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5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't be afraid of the T word, Mar 25 2004
By A Customer
As a Baptist teaching patristics and historical theology at Loyola University of Chicago, D. H. Williams is well positioned to write this book. He knows from the inside the suspicion (indeed, hostility) of many in the "Free Church" toward anything labeled tradition. Worried that the market-oriented approach to estab-lishing "Bible-based" churches will result in an increasingly sectarian model of the Church, he aims to show that only by taking on board the Church's Tradition (the common Christian tradition, as opposed to the traditions of various Christian groups) can evangelicals preserve a definitive theological center. Williams claims that, despite their mistrust of the formal language of creeds, all the essential elements of evangelical theology are dependent on the Tradition enshrined in the Nicene or Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed, rather than simply being drawn from the Bible (37). He shows that the earliest Church was guided by tradition expressed in the formulation of the Gospel, the messianic exegesis of the Old Testament, the survival of ancient confessional and hymnic materials in the New Testament, and the formation of the Christian canon itself. He makes the case that the efforts of Tertullian and Irenaeus to define the norms of the apostolic Rule of Faith were made necessary by claims and counterclaims of Gnostics, Marcionites, and others that the Bible supported their competing versions of truth. He shows that the need for catechetical instruction required the churches to distill the essentials of the faith into formulaic constructs. His delicate task here is to show that the various summaries of the Rule of Faith were all intended as condensations of the apostolic Tradition existing alongside, but not displacing, scripture. Next he tackles the notion, widespread among Free Church evangelicals, that the "pristine" Church of the New Testament period fell into corruption shortly thereafter, particularly as it accommodated itself to the empire during Constantine's rule. He sharply critiques examples of Free Church historiography that attempt to trace out a pure line of apostolic Christianity (represented by the Poor of Lyons, the Albigensians, Waldensians, Hus, Wycliffe, and others) preserved against the slide of the Church into the apostasy of papal absolutism. Williams faces his most difficult task in chapter 5, where he devotes forty pages to responding to what he identifies as four theses implicit in the evangelical rejection of the ecumenical councils and creeds. In sum, this rejection is based on the misunderstanding that: (1) bishops of the late patristic period were tools of imperial and papal power rather than shepherds of the people; (2) the Nicene and post-Nicene creeds were political decisions that were meant to displace local church confessions; (3) the universal creeds dethroned scripture from its uniquely authoritative position. Williams maintains that during the post-Constantinian period the Church worked out definitive theological positions slowly, providentially, and, insofar as possible, consensually. Moreover, Constantine is not re-sponsible for the conception and wording of the Nicene Creed, which largely incorporated formulas in use in churches prior to 325 (except for the phrases "true God from true God, "from the substance of the Father," and "of same substance of the Father" [homoousios]). The author then turns to the magisterial reformers to show that, however much they protested against the abuses of the pope, conciliar authorities, and clergy, Luther and Calvin both valued true catholicity and generally approved the doctrinal definitions of the first four general councils. Although Williams stops short of claiming that these same councils ought to define the faith for all believers, he does say that, "The Tradition as found in the ancient confessions, the rule of faith, and the doctrinal theology of the Fathers provides truth about God. . . . These sources point us beyond ourselves and ask us to peer out from the confines of the Protestant 'ghettos' we have created into the main street of catholic Christianity" (217). As one of a growing tribe of self-confessed "free church catholics" (note the lower case), I find much to commend in this book. At the same time, it is unsettling to find the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), not only paired with Seventh Day Adventism as "an emerging species of idiosyncratic Protestantism" in the antebellum United States (19), but also consistently referred to as the Disciples of Christ (Christian Church). One could easily get the impression that the Disciples tradition should be understood solely in terms of its eighteenth-century origins, despite the long and distinguished history of the Disciples in ecumenical dialogue. Also, while I am glad to acknowledge the importance of the work of the first four great Church councils, I have reservations about the adequacy of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan formulation. The expression "the Creed" still means for me the "Apostles' Creed." Perhaps, as a New Testament scholar, I am reluctant to submerge any of the Christological voices of scripture (and the early Church) under one orthodox formulation, especially one that retains the filioque phrase. But perhaps I am only resistant to Williams's very capable instruction. Robert F. Hull, Jr
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