Let’s Start a Series on the Early Church Fathers! (Introduction)

Having grown up within Evangelicalism, even though my family went regularly to church and even though I went to a Christian high school, I really knew nothing about Church History. Sure, I knew the names of Martin Luther, John Calvin, maybe Saint Augustine—but I didn’t really know anything about them. And, quite obviously, beyond those three names, when it came to everyone and everything else in Church History, I knew even less. Such is probably the common experience of just about everyone who has grown up within Evangelicalism.

Beyond the history of Jesus and the first century church as expressed in the New Testament, Church History just has never been considered all that important among American Evangelicals. I’m not even saying that as a condemnation—it is just a fact.

As for myself, my first exposure to Church History was a Church History class I took in my Christian high school during my junior year. I’ll be honest, I hardly remembered anything. The only thing I remember was that we had to choose partners and do a Church History project. Randy and I were given the early Church Father Tertullian to research and then present to the class. We looked up a few basic facts about him from an encyclopedia, made a number of multiple-choice questions, then went with our other friends to the Chicago Auto Show that year. We videotaped ourselves as we checked out a number of cool cars, we convinced a few female models who were showing off the cars to answer our multiple-choice questions (because, who better to ask about early Church Fathers than models at an auto show?), and whenever we happened to see a big man in a beard walk by, we said on camera, “There he is! There’s Tertullian!” and we pretended to chase after him.

We actually showed our production in class…somehow, we were given a B+.

My next real exposure to Church History was a class I took during my first year of graduate school at Regent College in 1995. It focused on the first 1,000 years or so of Church History. To my astonishment, I found myself enjoying the class, at least for the first month or two. The actual early Church History (the first 400 years or so) was really interesting. It piqued my curiosity enough to buy the Penguin Classics of Early Christian Writings, Eusebius’ History of the Church, and The Early Church by Henry Chadwick. I read them on my own, learned some, but found myself skimming from time to time—early Church history could be quite dense at times. It was hard to keep track of everyone and everything.

The next time I encountered Church History in any substantial way was when I came to Alabama to put together a Worldview curriculum for a Christian high school. Since my “area of expertise” was Biblical Studies, the Old Testament course and New Testament course was fairly easy to put together. But I thought it was necessary to devote Junior year to Church History—and that meant I had to do some more learning myself. Over the course of those eight years, I came to appreciate Church History—at least early Church History—a lot more. I found the Medieval stuff interesting as well, but I’m sorry, from the Reformation onwards, I’ve just never liked!

I’m now teaching at the college level, and I’ve had the opportunity to teach a course on Early Church Theologians twice—actually, this semester is the second time. The focus of the course is primarily on the first 400 years of Church History, and I’ve gotten to the point where I truly love the material. In fact, over the past seven years, I’ve built up a small library of books by many of the early Church Fathers. In all honesty, many of them are really hard to read. If you want to get a lesson in humility, try to read them. You might think you are smart and educated, but try to read guys like Irenaeus, Origen, or Clement of Alexandria, and you’ll soon realize just how much more advanced many of the early Church Fathers were. It is a humbling experience.

At the same time, sometimes it seems what they are writing is just so simple—not simplistic, mind you—but just…simple. Eventually, the light dawns that that was exactly what they were getting at. Sort of like Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid. We often think “being spiritual” is like what Daniel LaRusso thought “doing karate” was like—and hearing Mr. Miyagi insist on “wax on, wax off,” seems insulting and boring…until you really get what he’s doing. The same often applies when reading the early Church Fathers.

I say all that because, over the next few months, I am planning to do a blog series on the early Church Fathers, specifically the ones that I am covering in my class. To understand them, though, really requires a number of things. First, you need to get a grasp of the actual history surrounding these guys—and that will mean sometimes I give you a bit of a straight up history lesson. Second, you need to read them…but I’m doing the writing about them in this series, so sometimes I will provide my own paraphrased version of some of their writings.

Finally, if I do this right, you’ll get a better understanding and appreciation of the key things they repeatedly emphasized in their writings as they struggled to guide their communities in the early centuries of Christianity. And, by extension, I think they still have a lot to teach us today. You don’t have to become an expert in early Church History and the early Church Fathers but learning a little bit about them and letting yourself be taught by them through their writings is intriguing, challenging, and spiritually refreshing.

Book Recommendations
Here in this initial post, I want to provide a few book recommendations if, after reading my posts, you find yourself wanting to read more. First there is Early Christian Writings, which contain the writings of Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch in the early 2^nd century, Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna in the early 2^nd century, the Epistle to Diognetus, one of the earliest explanations of the Christian faith addressed to a pagan audience (2^nd century), the Epistle of Barnabas, another early 2^nd century work, and the Didache, an early 2^nd century Christian “manual” that outlines the basic Church practices and teachings of the time.

Then there is Eusebius’ History of the Church. Eusebius was the Bishop of Caesarea in the late 3^rd and early 4^th centuries—he lived through the last great persecution of the Church under Diocletian, as well as the conversion of the Emperor Constantine. And, as the title suggests, he wrote the first real history of the Church. The best modern history of the early Church is by Henry Chadwick, and it is simply entitled The Early Church.

In addition to those, I’ve also found two other books extremely helpful and good: When the Church Was Young, by Marcellino D’Ambrosio, and The Fathers of the Church, by Mike Aquilina.

Most of the information I’ll be sharing comes from these books. Of course, as I go through a number of the early Church Fathers mentioned in these books, I’ll be sharing what their particular works are, and I’ll be sharing some of the things they wrote about.

So, be looking for the first real installment sometime this next week!