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Origen of Alexandria is a controversial character in Christian history. Some of his ideas were rejected by the church, the pre-existence of souls, for example. But there is some debate about whether the Second Council of Constantinople actually anathematized Origen or just certain ideas which claim to have their beginning with Origen. Regardless of his controversy, his influence is undeniable and remains to this day. His post as the head of the catechetical school in Alexandria, which post he began at age 18, helped to spread his fame. He especially influenced Athanasius and the three Cappadocian fathers. In fact, St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory Nazianzus compiled excerpts from Origen’s work into one book called the Philokalia. He was hailed by many as The Teacher and is considered the first systematic theologian. His book On First Principles or De Principiis is that work of systematic theology. In it he addresses the Trinity, free will, spiritual warfare, biblical interpretation, and more. Because of the Origenist Controversy many of his works were destroyed. Reconstructing this work is a controversy all its own. Scholars are unsure of the original texts and work is ongoing trying to recover his work. John Behr has recently contributed to Origen scholarship by his own edition and translation of On First Principles. For one so influential and so early (he was born A.D. 180), a student of Church History or early Christian theology can hardly avoid reading this great work. Despite his faults he was a man of the church. He submitted his exegesis and speculation to be judged by the church, writing, “We maintain that that only is to be believed as the truth which in no way conflicts the tradition of the church and the apostles” (Bk. I. Preface)

The Life of Moses is a fantastic example of patristic exegesis. Taking their cue from 2 Timothy 3:16-17, the Fathers considered all scripture to be “profitable” or “useful” for “training in righteousness.” This often lead to an allegorical or spiritual interpretation if the historical sense did not contribute to virtue. St. Gregory of Nyssa writes, “He should always keep in mind our discussion’s goal, to which we are looking while we relate these details. We have already said in our prologue that the lives of honored men would be set forth as a pattern of virtue for those who come after them. Those who emulate their lives, however, cannot experience the identical literal events. For how could one again find the people multiplying during their sojourn in Egypt? And how again find the tyrant who enslaved the people and bears hostility unto male offspring and allows the feminine and weaker to grow in numbers? And how again find all the other things which scripture includes? Because therefore it has been shown to be impossible to imitate the marvels of these blessed men in these exact events, one might substitute a moral teaching for the literal sequence in those things which admit of such an approach. In this way those who have been striving toward virtue may find aid in living the virtuous life” (65). Another feature of the Alexandrian school of exegesis is discovering an interpretation “worthy of God,” which they have learned from their teacher, Origen. Being repulsed by the destruction of the Egyptian firstborn, Nyssa asks, “How would a concept worthy of God be preserved in the description of what happened if one looked only to the history? ... If such a one now pays the penalty of his father’s wickedness, where is justice? Where is piety? Where is holiness? ... How can the history so contradict reason? Therefore, ... we look for the true spiritual meaning” (75). This rehearsal of the life of Moses is a magnificent example of sort of exegesis which was popular in the first centuries of Christianity. And, fun fact, one of the translators is from my tradition, our very own Everett Ferguson from Abilene Christian University.

We read this book with our Leadership Team. It’s a book about leadership in business primarily, but the author is a Christian, and it shows. I read this short book in a few hours. The font is big and the chapters are short. The majority of the book tells an imaginative story of two businessmen and the latter part of the book unpacks the parable (“fable” is a poor choice of words). In nuce, he suggests there are two sorts of leaders: those that want to be leaders so that they can slough off the work they dislike onto others, and those that become leaders precisely because they realize it is the hardest job and they want to be of service. Just as Jesus says that the kingdom does not rule like unbelievers by lording it over their people, but rather takes the lowest place of hardship and suffering in service of his people, so Patrick Lencioni says that good leadership must embrace suffering. He even suggests that we do away with the term “servant leadership” because that suggests the possibility of some other kind. The only leadership that is true leaderships is that which serves. The Motive asks leaders to scrutinize their own reasons for their position. Is it pride? Money? Status? Laziness? A desire for fun? In other words, is it a self-serving motive! Or, are you accepting hardship as the pathway to service and true leadership?

Stanley Hauerwas ordered his favorite works by Karl Barth as CD 4.1 and 4.2, then Dogmatics in Outline, and after that The Humanity of God. This short book (96 pages) contains three sermons: Evangelical Theology in the 19th Century, The Humanity of God, and The Gift if Freedom: Foundation of Evangelical Ethics. Throughout Barth’s life he is responding to a particular theological method. Some theologians look at Man and say, in essence, “Man is this particular sort of thing and since Man is made in God’s image then God must be this particular sort of God.” The problem, as Barth sees it, is that such a method makes Man determinative of God rather than God determinative of Man. Man becomes the measure of all things. In other words, this method is a recipe for making God in our own image. One might even say that they often spoke of Man’s experience of God more than God’s self and so resulted in merely speaking about Man in a loud voice. So Barth responded by beginning all things with God’s Self. He talked about the “infinite qualitative distinction” between us and God. God is God and we are not. He was criticized, however, for not saying enough about Man. When he writes “The Humanity of God” he does not repent. He upholds everything he has said. He believes that what he said was exactly what needed to be said in the historic moment. But in “The Humanity of God” he thinks that perhaps it is time to say something about Man. This, of course, is only possible precisely because he has taken the first step in speaking rightly about God. His conclusion, then, in this sermon is that for the Christian “God” means He who freely chose that He would not be God without us. He is the God who is God for us, God with us. He is Immanuel. If we mean anything other than that then what we mean is not the God of Christianity. And we may only understand Man as the creation of this God and as the one addressed by this God. So it is that we may speak of Man only by speaking of Christ and the humanity of God.

This book is a collection of three short works which, it appears, St. Basil the Great intended to be taken as a whole, even though they were originally written as separate works. The three works included are On the Judgment of God, On the Faith, and Ethics (often known by the Latin title Moralia). The first short treatise addresses a group which excused certain “lesser” sins and only avoided those most grievous. “This tradition avoids some sins to be sure, but it indiscriminately embraces others—affecting a violent irritation against some, such as murder, adultery, and the like, while adjudging others unworthy even of censure, such as anger, an abusive tongue, drunkenness, arrogance, and others like these. Yet elsewhere Paul, speaking in Christ, has assigned to all these the same sentence, saying, ‘Those who practice such things are worthy of death.’” (59). The second work provides a short summary of the Faith with broad similarities to the Apostles and Nicene Creeds. The final work is a list of 80 “rules” for Christian living drawn from the scriptures which follow each rule. He writes, “I considered it necessary ... to lay out all the things that are either displeasing or pleasing to God which I have collected from the God-breathed Scriptures to the best of my ability, by our common prayers, so that those struggling in the contest of piety might have them to mind” (65)

I continue my study of monasticism. This short collection brings together stories about four Desert Fathers, namely Pambo, Evagrius, Macarius the Great, and Macarius of Alexandria. Themes throughout are the necessity of silence, asceticism, and hard work. One also finds an increased communion with the animal world. Many monks speak to animals, heal them, and befriend them. I cannot say that this collection was impressive for any reason. Unless you’re interested in the Desert Fathers or early hermetic monasticism I’m unsure why you would want to read this

This is a polished transcript of undergraduate lectures Jenson gave at Princeton University. In it he treats the standard topics of systematic theology including God, creation, sin, salvation, and the church. He also briefly discusses whether Christian theology or Christianity itself has anything to say to our postmodern world, or is it all dead bones? And if it is dead bones, can they live again? Of course serving the God of the resurrection he believes that they can live again, that Christ can address our people in our time. This book took a conversational and narrative form. Sometimes he was exceptionally insightful. Other times I thought he only vaguely gestured in a particular direction and—unless you were already clued into the conversation by previous education—it was too vague to be helpful. Still, Jenson is a great mind and I cannot discourage the reading of anything with his name on it.

Kreider's book examines the first five centuries of Christianity and documents the relationship between conversion and Christendom. Early on conversion had four stages. 1. The candidate was introduced to a leader or bishop of the church. He underwent a “scrutiny” regarding his life. “The catechists’ concern was to determine whether the candidates were ‘capable of hearing the word.’ ... Were the candidates involved in some profession that involved behavior that the church repudiated—idolatry, astrology, killing, or sexual looseness? If so, ‘Let them cease or be rejected.’ If a person was in a difficult profession, such as military service, they could be accepted into the ranks of the catechumens only if they promised not to kill” (23). If he was accepted he entered stage two. During this time the candidates were committed to the journey of conversion. “Several times a week they received instruction conducive to the conversion process. The teaching seems to have concentrated on a reshaping of the convert’s behavior” (22). Only after another scrutiny did they enter stage three. At this time they were taught orthodox doctrine. At the end of this period of instruction they were baptized and received the Eucharist, thus becoming full members of the Church. Occasionally they would enter a fourth stage wherein they learned the meaning of the sacraments they just experienced, i.e. baptism and Eucharist. As the Church grew in power Christianity became Christendom. It became less difficult to become a Christian and so less emphasis was put on a change in behavior. Now the emphasis was on right belief. Eventually coercion was used to manipulate people into becoming Christians. So “[c]onversion, which had made Christians into distinctive people—resident aliens—now was something that made people ordinary, not resident aliens but simply residents” (90). This is often the case today. “[P]rograms of evangelistic teaching in our time leave people ‘converted’ but unchanged” (103). This brief book (107 pages) gives a fascinating look into conversion throughout history.

The opening of Unleashing Scripture is controversial and incendiary. “Most North American Christians assume that they have a right, if not an obligation, to read the Bible. I challenge that assumption. No task is more important than for the Church to take the Bible out of the hands of individual Christians in North America. Let us no longer give the Bible to all children ... Let us rather tell them and their parents that they are possessed by habits far too corrupt for them to be encouraged to read the Bible on their own” (15). In some sense this is a book about how to read the Bible, but it is not a book about interpretation. He writes, “I cannot pretend that this is another book that develops hermeneutical theory ... Indeed I suspect that hermeneutics becomes the preoccupation of theology when the text of Scripture is divorced from the particular practices of the Church that make it make sense in the first place” (18). In other words, if expertise in hermeneutics is all it takes to rightly understand the Bible then an expert in interpretation may read the Bible as well as any Christian, even if he is an unbeliever. This is just what Hauerwas rejects. As such, he rejects the doctrine of sola scriptura (as popularly understood). For him, there is no meaning contained in the text apart from the community which gives it meaning. Put another way, sola scriptura becomes “sola text” outside the community which acknowledges its authority as sacred scripture. “It assumes that the text of Scripture makes sense separate from a Church that gives it sense” (27). He argues that in order to hear the voice of God in scripture we must be transformed by the grace of God through the Church. “So Scripture will not be self-interpreting or plain in its meaning unless we have been transformed in order to be capable of reading it” (49). What a book! Highly recommended to all.

This is a collection of essays edited by Robert Jenson and Carl Braaten. As the title makes clear, each essay is about taking back the Bible from the academy. Do not misunderstand. Each author expresses the appreciation for the contributions that historical studies have offered to the Church. They are not suggesting that we return to some “Pre-Critical Age” of interpretation. The problem, as they see it, is when biblical interpretation is undertaken apart from faith. The attempt to be “objective” or to pursue hermeneutics apart from the Tradition and Creeds of the Church reduces the Bible to nothing more than one Ancient Near Eastern document among others. For the Church the Bible is not a mere book; It is the word from which we expect to hear the voice of God. In this sense “the Bible exists only within the church” (89). Outside of the faith community this book is not “scripture.” At best it is mere history; at worst it is archaic myth. To sum up, in Jenson’s own words, “The primary hermeneutical principle for the church’s reading of Scripture is—I want to insist—simply the church’s own life ... the Scriptures live and have their churchly meaning within the church’s *liturgy*” (90). This is a short collection (137 pages) which I highly recommend to anyone interested in hermeneutics in general and theological hermeneutics in particular.