Last March, Francis Beckwith, president of the Evangelical Theological Society, an association of 4,300 Protestant theologians, returned to the Catholic faith of his youth after 32 years as an Evangelical.

Beckwith serves as associate professor of Church State Studies at Baylor University in the US. Despite wanting to ensure that his return to the Church brought little harm to his former colleagues, his reception into the Church provoked immense public attention, criticism and discussion and massive uncharitable online postings.

Beckwith insists that he did not cease to be an Evangelical when he returned to the Church. What he ceased to be was a Protestant as he believes, as Pope Benedict has preached, that the Church itself needs to nurture within it an evangelical spirit and, unfortunately, there are too many Catholics whose faith needs to be renewed and emboldened.

He admits that he learned a lot as a Protestant Evangelical. It was after reading the Early Fathers that he became convinced that the Early Church is more Catholic than Protestant. Today he admits that what he had taken for granted as Protestant - e.g. the Catholic creeds, the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, the inspiration of Scriptures, the canon of Scripture, the Christian understanding of man - is the result of a Church that made judgments about these matters, and on which non-Catholics, including Evangelicals, have declared and grounded their Christian orthodoxy in a world hostile to it.

Given these considerations, he thought it wise for him to err on the side of the Church with historical and theological continuity with the first generations of Christians that followed Christ's Apostles.

Beckwith confesses that by studying the writings of the Early Fathers, he found in them the Real Presence, infant baptism and apostolic succession, as well as other "Catholic" doctrines. Although these doctrines in certain cases were not articulated in their contemporary formulations, however their primitive versions were surely there.

He feels it shocking that one never finds in the Fathers' claims that these doctrines are "unbiblical" or "apostate" or "not Christian", as one finds in contemporary anti-Catholic fundamentalist literature. At worst, he thinks the Catholic doctrines were considered legitimate options early on in Church history by the men who were discipled by the apostles and/or the apostles' disciples.

At best, concludes Beckwith, the Catholic doctrines are part of the deposit of faith passed on to the successors of the apostles and preserved by the teaching authority of the Catholic Church. That is why, he says, that if he rejected the Catholic Church, there is good reason for one to believe that he is rejecting the Church that Christ established. And that is a risk that he is not willing to take.

According to Beckwith, Evangelicals can learn from Catholics that Christianity is a historical faith that did not vanish from the earth between the second and the 16th centuries, and that much of what Evangelicals think of as odd beliefs of Catholics have their roots in deep Christian history.

On the other hand, Catholics can learn from Evangelicals the way they teach the laity to equip themselves to share their faith with their neighbours and friends, and how to respond to contemporary challenges to the Christian faith by using contemporary language.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.