Protestant or Catholic). Yet, Dr. Beckwith leaves. Why? Because he is now Catholic. He does so because he realizes the controversy that will result in his remaining at ETS. Although I have some problems with the way Dr. Beckwith perceives his own situation (I will gladly expound on that if need be), it is true that many Protestant evangelicals will have serious issues with him if he stays on at ETS (as partially evidenced by all the negative comments on the blogosphere). But again, there is nothing in the ETS statement that would necessarily exclude a Catholic. So, in my opinion, the result is that once again a Protestant evangelical organization is defining itself by what it is not, rather than what it is. It is not, above anything else, Catholic. But what if they agree with everything in the statement? It doesn't matter - we're not Catholic, they are, and so they can't be a part of what we are doing. We are still protesting, but now we're protesting about a point that both Catholics and Protestants agree on (I am refering to the ETS statement). This, then, is foolish and ignorant protesting (in my opinion); this is the kind of evangelicalism that drives me to study Catholic theology, to take better stock of the Church's Tradition, to (by God's mercy and grace) help remove some of the ignorance.
David - my suggestion, or maybe my hope, is that we would not let this pass too quickly. I feel this is an opportunity to lay some cards on the table. I, in all honestly, feel it's an opportunity for Protestant evangelicals to take stock as to where they are now, where they are going, and how much of their vision of Christianity lines-up with the broader Tradition of the Church. I'm afraid in many ways it doesn't, and in many circles it isn't getting any better. But all is not lost, especially if we embrace situations like this as an opportunity to grow.
Blessings,
Chad Raith
Pontifications - Does the Evangelical Theological Society Need an Infallible Magisterium?
Directly from Francis J. Beckwith
My Return to the Catholic Church
My Resignation from the Evangelical Theological Society
Statement of the ETS Executive Committee on Frank Beckwith
Christianity Today Q & A on My Return to the Catholic Church
Hulk Beckwith
The Sorry State of American Evangelicalism
The Reality of Romanism
“When it comes to visible unity, it is time for us Protestants to admit that we have failed”
Thanks for these David.
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