Dr. Beckwith resigns from ETS altogether...

... and has posted an explanation on the Right Reason blog:

As many of you know, on Saturday May 5, 2007, I resigned as president of the Evangelical Theological Society seven days after being received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church (see here). I have now decided to take the further step and resign as a member of ETS, an organization to which I have belonged as either a student or full member since 1984. Between 1986 and 2001 I published  five articles in the ETS academic periodical, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. So, it is with deep regret that about an hour ago I tendered my resignation as a member of ETS.

Although I firmly believe that I can sign the ETS doctrinal statement in good conscience, my high-profile presence in ETS will likely result in the sort of public conflict that occurred during the debate over the openness view of God and the attempt on the part of some members to oust believers in that view.  Because, as I noted in my prior posting on this matter, that I deeply desire a public conversation among Christians about the relationship between Evangelicalism and the Great Tradition, a public debate about my membership status, with all the rancor and stress that typically goes with such disputes, would preempt and poison that important conversation. For this reason, I am resigning as a member of ETS.

Read the entire post. The Dallas Morning News reports on the story:

As of Saturday, Dr. Beckwith planned to remain in ETS as perhaps its only known Catholic. But on Monday, he withdrew altogether, saying he'd been told that some members would try to have him removed.

The fight wouldn't be worth it, he said.

"At the end of the day, I have to remember it's not just about me, it's about what's good for ETS and for the Christian community, Protestant and Catholic," he said.

Dr. Beckwith, 46, was baptized and confirmed as a Catholic as a child. As a teen, he began to attend evangelical Protestant churches.

That continued as he made his way in academia, earning advanced degrees in philosophy.

He's a much-published scholar, known for writing against abortion and in favor of the right to teach intelligent design – a theory to counter evolution – in public schools.

At Baylor, he was initially denied tenure but won on appeal last year. Dr. Beckwith wouldn't comment on the tenure battle – "I've moved past that" – but his cause was taken up by conservative blogs and journals.

Amy Welborn writes:

Catholics are startled that some still consider them trapped in the snares of the Whore of Babylon. Many Protestants are embarrassed about those kind of fulminations and while not agreeing with Dr. Beckwith's decision, express their gratitude to him for his work and assurance of their prayers.

On a deeper level, it reveals to us who don't normally pay attention to such things the conversations still going on about two fundamental issues: sola Scriptura and justification ...

I lead a Monday night Bible study at my parish, and we often discuss how different Christian groups/traditions interpret certain passages of Scripture, or how they understand (or misunderstand) various doctrinal issues. One thing I try to emphasize is that "Evangelicalism" is often used to describe a wide spectrum of often conflicting views, and that for every Evangelical who believes This Doctrine or That Statement, there is another who sees it differently. This can be seen, of course, in the reactions to Dr. Beckwith's return to the Catholic Church. But that reaction is hardly surprising; it simply highlights the growing tension within the ranks of what most people call, for lack of a better word, "Evangelicalism"—a tension that in many ways emanates from the vital debate over the relationship between Evangelicalism and ancient Christianity. In other words many Evanglicals are spending substantial time and effort seeking to carefully gauge their relationship with Catholicism and, to a less prominent degree, Eastern Orthodoxy. This can be seen, to give just a few examples, in the work of the influential (and recently deceased) Robert Webber, author of the Ancient-Future book series, in the IVP Ancient Commentary Series (which I've been buying), Dr. Mark Noll's Is The Reformation Over?, and recent books by Evangelical patristics scholar D.H. Williams. Which is why, as Welborn notes, Dr. Beckwith stated, in his first post:

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.

To put it bluntly, there are some Evangelicals who don't want to have that conversation because they believe that even having it is to acquiesce to Catholicism and to admit, however implicitly, that Catholics are not only Christian, but should be seated at the table of ecumenical conversation as true brothers in Christ. And, in a very real sense, they are correct. If, say, an Evangelical from the Reformed tradition believes that true Christianity was saved from the Catholic Church and articulated in Reformed creeds and theology, then acknowledging the Catholic Church as being Christian involves, at some level, a serious questioning of important aspects of the Reformed tradition and heritage. Such an Evangelical (as comments on the Right Reason blog indicate) believes the very suggestion that Catholics and  Evangelicals can, for instance, may be able to reach a substantial agreement about the nature of justification to be heretical and scandalous. And it should be noted that some Catholics feel the same way. The point is that while Catholic-Evangelical dialogue has come a long way in the past 30 to 40 years, the journey is still quite young and promises to be bumpy for years to come.

For further reading, from This Rock magazine (November 2003):

• What Evangelical Protestants Can Learn from Catholics, by Ralph MacKenzie
• What Catholics Can Learn From Evangelicals, by Mark Brumley

Comments

[Mark Brumley]

Yes, but ...

Remember when Tom Howard converted in the 1980s? Big news. Of course there was no internet, so we had to rely on what print media there was--CT did a big story on it--and word-of-mouth. I think on balance the reaction to Dr. Beckwith's reversion has been more sympathetic than the reaction to Howard's conversion. Maybe that is illusory because the general observer had much more limited access to Evangelical opinion at the time whereas the internet gives us access to a wider selection of Evangelical opinion. In any event, I am struck not by the hostility, which I completely expected, but by the number of people who, while not agreeing with the move, nevertheless support Beckwith in his making it.

On the other hand, the reaction against him is interesting, too. I hope to have time to post some reflections on the subordination of the Reformation in Evangelicalism to a new reading of Scripture and a recovery of the early Church Fathers, and the efforts of some Evangelicals to counter these trends by elevating the Reformers to a kind of latter-day Church Fathers status. Of course this is the "traditional" Protestant stance trying to reassert itself in the face of a growing desire for unity among Catholics and Evangelicals, and an increase of Evangelical appropriation of Catholic elements from early Christianity: an Oxford Movement II, only this movement is on a much larger scale.

In my view, this analysis goes a long way toward explaining why some people insist on approaching Catholic teaching in only the most polemical of terms. They're reacting against a growing trend in the opposite direction.

My conclusion: we all need to read, think about, and pray about the stance taken by Louis Bouyer. Not all Evangelicals will be convinced by him as I was but if they are fair and they read him with an open mind and open heart, they will have a better idea of why affirming the positive principles of the Reformation isn't incompatible per se with Catholicism.

[ro327ck]

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