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The evangelical world is in the midst of a largely positive, in my opinion, “retrieval” movement. Evangelical theologians, in other words, are making wholesale returns – or, some would argue, discoveries – of the theology of the historic Church catholic. Medieval and Patristic theology-related dissertations and Medieval and Patristic literature written by evangelicals is increasingly on the rise. Today, one is much more likely to hear a quote or two from some historic theologian in the local pastor’s sermon than compared to even fifteen years ago. Perhaps because of the cultural climate, perhaps because of the rise of the endlessly-changing and distracting technological world we live in, the Fathers of the Church are being consulted as bulwarks of unchanging, steady, historic Christian Tradition.
Along with this current of Tradition-related evangelical literature, there exists another movement (one I have written on previously here). This movement consists of young evangelical men who come to discover the theology and traditions of the historic Church catholic. These young men are usually more intellectually-inclined, tend to come from very independent expressions of evangelical fundamentalism, and are converting in droves to what can be considered “Imperial” Christian traditions: the Anglican, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic Churches. I count myself among them. I shouldn’t have to say the obvious, but these two movements are essentially connected: as patristic and medieval literature is flooding the evangelical camps, those within the camps whose faith needs deepening see the claims of the Fathers as the gateway to such a deepening. Not without reason, either.
There exist multiple dangers ingrained in both of these movements, however, dangers ignored by many of the leading scholars/figureheads of these trends. The primary danger I perceive is the view that the historic Church should be “accepted” or appropriated in its entirety. Many young theologians who discover church history come to hold an honestly ignorant principle in their survey of church history: that whatever is old is good and true, and whatever is contemporary (or is perceived to be contemporary) is evil and changing. Putting aside the hopefully-obvious philosophically problematic understanding that this presents, such a principle is just plain theologically dangerous and can be avoided by commitment to a definite confessional Christian expression.
This danger I have seen played out in numerous ways. For one, some evangelical figureheads in these movements have insisted on the thorough theological richness of all periods of Church history. To give one example of mine and put forward a straight-up interpretive claim: the Late Medieval era, outside of the Reformers’ theological programme, is largely a barren wasteland. The Late Medieval Catholic Church before the Reformers came on the scene appears to me inescapably empty in regards to its theological and spiritual vitality, what with its unashamed replacement of properly-mystical theologizing with Aristotelian systematization, and its definition as a spiritually dead time period; its called the Dark Ages for a reason. As Protestant evangelicals, I don’t think we should be overly hasty in embracing the too-generous principle here that the Late Medieval Church (honestly, to widen the scope, in both East and West) has as much to offer our retrieval efforts as does groups like the Nicene-era and Reformation-era Churches. There are differing levels of era-worthiness when it comes to theological retrieval.
Another place I see the principle playing out is among those Christians who have already made the jump to the Traditions mentioned at the beginning. To so many evangelical-turned-Imperial Christians (particularly of the Anglo-Catholic vein), all low-church, less-than-traditionally-liturgical Christian expressions are heterodox, ignorant, and just plain wrong. Now, some of these categories can more rightly be applied to said evangelical expressions than others, but I think the heresy at the heart of this attitude is the extraction of Christ from ecclesiological and systematic theologizing. In the midst of the innumerable discussions amongst these men concerning “natural apostolic succession,” the finely-analyzed rite-practices of East and West, or whatever other minutely-defined points of theology these types of guys like to engage with, Christ – the Lord of glory who deserves these guys’ every allegiance – can take a backseat so much of the time. Furthermore, many of them unfortunately adopt this “me against the world” ideological posture once they have come to understand (most times a very little amount of) church history and its implications for theology and worship. The way this posture then plays out is, again, unfortunately in passive aggressive criticisms “from within,” if they feel they cannot leave their tradition, or straight up jerk moves: openly and loudly proclaiming their righteous departure from their “heterodox” low church tradition they were probably lovingly raised in. Imperial Christians, for all their talk about their ridiculous view of the “one true Church,” leaves Christ’s Bride in the dirt when they come to some newly-minted conviction – which, nine times out of ten isn’t used to serve the actual, localized Bride of Christ right in front of them.
For those who see themselves in either of these movements (within evangelicalism, with a reverence for the Fathers or within the Imperial Traditions): watch out. Archbishop of the ACNA, Foley Beach, recently tweeted something right along the spirit of this post: “Some people are more excited to be an Anglican than they are to be a Christian.”
Soli Deo Gloria
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