04 September 2009

The Right Kind of Ecumenism

Interesting interchange last night here at Wheaton between Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, and Francis Beckwith, philosophy prof at Baylor and former ETS president who became a Roman Catholic in the middle of his presidency a few years ago. The issue was whether one can be an evangelical and a Catholic.

The most helpful point for me personally was Timothy George's distinction during the Q&A between an 'ecumenism of accommodation' and an 'ecumenism of conviction.' The former is bad, the latter good; the former compromises, the latter unites around shared belief. Helpful. It is easy to have a bent either completely toward or completely against 'ecumenism'; but what kind of ecumenism are we talking about?

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