Conversion Brings Beckwith Full Circle

I discovered this evening that stories on Francis Beckwith's conversion are still showing up.  Although this one is a couple weeks old, I'd like to share it with you.  I especially find Beckwith's view on the distinction between Protestants and Catholics to be most interesting. 

What could be more personal than a man re-examining his convictions, sharing them with his family and priest and rejoining something he'd left behind? And yet Beckwith's decision was by no means private. Because of his role as president of the Evangelical Theological Society and because of his association with a Baptist university, Beckwith's reconversion, or reversion, to Catholicism drew national media attention and elicited the ire of his evangelical colleagues.

"You are embracing serious theological error," warned one.

I talked by phone with Beckwith, 46, during a rare break from his travel and writing (he's wrapping up a book on politics and religion due out next year).

I first wanted to know what led him away from Catholicism. And how his family reacted.

Beckwith said he was coming of age in 1970s Las Vegas when his parents' friend left "Good News for Modern Man," a modern English version of the New Testament, at his home. The 12-year-old Beckwith devoured it, then accompanied the man to a Jesus People church, where he heard from various Christian traditions — a different denomination every week. As a teen, he frequented evangelical bookstores and attended nondenominational churches such as Calvary Chapel, searching, he said, for something a little more sophisticated than the morality lessons he read in his Catholic high school.

Now this is where you expect the parents to hit the roof.

Instead, they let him follow his theological curiosity. "I guess in their mind they thought, 'he's not doing drugs. OK, it's Protestant, but he hasn't become a Moonie or anything,' " Beckwith said laughing. "My parents were always very open, and I never felt that they interfered with what I was doing."

And though he became more comfortable with the reformed theologies of Luther and Calvin, Beckwith never felt hostility toward Catholicism.

"I think it was because I knew too many serious Catholics that I thought were also serious Christians," he said. "I thought the Catholic Church was wrong about some things, but I didn't take the posture of some evangelicals that Catholicism was hopelessly corrupt."

Of course, attitudes among evangelical Christians have certainly changed in recent years, as have the attitudes of Catholics. Look at political alliances that yoke the two on issues such as abortion and stem cell research. Look at evangelical colleges where professors are assigning students to read Aquinas and Augustine.

Baylor University has some 80 Catholic faculty members. Beckwith will hardly be an alienated minority on campus this fall.

Most of the comments posted on his blog were supportive of his decision to return to Catholicism.

Perhaps his biggest hurdle was how to handle his position with the Evangelical Theological Society, a national association of Christian scholars. After word of his reversion leaked, Beckwith decided to resign.

In some ways, it must be harder to return to the church you've left. You must ask yourself, weren't my reasons for leaving valid in the first place? Am I certain this is the right move? Will I lose my colleagues' respect?

Of the scholar who accused him of embracing theological error, Beckwith said, "The idea that somebody could actually move away from this point of view and be fully informed is unfathomable in his mind, so it must be that I'm either wicked or stupid."

It's not as though Beckwith had railed against the Vatican or demonized the pope as the Antichrist. But he did make a decision that Rome had it at least partially wrong, that his soul was better served in a Baptist church.

And yet, still, that theological hunger gnawed at him.

Beckwith had been reading evangelical scholars who questioned the great reformers. Then a conversation with a Catholic convert spurred him to review the writings of the early church fathers for a fresh look on the practices of the church he struggled with. Finally, he said, he realized a distinction between Protestant and Catholic worldviews.

"Protestants are concerned about how to get you to heaven," he said. "Catholics are more concerned about getting heaven into you."

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Comments

[Deacon John Giglio]

"Protestants are concerned about how to get you to heaven," he said. "Catholics are more concerned about getting heaven into you."
On that note, it's interesting that in Pope Benedict's new book, 'Jesus of Nazareth', he says that "Jesus is the Kingdom of God!", which, of course is Christ in the Eucharist and another reason why receiving Him "into us" is so important for Catholics.
A Jewish man once said, when asked why he converted to Catholicism, "When you find the Truth, you embrace it!" I went through the same struggle when I returned to the Faith around 1970. After studying the lives of the Saints, I too "embraced the Truth!"
Deacon John (Florida)

[C.O.]

Maybe it's a little like coming back home after having gone out into the neighborhood and seen others' mothers, when we were little. Some days, they're all so much better than one's own mother, it seems, and yet, something is missing, here. None of these are my mother. Also, there's no shared history, here. I often can't abide my mother, for she is too strict--but I know she means well for me. She has committed herself to me.. which almost feels like she is butting in, but she knows better than I do, and knows me better than anyone.. I'm going home. She may not be happy with these mud stains all over me, but she'll welcome me, and I know she means it. Also, she has the most delicious Bread in all the neighborhood. Always. Even if she's frowning, she'll feed me-- and I am starved.