Thoughts on Beckwith

 
May 8th, 2007 by iMonk
Maybe you ought to read “The River is Deep, The River is Wide: How I Made My Peace With the Roman Catholic Church” before you waste all that time trying to figure out what I believe. Then you can get right down to blogging about the fact that I’m going to hell.
The blogosphere has been abuzz with posts and discussion regarding the “reversion” of well-known evangelical scholar Dr. Francis Beckwith to membership in the Roman Catholic Church. Because Beckwith was one of the most respected evangelical scholars cited in many culture war issues, and because he was serving as President of the high profile but doctrinally amorphous Evangelical Theological Society, many evangelicals have spoken up in terms that betray more than a bit of unusual emotion. Clearly, this loss of an evangelical champion has touched a nerve. The loss of Beckwith as an evangelical continues a trend that began with John Henry Newman and continues with Richard Neuhaus, Scott Hahn and Peter Kreeft.
Instead of an essay, let me share a few somewhat random thoughts…
1) It’s interesting to watch evangelicals look for someone to “blame” when someone decides that evangelicalism isn’t a viable project anymore. The overconfidence of evangelicals regarding the soundness, health and effectiveness of their movement is a spectacle to behold. How many doctors need to say that evangelicalism is sick- or over- before some evangelicals get it?
It’s particularly interesting listening to those for whom any move to any position other than their particular sect is inexplicable. Beckwith’s “reasons” are frequently portrayed as being too subjective and too hasty. If he had taken two years to read all the in-print works proving the evangelical position this would have never happened. That Beckwith seems to say God sent him a sign is amazing to these folks.
I work with a large group of adult Christians who have changed their lives dramatically to serve in our ministry. In almost every case, their version of the story is full of the “personal” and not the particularly theological or rational. When human beings are convinced God is leading them, arguments will take a back seat to experience. Such decisions are never going to be dissected in a comment thread or in an outlined series of verse expositions. They are personal for precisely the reason that they are intensely important and reflect our deepest understnding of who God is and what he wants from each of us.
2) Assuming that the next phase of evangelical decline will be a massive exodus to the Roman Catholic Church is premature. Some evangelicals are attracted to the RCC’s solution to the issues of authority that drive evangelicals crazy. Others (naively) see the RCC as an oasis of peace in a world where every preacher with a Bible is a little pope. Still others are taken in by the beauty of some RCC liturgy and worship or the mystique of its claims to antiquity. But many post-evangelicals have learned that the demise of evangelicalism can lead to rebirth and renewal without going to Rome at all. High profile conversions may get the ink, but thousands of younger evangelicals are shaping new, post-evangelical forms of the church that incorporate much that is “catholic” without issues like Papal infallibility or the equation of tradition with scripture.
3) The Roman Catholic Church may have it’s own issues in the future with thousands of evangelicals coming to the RCC with much of their evangelicalism intact. I noted that Beckwith carefully said he chose to “err” on the side of Rome. Don’t look now, but that’s an admission that Beckwith believes Rome isn’t entirely right.
I grew up around Roman Catholics, and I have to tell you that I am constantly amazed at how evangelical RCers like Scott Hahn sound entirely like a different breed of cat. In a JPII/B16 shaped RCC, these men are welcome, even famous, but there is an evolution taking place. Considering the liberalism in American Catholicism, that trend may not only be good, it may be very interesting. What would, for instance, the response of evangelical Catholics be to a really liberal European Pope? Will the Ken/Ingrid view of Thomas Merton and contemplative spirituality sneak in under the door via these converts?
Is there a second wild boar in the vineyard somewhere? What might the future hold?
4) I am surprised at how many people seem to believe that Roman Catholics are not Apostle’s Creed Christians. A disturbing percentage of the anti-Catholic rhetoric the Beckwith reversion has inspired is half-baked, bone-headed anti-Catholicism. On the level of the Trinity, evangelicals and Roman Catholics ought to be one in spirit and confession. Our differences are crucial, but they are not the same differences we have with Muslims or even Jews.
As a post-evangelical, I have a deep gratitude for what the RCC preserves and defends that is vital to my own faith journey. At the same time, my issues with Roman Catholicism are simple: Scripture and tradition are not equal. There is no infallibility in the human element of the church. The mediation of Christ is singular, perfect, unique, complete and effectual. Assurance is the birthright of the children of God and is mediated by the Spirit through the Word. The assertions of a church made apart from scripture can never be bound to the conscience as if they were scripture. When I read a Protestant convert like Kreeft describe justification by faith alone it is a depressing experience for me.
Yet with these substantial disagreements, I recognize what is present: the great Creeds, the shared ancient heritage of the early church, the shared faith confessed by the early church, the shared experience of the Trinity, the shared sense of the priority of faith, the shared emphasis on the obedience of faith and the shared call to be the people of God formed and sustained by Christ. And much more
Beckwith and other converts to the RCC are brothers and sisters in the faith and testimony of Jesus. As we believe in and upon Jesus, we are both included in those purchased by Christ. It is particularly sad that this would ever be at issue on either side of the Reformation divide. May Protestants and Catholics know one another’s faith well enough that whatever tears we shed or mutual recognitions we share, we know what is truth and what is bigotry.
5) I admit that I struggle in the area of a charitable and Christ-honoring attitude and I need the prayers of other Christians. Much of my own upbringing was saturated in hateful, ignorant anti-Catholicism and that sinful residue still remains in my own personality. I anticipate future conversions to the RCC among those I love. I need to be able to embrace what is a shared experienced of Christ, but I also must know how to differ without, frankly, being a jackass (something so common among some segments of the reformed and fundamentalist world it’s embarrassing.). And I can assure you that despite my love of Merton and Kreeft, my occasional attendance at Roman Catholic services, etc., a good attitude is a challenge for me. Those deep prejudices plug directly into my emotions and control far too much of what I say and feel. I need the forgiveness of God and of other people.
My tendency is this: If I can stand apart, analyze and be the judge, I am comfortable. But when I must submit to what another person believes and chooses that differs from what I have taught and proclaimed my entire life, the burden is difficult and the temptation to be childishly arrogant and snarky is strong. I, like many Christians, need to know how to differ deeply without crossing into personal disrespect and mistreatment of a brother or sister. In the end, it’s not statements, but people we’re dealing with. What a hassle.
Is there a patron saint for the argumentative?
Let me close with a letter from C.S. Lewis to a Catholic convert. (HT to Reformed Catholicism.)
Magdelen College,
Oxford
Nov. 10th 1952
Dear Mrs. _________,
It is a little difficult to explain how I feel that tho’ you have taken a way which is not for me I nevertheless can congratulate you — I suppose because your faith and joy are so obviously increased. Naturally, I do not draw from that the same conclusions as you — but there is no need for us to start a controversial correspondence! I believe we are very near to one another, but not because I am at all on the Rome-ward frontier of my own communion. I believe that, in the present divided state of Christendom, those who are at the heart of each division are all closer to one another than those who are at the fringes. I would even carry this beyond the borders of Christianity: how much more one has in common with a real Jew or Muslim than with a wretched liberalising, occidentalised specimen of the same categories. Let us by all means pray for one another: it is perhaps the only form of “work for re-union” which never does anything but good. God bless you.
Yours most sincerely
C. S. Lewis

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