Ancient Faith.book Page 1 Tuesday, August 5, 2008 10:18 AM Ancient Faith.book Page 2 Tuesday, August 5, 2008 10:18 AM Ancient Faith.book Page 3 Tuesday, August 5, 2008 10:18 AM ANCIENT FAITH for the CHURCH’S FUTURE EDITED BY Mark Husbands AND Jeffrey P. Greenman Ancient Faith.book Page 4 Tuesday, August 5, 2008 10:18 AM InterVarsity Press P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426 World Wide Web: www.ivpress.com E-mail: [email protected] ©2008 by Mark Husbands and Jeffrey P. Greenman All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from InterVarsity Press. InterVarsity Press® is the book-publishing division of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA®, a student movement active on campus at hundreds of universities, colleges and schools of nursing in the United States of America, and a member movement of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. For information about local and regional activities, write Public Relations Dept., InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, 6400 Schroeder Rd., P.O. Box 7895, Madison, WI 53707-7895, or visit the IVCF website at <www.intervarsity.org>. Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations quoted herein are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Design: Cindy Kiple Images: church: Jim Pruitt/iStockphoto open door: Ugur Evirgen/iStockphoto ISBN 978-0-8308-2881-4 Printed in the United States of America ∞ InterVarsity Press is committed to protecting the environment and to the responsible use of natural resources. As a member of the Green Press Initiative we use recycled paper whenever possible. To learn more about the Green Press Initiative, visit <www.greenpressinitiative.org>. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ancient faith for the church’s future / edited by Mark Husbands and Jeffrey P. Greenman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8308-2881-4 (pbk.: alk. paper) 1. Evangelicalism—Congresses. 2. Church renewal—Congresses. 3. Church history—Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600—Congresses. I. Husbands, Mark, 1961- II. Greenman, Jeffrey P. BR1640.A2A53 2008 230—dc22 2008002176 P 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Y 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 Ancient Faith.book Page 5 Tuesday, August 5, 2008 10:18 AM In memory of Robert E. Webber (1933-2007) Teacher, scholar, mentor, colleague and friend Ancient Faith.book Page 6 Tuesday, August 5, 2008 10:18 AM Ancient Faith.book Page 7 Tuesday, August 5, 2008 10:18 AM Contents Introduction Mark Husbands ............................... 9 PART ONE—EVANGELICAL RESSOURCEMENT Retrieving the Past with Integrity 1. TRADITION, AUTHORITY, MAGISTERIUM Dead End or New Horizon? Christopher A. Hall ........................... 27 2. OLD BOOKS AND CONTEMPORARY FAITH The Bible, Tradition and the Renewal of Theology Brian E. Daley, S.J. ........................... 53 3. SIMILIS ET DISSIMILIS Gauging Our Expectations of the Early Fathers D. H. Williams ............................. 69 PART TWO—READING SCRIPTURE The Setting and Promise of Patristic Exegesis 4. THE “PAGAN” BACKGROUND OF PATRISTIC EXEGETICAL METHODS Michael Graves ............................. 93 5. THE QUADRIGA OR SOMETHING LIKE IT A Biblical and Pastoral Defense Peter J. Leithart ............................. 110 6. IRENAEUS AND LYOTARD AGAINST HERESIES, ANCIENT AND MODERN Nicholas Perrin ............................. 126 PART THREE—THE SOCIAL PRACTICES OF THE EARLY CHURCH Missional Witness 7. HOSPITALITY Ancient Resources and Contemporary Challenges Christine D. Pohl ............................ 143 Ancient Faith.book Page 8 Tuesday, August 5, 2008 10:18 AM 8. CRUMBS FROM THE TABLE Lazarus, the Eucharist and the Banquet of the Poor in the Homilies of John Chrysostom George Kalantzis ............................ 156 9. “THEY ALONE KNOW THE RIGHT WAY TO LIVE” The Early Church and Evangelism Alan Kreider............................... 169 PART FOUR—THEOLOGY OF THE EARLY CHURCH Worship, Christology and Politics 10. EMBODYING THE WISDOM OF ANCIENT LITURGICAL PRACTICES Some Old-Fashioned Rudimentary Euchology for the Contemporary Church John D. Witvliet............................. 189 11. APATHEIA AND ATONEMENT Cyril of Alexandria and the Contemporary Grammar of Salvation Paul I. Kim ............................... 216 12. TWO AUGUSTINIANISMS Augustinian Realism and the Other City D. Stephen Long............................. 230 EPILOGUE—A FORWARD GLANCE Emergent Christianity 13. EMERGING FROM WHAT, GOING WHERE? Emerging Churches and Ancient Christianity Jason Byassee .............................. 249 Contributors ................................ 264 Name Index ................................. 266 Subject Index ................................ 269 Scripture Index ............................... 272 Ancient Faith.book Page 9 Tuesday, August 5, 2008 10:18 AM Introduction Mark Husbands We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy Table. But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy: Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us. Amen. Cranmer’s dramatic and arresting “Prayer of Humble Access” brings to mind a crucial facet of the Christian life: the church exists at the hand of a gracious and merciful Lord. As evangelical Christians, our love of Scrip- ture arises out of God’s use of the Word in our lives. We aim not only to hear God’s Word but also to put it into practice. Thus, we should be eager to hear the witness of Christians throughout the history of the church who likewise have been moved by God’s Word. When the content of the church’s confession coheres with the witness of Scripture, and when Scrip- ture is regarded as the ground of the church’s tradition, respect for the place of tradition is a matter of considerable importance. Notice Paul’s appeals to tradition: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. I commend you be- cause you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions just as I handed them on to you” (1 Cor 11:1-2) and “Now we command you, be- loved, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from believers Ancient Faith.book Page 10 Tuesday, August 5, 2008 10:18 AM 10 A NCIENT FAITH FOR THE CHURCH’ S FUTURE who are living in idleness and not according to the tradition that they re- ceived from us” (2 Thess 3:6). We should take from this the claim that when a given tradition is consonant with God’s self-revelation, it is to be upheld and honored by the church. On this count, the early confessions, creeds, hymns, commentaries, sermons and works of theology constitute a deposit or treasury of ancient witnesses. In May 2006, Robert Webber and Phil Kenyon published “A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future.” The prologue to this document declares, “In every age the Holy Spirit calls the Church to examine its faithfulness to God’s revelation in Jesus Christ, authoritatively recorded in Scripture and handed down through the Church.” Aware of the striking challenges posed to Christianity by competing narratives, the “Call” exhorts evangel- ical Christians to “restore the priority of the divinely inspired biblical story of God’s acts in history” in order that “the Church will be strengthened to address the issues of our day.” Given the precise focus of our edited volume, article 3 of the Call is germane: We call for the Church’s reflection to remain anchored in the Scriptures in continuity with the theological interpretation learned from the early Fa- thers. Thus, we call Evangelicals to turn away from methods that separate theological reflection from the common traditions of the Church. These modern methods compartmentalize God’s story by analyzing its separate parts, while ignoring God’s entire redemptive work as recapitulated in Christ. Anti-historical attitudes also disregard the common biblical and theological legacy of the ancient Church. The Call stands in a much larger tradition than one might imagine. Per- haps without being fully aware of the fact, the Call represents a long over- due summons to learn from arguably one of the most significant theolog- ical developments of the twentieth century: ressourcement theology. In the middle of the twentieth century, a group of French theologians, including Henri de Lubac, Jean Daniélou, Henri Bouillard, Yves Congar, Louis Bouyer and Marie-Dominique Chenu, and the Swiss Hans Urs von Balthasar inaugurated a remarkable theological movement termed ressourcement theology. While far from being a unified school of thought, Ancient Faith.book Page 11 Tuesday, August 5, 2008 10:18 AM Introduction 11 these figures shared a common belief that the writings of the early church constitute an incomparable source for the contemporary renewal of the church. Facing a post-Christian Europe, ressourcement theologians turned to the work of great patristic and medieval theologians such as Origen, Ig- natius of Antioch, Cyprian, Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Augustine, John of Damascus and Thomas Aquinas. In so doing, they essentially re- discovered crucial sources for the revitalization of contemporary theology and pastoral life. These forward-looking theologians sought creative and faithful ways of moving beyond the rigid neo-Scholasticism represented in Pope Leo XIII’s 1879 promulgation of Aeterni Patris. A number of intriguing parallels can be drawn between the challenges faced by Roman Catholic theologians leading up to Vatican II and the contemporary state of evangelical theology.