Here is my response, posted on Beckwith’s weblog:
Dr. Beckwith,
I find it very sad you’ve chosen to “err on the side of the Church with historical and theological continuity with the first generations of Christians” instead of staying with the Christians who are the most faithful to the very first generation of Christians, the authors of the New Testament.
The more I’ve studied the history of the Reformation, the more I am thankful for the work of the Reformers—rejected, excommunicated and utterly repudiated by your Church, if not burned alive.
May you influence the Church of the Bishop of Rome for the Gospel—and help reform that body.
Sola Scriptura, Solus Christus, Sola Gracia, Sola Fide, Soli Deo Gloria!
At the same time, I think it is important to remember the huge movement in the last 40 years, even in the last 20 of Rome. Officially Trent is still in effect, but unofficially yes, the anathamas are no more....
As you can see by my remarks above, I’m not defending the man, however, a mistake I see my reformed and conservative evangelical brothers make all the time is thinking Roman dogma is the same as it was in 1570, and even when Rome claims it is... it simply is not. I’ve even seen respected Roman theologians use the term “alien righteousness” the very same phrase coined by Luther, when speaking of justification. The Catichism of 1993 is MUCH softer on Protestants than anything which has come before—and it’s official Catholic dogma (the first universal catechism since Trent, I might add), largely written and approved by Ratzinger himself.
Yes Trent in all its horror is still on the books, but from Ratzinger on down, Rome is changing. Maybe Beckwith will help with such reform—we should pray for it.
My situation is similar to his. I was baptized in the Catholic church. The story of my baptism still holds a special place in my heart and it always will. My mother calls me every April 29th to ask me if I remember what day it is. The memory of my first Communion is sort of fuzzy, but still dear, and the memory of my confirmation is without meaning, so my memories are a mixed bag of holiness and indifference.
My situation is dissimilar to his in that I don't see myself ever returning to the Catholic church for reasons both substantive and personal. My ties to Roman Catholicism were forged in a crucible of the punitive, there's not a whole lot that can grow from that as the agnostic diaspora of so many of the Catholics of my age and that of those just a couple of years older than me attests.
I've been attending a Reformed Presbyterian church for a few weeks now. Following worship I've had dinner with the pastor and his wife and precious kids. He's smart, young, devoted, energetic, unbigoted and worthy of his title. I witnessed Protestant celebration of the Eucharist this past Sunday, and could not stop crying for the reverence and humility exhibited by the pastor and running through the congregation.
I struggle so very much to try find a place for myself at the Christian table, and I often grow despondent because of the struggle. It may well be that one day I despair of it, and finally admit to myself that I may not be Christian at all, and that perhaps it was just an illusion that I ever really was. At this point, I'm just going to take one day at a time, and pray for wisdom.
Let me close with an excerpt from the truth-loving, fully introspective Philip Schaff and his writing on German Theology & the Church Question.
Then again it must be proved that Protestantism has its foundation substantially in Apostolical Christianity. For the New Testament, the Word of Christ and his inspired organs, is, after all, the final resort in all religious questions, and whatever has not connecting point with it cannot be sustained in the end. The germs of all legitimate stages of progress must already appear in the Apostolic Church, whilst a development beyond Christ himself and his Apostles, in the sense of Rationalists and Free-thinkers of all classes, must naturally assume the character of a degeneration, and a relapse into Heathenism or Judaism. With such development we, of course, have not the least sympathy whatever, but abhor it as essentially antichristian. But the Reformers, we all know, without exception placed themselves on the Bible as the only infallible rule of Christian faith and practice. Now it would indeed be an inextricable historical riddle, if the close association which Protestantism has from the start formed with the Bible, and if the zeal with which it continually devotes itself to its translation, interpretation and promulgation throughout the world, should rest finally upon a mere delusion.It is indeed, manifestly impossible for the Bible to contain all that the various denominations and sects imagine to find in it--but which, in truth, they force into it, by means of their private interpretation--or it would contradict itself, and cease to be the truth any longer. It cannot possibly contain at once the contrary doctrines of Episcopalianism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, Zuinglianism, Presbyterianism, Congregationalism, Methodism, the Baptists and Quakers, (if by special indulgence, we should number the last two with orthodox Protestantism); it cannot, at the same time, teach and condemn the doctrine of Predestination, or both affirm and deny the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist; it cannot at one time declare Baptismal Regeneration, and yet degrade the Sacrament to the level of an empty sign; it cannot enjoin the baptism of Infants, and yet reject it as unchristian; it cannot establish three order in the Ministry, and then again, but one, or teach no peculiar spiritual office at all, but only a universal Priesthood, and favor whatever other points of difference there may be in Doctrine, Constitution and Cultus, partly essential, partly non-essential, concerning which Protestants have quarreled already for three hundred years, with equally zealous appeal to the Bible, without advancing a single step towards each other. Still justice requires us to allow, that they agree, we will not say in all--as this would evidently be saying too much--but in most of the fundamental articles of the Gospel; for if it were otherwise, we would according to the incontrovertible maxim, "out of the Church, no salvation," be compelled to deny the possibility of salvation in one or the other of these communions, to which extent, even the extreme Puseyites and Old-Lutherans will not venture.
Some such relation then must evidently exist between the Bible and orthodox Protestantism in order to explain intelligently their close connection for three hundred years. In this dilemma, German Theology again comes to our relief and transfers us, to what appears to us, the only correct point of view.
Modern exegetical investigations, in which sphere, as is well known, it has displayed an extraordinary activity, place it beyond all doubt for us at least, that we must distinguish three stages of development and types of doctrine in the apostolic Church, which of course, in no way, contradict or exclude each other, as the school of Dr. Baur in Tubingen, after the precedence of the ancient Gnostics, maintains, but mutually complete each other, to with:--Jewish Christianity, represented by the Apostles, Peter and James, Gentile Christianity represented by the Gentile Apostle Paul and his co-laborers, and the higher union of both by John, the beloved disciple, who, surviving all his colleagues, exhibits the third and last period and completion of the Apostolic Church, and looks forward, at the same time, as the Prophet of the new covenant, through the most distant future, to the new heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness and peace for evermore.
If this view be correct--and we find it more and more confirmed the longer we study the New Testament in its proper connection--we have a polar star to guide us through the entire labyrinth of Church History, in her manifold phases and stages of development. According to this view then, the history of the Catholic Church, which stays herself on Peter as her rock [10], and derives her doctrine of justification, faith, and good works chiefly from the first two Gospels and from the Epistle of James, corresponds to Apostolic Jewish Christianity, and with it lays stress principally on authority, law and the closest possible connection with the theocracy of the Old Testament. Protestantism, which originally proceeded from a renewed study of the Epistles of Paul, is a onesided enforcing of the paulino-Gentile Christianity with its spirit of evangelical freedom and independence, over against the jewish Christian excesses. In its relation to Catholicism it has thus far imitated St. Paul far more in his temporary inimical collision with Peter at Antioch, (Gal. 2:11, 19) than in his subsequent friendly co-operation with him, and has frequently given occasion to his antagonist to repeat the warning of Perter against the abuse of the writings of Paul "in which there are some things hard to be understood." (2 Peter 3:16.) Then again Protestantism has unfolded thus far almost exclusively the anthropological and soteriological doctrines of Paul, his Epistles to the Galatians and Romans; whilst the later Epistles of the same Apostle, especially his profound doctrine of the Church, as the one, undivided body of Christ, the fulness of him that filleth all in all, have evidently not yet received their full share of attention.
As soon as this shall be done, there will be at the same time a certain approximation to the Catholic, church-principle, and the way become prepared for the third and last Period of the Christian Church, in which the great truths of Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism, with the exclusion of their mutual errors, may become united in a higher union and harmony, through the renewal and complete appropriation of the spirit of John, especially of his doctrine of the person of Christ, and the living communion of the faithful with Him and each other. But this union must be preceded by a universal repentance, and we may here appropriate to ourselves the significant words of the great and generous Catholic Divine, Moehler (Symbolik, Page 358, sp. 6 Ed.,) who, after frankly acknowledging the unwarrantable lack of principle in so many priests, bishops and Popes, "whom hell has swallowed up," as the cause of corruption in his Church and of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, adds--"This is the point (the consciousness of guilt) at with Catholics and Protestants will in great multitudes one day meet and give each other the hand of friendship. Both, conscious of guilt, must exclaim, We all have erred--it is the Church only--as an institution of Christ--which cannot err; we all have sinned--the Church alone is spotless on earth. This open confession of mutual guilt will be followed by a festival of reconciliation."
The rest is here, in case you're interested.