In response, professors and theologians turned to early Christian church fathers, their doctrinal commitments, devotional practices, and a variety of early ways of worship. In so doing they found their lives transformed in a modern movement of intense intellectual curiosity as well as a questioning scrutiny by traditional believers. Familiar names, writings and stories included in this issue are Tom Oden, Bob Webber, Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, Kathleen Norris, Thomas Howard, and William Abraham. (The title of this issue echoes Abraham’s 1995 book Waking from Doctrinal Amnesia, a critique of liberal United Methodist theology.)

“Compiling this issue has reminded me of my own personal revival,” said Jennifer Woodruff Tait, Managing Editor of Christian History magazine. “At seminary, I learned of the riches of early church theology and devotion, and found my spiritual life strengthened by fasting, disciplined scripture study, and frequent Holy Communion. Webber describes people somewhat like me in his most famous book, Evangelicals on the Canterbury Trail—that “trail” being a metaphor for a spiritual journey.”

CH issue #129, contains 10 feature articles and 4 shorter side-bar articles; a chronology time-line; an archive of rare art-work & photos; a ‘letter to the editor’ section and an extensive reading list compiled by the CHM editorial staff. The magazine is available on-line and can be conveniently read on screen at: https://christianhistoryinstitute.org.

Highlights from the Issue 129 table of contents:

Fulfilling a longing for the early church by Thomas C. Oden and Christopher A. Hall

An excerpt from Oden’s Ancient Christian Commentary

Acid rain and Christian truth by Jonathan A. Powers

Why do we need to recover from modernity?

“He made no new contribution to theology” by Christopher A. Hall

Tom Oden’s influential return to orthodox faith.

Living a “with-God” life by Tina Fox

The friendship of Richard Foster and Dallas Willard and the birth of Renovaré

Going behind Aquinas by Hans Boersma

Nouvelle théologie and The Catholic retrieval of mystery

Freedom for tradition by Robert Saler

The Lutheran tendency to defy denominational categories has been a strength as they seek renewal

Restless and reforming by D. G. Hart

The Mercersburg Theology presented Reformed Christians with a link to the past—if they chose to use it

“We’re not done with virtue yet” by Jennifer A. Boardman

Many different approaches to recover from modern amnesia

A church of the ages? By Jason Byassee, Chris Armstrong, and Greg Peters

We asked some pastors and professors to reflect on what it means to recover from modern amnesia and how the ancient and medieval faith can inform the church of the future

Christian History Institute
www.ChristianHistoryInstitute.org
Worcester, PA, April 16, 2019

The author of In Search of Ancient Roots, Kenneth J. Stewart, professor of theological studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, maintains that the roots of the evangelical tradition goes further back than the 17^th and 18^th centuries and even the Reformation era of the 16^th century and be found as early as the middle of the 3^rd century when Cyprian, about A.D. 280, questioned the authority of a single “pope” in his The Unity of the Church (De Unitate Ecclesia, PL 4.502).

Stewart is a specialist in the history of Christianity from the Reformation to the present, with particular interest in the development of the evangelical movement as it arose soon after the 16^th century Protestant Reformation. Stewart holds a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, and has been a contributor to the Blackwell Dictionary of Evangelical Biography. He bases his argument for an ancient heritage for Evangelical Christianity upon the work of a prior researcher, John Jewel, who in his preaching in England in the late 16^th century gave reference to Cyprian’s De Unitate Ecclesia in which this Church Father argued against the need of a pope and for the need of a plurality.

This reviewer feels that Stewart could not have done a better job of referencing. The reason for this reviewer’s praise is that as a student at the Divinity School of Duke University, this reviewer had the opportunity to read in Cyprian’s works in a Historical Theology class. Cyprian maintained that “upon this rock [petra]” did not refer to Peter since the feminine form for “rock” referenced his confession. Cyprian must have had Paul’s letter to the Corinthians alongside his other reading where Paul stated that no other foundation can be laid for the church than that of faith in Christ Jesus. That, in and of itself, is sufficient as an evangelical contention.

Chapter two of Stewart’s In Search for Ancient Roots traces the evangelical message as a recurring occurrence from the very beginning. In Chapter 3, Stewart addresses the need for appraising the Christian past prior to the 19^th 18^th, and 16^th centuries and not treating evangelical Christian faith as product of the camp meetings of the early 1820’s and the later emergence of both Charles Finney and Dwight L. Moody. Chapter 4 does just that by examining the use of the past by Protestants beginning with present-day Protestant denominations and working backwards to the 16^th Century and credits the advent of “type-setting” by Johannes Gutenberg (d. 1468) as enabling mass circulation of the writings of both the early patristic era of the church and of the classical writers of the Graeco-Roman era.  Stewart found that among the most used by the Reformers was the Comminatory of Vincent of Lerian composed in the early 5^th century.

Historian of Revival, William De Arteaga, makes it clear that heresy is an ancient and persistent threat to genuine revival. However, the heresies he examines might surprise you.

This essay asserts that there have been three unrecognized discernment heresies in operation throughout Church history that have retarded revival and hindered the Church from coming into its Spirit-filled destiny. This insight came to me 30 years ago when I was a student at a mainline seminary.

Heresy is an unpleasant topic to write about, but necessary. St. Irenaeus and many other leaders of the Early Church consistently struggled against one heretical group after another. Indeed, the 2^nd letter of Peter warned:

But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute (2 Peter 2:1-2).

Jude also encouraged fellow Christian to battle heresy and proclaim true Apostolic teaching: “I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 1:3). The anti-heretical effort was necessary to establish fundamental biblical truths against distortions from Gnostics (see below) and other groups.

Biblical understanding of Heresy

In the New Testament, the Greek word that is translated as heresy is hairesis, and it simply means groups or “sects.” At times in the New Testament it is used in a neutral sense, as we might mention a certain political party (see Acts 28:22). Josephus, the First Century Jewish historian, uses the word in this sense to identify three major Jewish “sects:” the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. The Pharisees and Sadducees were often mentioned in the Gospels; not so the Essenes. The Essenes lived in ascetic monastic communities awaiting a political-military Messiah. They were not cited in the New Testament and disappeared after the Jewish-Roman war that destroyed the Temple in 70 AD.

Theophilus of Antioch is one of the so-called Apologists of the second century, and perhaps the most undervalued among them. He is widely regarded as the first Christian actually to refer to the NT writings as inspired in a sense that might approximate what many Christians today mean by “inspiration.” (But there is a difference, in that Theophilus also supposed many non-scriptural writings to be inspired as well.) Theophilus is also known for his influence on Irenaeus, so he is somewhat of a link in a chain of development. Parsons introduces the reader to Theophilus’ exegesis, and tries to make a case for elevating Theophilus’ view of Scripture. He also seeks to uncover Theophilus’ mode of operation when quoting Scripture, arguing that he often quoted from memory rather than from immediate, direct access to a written copy.

It needs to be pointed out that Parsons’s work is marred by a couple of misapprehensions. For one thing, he relies on a psychology experiment conducted by Robert McIver and Marie Carroll to detect when a writer is quoting from memory (pp. 46-48, 50, 63). Unfortunately, he appears to misunderstand their study and what it claims to have proved, as he applies it in a way that makes little sense to the original premise. McIver and Carroll had cited a sixteen-word phrasal agreement as marking the point at which we must deduce direct access to a parallel written writing, and Parsons takes this to mean that quotations of another writing shorter than sixteen words in overall length derive from memory. The problem with this is that the sixteen-word threshold was meant to identify a string of consecutive words in a longer account that parallels another writing, rather than the overall length of a parallel account (verbatim or otherwise). Thus, Parsons does not make his case for Theophilus having quoted from memory (although there is nothing unlikely about that view).

Christian Origins and the Ancient Economy is a fascinating study of the socioeconomic environment during the “Second Temple Period” which included the time Jesus lived among us. Professor David Fiensy’s introduction, written in pure geek, gives a false impression of how fascinating and enjoyable his work becomes once readers reach chapter one. Chapter 9, “Poverty and Wealth in the Jerusalem Church,” is worth the price of the book. Written in readable, Reader’s Digest English, it is an exposition on Acts 4:32-34, the quintessential vision of God for His church.

Fiensy begins by introducing the various social strata in Galilee. Jesus, to begin with, was a carpenter, an artisan, in low social standing among both Greeks and Romans, but extolled by the rabbis. Jesus hobnobbed with the elites, however, who were socially above Him: Johanna and her husband Chuza (an official of Herod Antipas), Jarius, Zacchaeus, Nicodemus, and Joseph of Arimathea to name a few. Perhaps, some of the elites employed Him, as a carpenter. Fiensy argues that it was Jesus, the artisan, that lead a mass movement of peasants—though the professor can only surmise how this, historically speaking, came about. As an artisan, he would have interpreted life differently than the average peasant. Additionally, Jesus, would have practiced his craft in an urban setting. This would place Jesus, culturally, worlds removed from that of a farmer. Rural populations maintained their native languages and customs. Urbanites spoke Greek and were “in touch …with the great institutions and ideas of Greco-Roman society.”

Fiensy then asks, “Was debt widespread in Jesus’s time?” That is to ask: was at least 30% of peasantry facing foreclosure on their farmlands and homes? A peasant was a subsistence farmer who was trying to grow enough to feed his family. Peasant farmers made up the greater part of a Galilean subsistence economy. They worked between 1 and 15 acres of land to feed their families on 13 to 25 bushels of wheat—per 6 acres sowed each year. The book is full of such fun facts that bring the parables of Jesus to life and provide needed insight into the New Testament narrative.

David A. Fiensy

Through the book, Professor Fiensy debates the use of a socio-economic model and its archeological accuracy in explaining a Galilean economy. Professor Fiensy uses tables, scriptures, social models, archeological finds as well as other historical data to argue both sides of this intriguing question about private debt. For example, Josephus tells a relevant story of a mob of desperate peasants setting fire to the archives in Judea to burn the record of their debts. Was this the economic backdrop to Jesus’s ministry? There are many unanswered socio-economic questions debated by archeologists and sociologists. Prof. Fiensy welcomes us into this forum as he discusses such subjects as economic crises, the introduction of currency, property, and taxes.

The economy of Lower Galilee, Fiensy’s first concern, was in the early stages of changing from a subsistence economy that bonded peasants together in a common struggle for survival into a market economy (i.e. cash crops to increase wealth) where everything had a price and coinage was, more and more, the medium of exchange. (Fiensy uses the term: commercialized.) Consequently, old associations, family, neighbors, and religious life, were becoming of lesser value. It was in this context Jesus spoke out against riches in Mark 10:25.

In Jesus day, did the rabbis think God was done with miracles?

In the commentary to Deuteronomy (The Stone Edition, Artscroll Mesorah Series, 1995) reads, “Once [Israel] crossed the Jordan, the people would no longer see God’s constant Presence and daily miracles, as they had in the Wilderness.”

Apparently Christians were not the first cessationists. So imagine, when Yeshua and the disciples began exhibiting miracles, the cessationists of the day must have had a fit, “No, those miracles were how God used to work, but they are no longer used today.”

Cessationists believe (according to Wikipedia) that miracles had these purposes:

1. They provided supernatural confirmation of the apostolic authority of the early church;
2. They helped lay the foundation for the church; and
3. They gave divine guidance to early believers while the New Testament was not yet complete.

“The Children of Israel Crossing the Jordan” by Gustave Doré (1832–1883).
Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Substitute “church” and “New Testament” with “Israel” and “Tanakh” and I think you have pretty well summed up the rabbinical commentators position.

Solomon was right, “That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9 NASB).

This brief study of miracles has opened my mind to new possibilities regarding Yeshua’s work among the religious orthodoxy.

Kevin Williams

Jeffrey J. Niehaus (PhD, Harvard University) is professor of Old Testament at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. His previous publications include God at Sinai: Covenant and Theophany in the Bible and Ancient Near East (Zondervan, 1995) as well as commentaries on Amos and Obadiah (Baker, 1992-93) and numerous journal articles. In the text now under discussion, Ancient Near Eastern Themes in Biblical Theology, Niehaus draws on research into ancient Near Eastern contexts to compare numerous parallels in (especially) the Old Testament (OT) and the Bible as a whole. Carefully researched and yet written in quite readable language, it is well organized and has a short but good bibliography and Scripture and subject indexes. This work should be an excellent resource for students, teachers, pastors, and Bible readers interested in understanding more deeply the cultural and spiritual background of the Holy Scriptures.

The Preface and first chapter identify Niehaus’ guiding principles. He writes reverently. He is convinced of God’s sovereignty over history and human cultures, and therefore contends that God has “allowed a variety of parallels to arise between theological concepts and practices in the ancient Near East and their counterparts in the Bible.” However, he thinks “there is not only a parallelism between certain themes in the Bible and its world, but there is also a structure of thought that is common to them both and that forms the theological backbone of the Bible.” Niehaus defends a strong doctrine of truth rooted in the biblical revelation. Yet he also defends the idea that ancient myths can contain elements of truth more plainly manifested in the Bible itself. Some try to account for this strange fact by positing some universal aspect of human nature and others simply see the Bible as dependant on pagan literature; but Niehaus looks at pagan literature through the lens of the Bible rather than the converse. In a word, Niehaus parts company with much of contemporary ancient Near Eastern and OT scholarship. He plainly does not see the Bible as dependant on pagan literature. Rather, he thinks the biblical revelation draws on preexisting and widespread cultural thought constructs to communicate divinely revealed eternal truth.

Niehaus argues, first, that the OT preserves true and accurate accounts of major events (e.g., Creation, the Flood), but that extra biblical sources may also “preserve the memory of such events”, albeit in distorted forms. Second, he argues that the OT uses literary and legal forms current in surrounding cultures as vehicles of special revelation. Third, he argues that the parallels between these appear “because God allowed concepts that are true of him and his ways to appear in the realm of common grace.” Accordingly, the Old and New Testaments complete and fulfill “the shared theological structure of ideas” that already existed in the ancient Near East. He goes farther, however, insisting that this shared theological structure provides “the theological backbone of the whole Bible.” He readily admits that in the ancient Near East the shared structure eventually became “blurred” and that in modern western cultures it has been “abandoned”; it is only “kept alive” in the Church, “God’s people, who continue to be his temple and to advance his kingdom, until he returns to establish it once and for all, for all time, and for all who believe in him.”

Virginia Burrus, ed., Late Ancient Christianity,A People’s History of Christianity, Vol. 2 (Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress, 2005), 318 pages.

The editorial team of the series entitled A People’s History of Christianity has endeavored to tell the story of Christianity through the eyes of the common person, rather than through the eyes of kings, conquerors, popes, or bishops. In this second volume, they attempt to tell the story of the early church through the eyes of those whose doctrine may not have measured up to the standard of orthodox belief; they were on the fringe of what later became defined as catholic orthodoxy. The goal of opening the scope of history, to tell the story from the “bottom up” rather than from the “top down” is one that is worthwhile. The challenge of the researcher is to discover reliable sources whereby one might piece together the history; the challenge of the reader is to discern where to draw the line between speculation and verity. The first volume explored first century Galilee, the world into which Jesus Christ was born and the second volume examines the first centuries of the church—the period of the Church Fathers—late ancient Christianity.

Much of the research for this second volume appears to be done by implication—discerning what motivated the Church Fathers to write against various “heresies.” For example, if the Apostle Paul wrote words of reprimand to the Corinthian church it is implicit that there were people in the church that were practicing something of theological error. Likewise, the researchers of the People’s History series have taken the words written by the Church Fathers of the first centuries and have lifted from their rebukes to the church alleged evidence of the non-standard beliefs—the unorthodox theology—of the early church. This evidence was then verified by the archeological evidence of the same time-period. The authors have uncovered some intriguing theories of how multiple variations of belief intertwined with local culture and habits retained from pagan religions. They have laid before the reader several scenarios of the internal strife of the late ancient church, with the challenges of new converts and new churches, distance and slow communication, church politics and Rome.

Late Ancient Christianity editor, Virginia Burrus, is Professor of Early Church History at Drew University in Madison, NJ.

Contributing author, David Frankfurter, summarized the process in the chapter he contributed. He said, “When we write appreciatively about saint cults, shrines, iconography, or magic, are we merely carrying on those elitist, early Protestant prejudices in different guise—as historical voyeurism or nostalgic inversion, championing the popular as authentic and shunning the elite as—well, elite?” (256). The challenge that he is pointing to is one of seeing through lenses untainted by our own traditions, teachings, or biases.

Reading this book with pastoral lenses will permit one to see parallel problems between the late ancient church and the church of our day. In one way, the book seems to be, as Frankfurter said “voyeuristic” of another time—with no attempt to interpret—leaving the readers free to make their own interpretation. It serves to remind us that there is nothing new under the sun, particularly in view of heresy—all distortions of orthodox belief continue to assault the church—and that it is profitable to know how the church Fathers dealt with similar problems. It is equally fascinating to speculate about the diversity of the late ancient church and to be freshly challenged about the variety of beliefs held by our early church forbearers.