Posted on 05/06/2007 11:58:17 AM PDT by NYer
Most of the post centers on the tussle over ETS matters and leadership, (he has resigned from the presidency) but:
There is a conversation in ETS that must take place, a conversation about the relationship between Evangelicalism and what is called the “Great Tradition,” a tradition from which all Christians can trace their spiritual and ecclesiastical paternity. It is a conversation that I welcome, and it is one in which I hope to be a participant. But my presence as ETS president, I have concluded, diminishes the chances of this conversation occurring. It would merely exacerbate the disunity among Christians that needs to be remedied.
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.
(Comments are open over there, btw. Worth a visit to add your support, if you like!)
I don't know who Thomas Gumbleton is.
Perhaps because I used to be a not-a-Catholic clergyman, I just don't listen to clergy any more than I have to, and I don't hold their foolishness against them too much. I think the nearby priest who evidently confused his dog-eared copy of "I'm Okay, You're Okay" with Holy Writ was just kind of a joke. Not a bad guy, but certainly slated for some serious purgatory time. Another priest I knew was really good on Piety and Jesus and the Fathers, but a veritable pinko on Social teaching. He's a good guy. He's only a priest, not a god, of course he's going to mess up! And some will mess up sumpin' spectakler.
Again speaking as former clergydude - some time you ought to study whatever you can get on the kind of person who becomes a priest. Lots and lots of them are splendid. A few of us are, well, not splendid. When you get one of the not splendid, there's only one thing to do: hunker down. It's the same Lord and the same sacrament and it's important not to confuse the salesman with the product. That the church survives at all is testimony not to the people in it, but to the Lord to whom it belongs, and to His love.
As for ZC: thanks. I'm s sorry he had a bad time. I say again, I didn't do it. If his priest was a jerk, that's terrible, It's not a surprise, but it's terrible. It still doesn't justify confusing me with every bod person he ever met.
Or every BAD person either ...
But while I'm on the topic, I think I mentioned somewhere recently that I had a deacon who was all over "Fundamental Option". What I learned from that was that if you take old garbage (it doesn't matter what you do as long as you're sincere) and wrap it up in new wrapping paper, somebody will buy it. But it doesn't do any good to tangle with people like that. They're not about reasonable discourse. Either hit 'em with a brick (like writing the bishop) or just move on.
Doubtful anyone maintains such statistics. What does make 'news' are those with solid theological backgrounds. Amongst them, the flow is decidedly one way into the Catholic Church. Hence my question.
When was the last time anyone heard of a Roman Catholic priest, bishop or layman who was well-respected for his theological learning and love of the Scriptures - who became a Baptist, or an Orthodox Presbyterian or joined another similar community?
It does seem to be a one-way street.
The other side of the aisle seems to be so desperate to claim defections from Catholic theologians than they manufacture fake ones like Jack Chick's "Alberto."
It's an interesting phenomenon.
I find it quite telling that Dr. Beckwith has about 20 articles on his online blog and all of those 20 articles he only quotes from Scripture on one single occasion and on that occasion he only quoted a portion of one verse.
Dr. Beckwith co wrote a book called “Relativism” which consisted of 170 pages on the issue of moral relativism and in that entire book there are only two references to Scripture the first being Romans 14:2, 5 and the second being Judges 17:6,
He also was the principal editor of a book called “The New Mormon Challenge” wherein he wrote the introduction and the conclusion and a 22 page essay without once quoting even one verse of scripture.
One has to wonder how someone who can write so many articles and books with so few references to scripture could possibly be elected as the president of The Evangelical Theological Society which has as its founding doctrinal statement “The Bible Alone”.
My review of Dr. Beckwith’s work suggests that Dr. Beckwith is not really a theologian in any classical sense, however, he appears to be a philosopher in the classical sense. In other words, his principal argument is not an appeal to Scripture but is instead an appeal to Reason.
After reviewing my own small library of Dr. Beckwith’s works I would have to say that I am not surprised by Dr. Beckwith’s conversion to Catholicism. Although Dr. Beckwith may have mouthed the words “The Bible Alone” it would appear to me that Dr. Beckwith’s theology is and always has been founded more in the philosophy of man than in the Scriptures themselves. A closer inspection of Dr. Beckwith’s works suggest that he is a moralist more than he ever was an evangelist and he is a philosopher more than he ever was a theologian.
One has to wonder at this point whether Dr. Beckwith now gives the same claim of scriptural authority and scriptural inerrancy to the Apocrypha that he formally gave to the accepted 66 books which comprise the Protestant Cannon. Clearly the question would be whether Dr. Beckwith accepted the Apocrypha as divinely inspired Scripture during his tenure as a Protestant and also during his tenure as the president of The Evangelical Theological Society? Now he is apparently willing to accept those books as being as authoritative as the Protestant cannon or risk the wrath of a Catholic Anathema.
My guess is that he never gave it any thought before he decided to abandon the principles of Sola Scriptura and the Gospel of Grace Alone through Faith Alone in Christ Alone to swim the Tiber and embrace the works based salvation gospel which is the Catholic Church.
Very interesting analysis, and telling.
Ad fontes!
Your complaint is not that his arguments or conclusions were wrong, but merely that he didn't quote scripture "often enough"?
Anyone can quote scripture. The devil quoted scripture to Our Lord. Does that make him any less the devil?
Moreover, many truths can be defended from reason alone without recourse to scripture. Such defenses are more powerful, because they are thereby equally persuasive to unbelievers, at least those with ears to hear.
embrace the works based salvation gospel which is the Catholic Church.
I don't believe in any "works based salvation gospel," and neither does the Catholic Church.
It would be better for you to simply refrain from characterizing my beliefs at all, rather than to bear false witness about their content.
In his book and essay on Mormonism, he makes no mention of scripture, but he does mention Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Plato, C.S. Lewis, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and John Rawl's.
I suggest it would be an interesting exercise, in light of Dr. Beckwith's new found faith in the Authority of the Catholic Church over scripture to see just how many times he has quoted scripture in any of his works. I suggest that we will find that Beckwith appeals mainly to the thoughts of men as more authoritative than the statements of scripture. In that sense he would make an excellent candidate for conversion to Catholicism. In that sense we should only have been surprised to find that it took him this long.
Are works necessary for salvation? Or is faith alone enough? Are you justified by your works or by your faith or by both? If works are required, then you are preaching a works based salvation. If you are justified solely by faith, then you have a faith based salvation.
To which gospel do you subscribe?
The individual interpretation resulting in denominationalism so criticized and feared by Roman Catholics is at least as much a product of American and Western acceptance of religious freedom, as it is of Protestant acknowledgment of the supreme authority of God's word.
The Bible is indeed a book, but it is NOT just like every other book--it is God's very word written, which the Holy Spirit preserves and enables His people to interpret correctly. It doesn't have to be gripped tightly by a select few...in order to be preserved from being ripped to shreds by the dogs.
There are an awful lot of us Reformed (and Lutheran and Anglican) types who, upon reading the interpretations of the likes of Calvin or Luther, not to mention the creeds associated with the later Reformation, on the central issues at least, find ourselves in near complete agreement with them....comparing it to what we can read for ourselves in scripture. These are positions articulated 400 years ago too. So depending on the Protestants, there is not nearly as much anarchy as you think...
In real and practical ways conservative magisterial Protestants are closer, and more uniform (without a central human-on-earth authority), I would wager, to the interpretive understanding of the 16th Century Reformers, than contemporary Roman Catholicism is to 16th Century Catholicism.
There actually is such a place as reasoned conciliar Holy Spirit led interpretation of scripture, avoiding the extremes of individualist chaos, or Bishop-of-a-particular-ancient-city absolutism.
I would be grateful for some help understanding this term. Having had "magisterium" thrown in my face more times than I exactly needed, I am bemused to see a cognate used with approbation of some strands of Protestantism.
With respect to the rest of your post, I think maybe you are skewing the data. Here's what I mean:
You dismiss the fractionation of protestantism in the US, and then refer to "an awful lot" of Reformed, Lutheran and Anglican folks who find lot to agree with in Luther, Calvin and the gang.
Then you compare that group to contemporary Roman Catholicism. It's like skimming the cream from the milk of one cow and comparing it to all the milk of another cow.
Now, as a fan of the Dominicans, I would like to say that if you'd come to our 7 month long RCIA (enquirers morphing into baptism/confirmation) class you would have heard not just 216th century but a whole lot of 13th century, virtue-based, Thomas-style teaching. That, I suggest, would be more of a cream to cream comparison.
I do find the general tenor of the remark interesting though. I wonder what things were like BEFORE Orthodox and Catholic Christianity. If some guy got fed up with what he heard at the local shrine of Artemis, did he just open up another one down the block or what?
(P-Marlowe: pinging you because I'm referring to a post of yours)
Sure...They're splitting into two camps...
You merely pushed the question back to:
Q. And who are "His people"?
A. "Me and those who think just like me"?
That is precisely what every heretical group has been saying since the first century. What makes you think that out of all the heretical groups saying this very same thing over the past two millenia, your "Me and those who think just like me" is special?
There are an awful lot of us Reformed (and Lutheran and Anglican) type .... So depending on the Protestants, there is not nearly as much anarchy as you think...
Talk is cheap, and the time is short. Wherever each individual treats himself as the final interpretive authority for himself, there is no possibility of the unity that Christ earnestly prays in John 17 that His followers have. (A better explanation of that can be found here.) I was Protestant most of my life, and all my relatives are Protestant. They read the Bible studiously and regularly, and have done so all their lives. They completely reject Reformed, Lutheran, and Anglican notions, instead perceiving the Bible as teaching a combination of Pentecostalism, Charles Finney, Anabaptistism, and Arminianism. The number of "Reformed" types is quite small compared to the number of Pentecostal types in the world. The underlying reason for all the disunity among Christians is the implicit belief (taught even by the serpent in the garden) that each person is the final interpretive authority for himself.
-A8
An insult in place of an argument.
Pathetic.
I'll offer as just one example Father Joseph Fitzmeyer, a Roman Catholic Biblical theologian whose exegesis is considered to be high-quality work by such reknowned Reformed scholars as Douglas Moo and Robert Mounce.
They disagree with many of his conclusions, inevitably, but hold his scholarly abilities in high regard.
I can't help but wonder why that is.
Actually, I wouldn’t have gone to the Episcopal Church first for examples of the fissile behavior among the separated brethren, but in the past 30-some years there have been around 5 splits, probably more. And then there’s the Reformed Episcopal Church. It has been right fissiparous.
YOU got a problem with my type-face?
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