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."Another Wheaton professor, Mark Noll, lamented several years ago that "the tragedy of the Evangelical mind is that there is not much of an Evangelical mind." I've had people assume that I am some sort of Catholic wolf-in-sheep's-clothing because I read and quote Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. I have encountered in the Evangelical church a rampant anti-intellectual bias, to the point that some claim that even a theological education is a hinderence to true ministry. In an environment like that, I can understand and sympathize with a philosophy professor who feels the pull of Rome. (Though I have no intention of "swimming the Tiber," since I still have grave reservations regarding certain issues that keep me Evangelical.)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.
As an Evangelical, I think that this is our loss. There was a lot we could have learned from someone with a deep understanding of Thomastic philosophy. I am amazed at just how relevant his natural law theology is today.
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....
I have encountered in the Evangelical church a rampant anti-intellectual bias, to the point that some claim that even a theological education is a hinderence to true ministry.
It seems inherent that Evangelicals will never have a central "authority" that everyone can trust to state what an Evangelical believes. In my own little town, I've seen Evangelical groups split more than once. And they all teach the Bible as the sole rule of faith. They just have some slight differences with one another's beliefs about the meaning of what God is telling them through the Bible, but apparently serious enough that they can't maintain fellowship.
"What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?"
Catholicism is strange. They like to tout their history and philosophy, but that doesn't keep them from bashing the "pridefulness" of the Pharisees and boasting about the simplicity of the twelve humble apostles. Then it's back to Plato's Academy. I believe it was Pascal who said that the "gxd" of Roman Catholicism is the "gxd" of the philosophers, not the G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Like I say, Wheaton's a private school run by Evangelicals to educate Evangelicals. My main concern with a professor converting to Catholicism is if he would then necessarily jettison Biblical literalism and creationism in order to be in line with mainstream Catholicism.