Racing Toward Martyrdom?

It's bad enough when religious persecution comes from non-believers. It's even worse when the persecutors claim to be fellow believers. Worse yet, when one of the first in line has a Ph.D. For this reason, Francis Beckwith has my sympathy.

Douglas Groothuis (the "Ph.D.") has this to say about Beckwith's return to Catholicism (all emphases mine):

Dear Frank:

This is a sad day for all true sons and daughters of the Protestant Reformation, for all who lived and died for its truths.

Having abandoned the distinctives of the Reformation (which are deeply rooted in Holy Scripture), you are embracing serious theological error. I wish I could say otherwise, but conscience-bound, I cannot.

By joining Rome, you are putting an institution above God; you are putting men (and I mean males) ahead of the pure gospel of Jesus Christ (See Galatians 1:6-11).

However, you are doing the right thing to resign from your position at ETS.

I have appreciated much of your writing over the years, but I lament what you have now done.

Sincerely,
Doug Groothuis

Ouch. I know some people are anti-tradition, but coming from a Ph.D. it's particularly shocking. In fact, Groothuis' invocation of Galatians 1:6-11 undermines his own case:

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man.

Any other gospel than that ye have received. Groothuis probably does not realize that his reference actually strengthens the case for tradition, affirming Christ's promise: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" (Matt. 28:20). The Gospel which Paul preached is the same Gospel handed down to us, generation to generation, strengthening the Body of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. This promise of Christ's presence was not suspended for 1,600 years, it was not revived by Martin Luther's "Reformation." The Gospel can be preached from any quarter, as the Holy Spirit sees fit, including in a Catholic congregation. Groothuis needs to be careful, lest his own Gospel preaching become one based on men (or a man, Martin Luther), rather than the continuous, eternal Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Most sadly of all, he is putting his faith in the slain martyrs of the Reformation, calling upon their sacrifices to justify his anti-traditional positions, rather than seeking his justification in Christ. If the "body count" is a measure of "holiness," then Catholics are far holier than Protestants, and Orthodox most of all, having suffered the bloodiest religious persecution of history under Soviet Communism. The holy martyrs are recognized, not by how they died, but how they lived in Christ. Martyrdom is not simply "dying for a cause"; it is the witness of Christ's Resurrection, whether the believer dies in persecution or in slumbering solitude.

"I know where the Church is; I do not know where She is not." When Jesus Christ chooses to obscure His holiness for the protection of His Body, we need to remember the Lord's answer to a despondent Elijah: "I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him" (I Kings 19:18). The Church can be found everywhere, whether Douglas Groothuis sees it, or chooses not to.

Posted on May 13, 2007 at 1:55:39 AM EDT.