Evangelicals and the Early Church: Recovery, Reform, Renewal
Ebook
Overview
In this volume noted Evangelical historians and theologians examine the charge of the supposed "ahistorical nature of Evangelicalism" and provide a critical, historical examination of the relationship between the Protestant evangelical heritage and the early church. In doing so, the contributors show the long and deeply historical rootedness of the Protestant Reformation and its Evangelical descendants, as well as underscoring some inherent difficulties such as the Mercersburg and Oxford movements. In the second part of the volume, the discussion moves forward, as evangelicals rediscover the early church-its writings, liturgy, catechesis, and worship-following the "temporary amnesia" of the earlier part of the twentieth century. Most essays are accompanied by a substantial response prompting discussion or offering challenges and alternative readings of the issue at hand, thus allowing the reader to enter a conversation already in progress and engage the topic more fully. This bidirectional look-understanding the historical background on the one hand and looking forward to the future with concrete suggestions on the other-forms a more full-orbed argument for readers who want to understand the rich and deep relationship between Evangelicalism and the early church.
"This unusually interesting volume combines bracing historical
engagement with rare theological wisdom. Its chapters carefully
explore why, how, under what conditions, and how much contemporary
evangelicals should try to appropriate guidance from the first
Christian centuries. A particularly helpful feature is the paired
chapters that promote the best kind of respectful give and take on
contested or difficult questions. The book is a gem of edifying
insight."
-Mark Noll
Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History, University of Notre
Dame
"Here is a collection of essays that invites the reader to wrestle
along with the authors over the query why evangelicals have not
embraced more fully the early church as part of their theological
and ecclesiastical legacy. It is certainly a question of
importance. The appropriation of the early church by essentially
free-church segments of contemporary Christianity remains at the
experimental stage however much momentum it has gained over the
last twenty years. Of varying degrees valuable insights are offered
in this book with which pastoral and academic leadership needs to
grapple for the future of evangelicalism."
-D. H. Williams
Professor of Patristics and Historical Theology, Baylor
University
"In 1994, Mark Noll threw down the gauntlet in The Scandal of
the Evangelical Mind challenging evangelical churches to
overcome anti-intellectualism and broaden their engagement with a
variety of intellectual traditions, not only in theology, but in
other disciplines in the humanities and sciences. Surely one sign
of an opening of the evangelical mind is the expanding interest
over the last decade among evangelical scholars in the Catholic and
Orthodox theological traditions of late antiquity and their value
as a resource of Biblical exegesis and theological reflection.
Evangelicals and the Early Church, as a collection of
excellent essays by evangelicals about the relevance of patristic
thought for evangelicals, is invaluable both for evangelicals
wanting to integrate early Christian theology into a distinctly
evangelical articulation of the Gospel and for non-evangelicals
interested in understanding the state of the evangelical mind at
the beginning of the twenty-first century."
-J. Warren Smith
Associate Professor of Historical Theology, Duke University
"Why should evangelicals be concerned about the post-New Testament
church? This volume addresses this fundamental question in several
ways: by probing the reasons why earlier evangelicals focused on
the church fathers, by examining some of the pitfalls of relying on
the patristic period, and by reflecting in detail on the relation
between Scripture, the church fathers, and evangelical identity.
This book offers a rich and varied exploration of the value of
patristic studies for twenty-first-century evangelicalism. It is a
pleasure to recommend it."
-Donald Fairbairn
Robert E. Cooley Professor of Early Christianity, Gordon-Conwell
Theological Seminary
"Professors Kalantzis and Tooley and the scholars they have
convened dare to ask: Is the recent fascination with the early
church among some evangelicals merely the latest fad of consumerist
religion or is something more profound at work? This rich
collection of essays demonstrates the breadth of engagement in
Patristic thought and practice among some of the leading voices in
evangelical Christianity. They prove the title is not an
oxymoron."
-L. Edward Phillips,
Associate Professor of Worship and Liturgical Theology,
Candler School of Theology, Emory University
Product Details
- Title : Evangelicals and the Early Church: Recovery, Reform, Renewal
- Authors:
- Kalantzis, George
- Tooley, Andrew
- Publisher: Cascade Books
- Publication Date: 2011
- ISBN: 9781621899105
George Kalantzis is Associate Professor of Theology at Wheaton
College and the director of The Wheaton Center for Early Christian
Studies. He specializes in fourth- and fifth-century Antiochene
theology and hermeneutics, and has written extensively on Theodore
of Mopsuestia, Cyril, and the Nestorian controversy. His most
recent books include Theodore of Mopsuestia: Commentary on John
(2004), the co-edited The Sovereignty of God Debate (2009), Studies
on Patristic Texts and Archaeology (2009), and Life in the Spirit:
Spiritual Formation in Theological Perspective (2010).
Andrew Tooley is the Project Director of the Institute for the
Study of American Evangelicals at Wheaton College. He holds degrees
from the University of Nebraska and Trinity Evangelical Divinity
School and is currently completing a PhD in history from the
University of Stirling, Scotland. His research focuses on the
religious history of the United States and Great Britain in the
nineteenth century.