Evangelical Patristics

Good article in Christianity Today on the rise of Patristics and interest in the early Church history (roughly 0-600 CE).  This is standard fare and has been for some decades now in more so-called mainline Protestant denominations, particularly since the reforms of the Second Vatican Council and the rise of the ecumenical movement (including the Patristic Eastern Orthodox Churches).

But evangelicalism so far has been resistant to this tradition and history within the  Christian faith–for fear of being too “Catholic” it would seem.

Evangelicalism was a product of the modern world.  In the breakdown of the modern world-the post-colonized world rising esp. for evangelicalism, esp. the rise of Asia and Africa,the postmodern world taking over in the West–evangelicalism has to come to grips with a re-invention of itself for a new age.

The beauty of Patristic writing, ancient liturgical texts and rites, and the deep love of the Fathers for the Scriptures (reading the Scriptures was not invented by Protestantism!!!) all are calling to certain segments of evangelicals, particularly younger ones no longer interested in long apologia based on trying to argue for the “reasonableness” of Christianity–a classic hallmark of the modernist mindset.

The Patristic era had a much stronger sense of the community than the overly individualist strains of modern/late modern evangelicalism (“me and Jesus” kinda stuff).  These Evangelicals are also learning, I believe, that the Reformation was really about a reaction to the Late Medieval Church (800-1500) not the Patristic Church or its theology.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer the great Lutheran theologian wrote in his Letters from Prison before his execution under the Nazis, that the future of Protestantism lay with Church Fathers like Tertullian (2nd century CE).  Looks like his prediction is starting to come true, though I doubt in the way he envisioned.