Tag Archives: historical theology

In brief: Why Christian humanism is the essential foundation of the faith & work conversation

Posted on July 14, 2022 | 1 comment

  • In light of theologically, biblically, and historically weak popular presentations of faith & work arguments, we must speak primarily in theological terms
  • We must not speak in narrowly theological terms
  • In other words, we must draw on a theological discourse that embraces and can be embraced by all current Christian traditions (e.g. not a discourse that is exclusively neo-Calvinist/Kuyperian, or Wesleyan/Pentecostal, or grounded in Catholic social thought, etc., but informs and converses with all of those traditions and more)
  • We must draw on a theological discourse that stretches back to the earliest church
  • We must draw on a theological discourse that is clear about what human beings are, how we (are to) flourish, and how we are (to be) redeemed
  • We must draw on a theological discourse that is not narrowly “spiritual,” but instead addresses the broadest possible range of human activities (including all major sectors of work) and that affirms material and social as well as spiritual flourishing
  • We must draw on a theological discourse that therefore includes a well-articulated approach to human cultural (including economic) activity
  • We must draw on a theological discourse grounded in undeniable major orthodox doctrines such as creation, the incarnation, and the atonement, and with clear scriptural foundations such as Genesis and the Gospels
  • Christian humanism is the only theological tradition I know of that fulfils all of the above criteria

Further:

Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in Christian humanism, Christian humanism, work, & economics, Work with purpose

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

The book is out! So here’s a link to a whole website about it, and an interview clip introducing it . . .

Posted on June 12, 2016 | 4 comments

So, Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians: Finding Authentic Faith in a Forgotten Age, with C. S. Lewis is out, as of May 17th!

Check out www.medieval-wisdom.com (description, blurbs, first-chapter download, links to bookstores carrying it). Here’s the first of five clips from a video interview my publisher produced:

4 Comments

Posted in Medieval Wisdom for Modern Protestants

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Summer 2011 confab of (early and medieval) historical theology wonks

Posted on May 17, 2011 | 2 comments

Boston College: The Old World's enduring influ...

Boston College, with its Old World architecture

Folks, what’s the Boston Colloquy in Historical Theology? Why, it’s a group based at Boston College with a unique mission to rehabilitate historical theology as a discipline in service of the church. As it says on their website, ” The Boston Colloquy in Historical Theology (BCHT) is a professional organization of scholars devoted to the study of early and medieval Christian theology. Organized by Khaled Anatolios, Stephen F. Brown, and Boyd Taylor Coolman in the Theology Department at Boston College, the BCHT annually brings together scholars from these disciplines to foster conversation, stimulate thought, and promote scholarship.”

This summer’s meeting of the Colloquy looks to be an interesting one–see the list of papers below. Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Medieval Wisdom for Modern Protestants, Patron Saints for Postmoderns, Resources for Radical Living

Tagged , , , , , , ,

“Who do you say that I am?” Controversies about Christ in the early church

Posted on October 20, 2010 | 3 comments

Detail - Glory of the New Born Christ in prese...

Glory of the newborn Christ in the presence of God the Father and the Holy Spirit; ceiling painting made by Daniel Gran (1694-1757), Annakirche, Vienna

The Council of Nicea in 325 established as orthodoxy the belief that Jesus Christ was co-eternal with the Father–an equal partner in the Trinity of Father, Son and Spirit (though a full theology of the Holy Spirit had yet to be developed).

But another controversy was beginning to heat up–one that would cause the first great schism of the church. And this one involved many more heretical bunny trails than the controversy with the Arians–even counting all of the Eusebians, Homoians, and so forth who muddied the Trinitarian waters between Nicea and the First Council of Constantinople (381).

This is the story of the tangled web of controversy about the person of Christ: how it was woven, what its strands were, and how at last the controversy was resolved. If you’re like I was when I first learned this stuff, this will stretch your mind and make you ask some questions you’ve never asked before: Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , , ,

A Christ-and-culture case study: Why did the early Christians use the Greek word “Logos” for Christ?

Posted on October 19, 2010 | 1 comment

Justin The Philosopher

Justin Martyr in his philosophers' robes

Roger Olson‘s The Story of Christian Theology is a big, rambling narrative compendium of juicy information about the development of Christian theology through history. Unlike almost any other book I can think of on historical theology, this one is accessible to a lay, non-specialist audience. Though it needed a good edit (it could have been trimmed to about half its size), it is still a compelling read.

One of the places where Olson shines is in describing the original and development of key theological concepts in the early church. And of these, one of the most fascinating is the use of the term Logos by the mid-second-century apologist Justin Martyr. Here we find a pagan philosopher converted to Christianity who still (of course!) uses the equipment of the Greek thought-world, in particular the term Logos–also used in the Hebrew tradition, to describe Christ to other pagans.

Here is my reworking of Olson’s account. As this is from lecture notes, I have not always used quotation marks when I am quoting Olson verbatim. Best assumption: much of this is in his own words. As always when I present notes from a book, my abbreviations are in play: X for Christ, xn for Christian, xnty for Christianity, etc.:

Without doubt Justin Martyr deserves his reputation as “the most important 2nd-c. apologist” because of his creative ideas about Christ as cosmic Logos and about Christianity as true philosophy. Continue reading →

1 Comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Ancient and medieval historical theology: Ur doin it wrong?

Posted on September 27, 2010 | 4 comments

The subhead above should have read: “A group dedicated to doing it right.” But then I couldn’t have used this lolcat picture. And I have a weakness for lolcats.

Once in a while a bright seminary student will come to me and tell me that they want to “go on” and study historical theology, in the service of the church. What theology doctoral program should they enter?

I think of Duke and UVA, and then I’m flummoxed. Now, I know there are other good programs out there. I’m not the best-connected academic. So I suggest that the student email their question to one of the prominent senior historical theologians–UVA’s Robert Wilken is one–who are in fact pursuing their field in the explicit service of the church (may Jaroslav Pelikan rest in peace).

But it has seemed to me that the field has never quite recovered from the mid-twentieth-century assimilation of theology to the “religious studies departments” of the major universities, nor from the academy’s quite proper dismissiveness of the squabbling “my dogma is better than your dogma” confessionalism that marked the field in the decades leading up to that assimilation. Certainly, as theology still languishes far from her erstwhile status as “queen of the sciences,” historical theology as the queen’s handmaiden has also fallen on hard times.

Now I discover that a group of historical theologians at Boston College have, for the past few years, been dedicating themselves to leading their field of historical theology back to the pursuit of (this will shock you) the history of theology–instead of defense of dogma, study of philosophy, or other things only tangentially related to the health of the church. Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in Medieval Wisdom for Modern Protestants, Patron Saints for Postmoderns, Resources for Radical Living

Tagged , , , , ,