Like beer and black coffee, the Church Fathers are an acquired taste.
Although young and still a graduate student, I am no newcomer to the Christian faith. But somehow, in the process of church, youth camps, undergrad Bible courses and extensive reading of Scripture, the Church Fathers -- the spiritual exemplars of the Christian tradition -- never made it into the conversation.
To me, everyone from the Christian tradition was merely another interpreter of Scripture. Why would I waste my time reading someone else's opinion when I could just read the Bible for myself? What good would it do to read from the Christian tradition when everything I need can be found in Scripture? Sola Scriptura! -- and the tradition can be left to my non-Protestant friends.
But things began to change when I learned that being Christian is about conforming to a tradition. It is about becoming part of an ongoing movement that has hung around and thrived for two millennia. It's not totally unlike American History requirements in school. The historical question is far greater than learning about the past, or even learning about how to navigate the future. It is about identity. One could hardly be called an American in the thick sense of that term without even a cursory knowledge of Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy and our other political heroes. So it seems equally absurd to me for a person to think that being Christian can be accomplished without knowing what being Christian has meant through our shared history. However, somewhere in the Protestant move the central role of Scripture for the Christian identity became so overwhelmingly bright that the humble lamps of the Christian fathers were misplaced and then subsequently forgotten.
One of the greatest disservices of contemporary theology is its neglect of the Christian Fathers and their contribution to our religion. But even more than that, an equally appalling tragedy is the neglect of the great exemplars of Christian faith in non-liturgical traditions.
Reading the Fathers is difficult in its own right, and learning how to constructively appropriate them into contemporary contexts is an even greater challenge. But it is insane to call ourselves Christian when we ignore what being Christian has meant since its inception. Before reading another book about leadership or church structure, maybe Christians (including me) could do well to reach for Augustine or Maximus the Confessor.
Follow Ben Griffith on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bengriffith
Church Fathers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
There are scriptural reasons to read the Church Fathers, the last line of Mathews Gospel, "Jesus said, I will be with you until the end of the ages". Well his spirit was with the Church Fathers too.
May I draw an analogy for you; Christianity is like an oak tree, the acorn with all its DNA was planted at Pentecost, and over the years this tree has grown, but the acorn is not the tree, yet the tree has the essence of the acorn. By not reading the Church fathers you are like a branch disconnected from its roots.
How do I know what is, or is not, to be considered "Scripture"?
The Bible is not a single book, but is instead a collection of separate books. *Nowhere* in the Bible itself is the "Bible" mentioned. *Nowhere* in the Bible itself is it stated how many books there are in the Bible, or what those books are, or how one can determine which books to include as "inspired Scripture" and which to exclude. Paul refers to "the Scriptures" in his letters -- but he is clearly not counting his own letters that he was writing among them, and he can hardly be considering the Gospels, which were not yet written. How, then does one determine the canon of the books of the Bible, except to use some tradition or standard that is necessarily OUTSIDE the Bible itself?
When one sees that the idea that the "Scriptura" which one wants to hold as "sola" can only be defined or identified through the use of extra-biblical Tradition, the whole idea of "sola scriptura" collapses like a house of cards.
Excellent point. Perhaps one should also read the Nicene and post-Nicence Fathers in the context of the seven Ecumenical Councils.
One question, though: assuming Ben's degree is theology or a related subject, what kind of degree (specifically, it's value in developing and broadening the analytical and critical faculties) doesn't consider historical contexts and aspects?
Also, I've definitely met those who say, "if it's not explicitly in the Bible, I don't need to know it." They're wrong, for sure. But then again, the material sufficiency of Scripture might also be in our tradition. ;D
on the (montheistic) Greek philosophers via (inter alia), neo-platonism and Aristotleanism.
Perhaps someone is trying to protect you from the pagan.
I was also struck by how every "new" heresy or schism is really just an age old one with some fresh lipstick.