Beckwith
Dr. Frank Beckwith of Baylor University has resigned his position as the president of the Evangelical Theological Society. Why? Because he has been received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Read about it here. Apparently, even in 2007 it’s not cool for an evangelical theologian to be a Catholic.
Even more interesting is Dr. Beckwith’s blog (and the wide array of commentary that it engenders). Check out a few posts here, here and especially here. Alas, you don’t have to look very far to see just how pervasive anti-Catholicism remains in our world, particularly among conservative Protestants. But let me not end on that negative note: here is a gracious, wonderful letter written by an evangelical pastor in support of Beckwith’s conversion.
That Crazy Jesus…
Of the many qualities I love about Jesus, chief among them was his willingness to flout social rules and hang out with the kinds of people that “polite society” of his day wanted nothing to do with. Jesus himself was in all likelihood a solid member of the Jewish middle class, as exemplified by the earthy nature of the hard but honest work that he and his family and friends and associates did: carpentry, shepherding, fishing. Some scholars have speculated that Jesus was himself a Pharisee, since much of his most vitriolic criticism was leveled at the Pharisees and, after all, don’t we criticize what we know and even love the best? If so, that would make Jesus as religiously respectable as we was socioeconomically. But Jesus wasn’t about respect. He really couldn’t give a fig about what the neighbors thought, apparently. After all, he was known to associate with Samaritans, tax collectors, prostitutes and other sinners. (more…)
