A Test of Faith [WSJ article on Wheaton after firing a professor who converted to Catholicism]

The Wall St. Journal, page A1 ^ | Jan. 7, 2006 | Daniel Golden

[jude24]

Wheaton College was delighted to have assistant professor Joshua Hochschild teach students about medieval philosopher Thomas Aquinas, one of Roman Catholicism's foremost thinkers.

But when the popular teacher converted to Catholicism, the prestigious evangelical college reacted differently. It fired him.

Wheaton, like many evangelical colleges, requires full-time faculty members to be Protestants and sign a statement of belief in "biblical doctrine that is consonant with evangelical Christianity." In a letter notifying Mr. Hochschild of the college's decision, Wheaton's president said his "personal desire" to retain "a gifted brother in Christ" was outweighed by his duty to employ "faculty who embody the institution's evangelical Protestant convictions."

[snip]

In a 2004 book titled "Conceiving the Christian College," Mr. Litfin argued that hiring Catholics would start Wheaton down a slippery slope. Wouldn't having Catholic faculty, he asked rhetorically, "lead to a gradual sacrificing of Wheaton's distinctives?"

In an interview, [Wheaton President] Mr. Litfin acknowledges that a ban on Catholic faculty "narrows the pool that you can draw from." But he says that the school's niche is also a key to its success. "If you look at the caliber of our faculty, this is an amazing place. It's thriving."

[snip]
Yet a question nagged Mr. Hochschild: Why am I not a Catholic? As he saw it, evangelical Protestantism was vaguely defined and had a weak scholarly tradition, which sharpened his admiration for Catholicism's self-assurance and intellectual history. "I even had students who asked me why I wasn't Catholic," he says. "I didn't have a decent answer."

His wife, Paige, said her husband's distaste for the "evangelical suspicion of philosophy" at the school might have contributed to his ultimate conversion. The Hochschilds say some evangelicals worry that learning about philosophy undermines students' religious convictions.

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

See my # 77. Wheaton contracts do not require one to be a Protestant, unless they've changed things. At least some of the Episcopalians who now number in the dozens on the faculty would not consider themselves Protestant if they know the Anglican tradition well and if "Protestant" has any strict meaning. Evangelicalism has always had a thorny relationships with strict Protestantism, which is why the neo-Protestants like Sproul who want to repristinize the 16th century are so critical of the mainstream of Evangelicalism--it's not very Protestant but instead comes out of the 19th-century revivalist movements.

There's a delicious irony in this. When I was a senior at Wheaton 30 years ago, I took a new course offered by Bob Webber titled, "The Making of the Modern Religious Mind" or something like that. He dared to suggest that solid, good theology did not first begin with the 16th-century Reformers. That was the first time I had ever heard any of my teachers or pastors suggest that anything good or doctrinally sound existed during the Middle Ages. Webber suggested that one might benefit by studying pre-Reformation church history in order better to understand how we got to where we were as Evangelicals. That was what launched my entire study of medieval church history. Prior to that I was headed for general history studies, probably sixteenth or nineteenth century. Webber's daring to suggest that it all didn't begin in the 16th-century (of course, we all knew that there was good stuff in the very early centuries but we all equally assumed that the medieval period was total darkness and evil) opened my eyes. I studied medieval theology (intellectual history) and church history without the prejudices I would otherwise have brought to them had I not taken Webber's course. For his course I did not focus on medieval stuff--I wrote my paper on 19th-century Evangelicalism's various roots. I didn't have the tools to begin to study the Middle Ages at that point and I knew it. But he planted a seed of openmindedness that sprouted and grew during graduate school and eventually, 15 years later, made me a Catholic.

It's ironic that, now that a host of evangelicals have lost their fear of Catholicism and are curious about it and studying it, Wheaton feels so threatened that they cannot tolerate a Catholic teaching there. It was only a matter of time before the policy was tested--the momentum for this has been building for thirty years and a lot of it goes back to Webber and a few others who jumped to high-church Anglicanism. Ironically, in the years just before the Episcopal movement started, Webber, always a popular professor because he was always probing, pushing the envelope, asking questions about conventional evangelical wisdom, had gathered a coterie of students and a few faculty around him at the Wheaton Grace Brethren Church. This little congregation had become almost moribund and suddenly, with Webber leading, it became the place to go to church on Sundays for a significant group of students. It was a kind of extreme low-church experiment that lasted for a year or two and faded. On the rebound, after I had graduated, I heard that Webber had become an Episcopalian. Somehow I wasn't entirely surprised. Yet it was a daring move at the time. I remember we had one history major who announced his intention to enter an Episcopal seminary and become an Episcopal priest. He knew a bit about high liturgy and impressed us with his bits of Latin--because to us any form of liturgy whatsoever was totally exotic. We thought he was a bit out of place at Wheaton--he actually intended to become an Episcopal priest? Amazing--you just don't announce that at Wheaton--I mean, is that liturgy stuff really Christian?

Ten years later Episcopalian faculty were a dime a dozen at Wheaton. And for those who have posted stuff here about Episcopaganism, hold your horses. This was before the 1976 ordination of women at Philadelphia. There was still an honorable tradition of liturgical but low-medium church "evangelical" Episcopalianism. That's where this history major came from and because he had those solid bible-believing evangelical credentials which he combined with a love of Anglican liturgy, we couldn't really tell him he didn't belong there, though it seemed exotic to us. At the same time, it made me stop and and rethink my assumptions about liturgy being wrong--that fellow too planted seeds that later led to my becoming a Catholic because his beliefs and ways of thinking pushed me to open my mind, think outside the box.

[jude24]

Fascinating. I had no idea you were a Wheaton alumnus.

Until this morning, Wheaton was on my short list of intellectually solid Christian colleges. Now I'm starting to wonder.

the reason they didn't is that it would raise questions some Protestants don't want to have to confront: are not JPII Catholics today in fact fully evangelical?

How would you define JPII Catholics as "Evangelical"? I agree, but I would like to hear this better articluated by a Catholic.

Those Wheaton studetns (and the broader Evangelical world) who don't have entirely closed minds will be even more curious about why Wheaton was so thin-skinned, so insecure, that they could not tolerate even one Catholic--a Catholic who said he could in good conscience sign the doctrinal statement and more Evangelicals will join those swimming the Tiber.

Precisely. If an Evangelical college isn't secure enough in its beliefs to be able to learn from an evangelically-minded Catholic, one has to wonder why Evangelicalism fears Catholicism. Which leads me to another question - if an evangelical Catholic should be fired from Wheaton, why is Mark Noll still there? He's a lot more Catholic-friendly than Wheaton should be comfortable with, then.

[jude24]

It's ironic that, now that a host of evangelicals have lost their fear of Catholicism and are curious about it and studying it, Wheaton feels so threatened that they cannot tolerate a Catholic teaching there. It was only a matter of time before the policy was tested--the momentum for this has been building for thirty years and a lot of it goes back to Webber and a few others who jumped to high-church Anglicanism.

I'd argue (as an interested outsider to the Wheaton community) that its far more significant that the termination occured in the same year that one of their most prolific professors published a book entitled Is the Reformation Over?.

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

You are misinformed. Wheaton requires adherence to a doctrinal statement and a statement of behavior that is not exclusively Protestant, if by Protestant one means the sixteenth-century Reformers. Now they may institute a policy that requires being non-Catholic or being "Protestant" but they'd have to define "Protestant" and, if they defined it in 16th-century Calvinist or Lutheran terms on free will it would exclude all their Wesleyan and Pentecostal students. But if they define it so as to permit free will (by avoiding making a statement about predestination, which is the way the doctrinal statement reads--at least it used to), then it not only opens things up to Wesleyans and Arminian Reformed and Free Will Baptists but also to Catholics--on that point.

So they don't require faculty to be Protestant in a real sense. You are probably using the term "protestant" in a false sense--a lot of people use it to mean non-Catholic or anti-Catholic. As this imbroglio illustrates, in fact a Catholic cannot teach at Wheaton, so their policy is that they are open to anyone who can subscribe to their broadly evangelical doctrinal statement who is also not a Catholic. I wonder what would happen if an Eastern Orthodox were to say, "hey, I can sign that statement in good faith--no, it doesn't include everything that I as an Orthodox believe, but neither does it include anything that an Orthodox cannot at least put up with"? I bet they'd be readier to employ such a person than a Catholic who says he can sign it.

[jude24]

Now they may institute a policy that requires being non-Catholic or being "Protestant" but they'd have to define "Protestant" and, if they defined it in 16th-century Calvinist or Lutheran terms on free will it would exclude all their Wesleyan and Pentecostal students. But if they define it so as to permit free will (by avoiding making a statement about predestination, which is the way the doctrinal statement reads--at least it used to), then it not only opens things up to Wesleyans and Arminian Reformed and Free Will Baptists but also to Catholics--on that point.

And even if they define "Protestant" broadly enough to oinclude Calvinists, Wesleyans, and Baptists of all stripes, it would not include the Plymouth Brethren, who do not see themselves as Protestant (despite having a quite Protestant theology) - even though they have quite a few students (and faculty, I believe) there who hail from Plymouth Brethren churches. (Yeah, I know. It's an obscure group - but one with which I am personally familiar.)

I bet they'd be readier to employ such a[n Eastern Orthodox] than a Catholic who says he can sign it.

I doubt if its come up. An evangelical meets Catholics all the time, but many are blissfully unaware of Eastern Orthodoxy - and it's not as though the Orthodox are beating down the doors to teach in Evangelical colleges.

[Balding_Eagle]

You are making a false assumption about Wheaton's policy.

Could be, I was going by the news article.

[Balding_Eagle]

Do you know something about Joshua Hochschild that that rest of us don't know?

Based on the news article, and your responses, evidently yes.

[Balding_Eagle]

just not in the areas you feel important...

I would have made the same choice, food on the table. I just wouldn't have tried to impose my beliefs on the school.

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

I use the term JPII evangelical Catholics in the sense of George Weigel's language in his Witness to Hope biography. The first of Weigel's 8 accomplishments of JPII is that he returned the practice of being Bishop of Rome to a form more like it had in the earliest centuries (witness, martyr) than in the more recent centuries when it was seen more as administering the huge institution. I think Weigel is unfair to the Piuses and Leos of the 19th and 20th centuries--they did not leave behind the proclamation of the Gospel but I understand Weigel was drawing the contrast for a rhetorical purpose. And it is true that JPII deliberately chose to conduct his entire pontificate as a teacher, proclaimer, witness to Christian truth, to the claim that Christ is Lord over all--the entire Gospel proclamation was there in his first encyclical, which he told he he had been carrying around in his heart long before he was elected, otherwise he could not have written it so quickly.

So, in broad measure, Weigel is right about the characteristics of this shift and its great significance, even if he underestimates previous popes.

Regarding Mark Noll. Mark is a very irenic, honest, tireless scholar. He genuinely is open to conversation but is firm about remaining an Evangelical. That could change, I suppose, but he has the intellectual and spiritual honesty and confidence to study and converse with and be open to Catholics without feeling threatened or pushed to convert. And his circle of Catholic contacts knows that and takes the same attitude--we know who we are, we aren't insecure in our Catholic convictions, we can talk to you clearly and openly and we all gain. This is what lies behind Colson's and Neuhaus's Evangelicals and Catholics together in which Noll has been involved. If you notice the Evangelicals who cooperated with it, they are among the most confident, most learned, most gifted, most secure: Timothy George, J. I. Packer, Noll etc. Those who denounced Packer and others for getting involved in ECT often were the ones who are also critical of the Evangelical mainstream for not being strict 16th-century Protestants. In other words, they are still carrying the polemics of the 16th-century around with chips on their shoulders. It long ago became clear to me that often the 16th-century reformers were talking past their Catholic interlocutors--were shadowboxing, fighting supposed Catholic beliefs that Catholics did not in fact hold. The ECT Evangelicals have realized that and have observed the JPII Evangelical Catholic renewal and see that they can converse with them and learn from them and they from the Evangelicals without either side trying to convert the other. This is very threatening to the 16th-century Reformation purists (I can't name names but I think you know who they are) whose entire case rests on insisting that Catholics are pelagians who have abandoned the true Gospel.

Noll remains at Wheaton becaues he is firmly committed to remaining an Evangelical. It's not really at odds with the firing of Hochschild. One converted, the other has made it clear he has no intention to do so. One can be friendly with Catholics and remain in good standing at Wheaton as long as one doesn't actually become one.

[porkchops 4 mahound]

Sorry but I think you are just talking semantics.

This seems to me to be a mole hill elevated to mountain. Or maybe a mote into a plank?

Just IMO, so... it's just one man's opinion.

But I still find it all amusing.

When the only valid question, (at least to me), is, Did the Christ rise from the dead?

I find this silly beyond words, but they have the right to run their outfit anyway they want to.

God Bless em all! (and ALL of you and yours!)

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

Plymouth Brethren have always been very common and highly influential at Wheaton. That's why the doctrinal statement is silent about denominations and confessional traditions (Lutherans, Anglicans etc.). But the bulk of Wheaton's constituency has always been Bible Church, Free-Church, low-church rather than Lutheran or Methodist. Presbyterians were very dominant in the 1930s and 1940s, even the 1950s but that's because the Presbyterians split under Machen and the ones at Wheaton represented that classic Princeton theology Calvinism that had been booted out of PCUSA. But Presbyterians are, among the mainline denominations, the least "denominational" and least liturgical, so they were closer to the independent Bible church heart of Wheaton's old 1920s Fundamentalism than Lutherans or Methodists or Episcopalians would have been.

So Plymouth Brethren fit right in at Wheaton, indeed were a core constituency. I don't think you are quite right to say that PB's refuse to be called "Protestant." They do of course, but only because "Protestant" to them means "denominational" and they have come out from the idolatry of all the denominations and confessions to the pure congregationalism (the more honest among them recognize that in many ways PBs have become denominational). Certainly if you pose "Protestant" as meaning "non-Catholic" and "non-Orthodox" then they would by all means identify with that.

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

There's a strong scholarly tradition in 16th-century Reformers and the main Protestant confessions (Lutheran, Calvinist, Presbyterian). That's how the Congregationalist and Presbyterian minister became part of the ruling elite in New England.

And the Protestant Scholastics of the 1600s and 1700s actually had a lot in common with Aquinas and it's long been acceptable for Evangelical intellectuals to read Aquinas. Alvin Vos wrote a book about that 30 years ago--he was a Calvin College graduate? who was teaching at Western Kentucky U or somewhere in Kentucky, teaching philosophy and interested in Aquinas. Like Aristotle, Aquinas can be claimed by philosophers who don't have any real interest in him as a Catholic but who are interested in how his mind worked, how he did philosophy. What Hochschild did was to convert to Catholicism. That's quite different.

Hochschild was not referring to Protestantism but to Evangelicalism which arose in reaction to the secularized scholarly rationalism of the mainstream Protestants in the 1700s and as a result, was anti-intellectual. Isaac Backus and the Baptists in New England condemned the elite Congregationalist ministers (who had classical educations in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew) as devoid of Holy Spirit unction. The Baptist revivalists claimed that all one needed was the Holy Spirit, not book learning, to be a preacher of the Gospel. They spread throughout the frontier, together with the Methodists who represent the same thing among Anglicans rather than among Calvinists, while the learned Yale and Princeton graduates lagged way behind in converting the newly settled regions. That's the origin of the anti-intellectualism of Evangelicalism, which Noll excoriates in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.

Interestingly enough, German pietists managed to combine scholarly, learned ministry with revivalism. When I studied at Tuebingen among Lutheran Pietist theology students, they did their devotional Bible studies directly from Nestle-Aland's pocket Greek NT. They expected their theology students-on-the-way-to-becoming-state-church Lutheran pastors to know the languages thoroughly, be fully trained in German university theology but also to be effective, rousing preachers and have a heart for pastoral care. It left an impression on me that I will never forget because it was so different from what I knew among American Evangelicals. Catholic priests during the post-Trent period also had a high degree of learning, though not the same focus on Greek and Hebrew (but not ignorant of them entirely) combined with sacramental, pastoral heart--that was the ideal that the post-Trent seminaries were designed for. Of course a lot of priests did not live up to that--there were some duds among the Lutheran pietists theology students at Tuebingen too--some were too bookish and would never make good pastors, some had the heart but not the scholarly abilities, but at their best, they combined the two strikingly. The same was true of the best Catholic priests for several centuries. After Vatican II seminaries shifted toward touchy-feely smarmyness and the intellectual caliber dropped off, but it's coming back.

[PetroniusMaximus]

"... postate "Protestant" "

That's "Aprostatant".

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

Here's the Wheaton doctrinal statement. They've taken out the millennialist eschatology stuff entirely. I would have absolutely no reservations about signing this as a Catholic. There's nothing in here incompatible with Catholic belief. It just avoids all the distinctly Catholic ecclesiology because Evangelicals range from strict congregationalism to presbyterian to episcopal governance.

There's nothing in this statement that mentions "Protestant." And there are no "evangelical distinctives" in this statement at all--that is, there's nothing in it that would point exclusively to the Evangelical movement of the 19th-century.

Having looked at the current statement (much revised from thirty years ago), I would retract my assertion that they were within their rights to fire him. The statement says nothing about membership in this or that Christian denomination or church. He can, as a Catholic, in good faith fully subscribe to their doctrinal statement, which they say is all that is required. I think he actually has reason to consider himself unjustly terminated, though no court is going to get involved in the theological issues. But as far as I can see, a Catholic could sign this statement with no qualms of conscience.

http://www.wheaton.edu/welcome/mission.html#faith

Statement of Faith
The doctrinal statement of Wheaton College, reaffirmed annually by its Board of Trustees, faculty, and staff, provides a summary of biblical doctrine that is consonant with evangelical Christianity. The statement accordingly reaffirms salient features of the historic Christian creeds, thereby identifying the College not only with the Scriptures but also with the reformers and the evangelical movement of recent years. The statement also defines the biblical perspective which informs a Wheaton education. These doctrines of the church cast light on the study of nature and man, as well as on man's culture.

WE BELIEVE in one sovereign God, eternally existing in three persons: the everlasting Father, His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and the Holy Spirit, the giver of life; and we believe that God created the Heavens and the earth out of nothing by His spoken word, and for His own glory.


WE BELIEVE that God has revealed Himself and His truth in the created order, in the Scriptures, and supremely in Jesus Christ; and that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are verbally inspired by God and inerrant in the original writing, so that they are fully trustworthy and of supreme and final authority in all they say.


WE BELIEVE that Jesus Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, and was true God and true man, existing in one person and without sin; and we believe in the resurrection of the crucified body of our Lord, in His ascension into heaven, and in His present life there for us as Lord of all, High Priest, and Advocate.


WE BELIEVE that God directly created Adam and Eve, the historical parents of the entire human race; and that they were created in His own image, distinct from all other living creatures, and in a state of original righteousness.


WE BELIEVE that our first parents sinned by rebelling against God's revealed will and thereby incurred both physical and spiritual death, and that as a result all human beings are born with a sinful nature that leads them to sin in thought, word, and deed.


WE BELIEVE in the existence of Satan, sin, and evil powers, and that all these have been defeated by God in the cross of Christ.


WE BELIEVE that the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins, according to the Scriptures, as a representative and substitutionary sacrifice, triumphing over all evil; and that all who believe in Him are justified by His shed blood and forgiven of all their sins.


WE BELIEVE that all who receive the Lord Jesus Christ by faith are born again of the Holy Spirit and thereby become children of God and are enabled to offer spiritual worship acceptable to God.


WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit indwells and gives life to believers, enables them to understand the Scriptures, empowers them for godly living, and equips them for service and witness.


WE BELIEVE that the one, holy, universal Church is the body of Christ and is composed of the communities of Christ's people. The task of Christ's people in this world is to be God's redeemed community, embodying His love by worshipping God with confession, prayer, and praise; by proclaiming the gospel of God's redemptive love through our Lord Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth by word and deed; by caring for all of God's creation and actively seeking the good of everyone, especially the poor and needy.


WE BELIEVE in the blessed hope that Jesus Christ will soon return to this earth, personally, visibly, and unexpectedly, in power and great glory, to gather His elect, to raise the dead, to judge the nations, and to bring His Kingdom to fulfillment.


WE BELIEVE in the bodily resurrection of the just and unjust, the everlasting punishment of the lost, and the everlasting blessedness of the saved.

[PetroniusMaximus]

"I would have absolutely no reservations about signing this as a Catholic. There's nothing in here incompatible with Catholic belief."


Really???


"so that they are fully trustworthy and of supreme and final authority in all they say. "

The Scripture - not the Magesterium.


"And that as a result all human beings are born with a sinful nature that leads them to sin in thought, word, and deed. "

Mary?



"all who believe in Him are justified by His shed blood and forgiven of all their sins. "

All sins - not just prebaptismal.


"WE BELIEVE that all who receive the Lord Jesus Christ by faith are born again of the Holy Spirit and thereby become children of God"

Regeneration through faith - not baptism.


"WE BELIEVE that the Holy Spirit indwells and gives life to believers, enables them to understand the Scriptures"

Catholics can't understands the Scriptures without the Magesterium.


"WE BELIEVE that the one, holy, universal Church is the body of Christ and is composed of the communities of Christ's people."

Even those separated from Rome?

[jude24]

Honestly, what I think happened was that the administration decided that their donors wouldn't appreciate a Catholic on the faculty. Christian colleges and seminaries are highly dependant upon the donations of alumnii and others to give them endowments. Having a Catholic on the faculty would not sit well with some donors, no matter how evangelically-minded his brand of Catholicism may be.

Other schools have kept their blanket prohibitions on alcohol use or dances for similar reasons.

[HighlyOpinionated]

To study the Church Fathers (and Christian History) is to become a Catholic.

Amen to that. Studying the Church Fathers to 'find my roots' in my Lutheran heritage led me right to Rome, following the path Peter took.



"Scott's and Kimberly's spiritual duet is gracious, inspiring, and convincing, just like the Catholic faith they have embraced." -- Karl Keating, Author, Catholicism and Fundamentalism

Rome Sweet Home is the conversion story of Scott and Kimberly Hahn. Learn the joys and struggles faced by two devout Protestants as they each converted to Catholicism. In this moving account, the reader cannot escape learning the insights Dr. Hahn and Kimberly gained as they made their journey home. The discovery of new conceptions of God's covenant, one of Dr. Hahn's primary contributions to contemporary theology, is just one of the gems the reader can mine from this sometimes painfully-candid account of conversion and the effect it can have on today's families.

[PetroniusMaximus]

"To study the Church Fathers (and Christian History) is to become a Catholic."


To study the Bible and obey is to become Christian.


We will not be graded on what the Church Fathers said (edifying as they may be), but on what we did with the words of Christ.

[Larry Lucido]

I think they were wrong in firing him -- grounds of religion, race, color, etc.

There are clearly carved-out exceptions to that, Salvation. Your parish is free to hire Catholics only. A Presbyterian church is free to hire only Presbyterians. Any other outcome would be absurd.

[Dionysiusdecordealcis]

You read into the statement your non-Catholic assumptions but the statement itself does not say what you think it says and Catholics do not believe what you think they believe. We believe the Scriptures are the final authority.

You added the gloss: "not the magisterium." But the statement doesn't specify a "not" clause. It leaves it open.

Now, of course we Catholics believe, in addition to our belief that Scripture is the final authority, that the bishops in apostolic succession are the authoritative interpreters of that final authority. The statement leaves the question of who interprets Scripture unspecified--because among Wheaton's constituency, a variety of approaches to ecclesial authority for interpreting Scripture are to be found.

The statement does not say "we believe that the Scriptures naked of any interpretation are the final authority." It presumes that Scripture will be interpreted--this statement itself is an interpretation of Scripture.

Evangelicals also have a magisterium to interpret scripture but they don't agree about what constitutes it, so Wheaton's statement can't specify whether it's our Catholic bishop-magisterium or an Episcopalian bishop-magisterium or a Presbyterians synodal magisterium or a Bible-Church Pastor Lone Ranger magisterium. The Presbyterians don't leave Scripture as the naked final authority--they have a well defined magisterial interpretation called the Westminster Confession as interpreted by synods and presbyteries or by bishops and laypeople attending Convention etc. For Baptists and Bible Churches, their magisterium is their pastor and, in varying forms, the denominational conventions of which their congregations are members. But Wheaton can't specify the Westminster Confession or Augsburg Confession or Southern Baptist Convention statement of doctrine without thereby excluding one or more segments of their constituency.

Regarding all human beings born with a sinful nature--we believe that. We believe Mary and Christ are the exceptions. The statement takes no position one way or the other on whether "all" admits of exceptions. Had it specified, "We believe that all human beings without exception are born with a sinful nature" it would exclude Catholics (and the Church Fathers). But it doesn't say that. Once more, you read something into it. The statement could easily be rewritten to specfically exclude Catholic believes about bishops, sacraments etc. but if they did that it would exclude a lot of high church Episcopalians and they don't want to do that.

Catholics believe that Christ's shed blood is what forgives our sins. Where in the world did you get the idea otherwise? Now, if they had wanted to say "forgiven by Christ's blood apart from sacraments or baptism" that would exclude Catholics, but also Lutherans and Episcopalians. So they left it loosey-goosey.

You quoted the statement: "WE BELIEVE that all who receive the Lord Jesus Christ by faith are born again of the Holy Spirit and thereby become children of God"

Then you commented: "Regeneration through faith - not baptism."

But look, the statement does not say "not baptism." It leaves it open. You added a gloss to it, you interpreted it as excluding baptismal regeneration. But Wheaton doesn't want to do that because some Wheaton constituents do believe in baptismal regeneration. Not many. Most would agree with you. But the statement does not specify, and for good reason. You really don't read carefully. I hope you have a good lawyer when you go to sign contracts.

We believe that the Holy Spirit indwells us (we say he comes to us at baptism while you and most Bible Churchers would say he comes when you are converted and accept Christ by faith and Lutherans say he comes to us at baptism and so forth. You once more added a gloss--you say that when the Wheaton statement says we need the Holy Spirit to understand Scripture, that excludes a Catholic magisterium being needed. But the statement does not make that exclusion--you do in your private interpretation of the Wheaton statement. All the Wheaton statement says is that one can't interpret Scripture without the Holy Spirit. Catholics agree. We believe that the Holy Spirit inspires and leads and moves the bishops in the magisterium. You apparently believe the Catholic magisterium is devoid of the Holy Spirit. Fine. But since we do believe the Holy Spirit works through the magisterium and the magisterium only comes into play when two or more Christians disagree about what the Holy Spirit is telling each of them is the proper understanding of Scripture, our magisterium does not eliminate personal Holy Spirit guidance for individual or groups of Christians as they seek to understand Scripture. Our magisterium only functions to resolve disputes. The various Protestant synods, presbyteries, conventions, pastors etc. also believe that the Holy Spirit works through them to resolve disputes and interpret Scripture rightly. The statement does not specify which form of magisterium dispute-resolving is biblical--and cannot because Wheaton's constituency is all over the map on this question. But for you to insist that the statement's very words exclude the Catholic magisterium is silly. The statement does no such thing. If Wheaton wants to leave it open to all synodal and congregational and episcopal Holy Spirit channels for understanding Scripture while excluding the Catholic Holy Spirit channeled magisterium, it could have been written that way. But it wasn't.

We agree about the universal church being composed of communities of Christ's people. We call them local churches (dioceses further ordered into parishes), Souther Baptists call them congregations, Lutheran's call them synods, Episcopalians call them dioceses and parishes. The statement doesn't specify which of these forms of organization "communities" refers to because if it specified synods it would exclude Episcopalians and if it strictly specified local congregations or assemblies, it would please the Plymouth Brethren and Bible Churches and some Baptists but exclude Presbyterians and Lutherans. So it just says "communities."

And you read "communities" and understand it to exclude our dioceses. If it intended to exclude dioceses it should have said so. It didn't.

I'm sure a lot of people at Wheaton think like you do. They think the statement excludes Catholics because they don't what Catholics do believe and they are so bound up in their own forms of organization and their own beliefs that they read a statement like this and think the only interpretation possible is theirs. But the people who wrote this were smarter than that. Wheaton is not a Presbyterian or Lutheran of Bible Church or Pentecostal school. It aims to be open to all Christians (Catholics excepted). And the simple, embarrassing, fact, is that among Evangelical Protestants, there's a lot of disagreement about worship, sacraments, church government and so forth--disagreement about what "biblcal" means when applied to church government.

If the Wheaton statement specified these things, it could not serve pan-Evangelical constituents. So it doesn't specify. But "everyone knows" that Catholics can't sign this statement--because "everyone knows" that Catholics are "so different from us Evangelicals." But the dirty little secret is that when you boil beliefs down to a low enough common denominator to embrace everything from Pentecostals through Bible Churchers through Baptists to Methodists, Lutherans and Episcopalians, you have extended it far enough for Catholics too. If they'd have stopped short of the Episcopalians and Lutherans, it might have worked. They could then have expressly excluded baptismal regeneration and said anyone who believes in it does not belong at Wheaton. But they had to leave it open to that, which opens it to Catholics. If they had specified congregational polity, then Catholics would be excluded, but so would everyone but the Bible Churchers and independent Baptists and Plymouth Brethren. So they simply specified nothing. But that opens it to Catholics.

You don't like to hear this but it's simply what the statement--before you rewrote it with your glosses--says. Or more accurately, does not say. The statement studiously does not say what your glosses say it says.