Power Conversions
As Pope Benedict XVI heads to Brazil, where a major challenge in what is technically the world’s most populous Catholic country is sheep stealing (actually, I think they’re often letting themselves out an open gate) by Protestant “sects” (the Vatican’s term), or what John Paul II called “ravenous wolves,” it is interesting to note continuing episodes of the reverse phenomenon in North America. There is of course nothing new about Evangelicals who swim the Tiber—I made the journey, though from a less-than-committed Evangelicalism at the time, and absent much of the conservative agenda that seems to animate many of today’s converts.
The latest episode, however, is a stunner: Francis Beckwith of Baylor, a leading conservative Evangelical voice and president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), has become Catholic. Or, in the words of Amy Welborn (where I first saw the recently-revealed news), he has had a “reversion” since he was actually raised and confirmed Catholic, but left in his teens for Evangelicalism.
Beckwith discusses his re-conversion at his blog, Right Reason: http://rightreason.ektopos.com/archives/2007/05/my_return_to_th.html. This post is certainly not to trump “one for our side” (there are way too many stories of a reverse migration) but simply because the phenomenon fascinates me, and raises so many questions. We seem to be an increasingly Evangelical Protestant country and culture, quantitatively, as Christians leave denominations and institutional churches for megachurches and praise music and such. Yet many Evangelical (and related) intellectuals are going to Rome. (See Jason Byassee’s August 2006 story in the Christian Century on the trend, “Going Catholic” http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=2290)
Since the distinguished Evangelical scholar Mark Noll (now at Notre Dame, his Evangelical faith intact, having left Wheaton, which last year dumped another prof because he actually converted to Catholicism) wrote “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind,” Evangelical scholarship has more than come into its own. So what’s going on? Why are many Evangelical leaders converting? Is the Reformation over, as Noll has asked—or are Evangelicals and Catholics simply swapping souls?
I think it was Newman who said something to the effect of, “To be deep into history is to cease to be Protestant.” Much as I admire Newman, that always struck me as a bit triumphalist, and perhaps not true, depending on how deep one wants to go into history. Converts—and especially those of a socially conservative stripe, I find—always want to justify their (our) conversions solely as the work of the Spirit rather than personal preference. But there is always more to the story. And with so many true believers converting in—and out again, in Rod Dreher’s case last October—how much of this is just more evidence of our national culture of choice?
In Beckwith’s case, of course, he can simply argue that he was always Catholic. For as that great Catholic (at least in one episode) apologist, Bart Simpson, once put it: “Once you go Vatican, never go back again.”
Another important question is, how are they changing the Church?
My impression is that Beckwith’s a “cutlure warrior.” By that I don’t meant that he’s conservative — you can be conservative without being a culture warrior –I mean that he frames his contributions to the pbulic debate in prophetic way — rather thanm the more casuistic way typical of catholic moral theology after the council of treant.
(To get the difference in rhetorical style read Richard John Neuhaus on abortion –then read John Ford and Gerald Kelly’s manual in moral theology–or even Germain Grisez, though he has more room for the prophetic, which in my judgment, entered into prominence in American Cahtolic life after Vatican II.)
I think you get a lot of “culture of life v. culture of death” language from evangelical converts. It’s a type of prophetic rhetoric that’s long been at home in American Protestantism (and Protestantism more generally). (See Bacivitch, The American Jeremiad).
Pope John Paul’s culture of life v. culture of death language marked a real development of Cahtolic casuistry–it looked at abortion and euthanasia as social problems, rather than exclusively as individual sins to be confessed. It knitted together the social justic teaching and the life teaching,
From a rhetorical perspective, however, it also provided a rhetorical place for evangelical protestants to latch on to the Catholic tradition.
It will be an interesting chapter of American Catholic history, to write, one day.
Another question to ask is “Which Catholic Church are they converting into?”
Are they entering the Church our reading the “NC Reporter”or the “NC Register”? Are they entering the Church with all the hot button doctrines received and even relished or, given their familiarity with married clergy and morally permitted birth control, do they flock to Call to Action meetings after their conversion? Given their very low liturgical heritages do they tend to support Bishop Trautman and the FDLC or do they tend to support traditional liturgy and the reformed ICEL?
Ironic isn’t it? What can we learn here?
Maid of Kent’s question–which Catholic church the evangelicals are joining–presumes that we converts “choose up sides” and that we even know what the sides are going in.
I would challenge her assumption, at least in my own case.
As a convert, I didn’t seek out RCIA so that I could join VOTF or the Catholic League or the Daughters of Isabella or Opus Dei or whatever.
While converts understand there are factions within the church, those factions are of less interest to their spiritual journey than all the baggage from other traditions they’ve brought to the altar with them.
You don’t wake up the morning after your last RCIA meeting saying, “Well, now I’m a Catholic, and I know, understand, believe in, and agree with every single thing the Church teaches.”
At least I didn’t.
Nope, most converts spend the rest of their lives rethinking their baggage. It might be liberal (like mine), conservative, fundamentalist, legalistic or “other,” but examining all that baggage takes a lifetime and then some. Certainly more years than I’ve got left.
Commonweal has always provided a place I feel comfortable opening the baggage and letting other Catholics look at it and, sometimes, pound on it. Sometimes it hurts my feelings. But, no pain, no gain.
I wish Mr. Beckwith the best with his baggage. I hope he will show up here sometime.
Jean, thanks. That’s a really helpful reminder for those of us who are cradle Catholics.
Jean, I just want to second what Cathleen Kaveny just wrote. That was really a lovely and thoughtful post — as so many of yours are. Thanks for it.
Amazing. Should I now promise not to make any more jokes about Waco? This discussion came up before did it not? Beckwith was one of a number of a group of scholars who were converting or about to or had.
Why do I suspect a marriage of convenience.? Perhaps more a suspicion about human nature.
I know Rome and some Catholic leaders in this country have been courting evangelicals. It will be interesting to see how celibacy and women figure in all this. Do we need a Mark Twain or a Thomas Payne to decipher it all?
It is all so confusing and amusing.
As far as converts, we certainly have been enriched by Jean. If Beckwith et alii have her kind of heart we will gain more.
This paragraph in Beckwith’s statement struck me:
There is a conversation in ETS that must take place, a conversation about the relationship between Evangelicalism and what is called the “Great Tradition,” a tradition from which all Christians can trace their spiritual and ecclesiastical paternity. It is a conversation that I welcome, and it is one in which I hope to be a participant. But my presence as ETS president, I have concluded, diminishes the chances of this conversation occurring. It would merely exacerbate the disunity among Christians that needs to be remedied.
I think it’s helpful to remember that all Christians–not merely evangelicals–need to reflect on their relationship to what Beckwith calls the Great Tradition. At the same time I learned about Beckwith, I learned that an aquaintance, a convert to Catholicism, had recently reverted to the denomination he grew up in. It’s a helpful reminder that the Tiber has two banks and that the traffic across flows in both directions.
“I learned that an aquaintance, a convert to Catholicism, had recently reverted to the denomination he grew up in. It’s a helpful reminder that the Tiber has two banks and that the traffic across flows in both directions. ”
And it often flows back and forth several times. I “went back” for a while to see if I’d missed anything. What I missed was Mass, badly done and uninspired as it often is, with painfully rambling homilies and the unsingable “Glorias.”
I still attend Ash Wednesday services at the Episcopal church, partly because it’s closest if I’m teaching. And, I admit, partly to see the bankers, the toney professors, the country club members and ladies’ bridge club with their money and gold-standard health care plans wearing the same ashes as me and being told, like me, they are dust and to dust they shalt return.
I’m sure this is at least a venial sin and sounds like one of those jealous “you’ve got a lot of nerve” songs that Bob Dylan used to write.
I attend the Tenebrae service on Holy Thursday (if I can find one) because I’m still not Catholic enough to deal with the foot-washing thing.
But enough about me and my problems.
Two anecdotes from evangelical churches that indicate something interesting is going on there:
Quotes from Mother Teresa have been appearing in my evangelical father-in-laws church bulletin. More surprising is that the pastor said he made the sign of the cross several times a day to remind him of his dedication to Christ. He showed everybody how to do it.
An evangelical friend reports his pastor has been talking about connecting with older traditions in their services–which has no real set liturgy. The have begun using REAL WINE in their communion and have carved space out of what is a quite charismatic/pentecostal service to make a place for more contemplative prayer.
The foot washing made sense in Judea c. 30 of the Christian era when people wore sandals–and no socks–and the roads were dusty, and people did a lot of walking. And remember that the guests reclined rather than sat down. The modern version seems to be purely symbolic. At least at my church the recipients were all wearing shoes and socks when the arrived. Probably that had all showered. I wonder how many had used some deodorant foot powder. It is too bad that some comparable ritual service to a guest usually performed by a servant does not exist today. But then again most of us do not have servants.
Dr. Beckwith’s discussion at his blog of his re-conversion is interesting, and he seems to be a person of great integrity.
Equally interesting were the many posts in response to his news about re-joining the Catholic Church. They range from “good luck” to “welcome home” to the (thankfully few) “you will burn in hell” categories. Here’s my favorite:
“As an ex Roman Catholic, and as one who strives to reason with my unsaved Roman Catholic family held captive to its bogus claims, I feel nothing but shame toward people like yourself.
You may well be a respected theologian and smart guy, a great philosopher and all that, but to me, you are a traitor and a stumbling block for the truth of the gospel.
I am grieved in my spirit regarding this decision.
Humanly speaking you make my witness to Roman Catholics and especially my family, so much more difficult by your actions.
You should resign immediately and if not, be removed before November with a strong statement reaffirming the tragedy of your actions.
Tartanarmy.”
Some years ago, while looking for something else, I stumbled upon this hilarious conclusion to a discussion of a British Evengelical named Robert Aitkin::
“Thus it happened, in many instances, that a movement which seemed destined to give fresh life and vigour to the Established Church, and which has done much to infuse emotion and spirituality into the dry bones of High Church preaching, yet resulted, in the case of many of those who gave themselves up most unreservedly to the movement, in their coming into the Catholic Church; much to the grief of poor Mr. Aitken, whose lamentations and denunciations resembled the distress of a hen when she sees the ducklings, on whose hatching she had lavished a mother’s care, taking naturally to the water. He had a great deal of the old anti-Catholic prejudice still strong in him, and he honestly believed that he was doing God service in striving to prevent people from submitting to the Catholic Church. Thus he concluded his farewell letter to Mrs. Leslie:
“You will be damned, I believe, eternally. I remain, yours affectionately, Robert Aitken.”
From The Dublin Review (1899) 263.
Fr. Komonchak’s anecdote reminds me of a scene from the recent PBS series on the Mormons. (If you didn’t see it, it’s worth your while to look for its replay in your area.)
In one scene, a woman relates the process of her excommunication from the Mormon Church. She was brought into a room in a Mormon temple and asked to sit in a chair facing a row of Mormon officials. The charges against her were set forth, and she was not allowed to respond to them. She was asked to step outside for a few moments, and when she was called back in she was told that she had been excommunicated for all eternity, thus forfeiting any opportunity to be saved. Then the officials stepped forward, one by one, each shaking her hand and exchanging polite pleasantries with her.
First, I too thank Jean for her contribution. Her posts atr thoughtful rehlections on her experience and carry a genuinity sometimes missing in the intellectualized posts here.
I’d go further and posit that this genuinity is the best kind of witness and evangelization we could ask for as it creates resonance in others.
Now it seems to me I’ve read that the largest denomination in this country is the Catholic Church and the second largest are dissident Catholics who have departed.
It’s also obvious that our numbers keep growing. This in/out phenomenon is complex and should not be attributed to one’s own personal experience or even wrtings that tend to fit in with that.
For myself, I’m saddened that we have moved away from the vision of the Catholic Common Ground Initiative to the deep divide that exists today in our Church.
One last note: BXVI in talking about Catholicism is South and Central America says he intends to provide a new strategy in which we wil become more “dynamic.”
I only hope it makes us more loving.
Sorry, one more thought. On his blog, Msgr, Harry Byrne seems to indicate that BXVI vs. Liberation Theology is analagous to Pius X and modernism.
He cites David Gibson in the post. Are we going to have secret 9informers inside the Church to out you if your view is seen as too Marxist or whatever?
Yes, I think everyone should thank me for doing such a fine job evangelizing for the Church. As my former college roommate said when I converted, “God, if they’ll take you, maybe there’s hope for the rest of us.”
Anyhoo, thanks to William Collier for providing that “burn in hell” letter from the Tartanarmy. Sounds like one of the WeeFrees got his kilt in a bunch.
Which made me wonder: Now that the Rev. Mr. Ian Paisley is head of Ulster, making nice with Jerry Adams, talking about payce and equal traytment under the law like he had some notion of social justice, and has quit calling the Pope o’ Rome the anti-Christ, maybe there’s another Power Conversion in the offing.
But I’m not holding my breath.
Just the fact that Ian and Gerry are able to sit in the same room and talk to one another is nothing short of a miracle. Who woulda thunk it even just a few years ago?
And thanks, Jean, for your steady stream of evangelical/pentacostal slang–”fundies,” “WeeFrees,” and the like. Is that jargon used among evangelicals and pentacostals themselves? I hope so. The humor adds an additional human dimension that undercuts stereotypes, which IMO is always a good thing.
To follow up on one of Mr. Collier’s comments, in the recent discussion on the excellent LDS group weblog Times and Seasons about the recent PBS special “Mormons,” which I have not seen, the point was made repeatedly that the posters were a little surprised and very gratified by the affection shown to the LDS church and faith by the ex-Mormons and even excommunicated Mormons who were interviewed. This is a phenomenon I have noted elsewhere (for instance in the writings of Lavina Fielding Anderson). It has always struck me (with some sadness) that the Catholic situation is very much the reverse.
David Gibson judges Newman’s line about being deep into history means cease being a Protestant as “triumphalist.” It would be that only when ripped from the context in which it was first enunciated, namely, a discussion of historical parallels in the ancient church and, further, the utility of the term “scriptura sola.” When thus seen, it is part of a larger argument Newman advanced. By “Protestant” Newman meant the “Evangelicals” of his day who were at the opposite pole from the “Liberals” (defined precisely in an appendix to the Seen in that light, I think it is ok for Mister Gibson to continue admiring Newman.