Is this statement a knee-jerk reaction to Dr. Francis Beckwith’s return to the Roman Catholic church?
The original form of this proposal dates back to 2001, and Dr. Beckwith’s return to the Roman Catholic Church only occurred in the Spring of 2007. Thus the original form of this proposal pre-dates Dr. Beckwith’s return to the Roman Catholic Church by six years. Though Dr. Beckwith’s resignation does raise important theological questions for the society to consider, it is not by itself the reason that the ETS needs a more clearly articulated doctrinal basis. It is merely the latest event to draw attention to the inadequacy of our current statement. The long-standing problem of the current statement is that its minimalism arguably allows for many non-evangelicals (e.g., Roman Catholics, Easter Orthodox) and some who are outside Christian orthodoxy (e.g., Docetists, Pelagians) to affirm it in good conscience (see Ray Van Neste’s 2001 paper published as “The Glaring Inadequacy of the ETS Doctrinal Statement,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 8.4 [2004]: 74-81). We would argue that sinc
