The Church From Age to Age: A History from Galilee to Global Christianity ed. Edward A. Engelbrecht

I just finished reading/listening to The Church from Age to Age on my kindle and I'm very impressed with it. It's received some very well-deserved praise across the denominational spectrum. In 1040 pages it covers church history from the time following the period covered in the New Testament to the present day. There are lots of helpful maps and time lines. Most of the time the book relies on the best scholarship and doesn't have an ax to grind. This is the best book on church history that I have ever read. But I did notice a few problems with it that will hopefully be changed in future editions. The following are my random observations.

The book is divided up into seven major sections covering seven time periods. These were previously published as individual books. Because of this, there is repetition sometimes when going from one major section to the next which should probably have been edited out when this was turned into a single-volume. In Chapter 32 there is a reference to "this book" which actually refers to "this section" and not to the book as a whole.

Some of the material is dated. In chapter 19, Leo IX is said to have been the last German Pope which would come as a surprise to Pope Benedict the XVI. Pope Beneditc XVI is mentioned in the later chapters of the book.

When the book covers the Reformation period it tends to emphasize the newness of Luther's teaching and ignore the very catholic background of Luther's teaching as shown by Chemnitz.

The book seems to suggest that all Protestants have the same doctrine of the office of the ministry. Many Protestant denominations understand the pastor as basically just a teacher while Lutherans and others have a more sacramental understanding.

Chapter 8 says that December 25 was chosen as the date to celebrate Christmas in order to redeem a pagan holiday but there is good reason to believe that it was actually chosen based the belief that important died on their conception day and that December 25 was nine months after Jesus' conception/death.

The book presents us with the pretty typical story about the Great Awakening where supposedly church attendance was very low and then the Great Awakening came along and lots of people converted to Christianity and church attendance went way up. However, statistics from that period suggest that church attendance was actually very high just before the Great Awakening and in the years following the Great Awakening church attendance dropped dramatically. The Great Awakening was attended mostly by people who were already actively involved in their churches but became convinced by the Great Awakening that Christianity was all about having a dramatic emotional experience. Many stopped going to church because the emotional experiences did not continue.

The book refers to Rick Warren as one of the leaders in the emergent church movement. While Warren has been supporting of the emerging church movement, he is not a leader within that movement.

The book says that Roman Catholics only anoint the sick when they were in close proximity to death. However, more recently Roman Catholics have expanded the use to those who are undergoing a serious operation or are very sick.

In the introduction, the book claims to be giving us a history of the church without passing judgment and the book is strongest when it stays on this path and most of the time it does. But occasion, it will deviate from this path and provide insufficient evidence for the judgment it passes. It talks about Augustine's and Luther's preoccupation with sin or passes judgment on the dead faith of the Russian Orthodox.

But all in all, I still highly recommend the book.

A Dweam Within a Dweam: The Historic Debate Between Marty D. Lutheran and Johnny B. Baptist

I haven't been spending much time on my blog because I'm writing a short book. The book is a fictional account of two guys who grow up in a moderate Lutheran church. After heading off to college and losing contact with each other, one becomes a confessional Lutheran and the other becomes a Baptist. After meeting up again, they decide to discuss and debate their differences. The book is intended to be humorous but also to show the real differences between Lutherans and Baptists. The arguments that they will use will be based on standard works written by theologians from their respective traditions. After I finish the book, I plan to publish it as a free download in pdf and in a Kindle edition. The following is from the prologue:

Marty D. Lutheran and Johnny B. Baptist grew up in Ablaze™ Lutheran Church and School in Portland, Maine. Johnny’s middle name was “Barfolomew.” Pastor Freddy Tubingen had convinced his congregation that the name “Bartholomew” was the result of a medieval corruption of the New Testament text by the Catholics and that the Apostle’s real name was “Barfolomew.” In honor of Pastor Freddy’s bold stand against the papacy, Mr. Baptist wanted to name his son “Barfolomew.” Mrs. Baptist convinced Mr. Baptist to use “Barfolomew” as a middle name. Somehow, Johnny’s classmates discovered Johnny’s middle name in small clusters. The next time they would see Johnny they would say, “Hey Barf!” or “Hey Barf! Do you barf a lot?” or something equally creative. Each child seemed to think that he was the first one to come with such a clever, cutting remark. And once was not enough, each classmate seemed to think it only got funnier the more times he said it. By the time Johnny entered the fifth grade he realized that this was not going away anytime soon and he started to save the remains of the soup that his father made that would gather in the sink—split peas and ham and whatever else. He would place the mixture in small plastic tubes. When someone would yell, “Hey Barf!” Johnny would joyfully exclaim, “Don’t mind if I do!” Then Johnny would start violently convulsing and spill the soup onto the ground.

Pretending to vomit did not make Johnny very popular, but it did catch the attention Marty. Marty was impressed with Johnny’s ability to think outside the box in response to such obvious and uncreative ridicule. On Reformation Day, Marty would walk around the block and nail lists of grievances to his neighbors’ doors. He was always careful not to complain about anything the neighbor might be sensitive about. He wrote things like, “You newspaper is not properly folded in the trash can,” or “Your shoes do not match the color of your carpet.” But the neighbors didn’t get the joke. Some even tried to argue with his criticisms. The next day, Ms. Jefferts Shori saw Marty and yelled, “MY SHOES DO MATCH MY CARPET! YOU’RE COLOR-BLIND!” Marty thought this was absolutely hilarious and looked forward to next year. Unfortunately, one of the neighbors called the police and neither the police nor Marty’s parents appreciated Marty’s humor. Marty’s mom said, “If you don’t have anything nice to put on people’s doors don’t put anything at all.” Marty thought that maybe next year he would nail up pieces of paper that said things like, “HAVE A NICE LIFE!” and “I HOPE YOU’RE PROUD OF YOURSELF!” but never followed through.

Anyhow, after Marty witnessed Johnny’s fake vomiting, he walked up to Johnny and said, “Well-played, you crazy son of a Baptist!” (S.O.B. would become Marty’s affectionate nickname for Johnny.) From that day forward, Marty and Johnny became good friends as a result of their communal participation in unusual humor. Marty and Johnny started sitting together at church and came to realize they were also united in their dislike of Pastor Freddy.

Pastor Freddy had an inflated view of his own hipness. Freddy was a middle-aged guy who liked to lead the congregational singing with an acoustic guitar and would try to impress the youth by talking about how much he liked D.C. Talk. Freddy didn’t get rid of the liturgy completely, but he replaced the “Agnus Dei” with “Lamb of God” by Twila Paris and almost every week Freddy would lead the congregation in singing “Power of Your Love,” and “Shout to the Lord.” Despite the fact that the church’s youth tended to leave the church when their parents stopped forcing them to attend, Pastor Freddy was convinced that his guitar and natural hipness would eventually attract youths from all over the nation. Elderly members of the congregation remembered the good old days before the name change. They used to be Revival™ Lutheran Church. They used to sing songs like “In the Garden” and “I Serve a Risen Savior.” The old folks were paying all the bills, so Pastor Freddy agreed to make the fifth Sunday of every month “Old People Sunday.” The elderly people wanted to sing these songs more often, but Pastor Freddy convinced them that singing them once a month would make them more special.

When Marty and Freddy were both sixteen years old, they convinced their parents that if they had to hear Pastor Freddy lead them in “Pass It On” one more time, Ablaze™ Lutheran Church was going to have a critical event. They would set pastor Freddy’s pony tail ablaze™ while everybody was singing (well, not everybody…just the baby boomers in the congregation), “It only takes a spark to get a fire going.” Out of fear of personal embarrassment, their parents allowed them to stop attending.

After graduating from high school, Johnny moved away to study medicine at the University of Mississipi to follow in the footsteps of Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy. Marty went to the University of Southern Maine to study forensic astronomy. They planned to keep in contact with each other but neither was a big fan of writing just for the purpose of communicating the experiences of ordinary, daily life.

Scriptural Baptism: A Dialog Between John Bapstead and Martin Childfont by Uuras Saarnivaara

Wipf and Stock sent me a review copy of Scriptural Baptism: A Dialog Between John Bapstead and Martin Childfont by Uuras Saarnivaara. The book has an introduction written by Rod Rosenbladt. Uuras Saarnivaara was a Lutheran pastor in Finland who lived from 1908-1998. In the book, Dr. Saarnivaara presents us with a fictional debate between two lay people on the proper subjects, meaning, and mode of baptism. Since Dr. Saarnivaara is a Lutheran, the move obvious danger is that he would present us with some caricature of the Baptist position. However, Saarnivaara bases almost all the statements made by John Bapstead on standard works by Baptist theologians as can be seen in the many footnotes. Surprisingly, there were some statements made by the Martin Childfont character that seemed more like a mish-mash of Calvinist and Lutheran theology rather than providing us with a thoroughly Lutheran response to the Baptist arguments. I didn't like the characters very much. Throughout the book Martin Childfont seemed like he was talking down to John Bapstead and John Bapstead seemed to cave too easily. John Bapstead would say things like, "Don't be so hard on us." But, the book is useful in showing what Baptists believe and why they believe what they believe.

"Martin Luther's Easter Book" ed. Roland H. Bainton

 Fortress Press sent me a review copy of Martin Luther's Easter Book ed. Roland H Bainton. Bainton compiles selections from Luther's sermons during Holy Week. Luther's material is divided up into five main sections: "The Journey to Jerusalem and Holy Week," :The Lord's Supper," "Arrest and Trial," "The Crucifixion," and "The Resurrection." Unlike the the Christmas book, the Easter book is subdivided by topic within those sections. The subdivisions don't flow together very well but they allow the reader to read shorter portions.is also an introduction and a list of source material. The listing of the source material was helpful and was a nice improvement over the Christmas Book which only gave hints at the source material. I didn't have time to verify my suspicions, but I suspect that the Easter book is closer to the original source material than the Christmas book is which is both good and bad. The book contains several reproductions of woodcuts and these are much clearer than the ones in Martin Luther's Christmas Book. Luther takes fewer liberties with the text in his Easter sermons than he does with his Christmas sermons but still manages to apply the narratives in a creative way to his contemporaries. Just like in Martin Luther's Christmas Book, Luther takes quite a few swipes at the papacy.

St. John of Damascus "An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith"

I just finished reading An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith by St. John of Damascus. The book is available as a free download in several different formats. Unfortunately, the Kindle format has typographical errors due to the OCR processing. I used Text To Speech on my Kindle for part of the book and the most humorous error I heard was "And we proclaim the holy Virgin to be properly and truly Mother of God copyright." The hard copy had "Mary Mother of God (Θεοτόκος)." Θεοτόκος is often translated as "Mother of God." OCR had mistaken the first letter of the Greek word "Θ" for a ©.

This is work is important because John of Damascus provides us with a summary of the teachings of the church fathers. Lutheran Christology finds its roots in the writings of John of Damascus. St. John of Damascus spends a surprising amount of time talking about the solar system and the seasons but he provides us with a really interesting Christian worldview.


When it comes to St. John of Damascus's understanding of how we know what we know about God he can sound very Lutheran:

But what the substance of God is, or how it is in all things, or how the only-begotten Son, who was God, emptied Himself out and became man from a virgin's blood, being formed by another law that transcended nature, or how He walked dry-shod upon the waters, we neither understand nor can say. And so it is impossible either to say or fully to understand anything about God beyond what has been divinely proclaimed to us, whether told or revealed, by the sacred declarations of the Old and New Testaments.

He doesn't put any trust in the use of reason to get beyond divine revelation and says that we can really only learn who God is from the Scriptures. He also says things like:

And so, while we are awaiting Him, we worship toward the east. This is, moreover, the unwritten tradition of the Apostles, for they have handed many things down to us unwritten.

Later on he says:

And similarly, also, we are stirred up by the exploits of the holy men to manliness, zeal, imitation of their virtues, and the glory of God. For, as we have said, the honor shown the more sensible of one's fellow servants gives proof of one's love for the common Master, and the honor paid to the image redounds to the original. This is the written tradition, just as is worshiping toward the east, adoring the cross, and so many other similar things. Furthermore, there is a story told about how, when Abgar was lord of the city of Edessenes, he sent an artist to make a portrait of the Lord, and how, when the artist was unable to do this because of the radiance of His face, the Lord Himself pressed a bit of cloth to His own sacred and life-giving face and left His own image on the cloth and so sent this to Abgar who had so earnestly desired it. And Paul, the Apostle of the Gentiles, writes that the Apostles handed down a great many things unwritten: 'Therefore, brethren, stand fast: and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word or by our epistle; and to the Corinthians: 'Now I praise you, brethren, that in all things you are mindful of me and keep my ordinances as I have delivered them to you.' 

John of Damascus regards the liturgical traditions and stories of the saints as being part of the authoritative Apostolic tradition. John of Damascus doesn't exactly fit into the Lutheran understanding of the relationship between Scripture and tradition but he doesn't really fit into Rome's understanding either. Based on what John of Damascus wrote, it would be hard to imagine him defending the infallibility of the Roman Pope or other later developments in Roman dogma. The traditions in John of Damascus are binding but seem to be fixed.

When John of Damascus speaks of the two natures of Christ he uses the analogy of iron and fire which would later be adopted by Lutheran theologians:

And just as if one should pour water upon a red-hot iron, that which is naturally disposed to be affected by the water the fire, I mean will be quenched, while the iron remains unharmed, because it is not of its nature to be destroyed by the water; how much less did the divinity, which is alone impassible, endure the suffering of the flesh and still remain inseparable from it.

Lutherans also speak of the Lord's Supper in similar ways to John of Damascus. Notice that John of Damascus refuses to provide any philosophical explanation such as transubstantiation.

If, then, the word of the Lord is living and effectual,' and if 'whatsoever the Lord pleased he hath done'; if He said : 'Be light made, and it was made. Be a firmament made, and it was made'; if by the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all the power of them by the spirit of his mouth'; if heaven and earth, water and fire, and air and the whole universe of these were made perfect by the word of the Lord, and this much famed living being, too, which is man; if by His will God the Word Himself became man and without seed caused the pure and undefiled blood of the blessed Ever-Virgin to form a body for Himself; if all this, then can He not make the bread His body and the wine and water His blood? In the beginning He said: 'Let the earth bring forth the green herb,' and even until now, when the rain falls, the earth brings forth its own shoots under the influence and power of the divine command. God said : 'This is my body,' and, 'This is my blood/ and, 'This do in commemoration of me,' and by His almighty command it is done, until He shall come, for what He said was 'until he come.' And through the invocation the overshadowing power of the Holy Ghost becomes a rainfall for this new cultivation. For, just as all things whatsoever God made He made by the operation of the Holy Ghost, so also it is by the operation of the Spirit that these things are done which surpass nature and cannot be discerned except by faith alone. 'How shall this be done to me,' asked the blessed Virgin, because I know not man?' The archangel Gabriel answered, 'The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee.And now you ask how the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine and water the blood of Christ, And I tell you that the Holy Ghost comes down and works these things which are beyond description and understanding. Now, bread and wine are used because God knows human weakness and how most things that are not constantly and habitually used cannot be put up with and are shunned. With His usual condescension, therefore, He does through the ordinary things of nature those which surpass the natural order. And just as in the case of baptism, because it is the custom of men to wash themselves with water and anoint themselves with oil He joined the grace of the Spirit to oil and water and made it a laver of regeneration, so, because it is men's custom to eat bread and drink water and wine He joined His divinity to these and made them His body and blood, so that by the ordinary natural things we might be raised to those which surpass the order of nature. This is the body which is truly united to the Godhead, the same which is from the blessed Virgin. This is not because that body which was taken up to heaven comes down from heaven, but because the very bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of God. However, should you inquire as to the manner in which this is done, let it suffice for you to hear that it is done through the Holy Ghost, just as it was through the Holy Ghost that the Lord made flesh subsist for Himself and in Himself from the blessed Mother of God. And more than this we do not know, except that the word of God is true and effective and omnipotent, but the manner in which it is so is impossible to find out. What is more, it is not amiss to say this, that just as bread by being eaten and wine and water by being drunk are naturally changed into the body of the person eating and drinking and yet do not become another body than that which the person had before, so in the same way are the bread of the offertory and the wine and water supernaturally changed into the body and blood of Christ by the invocation and coming down of the Holy Ghost, yet they are not two bodies, but one and the same. Hence, it is unto remission of sins and eternal life and unto a safeguard for body and soul and for such as partake worthily thereof and with faith. But for such as receive unworthily and without faith it is unto chastisement and punishment. It is just as the Lord's death has become life and immortality for those who believe, whereas for those who do not and for those who killed the Lord it is unto chastisement and eternal punishment. The bread and wine are not a figure of the body and blood of Christ God forbid! but the actual deified body of the Lord, because the Lord Himself said: 'This is my body'; not a figure of my body' but 'my body and not a figure of my blood' but *my blood.' Even before this He had said to the Jews: 'except you eat of the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed.' And again: 'He that eateth me, shall live.

Soteriologically there are some differences between Lutherans and John of Damascus. John of Damascus seems to teach that man's will is free to choose to follow God. But this issue is not at the forefront of his work. John of Damascus recognizes Christ-crucified as the central teaching of the Scriptures.

Every action of Christ and all His working of miracles were truly very great and divine and wonderful, but of all things the most wonderful is His honorable cross. For by nothing else except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ has death been brought low, the sin of our first parent destroyed, hell plundered, resurrection bestowed, the power given us to despise the things of this world and even death itself, the road back to the former blessedness made smooth, the gates of paradise opened, our nature seated at the right hand of God, and we made children and heirs of God. By the cross all things have been set aright. To all we who are baptized in Christ,' says the Apostle, 'are baptized in his death' and as many of us as have been baptized in Christ have put on Christ'; moreover, 'Christ is the power and wisdom of God.' See how the death of Christ, the cross, that is to say, has clothed us with the subsistent wisdom and power of God! And the word of the Cross is the power of God, whether because by it God's might, His victory over death, that is, was manifested to us, or because, just as the four arms of the cross are made solid and bound together by their central part, so are the height and the depth, the length and the breadth, that is to say, all creation both visible and invisible, held together by the power of God. This we have been given as a sign on our forehead, just as Israel was given the circumcision, for by it we faithful are set apart from the infidels and recognized. It is a shield and armor and a trophy against the Devil. It is a seal that the Destroyer may not strike us, as Scripture says. It is a raising up for those who lie fallen, a support for those who stand, a staff for the infirm, a crook for the shepherded, a guide for the wandering, a perfecting of the advanced, salvation for soul and body, an averter of all evils, a cause of all good things, a destruction of sin, a plant of resurrection, and a tree of eternal life...

The tree of life which was planted by God in paradise prefigured this honorable Cross, for, since death came by a tree, it was necessary for life and the resurrection to be bestowed by a tree. It was Jacob who first prefigured the cross, when he adored the top of the rod of Joseph. And when he blessed Joseph's sons with his hands crossed, he most clearly described the sign of the cross. [Then there were] the rod of Moses which smote the sea with the form of a cross and saved Israel while causing Pharoah to be swallowed up; his hands stretched out in the form of a cross and putting Amalec to flight; the bitter water being made sweet by a tree, and the rock being struck and gushing forth streams of water; the rod of Aaron miraculously confirming the dignity of the priesthood; a serpent raised in triumph upon a tree, as if dead, with the tree preserving those who with faith beheld the dead enemy, even as Christ was nailed up in flesh of sin but which had not known sin; great Moses calling out: You will see your life hanging before your eyes on a tree'; and Isaias: I have spread forth my hands all day to an unbelieving and contradictory people.' May we who adore this attain to the portion of Christ the crucified. Amen.

"Martin Luther's Christmas Book" edited by Roland H. Bainton

Fortress Press sent me a review copy of Martin Luther's Christmas Book edited by Roland H. Bainton. Bainton takes 30 years worth of Luther's sermons and turns them into 8 Christmas devotional readings. The eight readings are titled "Annunciation," "Visitation," "Nativity," "Shepherds," "Herod," "Wise Men," and "Presentation." He also has a translation of Luther's hymn "From Heaven High" (aka "From Heaven Above to Earth I Come"). Bainton paraphrases and summarizes Luther but seems to be pretty faithful to Luther's style and intent. Luther's takes some swings at the papacy in some of his sermons. Luther takes some liberties in his interpretation of the Biblical passages but does an excellent job of applying the text to the modern context. He takes every opportunity to encourage people in their vocations (reminding us in one section that angels like to come to visit when you are working faithfully). More importantly he reminds us of how amazing and inconceivable the incarnation really is. The book also features several woodcuts from Luther's contemporaries. My only gripe is that the woodcuts are not very well reproduced. The one on the cover was blurry and it was very difficult to make out some of the detail on some of the woodcuts inside.

Matthew 2:1-12: A Translation

 
Now after Jesus had been born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, Look!, Magi from the East came into Jerusalem, saying, “Where is the King of the Jews who has been born? For we saw his star in its rising, and we have come to show reverence to him.” But when Herod the king had heard, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him, and we had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he began to inquire from them, “Where is the Christ supposed to be born?” And they said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it stands written through the prophet: ’And you Bethlehem, land of Judah, by no means are you least among the rulers of Judah, for from you will come forth a Ruler who indeed will shepherd my people, Israel.’”


Then Herod secretly called the Magi and ascertained from them the time of the star’s appearing, and he sent them to Bethlehem and said, “After travelling, inquire accurately about the child, and as soon as you find him, report to me in order that I also may come and show reverence to Him.” After they had heard the king they went and—Look!—the star, which they had seen in its rising, began to lead the way for them until it came and stood above where the child was. When they had seen the star they rejoiced with extremely strong joy. And when they went into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and prostrating themselves they showed reverence to him; and after opening their treasures, they brought gifts to him—gold and frankincense and myrrh. And because they had been divinely warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own land by another route.