What Should Protestants Know about the Early Church Fathers?
To this day, the Nicene and Chalcedonian Creeds are honored among Protestants as the gold standard of a right biblical interpretation of the tri-unity of God and the two natures (divine and human) of the incarnate Christ. Reading the fathers on the Trinity and the incarnation immerses us in the rich, formative period of church life when those fundamental truths were first given clear and precise expression. The debt we owe to the early church fathers is thus incalculable.
Luther, Calvin, and the other “founding fathers” of Protestantism were disciples of the early church fathers. They had a special regard for one father in particular: Augustine of Hippo. Luther belonged to the Augustinian order of friars and found life-transforming resources of theology in his order’s patron saint. Still, the Reformers were widely read in the fathers generally. Calvin famously said to a Roman Catholic opponent, Cardinal Jacob Sadoleto:
Our agreement with antiquity is far closer than yours. All we have attempted has been to renew that ancient form of the church, which was at first besmirched and distorted by uneducated men of undistinguished character, and afterwards disgracefully mangled and almost destroyed by the Roman pope and his faction. I will not press you so closely as to call you back to that form of the church which the apostles instituted (though it presents us with a unique pattern of a true church, and deviation from that pattern, even slightly, involves us in error). But to indulge you so far, I beg you to place before your eyes that ancient form of the church, such as it is shown to have been during those times in the writings of Chrysostom and Basil among the Greeks, and Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustine among the Latins.1
If we are Protestants, that very fact should give us a bias toward knowing the early church fathers. We are simply doing what the original theologians of the Reformation did. They considered the fathers to be much better interpreters of the gospel than the medieval theologians were. In a careful study of the fathers, they found weighty historical testimonies to the supremacy of Scripture and justification by faith, the twin pillars of the Reformation.
But who exactly were the early church fathers? It is a name we give to the significant leaders and writers of the first few centuries of Christianity. Different historians suggest different timeframes, anywhere from the first three hundred years to the first six hundred. However, the name “father” isn’t automatically given to every Christian figure from this early period. It is normally reserved for those who came to be recognized as sound, reliable teachers.
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All Education is Religious
In education, the words “secular, government, and public” are not synonymous with neutrality. A public school is every bit as enmeshed in a system of ardently held, worldview-shaping religio-philosophical underpinnings as any religious school out there. It is not neutral because it is not possible to be neutral.
The claim that every school is intrinsically religious is hard to grasp at face value. The naked eye sees religious schools as adhering to faith commitments and non-religious schools as educating within a neutral philosophical framework. Neutrality is an attractive option for many; after all, isn’t it better to teach the curriculum without letting the monkey-wrench of theology jam the gears? Can’t we get on with the business of learning about maths, science, and history, without shoehorning in religious claims? That’s not as easy as it seems.
While at the level or 2+3=5, or spelling the word ‘apple’, it may be possible to operate with a species of impartiality. However, this sort of learning represents a narrow slice of the educational pie, the rest of the pie being filled with a chunky metaphysical stew. What is the purpose of learning? What does it mean to be human? How should we treat others? How should we interact with the earth on which we find ourselves? A “neutral” education would have to navigate around these matters and, in doing so, would cease to be much of an education at all.
You don’t need a chapel to be religious.
The concept of a neutral school – or a neutral anything, for that matter – is born out of a narrow understanding of religion. If, by religion, one is speaking of priests, chapels, and ceremonies, then of course, there are non-religious schools. Harro Van Brummelen argues for an expanded definition, stating that it is possible to “define religion in its broad sense as a system of ardently-held beliefs that undergird your worldview…” These beliefs are the eyes of the mind; you don’t look at them, you look through them at everything else.
As the saying goes, you can’t get anywhere unless you start somewhere. To think yourself in a straight line, you must start from a basic set of philosophical assumptions; these are not argued for, they are argued from.
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How Do We Apply the Psalms about Killing Enemies?
When we read of the incessant desire of the Psalmist’s adversaries, we should think of our own constant temptation to Sin. We should read these poems of war as our poems of war. We should be encouraged not just to sit through hard times but to fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil with our only weapon—the sword of the Spirit.
John Calvin called the Psalms the heart of the Bible—not only do they occur toward the middle of our Bibles, but they express the heartbeat of Christianity. Pain, grief, joy, and the desire for victory over enemies are Christian emotions infallibly set down in God’s Word. That last emotion, however, is one that many Christians struggle to apply from the book of Psalms. The enemies (oyiev), foes (tsar), and adversaries (shoreir) of Israel litter the Psalms over a hundred times. What are we, as 21st-century (American) Christians, supposed to do with that? I don’t have any enemies who “trample my life to the ground” (Ps 7:6). I can’t say “my deadly enemies … surround me” (Ps 17:9). Do these Psalms only apply to persecuted Israelites but not Christians?
No, they apply to all Christians. Every believer in Christ is in a struggle more significant than mortal life. We are in the battle of eternal life (Eph 6:12). We must fight against “the schemes of the devil” (Eph 6:11) because he “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Pet 5:8). We have an adversary who is more powerful and who seeks to do more damage than all the nations the Psalmist wrote about. The Amorites, Babylonians, and Egyptians are nothing compared to the schemes of the devil. They can take lives, but the devil wants your soul.
Throughout history, Christians have understood themselves to be in a three-part war. They have seen themselves in a fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil. If we apply the Psalms to that fight, we see that, indeed, they do apply to our battle against worldly powers. That is the context of most of the Psalms. But, we must consider the reason the Israelites were in that earthly fight. It was not for gold or glory or national gain. The fight was always theological. God commanded the Israelites to fight because He knew that if they lost and the nations ruled over them, they would forsake Him. The physical fight was always just the servant to the spiritual battle.
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The Moral Outrage Game
It appears that our most bitter political divisions are over what we all truly should consider morally outrageous. This fact helps reveal the artificiality of the political posture of late-stage liberalism: we can’t help but feel morally outraged by the breaking of certain laws because they touch on loyalties that transcend the laws. This fact explains why the laws seem to be interpreted unevenly, especially in the court of public opinion. We long for laws to be interpreted in accordance with that ultimate standard we reverence above all.
Yoram Hazony carefully and thoughtfully interpreted a recent tweet thread of James Lindsay’s often erratic and vitriolic Twitter feuds with conservative Christians. Hazony points out that Lindsay is convinced that politically engaged, conservative Christians are walking into a trap set for them by the progressive Left. The content of the discourse is instructive for what it reveals about the general character of our regime and the specific strategy being employed against conservative Christians.
Lindsay believes that Christian nationalists are being goaded by the left through increasingly graphic transgressions against Christian sensibilities and pieties by the transgender wing of the LGBTQ+ coalition. The Left’s goal, presumably, is to use symbols and scenes that conservative Christians find morally disturbing in order to activate moral outrage in them that might override their better judgment and lead them to do acts of violence that would justify broad repercussions against the whole Christian Right.
Lindsay is wrong to suggest that the best response is to retreat into a fairytale land of classical liberal moral neutrality. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting thesis because moral outrage is indeed a powerful force embedded in human nature when that nature is operating well. Micah Meadowcroft made this point recently at The American Conservative, when commenting on the LA Dodgers’ decision to honor and platform the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, which is a group of drag queens who get a rise out of mocking traditional Christian symbols, at a ball game dedicated to Pride Month. Meadowcroft writes, “Some things are disgusting, and we should cherish and protect our capacity for disgust.” This point merits a discussion about the nature and role of moral outrage.
The left is morally outraged that Christians consider homosexuality a sin, labeling Christian opposition homophobia. Similarly, Christians are outraged by blatant, public, I dare say, proud, displays of sexual perversion. Obscenity laws are meant to police and protect the moral outrage of the majority of citizens, and the way these laws are enforced reveals exactly what is considered morally acceptable and legitimately morally outrageous.
Okay, so Left and Right differ on what is morally outrageous. What of it? Should not the laws be indifferent with regard to who is internally offended by a particular crime?
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