Except that through mid-evil philosophy many of the traditions of the catholic church were born and the catholics give considerable weight to tradition. It is through many of the same philosophies that the reformation shapers were motivated.
Besides, that was not the issue. The issue is whether Catholics can be evangelical in their doctrine.
Not without dismissing a good deal of catholic doctrine
Can someone else tell you that you cannot affix your signature to a statement because they know better than you what you believe?
Catholics have set doctrine, if he is a professing, practicing catholic either he subscribes to it or he ignores it. In either case that is not a good fit..
Dear friend, you really don't know what you are talking about. Medieval philosophy is background for both Protestants and Catholics alike. Indeed, during the 1600s and 1700s what scholars call "Protestant Scholasticism" flourished among both Lutherans and Calvinists. One cannot understand Jonathan Edwards or the Puritan divines of New England without knowing Francois Turretin, the Genevan Calvinst Protestant Scholastic. Duns Scotus was widely used by Protestants. Why? Because these medieval philosophers developed great expertise in logic and analytical thinking. They are still studied for that reason by modern philosophers, secular, Protestant, and Catholic alike.
Incidentally, the same holds for Catholic medieval mystical theology. It was a wellspring for the very pietism out of which Protestant evangelicalism emerged in the 1700s and 1800s. The direct ancestors of Wheaton College evangelicals read Jean Gerson and Bernard of Clairvaux and Johann Tauler and Thomas a Kempis. They had no problem absorbing their deep insights into the Christian faith because they were Catholic authors.
The traditions of the Catholic faith on which Protestants and Catholics differ were not born in the Middle Ages but were present during the very earliest centuries of the Church. That you think all the bad stuff comes from the Middle Ages only shows how little you know about the history of theology. Intelligent Evangelical Protestants know differently and have always studied and taught medieval Catholic authors. While one could argue that medieval theology taught by a Catholic would be different from medieval theology taught by a Protestant, if a Protestant teaches medieval philosophy with a Protestant twist then he is being a poor scholar. And a genuine scholar-Protestant teaching medieval theology would do his best to understand it as it was understood by its proponents, which is exactly what a true Catholic scholar would do. So to argue that a Catholic would teach medieval theology in a "catholic" way and poison the minds of Protestant students is to admit that one doesn't really want medieval philosophy taught for its own sake but wants to prostitute it to one's ecclesial aims. That's not the mark of a "Harvard of the Evangelical World," and Wheaton should be ashamed for having church-politicized this issue.
I went on to state that the main issue was whether Catholics are evangelical or whether "evangelical" only applies to Protestants. Your reply shows that you don't understand the history of the term or the history of the Evangelical (capital E) movement. You effectively say that Catholics cannot be evangelical because they'd have to dismiss a lot of Catholic doctrine. So you are accusing us Catholics of betraying the Gospel.
Now, if by that you meant our beliefs about sacraments or bishops or councils, it would be an honest difference of conviction. But did you read the Wheaton statement defining what evangelicalism is? Please pay attention: thta statement does not include a single word that opposes Catholic beliefs.
It is in fact not a very good definition of the historical Evangelical Movement. If I were asked to write a statement defining Evangelicalism (capital E) I would have added precisely the points that are specific to Evangelical Protestants and that contradict Catholic teachings. But Wheaton College did not include those points in its own self-definition. They wrote a statement that defines evangelical with a small e, not the historic Evangelical Protestant movement. They left out every single clearly Protestant distinctive. If you had read my other posts on this thread you would know why: if they had defined historical Evangelical Protestantism they would have excluded Lutherans, Methodists, many Presbyterians, Dutch Reformed, Christian Reformed, Episcopalians. They would have still been open to more than half of their constituency but they would have defined away the rest.
Intra-Protestant disputes required that this statement be very fuzzy. I'm sure the framers of it did not realize it, but by writing it so fuzzy as to make it signable by everyone from Pentecostals to Episcopalians to Lutherans to Independent Baptists, they also made it signable by evangelical Catholics, John Paul II Catholics, Catechism of the Catholic Church Catholics, Vatican II Catholics, even by Council of Trent Catholics.
All was well as long as no Catholic dared to speak up and, "Hey, I can sign that statement with no reservations." When he did, they backpedaled and added some mumbo-jumbo about how the Wheaton tradition (unwritten) needs to govern the proper interpretation of the document. They saw this coming a few years ago and developed a few "update" patch kits for it and Dr. Litfin included a statement excluding Catholics in his 2004 book--but note that that's after the hiring of Hochschild brought attention to how vulnerable the written document was.
You might want to read the WSJ article and the other postings on this thread before being so sure you know it all.
Those reading this thread might go to
http://catholica.pontifications.net/?p=1322#comments for a summary of Mark Noll's book, Is the Reformation Over? Noll's irenic approach to Evangelical Protestant and evangelical Catholics relations, although he personally remains firmly Protestant, could have been a model for the president of his own college to have followed in l'affaire Hochschild.