Sunday, July 8, 2007
Conversion’s storm – Evangelical returns to the faith after not be able to explain why he wasn’t a Catholic
(By Tim Drake)
Emphasis in red completely mine
NORTH HAVEN, Conn. (National Catholic Register) – Until a few weeks ago, Francis Beckwith served as president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), an association of 4,300 Protestant theologians. That was until he made the announcement on the Right Reason blog of his return to the Catholic faith of his youth.
Beckwith returned to the church after 32 years as an evangelical. The online “storm” that followed led Beckwith to resign as president of the prestigious society.
He serves as associate professor of church-state studies at Baylor University. He spoke recently to National Catholic Register from his home in Waco, Texas.
National Catholic Register: It’s been a while now since your announcement. Can you believe your reversion is still generating so much online discussion?
No, it’s beyond remarkable. Prior to my announcement, our blog averaged 1,500 hits per day. The weekend after my announcement, it hit 20,000. We’re still getting between 5,000 and 7,000 per day.
National Catholic Register: You were born into a Catholic family. When did you leave the Catholic Church?
I was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1960. My mother, Elizabeth, also born in Brooklyn, is Italian-American. My father, Harold Beckwith, was born in Connecticut. I’m the eldest of their four children. In the mid-1960s we moved to Las Vegas, Nev., where my father worked as an accountant and internal auditor at a number of hotels. In the late 1970s, both he and mother founded Sweets of Las Vegas, a candy business that had two retail stores in the area.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was part of the first generation of Catholics who would have no memory of the church prior to Vatican II. This also meant that I grew up, and attended Catholic schools, during a time in which well-meaning Catholic leaders were testing all sorts of innovations in the church, many of which were deleterious to the proper formation of young people.
On the other hand, there were some very important renewal movements in the church at the time.
The Catholic Charismatic Movement had a profound impact on me.
During my middle school years, while attending Maranatha House, a Jesus People church in downtown Vegas, I also frequented a Catholic Charismatic Bible study. Some of the folks at that Bible study were instrumental in bringing to my parents’ parish three Dominican priests who offered a week-long evening seminar on the Bible and the Christian life. I attended that seminar and was very much taken by the Dominicans’ erudition and deep spirituality, and the love of Jesus that was evident in the way they conducted themselves.
But I was also impressed with the personal warmth and commitment to scripture that I found among charismatic Protestants with whom I had interacted at Maranatha House.
Looking back, and knowing what I know now, I believe that the church’s weakness was presenting the renewal movements as something new and not part of the church’s theological traditions.
For someone like me, who was interested in both the spiritual and intellectual grounding of the Christian faith, I didn’t need the “folk Mass” with cute nuns and hip priests playing “Kumbaya” with guitars, tambourines and harmonicas. And it was all badly done.
After all, we listened to the Byrds, Neil Young and Bob Dylan, and we knew the church just couldn’t compete with them.
But that’s what the church offered to the young people of my day: lousy pop music and a gutted Mass. If they were trying to make Catholicism unattractive to young and inquisitive Catholics, they were succeeding.
What I needed, and what many of us desired, were intelligent and winsome ambassadors for Christ who knew the intellectual basis for the Catholic faith, respected and understood the solemnity and theological truths behind the liturgy, and could explain the renewal movements in light of these.
National Catholic Register: You spent 32 years in the evangelical world. What could Catholics learn from evangelicals?
I learned plenty, and for that reason I do not believe I ceased to be an evangelical when I returned to the church. What I ceased to be was a Protestant. For I believe, as Pope Benedict has preached, that the church itself needs to nurture within it an evangelical spirit. There are, as we know, too many Catholics whose faith needs to be renewed and emboldened.
There is much that I learned as a Protestant evangelical that has left an indelible mark on me and formed the person I am today. For that reason, it accompanies me back to the church.
For instance, because Protestant evangelicals accept much of the great tradition that Catholics take for granted – such as the Catholic creeds and the inspiration of scripture – but without recourse to the church’s authority, they have produced important and significant works in systematic theology and philosophical theology.
Catholics would do well to plumb these works, since in them Protestant evangelicals often provide the biblical and philosophical scaffolding that influenced the church fathers that developed the Catholic creeds as well as the church’s understanding of the Bible as God’s word.
But these evangelicals do so by using contemporary language and addressing contemporary concerns. This will help Catholics understand the reasoning behind the classical doctrines.
In terms of expository preaching, as well as teaching the laity, Protestant evangelicals are without peers in the Christian world.
For instance, it is not unusual for evangelical churches to host major conferences on theological issues in which leading scholars address lay audiences in order to equip them to share their faith with their neighbors, friends, etc. Works by evangelical philosophers and theologians such as [J.P.] Moreland, [Paul] Copan, and William Lane Craig, should be in the library of any serious Catholic who wants to be equipped to respond to contemporary challenges to the Christian faith......
......National Catholic Register: What can evangelicals and Catholics learn from one another?
As I have already noted, I believe that Catholics can learn from evangelical Protestants how to preach, teach and offer support for doctrines and beliefs that Catholics often just leave to authority.
Evangelicals can learn from Catholics that Christianity is a historical faith that did not vanish from the earth between the second and 16th centuries. That is what I mean by “learning from the great tradition.”
Much of what evangelicals think of as the odd beliefs of Catholics have their roots deep in Christian history. This, of course, may not convince a Protestant that these views are correct.
But what it will do is help the Protestant to appreciate that the very same Christians that deliberated over the content of the biblical canon also believed in the Real Presence, purgatory, intercession of the saints and indulgences.
If these Christians, who knew the Bible far better than us, did not think these practices and beliefs “unbiblical,” one should not be so quick to dismiss these practices and beliefs simply because they are outside of one’s Protestant experience.
On the other hand, the fact that many Catholic parishes do not offer the expository preaching and theological teaching to their members found in the best Protestant churches should force Catholics to critically reflect on whether they are adequately evangelizing and equipping their own people to enter a world hostile to the Christian worldview.
We have much to learn from each other.
(Read the entire article here.)
Emphasis in red completely mine
NORTH HAVEN, Conn. (National Catholic Register) – Until a few weeks ago, Francis Beckwith served as president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), an association of 4,300 Protestant theologians. That was until he made the announcement on the Right Reason blog of his return to the Catholic faith of his youth.
Beckwith returned to the church after 32 years as an evangelical. The online “storm” that followed led Beckwith to resign as president of the prestigious society.
He serves as associate professor of church-state studies at Baylor University. He spoke recently to National Catholic Register from his home in Waco, Texas.
National Catholic Register: It’s been a while now since your announcement. Can you believe your reversion is still generating so much online discussion?
No, it’s beyond remarkable. Prior to my announcement, our blog averaged 1,500 hits per day. The weekend after my announcement, it hit 20,000. We’re still getting between 5,000 and 7,000 per day.
National Catholic Register: You were born into a Catholic family. When did you leave the Catholic Church?
I was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1960. My mother, Elizabeth, also born in Brooklyn, is Italian-American. My father, Harold Beckwith, was born in Connecticut. I’m the eldest of their four children. In the mid-1960s we moved to Las Vegas, Nev., where my father worked as an accountant and internal auditor at a number of hotels. In the late 1970s, both he and mother founded Sweets of Las Vegas, a candy business that had two retail stores in the area.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was part of the first generation of Catholics who would have no memory of the church prior to Vatican II. This also meant that I grew up, and attended Catholic schools, during a time in which well-meaning Catholic leaders were testing all sorts of innovations in the church, many of which were deleterious to the proper formation of young people.
On the other hand, there were some very important renewal movements in the church at the time.
The Catholic Charismatic Movement had a profound impact on me.
During my middle school years, while attending Maranatha House, a Jesus People church in downtown Vegas, I also frequented a Catholic Charismatic Bible study. Some of the folks at that Bible study were instrumental in bringing to my parents’ parish three Dominican priests who offered a week-long evening seminar on the Bible and the Christian life. I attended that seminar and was very much taken by the Dominicans’ erudition and deep spirituality, and the love of Jesus that was evident in the way they conducted themselves.
But I was also impressed with the personal warmth and commitment to scripture that I found among charismatic Protestants with whom I had interacted at Maranatha House.
Looking back, and knowing what I know now, I believe that the church’s weakness was presenting the renewal movements as something new and not part of the church’s theological traditions.
For someone like me, who was interested in both the spiritual and intellectual grounding of the Christian faith, I didn’t need the “folk Mass” with cute nuns and hip priests playing “Kumbaya” with guitars, tambourines and harmonicas. And it was all badly done.
After all, we listened to the Byrds, Neil Young and Bob Dylan, and we knew the church just couldn’t compete with them.
But that’s what the church offered to the young people of my day: lousy pop music and a gutted Mass. If they were trying to make Catholicism unattractive to young and inquisitive Catholics, they were succeeding.
What I needed, and what many of us desired, were intelligent and winsome ambassadors for Christ who knew the intellectual basis for the Catholic faith, respected and understood the solemnity and theological truths behind the liturgy, and could explain the renewal movements in light of these.
National Catholic Register: You spent 32 years in the evangelical world. What could Catholics learn from evangelicals?
I learned plenty, and for that reason I do not believe I ceased to be an evangelical when I returned to the church. What I ceased to be was a Protestant. For I believe, as Pope Benedict has preached, that the church itself needs to nurture within it an evangelical spirit. There are, as we know, too many Catholics whose faith needs to be renewed and emboldened.
There is much that I learned as a Protestant evangelical that has left an indelible mark on me and formed the person I am today. For that reason, it accompanies me back to the church.
For instance, because Protestant evangelicals accept much of the great tradition that Catholics take for granted – such as the Catholic creeds and the inspiration of scripture – but without recourse to the church’s authority, they have produced important and significant works in systematic theology and philosophical theology.
Catholics would do well to plumb these works, since in them Protestant evangelicals often provide the biblical and philosophical scaffolding that influenced the church fathers that developed the Catholic creeds as well as the church’s understanding of the Bible as God’s word.
But these evangelicals do so by using contemporary language and addressing contemporary concerns. This will help Catholics understand the reasoning behind the classical doctrines.
In terms of expository preaching, as well as teaching the laity, Protestant evangelicals are without peers in the Christian world.
For instance, it is not unusual for evangelical churches to host major conferences on theological issues in which leading scholars address lay audiences in order to equip them to share their faith with their neighbors, friends, etc. Works by evangelical philosophers and theologians such as [J.P.] Moreland, [Paul] Copan, and William Lane Craig, should be in the library of any serious Catholic who wants to be equipped to respond to contemporary challenges to the Christian faith......
......National Catholic Register: What can evangelicals and Catholics learn from one another?
As I have already noted, I believe that Catholics can learn from evangelical Protestants how to preach, teach and offer support for doctrines and beliefs that Catholics often just leave to authority.
Evangelicals can learn from Catholics that Christianity is a historical faith that did not vanish from the earth between the second and 16th centuries. That is what I mean by “learning from the great tradition.”
Much of what evangelicals think of as the odd beliefs of Catholics have their roots deep in Christian history. This, of course, may not convince a Protestant that these views are correct.
But what it will do is help the Protestant to appreciate that the very same Christians that deliberated over the content of the biblical canon also believed in the Real Presence, purgatory, intercession of the saints and indulgences.
If these Christians, who knew the Bible far better than us, did not think these practices and beliefs “unbiblical,” one should not be so quick to dismiss these practices and beliefs simply because they are outside of one’s Protestant experience.
On the other hand, the fact that many Catholic parishes do not offer the expository preaching and theological teaching to their members found in the best Protestant churches should force Catholics to critically reflect on whether they are adequately evangelizing and equipping their own people to enter a world hostile to the Christian worldview.
We have much to learn from each other.
(Read the entire article here.)
Labels: Catholic Belief, Liturgy, Protestants, Second Vatican Council, Testimonials
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