As someone who’s had the privilege of doing a theology degree or two, I’m always on the lookout for books and resources that I can recommend to people without any formal theological education, but keen to stretch themselves and learn more about the bible, church history, and theology. Whilst that’s relatively easy in the realm of biblical studies – of the making of many commentaries and books about the Bible there is no end in sight – that isn’t always the case in the realm of church history, and theology too. This little book, in Zondervan’s ‘Know’ Series, edited by Justin Holcomb (Who also wrote this helpful volume on the heretics for the series), platforms ‘dynamic divinity duo’ McNutt and McNutt to introduce us to some theologians they think are particularly important in church history.
This small – but fairly long – book is divided into four parts. After a foreword from Alister McGrath, the McNutts introduce the book, and then consider four theologians (though one is actually four, and another is a pair of brothers) from the Early Church, the Medieval Church, the Reformation, and the Modern era. Whilst some theologians will be household names – Augustine/Aquinas/Calvin/Barth, the Mcnutts do a good job of both including and introducing some who are less known. I patrticularly enjoyed the profile of ‘The Cappadocian Four’, John of Damascus, and Menno Simmons. In an unforced way, they also calmly introduce some female theologians – Julian of Norwich and Teresa of Avila – in ways that I felt were not tokenistic, and invited me as a reader to find out more about them. Peppered throughout, there are also a number of profiles of other theologians – so if the sixteen (twenty) in the table of contents don’t wet your appetite, don’t give up on the book!
I appreciated the irenic and balanced tone of the book – which I think stemmed from the McNutts writing as disciples of Jesus, about disciples of Jesus, for disciples of Jesus. It meant that even when they were gently showing how a theologian was imperfect (perhaps more imperfect than others), it was done in a non-polemical way. For example, writing about Aquinas (Who is experiencing something of a resurgence amongst evangelicals, though not always particularly carefully) they note “That does not mean scripture is lacking in the formation of Thomas’s theology. There are twenty-five thousand biblical citations in the Summa alone, which indicates Scriptures’ prominence. Nevertheless, Thomas wrote commentaries and expositions on Aristotle and even cited him next to Scripture as ‘the Philosopher’ when it supported his theological teaching (along with engaging with church fathers and even Muslim sources” (p. 110). This is a good example of the McNutts being both clear and careful in their writing.
So why should you read this book? For that, I share a quotation from an early part of the book – their examination of Irenaeus of Lyons. Noting that, among other things, Irenaeus robustly confronted the heresy of Gnosticism, we read: “Gnosticism has persisted in various forms over the centuries – a good reminder that just because the church determined that a particular view was not consistent with its orthodoxy does not mean that the heresy immediately disappeared or that all Christians immediately abandoned that view. The Christian faith requires articulation and defence in every age.” (p. 19). Amen. Understanding what and why we believe is a vital part of the life of faith – in a wide range of contexts, cultures and times!
I would recommend this book to those wondering what faithful teaching looks like in church history – this book offers an excellent snapshot of twenty core folk, and a longer list of others. It could also be useful to undergraduate theology students – both as a primer on some key names, but also as a quick ‘way in’ to finding some other things to read about. My major criticism of this book is that it used endnotes rather than footnotes – which in the kind of book you might dip in and out of makes it somewhat fiddly to follow references. A lesser criticism could be that occasionally the McNutts were perhaps slightly too charitable to some false teaching/teachers – but that is a minor note. Overall this is a useful little book that fills a gap – and could have been improved for what I think the primary reader case is by having footnotes rather than endnotes. It left me wanting to read more from the authors, and to read both about and from some of the theologians they invite the reader to know.
4/5
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