As a part of their Future of Religion series, the religion portal Patheos considers the future of Catholicism. Elizabeth Scalia notes the intriguing entry by my buddy (the best talk show host in America) Hugh Hewitt:
The brief history of American Catholicism is this: mission, persecution, immigration, community, political power, strength, Vatican II, confusion, decline, scandal, confession, penance, and renewal. A new cycle of mission, persecution, immigration, community, political power, and strength has begun. Provided the reformed American Church remains steadfast in its renewed commitment to “orthodoxy,” all will not only be well, it will be a spectacularly vibrant and wonderful era for the Church in the new world.
[...]
The Roman Catholic Church in America owes a profound thank you to American evangelicals who, thoughout the last thirty years, stood in the gap created by a retreating Roman Catholic Church. In many ways they inspired and led the renewal in American Christianity while defending the teachings of the Gospel against the culture even as an enfeebled and wounded Church fell back in disarray. Now that American Protestants and Catholics are both entering eras of growth and confidence — and they are — the opportunities for genuine ecumenical cooperation are extraordinary.
Scalia calls this a “virtual valentine to Evangelical Christians” but I think it merely reflects Hewitt’s peculiar self-identification. Several years ago on his radio show, Andrew Sullivan asked Hewitt if he was a Catholic:
Andrew Sullivan: You’re not a Catholic, are you?
Hugh Hewitt: When we come back, we’ll continue with that. Yes, I actually am, and I will return to that when we come back to the Hugh Hewitt Show. I’m an Evangelical Roman Catholic Presbyterian, Andrew.
Now I consider myself an “Evangelical Southern Baptist Presbyterian,” which is a bit convoluted but not, I don’t believe, inherently contradictory. I also think it is possible, in certain respects, to be an “Evangelical Roman Catholic” (see: Francis Beckwith). But while I can appreciate Hewitt’s one-man ecumenist movement, wonder if its really possible to be, without contradiction, an “Evangelical Roman Catholic Presbyterian.”
I’m about as “Catholic-friendly” as a Reformed Evangelical Neo-Calvinist Baptist can be without getting thrown out of the camp as a complete traitor. (I am not, however, in danger of falling into the Tiber and having to swim to the other side.) But how Protestant-leaning can a Catholic be before they fall out of the pew?
I understand (and least I think I do) that once a person receives the sacrament of baptism they are considered Catholics in communion with the church. But can you be a professed Catholic if you prefer to skip Mass and take the Lord’s Supper with the Pentecostals? Can you disagree with the Church’s teachings on core doctrines such as justification and still be a Catholic in good standing?
At what point does theological alignment with Protestantism become a bridge too far?
July 22nd, 2010 | 8:46 am
Isn’t “Presbyterian” an identification of church governance at odds with Catholic ecclesiastical structure?
But if Hewitt is talking about certain theological emphases (semper reformanda, Augustinian soteriology), then I am a Catholic largely sympathetic with this label.
July 22nd, 2010 | 9:33 am
Somebody needs to tell Mr. Hewitt that Cdl Egan has retired. And, frankly, his successor, Abp Dolan, is more of a match with Abp Chaput anyway. Really good piece, though.
July 22nd, 2010 | 9:35 am
Hmmm as an Eastern Orthodox ‘Cathodox’, I sympathize with his/your plight. I’ll never be convinced to throw my lot in with the pope, but I’ll be danged if there aren’t some catholic spiritual writers who I love as much as my own church’s, if not more.
July 22nd, 2010 | 9:36 am
My hunch is that Hewitt means a member of the church catholic (small c) rather than Roman Catholic. The Catholic Church does recognize any properly administered baptism as legitimate in Vatican II documents even though because I am not a member of the Catholic Church (I have not completed the sacraments of initiation, which includes confirmation), technically I am not part of the visible church, or I am in imperfect communion (just how imperfect depends on how far removed one is from the ecclesial structures of the Catholic Church).
Sometimes we Evangelical Protestants think of baptism as the only sacrament of initiation into the church when it is not on the Catholic position.
Matt’s comments are on the mark: there is a tendency in the contemporary scene for some to want to blur theological labels with ecclesial labels. Since Evangelical (capital E) is a theological label, not an ecclesial label, Beckwith has a better case for saying he is an Evangelical Catholic than Hewitt does for saying that he is an Evangelical Roman Catholic Presbyterian.
In this sense, if Joe, you mean by Evangelical Southern Baptist Presbyterian that you are essentially Reformed, then there is no contradiction. However, once you talk about ecclesial structures, you I’m not sure how you could affirm a free-church model with believer’s baptism and a presbyterian model with infant baptism at the same time.
July 22nd, 2010 | 9:39 am
I would be very interested to hear more from Hugh about his faith. By saying he is a Roman Catholic Presbyterian, maybe he means that he is catholic in the small c sense of the word. Otherwise there are too many teachings of the Catholic Church that are at odds with Presbyterianism.
I also wonder how Hugh reconciles his pro-life beliefs with membership in the PCUSA which endorses legalized abortion. Or does he attend a PCA church?
July 22nd, 2010 | 9:57 am
My guess is that skipping mass to go with the pentecostals would probably “worse” on that front than a disagreement– even over a core teaching.
Augustine probably challenged the Church as much as anyone, but he never challenged its authority. That was what got Luther, Henry VIII, et al excommunicated, and its what got Galileo arrested.
I also find the practices involved within the Catholic spectrum to be fascinating. The Jesuit missionary Mateo Ricci translated the gospel into Chinese and in so doing portrayed Jesus as a sort of divine scholar in the confucian style. He also completely omitted the Crucifixion because culturally speaking Chinese confucians would never understand that an honorable teacher would be executed. The Church is very much capable of accomodation. The precise limits of that accomodation are debatable.
July 22nd, 2010 | 11:16 am
Does Hewitt mean “Catholic” with a small-c or large-C? How does he reconcile the Calvinist system with the R.C. system? It doesn’t really matter, for the fact that he’s trying to be everything at once shows that Hugh has submitted to no one. He is his own pope, with his own denomination.
My suspicion is that he’ll repent before long of his Hugh-centric conception of the Cosmos, and return to the Church of his youth. It takes repeated (and irrational) acts of the will to imagine oneself as outside all traditions, judging summarily between them and culling what one likes.
July 22nd, 2010 | 11:22 am
This is just to clarify something. A person who is baptized into the Catholic Church does not thereafter remain “in communion” with the Church no matter what he or she may do. If the person renounces belief in God and becomes an atheist, for example, he is no longer in communion with the Church. He is an apostate and no longer a Catholic.
If he remains a Christian but renounces his belief in elements of the Catholic Faith which he is supposed to hold with Catholic faith (and knows that), then he is a “heretic”, according to Church teaching. He may have still some degree of imperfect communion with the Catholic Church, but his communion with it has been gravely impaired. He is certainly no longer “a Catholic”.
If presbyterian means a certain theory of church polity that denies the authority of bishops and the Apostolic Succession, then indeed it cannot squared with Catholicism.
I suspect that Hewitt was meaning to speak hyperbolically or loosely.
July 22nd, 2010 | 11:30 am
I agree that Hugh Hewitt is the best talk radio host in America. He has sold me a lot of books.
July 22nd, 2010 | 1:21 pm
“The Roman Catholic Church in America owes a profound thank you to American evangelicals who, thoughout the last thirty years, stood in the gap created by a retreating Roman Catholic Church.”
This is quite a rewriting of history. The Church was pretty much the one and only institutionalized religion that stood steadfastly opposed to abortion, was it not? And the refusal of the mainline Protestant organizations to do so was what led to their demise and the rise of the modern evangelical movement, was it not? So I think that Mr. Hewitt’s notion of a “gap created by a retreated Roman Catholic Church” is pretty much nonsense. Please correct me if I’m grossly wrong here.
July 22nd, 2010 | 3:29 pm
I consider myself an Evangelical Catholic and not an Evangelical “Roman” Catholic since the Church in which I am in communion includes churches that are outside the Latin rite. I was, of course, baptized in the Latin rite and thus I am in that sense a Roman Catholic, but the Church whose Head is in Rome is not “Roman Catholic.” It is Catholic. I have a friend who is also in communion with Rome who was confirmed in the Byzantine Rite. He is not a Roman Catholic, though he believes, like I do, that the Bishop of Rome is the successor of St. Peter and the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church.
In any event, what follows is my rationale for calling myself an Evangelical Catholic. It is both in my book Return to Rome, and with less detail in an article I published last year, “Evangelical and Catholic.” Josephinum Journal of Theology 16.1 (2009): 125-138. (You can download a gratis copy of it under the “articles” section of my website, http://francisbeckwith.com ) Here it is:
After all the theoretical wrangling is over, one should ask a deeply practical question: What would be lost if the Evangelical Theological Society were to include as members Catholics who embrace a high view of Scripture? Perhaps we would learn from our Protestant friends and they would learn from us. Is that so bad? My sense is that this cross-pollination cannot help but enrich each other’s perspectives. I know one counterargument is, “That’s what the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) are for!” But I think that misses a deeper point: serious Catholics and Protestants share much more with each other than they do with a wide range of religious traditions and philosophical perspectives that are represented at AAR and SBL. We share a commitment to Christian orthodoxy and a high view of Scripture, something that one is unlikely to find at the AAR among participants who deliver papers with titles like “S/M Rituals in Gay Men’s Leather Communities: Initiation, Power Exchange, and Subversion” and “In Church There Is No Beer: Polka Mass as a Regional Devotion.”
Surely it is true that contemporary Evangelicalism has its roots in conservative Protestantism, but Protestantism itself has its roots in Catholicism. So if it’s a matter of theological and ecclesiastical patrimony, one could just as easily say that Evangelical Protestantism is another distant cousin in the Catholic family. Moreover, contemporary Evangelicalism has been shaped by the Catholic and Protestant charismatic and Pentecostal movements as well as the spirituality and apologetics of authors like C. S. Lewis, who, though an Anglican, produced works that are “Catholic” in their tone and substance. This is why Lewis is one of the most beloved writers among Catholics as well as Evangelical Protestants. Consequently, if one thinks of Evangelicalism as a renewal movement that stresses personal conversion and spiritual development, evangelism, a high view of Scripture, and fidelity to Christian orthodoxy, then one can certainly be an Evangelical Catholic.
Put in terms of specific traditions, if the term “Evangelical” is broad enough to include high-church Anglicans, low-church, anti-creedal Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, the Evangelical Free Church, Arminians, Calvinists, Disciples of Christ, Pentecostals, Seventh-Day Adventists, open theists, atemporal theists, social Trinitarians, substantial Trinitarians, nominalists, realists, eternal security supporters and opponents, temporal theists, dispensationalists, theonomists, church-state separationists, church-state accomodationists, cessationists, non-cessationists, kenotic theorists, covenant theologians, paedo-Baptists, Anabaptists, and Dooweyerdians, then there should be room for an Evangelical Catholic.
At the end of the day, I am an Evangelical Catholic because I believe in the Evangel, the Gospel, the Good News, and that it is a gift of God that ought to be embraced and lived by everyone. As an Evangelical, indeed as a Christian, I have an obligation to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. I am Catholic insofar as I believe that the Church is universal and that its continuity is maintained through history by the whole of its membership, the Body of Christ, and not merely as a collection of isolated individuals in personal relationship with Jesus. I also believe that this Catholic Church is under the direction of the Holy Spirit working through the Church’s Magisterium, the Apostles’ successors.
Nevertheless, I also believe, as The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, that “’many elements of sanctification and of truth’ are found outside the visible confines of the Catholic Church: `the written Word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope, and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as visible elements.’” “Christ’s Spirit,” the Catechism instructs us, “uses these Churches and ecclesial communities as means of salvation, whose power derives from the fullness of grace and truth that Christ has entrusted to the Catholic Church. All these blessings come from Christ and lead to him, and are in themselves calls to ‘Catholic unity.’” For this reason I am convinced that if not for the Holy Spirit working through the many gifted and devoted Christian scholars and teachers in Evangelical Protestantism, some of whom I have had the privilege to know, love and study under, my present faith would be significantly diminished. Their tenacious defense and practice of Christian orthodoxy is what has sustained and nourished so many of us who have found our way back to the Church of our youth.
Although it may be difficult to detect from much of what I have written in this book, my return to the Catholic Church had as much to do with a yearning for a deeper spiritual life as it did with theological reasoning. Since becoming Catholic, I have become much more prayerful, I read the Bible far more often, and I am increasingly more aware and appreciative of the grace God has given me to live a virtuous life. I sometimes find myself silently praying a “Hail Mary” or an “Our Father” while driving or working out. I am not averse to asking particular saints to pray for me, or to recite the prayers of some of my favorite saints, such as St. Thomas Aquinas. When doing this I gain a greater sense of that which I am a part, the wonderful Body of Christ that transcends time, space, and death itself. Since becoming Catholic I have participated in such practices as praying the rosary and praying the Stations of the Cross. These practices are rich and good, but the sacrament of reconciliation (or confession) has been the most liberating aspect of my Catholic experience so far. Although many Catholics acquire a deeper walk with God through the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, I have found confession to be the place in which I experience the gratuitous charity of our Lord at its fullest.
July 22nd, 2010 | 5:54 pm
Brian, you are wrong. Official pronouncements from Rome on abortion are only one part of a bigger picture. Evangelicals kept the orthodox faith alive as a viable contender while liberal Protestant and Catholic priests fumbled their guard duty. To say nothing of the theologians. IYAM. And Scripture scholarship… unholy smoke. If you lived through the history of which Hewitt writes, you will think it is true.I owe my Catholicism to Evangelicals in a real sense.
July 23rd, 2010 | 10:39 am
Joe: Just so you know, “Brian, you are wrong” is not particularly the most attractive of openings, especially when you follow it up with such truly outlandish statements as “Evangelicals kept the orthodox faith alive” and patronizing nonsense like “If you lived through the history of which Hewitt writes, you will think it is true.” I was kind of hoping for some facts to back up an opposing viewpoint, but I see nothing, so I’ll stand by my original contention that Mr. Hewitt’s point applies to mainline Protestants, but not the Catholic Church.
July 23rd, 2010 | 7:31 pm
Brian: The rise of the modern evangelical movement (neo-evangelicanism) was in response to the “modernist” teachings of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, teachings that had nothing to do with abortion. It wasn’t until much later that the modernists (now called “liberals”) began taking a pro-choice stand. The (neo-)evangelicals have remained resolutely pro-life throughout their history, and they were strong in numbers before the mainline (liberal) churches started embracing the pro-choice position.
July 23rd, 2010 | 11:42 pm
“The (neo-)evangelicals have remained resolutely pro-life throughout their history…”
That’s not entirely true. The Southern Baptist Convention endorsed a prochoice position soon after Roe v. Wade. (It has, of course, reversed itself and is solidly prolife). Evangelical Philosopher Norm Geisler was prochoice (though he has since changed his mind and has become strongly prolife), and popular Evangelical teacher, Walter Martin, was moderately prochoice. In fact, in 1990 I authored piece in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society in which a critiqued a prochoice article authored by the wife of the 1987 ETS President, Walter Dunnett. Entitled, “Brave New Bible,” my article can be found here: http://www.etsjets.org/files/JETS-PDFs/33/33-4/33-4-pp489-508_JETS.pdf
July 25th, 2010 | 5:46 am
I’m a regular listener of Mr. Hewitt’s show, so I can relate that Hugh was raised catholic, including attending catholic schools K-12. I believe one parent was catholic and the other protestant. He still has a strong love of the Church, and self-identifies as Catholic, despite being a member of the PCA. Hewitt has been almost as influential as Father John Neuhaus in altering my low-church Protestant view of the Roman Catholic church from overwhelmingly negative to positive. He has consistently had catholic theologians on his show (such as Archbishop Chaput) who exhibit more devotion to Christ than many protestant ministers I know. I’m less bothered by denominational differences than Roman Catholics would be, but I’ll admit I don’t know how Hugh juggles the big gaps between Presbyterian and catholic theology. He tends to gloss over them on his show.
July 26th, 2010 | 10:07 am
“The Roman Catholic Church in America owes a profound thank you to American evangelicals who, thoughout the last thirty years, stood in the gap created by a retreating Roman Catholic Church.”
Hewitt is my favorite radio show host. But my sense is that he views just about everything — including religion — through the lens of modern American politics.
The above statement might apply to conservative political activism over the past 30 years, but would seem to apply to little else.
Note also Hewitt’s recent introductory remarks for a Bishop Chaput speech. He seems to appreciate Chaput primarily as it relates to progressing the conservative political agenda.
Finally, Hewitt hasn’t publically said a great deal about his departure from the RCC. However, I do recall that the embrace of the USCCB of some traditionally liberal/left political positions was a contributing factor.
One time, a caller to his show asked, “Hugh, if you believed in the Real Presence, why did you leave the Church?” Hewitt didn’t directly answer. I would have loved to have heard his response.
July 27th, 2010 | 1:33 pm
I thoroughly enjoy listening to Hugh Hewitt here in the OC. I am a little upset that they have truncated his afternoon show to make room for Glen Beck (nothing personal).
As a Presbyterian minister in Irvine, it has long been known that Hewitt attends the PCUSA church in Irvine. He often had their former pastor, Mark D Roberts, on as a guest. So to clarify, Hewitt is not PCA, nor ARP, which are also Presbyterian churches in Irvine.
However, Christopher Neiswonger attends our ARP fellowship and has a splendid blog and pod-cast on this important matter of discussion. I commend it to you: http://www.apologetics.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=482:jerusalem-rome-and-constantinople-the-genius-of-protestantism&catid=43:kkla-995-fm-los-angeles&Itemid=74
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