Review of the Getting to Know the Church Fathers, a Book by Bryan Litfin

Bryan Litfin, writes his work Getting to Know the Church Fathers from a perspective that favors the discipleship of others into learning about the relevant key figures and events of early church history that have their setting in the years of the formation of the old catholic church. Litfin's book furthermore goes beyond a standard history in that it is so discipleship oriented that chapters end with questions that relate the chapter reading to problems today or to other knowledge that would be relevant to strengthening a general Christian world view. Overall, unlike most history works that are written to isolate the past, Litfin can be summarized to have a main theme that supports the idea that the ancient leaders of the patristic Christian past provide discipleship for the future as he writes, "The fathers are a previous generation of believers who continue to guide their spiritual descendants in the Christian church today." (Litfin, 17)

Contents of Work

Litfin introduces his book while showing his study of the early church fathers to be like a trip to grandmothers house after her death (See Litfin, 14), furthermore his general case with this illustration is that many misconceptions exist regarding viewing the church fathers through the lends of the reformation (Litfin, 20). Litfin's point is that the Christian past should energize us to ministry and faithfulness today (Litfin, 29) just like grandmother might lend a helping hand; moreover, he speaks harshly about the view that the aria of the church fathers represents a great fall in Christianity (See Litfin, 24-25) as this would be sort of like denouncing a person's own grandmother (although not explicitly stated by Litfin). Overall, just like a person may 'step out' of their own selfish views when cleaning out the house of a deceased grandmother in order to understand the personality of the deceased from the objects at hand, so too, Litfin would argue, that the study of the church fathers should be done without holding onto selfish views that involve reading the church fathers for the sake of just winning arguments (See Litfin, 15).

In chapter one, "Ignatius of Antioch," Litfin describes Ignatius as like a dedicated pastor willing to protect his flock even until death (Litfin, 33), and in comparison to the contemporary murder Richard Cartwright that had no hope in death Ignatius had a "burning desire to 'reach God'" through death. (Litfin, 32) In chapter two, "Justin Martyr," Litfin describes Justin as breaking in the trail for generations of Christians (Litfin, 53), and in this way Justin made the mold for later apologists to use in order to win a pagan audience with a Christian intellectual message (Litfin, 55). In chapter three, "Irenaeus of Lyons," Litfin describes Irenaeus as supporting a orthodox view of Jesus while living in a time riddled with dissenting views (Litfin, 77), and despite this fact Irenaeus was able to contribute to making the cannon of scripture (Litfin, 78), contribute to unifying the catholic church (Litfin, 77), and defeat alternative views of Christianity with the concepts of creeds, canons, and bishops (Litfin, 79). In chapter four, "Tertullian," Litfin describes Tertullian as living in a time when danger was on every side (Litfin, 99), and Tertullian was able to protect the Christians by separating them from groups like the Gnostics through the Rule of Faith that comprised the basic doctrines of salvation (Litfin, 101). In chapter five, "Perpetua," Litfin describes Perpetua as being even more amazing than a Mexican woman that successfully performed a Caesarean section surgery on herself with a kitchen knife in order to deliver her baby (See Litfin, 119-120), and this is the cause because unlike the Mexican woman Perpetua left her infant child to its grandfather while she was crowned with martyrdom (Litfin, 126). Overall, what distinguishes the first five chapters of Litfin's book is that they detail the work of early church fathers to face extreme adversity often ending in death, but his last five chapters denote church fathers working in a little more developed context that would provide the freedom necessary for intellectual.

In chapter six, "Origen," Litfin describes Origen as applying allegory to the scripture with a brilliant intellect and passionate heart such that the quality can be compared with the more contemporary C.S. Lewis (Litfin, 143), and Origen thus became the first person to attempt to reconcile the revelation of the Bible with Greek philosophy (Litfin, 145) while trail blazing a path for others to follow. In chapter seven, "Athanasius," Litfin compares Athanasius to the little Dutch boy that saved Holland by putting his finger in the levy to hold back the water all night long (Litfin, 167), and in this way Athanasius used his profound understanding of Christ's incarnation (Litfin, 181) to eliminate the teaching of Arius that taught that Jesus was just a man (See Litfin, 177). In chapter eight, "John Chrysostom," Litfin describes Chrysostom as being such a powerful communicator as to have impressed his pagan teachers (Litfin, 191), and he used this skill to not only make literal meaning relevant to his congregation (Litfin, 201) but also to speak against corruption in the imperial court (Litfin, 205). In chapter nine, "Augustine," Litfin describes how despite the fact that Augustine was a restless wonder he found the real peace that only comes from having known Jesus Christ (Litfin, 215), and in the end Augustine and the catholics prevailed against Donatism (Litfin, 229) with the brilliant theology of Augustine despite such a sin ridden past. In chapter ten, "Cyril of Alexandria," Litfin describes Cyril as having both lofty theological thinking and political maneuvering (Litfin, 240) that allowed him to develop the faith of Chalcedon with others (Litfin, 254) that would put away Adoptionists that promoted the duality of Christ (See Litfin, 244). Overall, Litfin's last five chapters really emphasize church fathers that dealt with much more complicate and refined issues than in his first five chapters, and these last five church fathers generally all have much greater lasting impacts on the church.

Three Main Themes

The first main theme that Litfin has in his book that permeates the entire text, is that he demonstrates the Church fathers as developmental instead of destructive to the faith. Although this is a strength for Litfin, the development of the faith through church fathers could have been detrimental to the church in subsequent years as Christianity made a transition from a simple faith that most evangelists could understand to a complicated faith that only a few holy Roman inquisitors could understand. Overall, the work of the church fathers was good in the beginning like law and order is good, but just like too many laws is not a good thing because of bureaucracy so too the church fathers put the church on a path of transforming Christianity into something like a mental exercise that can condemn most all theological positions except for a very limited few that are highly guarded.

The second main theme that Litfin promotes is that church fathers had been instrumental in changing the course of the church mainly in themselves, and although this may have much truth what is likely is that a lot of people had been involved in the work of the church fathers other than the church fathers themselves. Just like Alexander the Great did not conquer the world by himself but instead had an army, so too lots of people would have had to have been involved in the work of the church fathers for them to be impacting. Overall, the story of the church fathers thus should be more about how effective they had been in leadership for people to be organized to work together, and although Litfin gives some good explanation of the church fathers working in the context of church, the danger nevertheless is prevalent for a person to view the church fathers as like isolated heroes that settle for nothing less than their own way in the midst of differing opinion.

Despite the above criticism, Litfin did express some expression of how the church interacted with the fathers, but the historical context that the church fathers worked in along with the explanation given for the reception of their work was rather skim in the text for historical purposes. With Litfin's questions at the end of each chapter as well as introductions that frame each church father in a contemporary context, the danger in using this theme is that it favors making the story more applicable to a wider audience with less depth as opposed to a work that would show more interrelations with the subject matter at hand and the body of knowledge that comprises the general historical context. Overall, the point is that the work is very strong for usage in a discipleship group setting with college level students, but it can be much weaker for use in a completely academic discipline in the field of history.

Bibliography:

Litfin, Bryan. Getting to Know the Church Fathers: An Evangelical Introduction.
Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazon Press, 2007.