I am co-sponsoring with Ray Van Neste a proposal to amend the doctrinal basis of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). Next week the Society will meet in Providence, Rhode Island where our proposal will finally come to a vote. I am writing this blog post to get the word out to our friends who are planning on supporting the amendment. If you support our amendment and have a blog, I’m asking you to link this post to help us spread the word. The process to amend ETS’s constitution is a slow one. The founders were wise to make it that way. Ray and I began this effort in the Spring…
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Update on Amending the ETS
Last year, I posted several notices about an effort that Ray Van Neste and I are undertaking to amend the doctrinal basis of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). You can read about that effort at our website www.AmendETS.com. Today I am passing on two new developments to those readers who are interested. First, Ray and I (the co-sponsors) have written a response to the Executive Committee’s characterization of our proposal. We disagree with their public statements, and we have written about it here: “Response the Executive Committee.” Second, the January issue of Christianity Today has a report about the amendment effort. The story talks about the meeting in San Diego…
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ETS President Comments on Proposed Amendment
ETS President, Dr. Hassell Bullock, comments on our amendment proposal in an interview with Collin Hansen for Christianity Today. Here’s the relevant section: CT: Is there any merit to suggestions for changing the ETS doctrinal basis? BULLOCK: The recent return of Francis Beckwith, the ETS president, to the Catholic faith of his childhood, has obviously and understandably created questions within the society about the adequacy of our theological basis, which is quite brief: “The Bible alone, and the Bible in its entirety, is the Word of God written and is therefore inerrant in the autographs. God is a Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, each an uncreated person, one in…
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Former President Weighs in on the ETS Doctrinal Statement
Dr. David Howard is a former president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS), and in Friday’s Wall Street Journal he weighed in on the resignation of Dr. Francis Beckwith. Howard thinks that Beckwith’s resignation was entirely appropriate, given Beckwith’s return to the Roman Catholic church. He writes: His resignation was appropriate, since the ETS affirms that “the Bible alone . . . is the Word of God written.” The phrase “the Bible alone” in the ETS context refers to the 66 books in the Old and New Testaments of the Protestant canon and thus rules out Mr. Beckwith’s continued membership, given that the Roman Catholic Church accepts additional books in…
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President of Evangelical Theological Society Becomes Roman Catholic
Dr. Francis Beckwith announced his return to the Roman Catholic Church today. He also announced the he has resigned from the presidency of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). I did not post about this news yesterday when I heard about it because I suspected that Dr. Beckwith had not authorized the bloggers who were writing about it to make the announcement for him. It turns out that I was right. But now that the cat’s out of the bag, Dr. Beckwith has posted his own explanation of his recent conversion and how he intended to phase out quietly from his leadership position in the ETS. Here’s the link: “My Return…