Francis Beckwith - Baylor University RCC?

[BobRyan]

Hey - does anyone here know the story about Francis Beckwith? I read some place that he teaches (or taught) at Baylor.

He has returned to the denomination that he grew up in - the RCC, but I thought I read that he still teaches at Baylor. I thought that was Baptist.

What am I missing?

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Zenas]

Hey - does anyone here know the story about Francis Beckwith? I read some place that he teaches (or taught) at Baylor.

He has returned to the denomination that he grew up in - the RCC, but I thought I read that he still teaches at Baylor. I thought that was Baptist.

What am I missing?

in Christ,

Bob

Baylor is a Baptist school but not a seminary. You will find professors of many different faiths there. This is not only true of Baylor but of many other Baptist schools as well. I have a friend who I'm pretty sure is an Episcopalian who is a tenured faculty member at Georgetown College in Kentucky.

 

[BobRyan]

So you have Catholics teaching religion classes at Baptist Universities??

I never would have guessed.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Melanie]

Oh come on...in dear old OZ you can receive Lutheran training at a Catholic University.......I do not tell a lie here....it is AMAZING:wavey:

 

[Thinkingstuff]

Hey - does anyone here know the story about Francis Beckwith? I read some place that he teaches (or taught) at Baylor.

He has returned to the denomination that he grew up in - the RCC, but I thought I read that he still teaches at Baylor. I thought that was Baptist.

What am I missing?

in Christ,

Bob

Yes thats right. He returned to the Catholic Church in 2007 so he had been a baptist but returned to the RCC. He still supports intelligent design, and other issues. He lives in Texas. This is an issue I'm conserned with from a personal perspective. Cardinal Newman once an anglican and became catholic said that " to study history is to cease to be protestant" In my studies of history there are aspects of what the early church taught that isn't really reflected in modern american culture of Christianity. or Protestant Christianity. Even some of my reflection here based on my studies have been deemed to be too Catholic by some. Though when it comes down to it my experience told me as a Catholic I really didn't live for God but when I prayed for Jesus to come into my life; my life was changed. But rationally you can't really argue from experience because then all religions would have their experience from which to argue. I can not buy into the fantasy purported by landmarkist which has not supportive historical documentation other than the desire that people want it to be true. So it seems that like many other protetant preachers a real delving into history has lead some back to the RCC. I wonder at Tony Blair becoming Catholic.

 

[BobRyan]

I read a quote from Beckwith where he argues that the main motivation for returning to Catholicism was the doctrine of Sanctification and that his OSAS and Calvinist positions as an Evangelical did not seem to have a valid foundation in support of the Bible doctrine on Sanctification.

However I would argue that there are other non-OSAS alternatives in the Arminian model that should have been considered before going all the way back to Catholicism.

I believe that Seventh-day Adventists and Free Will Baptists would be in close agreement on that point.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[Thinkingstuff]

I read a quote from Beckwith where he argues that the main motivation for returning to Catholicism was the doctrine of Sanctification and that his OSAS and Calvinist positions as an Evangelical did not seem to have a valid foundation in support of the Bible doctrine on Sanctification.

However I would argue that there are other non-OSAS alternatives in the Arminian model that should have been considered before going all the way back to Catholicism.

I believe that Seventh-day Adventists and Free Will Baptists would be in close agreement on that point.

in Christ,

Bob

I don't know both those examples seem extreeme. Because this was brought up I've checked out an interview with him in Christianity Today and here is a major point he brings up.

The Catholic Church frames the Christian life as one in which you must exercise virtue—not because virtue saves you, but because that's the way God's grace gets manifested. As an evangelical, even when I talked about sanctification and wanted to practice it, it seemed as if I didn't have a good enough incentive to do so. Now there's a kind of theological framework, and it doesn't say my salvation depends on me, but it says my virtue counts for something. It's important to allow the grace of God to be exercised through your actions. The evangelical emphasis on the moral life forms my Catholic practice with an added incentive. That was liberating to me.

and again here was the point I was making previously stated by him during this same interview:

Looking at tradition would also help evangelicals learn about Christian liturgical traditions, like Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism, that many evangelicals reject because they say liturgy is unbiblical. When did these practices come to be? It turns out many of them came to be very early on in church history when people were close historically to the apostles themselves. There must be something to these practices that the early Christians thought was perfectly consistent with what they had received from the apostles.