Jimmy Akin has a post describing the conversion to Catholicism of a high-profile evangelical. The post contains this interesting tidbit as a side note about the Evangelical Theology Society's statement of faith, which reads as follows:
"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 essence, equal in power and glory."
Another evangelical blogger, James White, had written,
In 1998 I attended the national meeting of the ETS in Orlando, Florida. At one of the sessions some of the founding members were being asked questions about why they did certain things, why they wrote the statement of faith as they did, etc. A woman asked a question of the panel. "Why did you write 'the Bible alone' in the statement of faith?"
...Roger Nicole [a panel member] rose, slowly, and made his way to the podium. He looked out at the lady and said, "Because we didn't want any Roman Catholics in the group." He then turned around and went back to his seat. While most sat in stunned silence, I and a friend with me broke into wild applause.
But as Jimmy points out, any Catholic could (and should!) sign on to that statement of faith. We do believe that there are no errors in Scripture, as do the ETS, even though the evangelicals there probably interpret many passages differently from us (and indeed from each other). We do believe that the Bible is "the Word of God written." We do indeed believe that there is nothing else but the Bible that is "the Word of God written." (That word "written" is key.) IOW, "Bible alone" in that context doesn't sway us. And, of course, we are Trinitarians.
I wonder why the ETS thought that would exclude us? Do they think we have some other documents that we call "the Word of God?" (We do, of course, have a Savior whom we call by that name, but He's not "written," now, is He?) It certainly doesn't speak well about their comprehension of the differences between them and us. Couldn't they have found something else that was actually different to put in their statement of faith, if the intent was merely to keep us out?
UPDATE: Predictably, the comment boxes over there have begun to devolve into an argument about grammar. What do they teach them in these schools?
UPDATE II: Ah, I see. The problem was that the founders of the ETS wrote a text that later got misinterpreted. Father Al Kimel thinks maybe they need a magisterium.
They forgot to add the all important "is the sole authority" after the Bible alone part.
Posted by: Kelly | 06 May 2007 at 04:53 PM
Yeah, they also forgot to add the "except for 1 and 2 Maccabees, etc.," after the "in its entirety" part. ;)
Posted by: bearing | 06 May 2007 at 08:08 PM