Return to Rome: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic

Francis J. Beckwith

Jan 2009 · Christian Audio · Narrated by Grover Gardner

About this audiobook

A high profile former Evangelical Theological Society president tells the provocative story of his return to the Catholic church and explains how he still considers himself evangelical. What does it mean to be evangelical? What does it mean to be Catholic? Can one consider oneself both simultaneously? Francis Beckwith has wrestled with these questions personally and professionally. He was baptized a Catholic, but his faith journey led him to Protestant evangelicalism. He became a philosophy professor at Baylor University and president of the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS). And then, in 2007, after much prayer, counsel, and consideration, Beckwith decided to return to the Catholic church and step down as ETS president. This provocative book details Beckwith's journey, focusing on his internal dialogue between the Protestant theology he embraced for most of his adult life and Catholicism.

About the author

Francis J. Beckwith received a M.A. and PhD. from Fordham University and a M.J.S. from the Washington University School of Law, St. Louis. He is a Professor of philosophy and church-state studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. He has held visiting full-time academic appointments at Princeton University, University of Notre Dame, and the University of Colorado, Boulder. He is the author of many books including Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice, Return to Rome: Confessions of an Evangelical Catholic, Politics for Christians: Statecraft As Soulcraft, and Taking Rites Seriously: Law, Politics, and the Reasonableness of Faith, which won the 2016 American Academy of Religion Book Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion in Constructive-Reflective Studies.