This summer I have been doing some reading about the history of the early church.  In particular, I read a book written by Bryan M. Litfin called Getting to Know the Church Fathers: An Evangelical Introduction.  The term church father does not mean Father in the Roman Catholic sense—i.e., these were not Catholic priests!  When they lived, the Roman Catholic Church as we know it did not exist. So for a church father to say that they were catholic would simply mean that he or she was part of the universal family of believers of Jesus Christ.

This particular book considered ten writers, all of whom lived before 500 AD—Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian, Perpetua, Origen, Athanasius, John Chrysostom, Augustine, and Cyril of Alexandria.  Some of those names might be vaguely familiar to us, but I personally didn’t know many details about any of them before I read this book.  I now know a little bit more about this cloud of witnesses that lived out their lives in God’s presence almost 2000 years before I was even born.  They were real men and women who wrestled with what it meant to be a Christian in their day just as we do today.  The difference is that they had less to go on than we do.

As I read the stories of the various church fathers, I am struck by the fact that they were not unlike the pioneers who settled the American West. Those settlers faced dangers as they traveled west forging a trail across North America, and likewise these men and women risked much, sometimes even their own lives, to forge a theological trail across the Roman Empire that others would later follow.  Theology simply means talking about God, and in those early days, there was much discussion over what represented orthodox theology—i.e., what is the “correct” or “acceptable” way to talk or think about the nature of God.

The church fathers wrestled with many different ways to think about God and had to decide which ones made the most sense—these would become the orthodox beliefs we now take for granted. Christians today may tend to take for granted that we all already know the “correct” way to think about God (more on that later) but there was a time when all of these ideas were still open for debate and there were certainly disagreements among Christians—what a shock!  The Early Church had to try and settle those disagreements and they met with varying degrees of success.  Various church councils met over the years and the debate was intense and at times resulted in splits.

One of the major issues the early church grappled with was the orthodox (or correct) way to understand the nature of God.  What has come to be known as the doctrine of the Trinity—the belief that God exists as three persons all of one substance—is now an essential part of most Christian beliefs. But in the 3rd century, there would have been no neatly codified doctrines on which one could rely, no handy texts to reference, or books to read.  It truly was a rugged spiritual frontier these men and women had to navigate.
So why learn about these people who lived so long ago? The church fathers are part of the Story that we are all part of—God’s ongoing Story that began with creation and continues to the present day—and we should all know the “key players” in our Story. These men and women of antiquity are “key players” in an important part of our Story—the story of the early Christian Church. They each have fascinating stories to share if we take the time to listen. It seems that men like Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Wesley were well acquainted with these writers (Augustine in particular).  If the heroes of our various faith traditions thought it worthwhile to learn about the church fathers, perhaps we should spend some time with them as well? J

I also think the exploits of the church fathers are worth learning about because the world they lived in bears a remarkable similarity to the post-Christian world we live in today. To be effective in taking the Good News to our world, we must also become pioneers who leave the safety and security of our churches to reach out to others—as it becomes increasingly clear that they don’t seek us out regularly. As was the case in the early days of Christianity during the Roman Empire, the people we are trying to reach are increasingly people who have very little exposure to authentic Christianity and who may initially be quite hostile towards us.  The terrain we must navigate is certainly rugged and difficult and it won’t be a comfortable or easy journey, but it is the journey we are called to take as followers of Christ.  Like our forefathers, we have to be willing to embark on the journey toward the spiritual frontier, willing to risk our safety and comfort for others, and be faithful to the Great Commission no matter what it costs us—some of the men and women I read about died as martyrs because they refused to compromise what they believed.

I also think that the reality of a post-Christian world requires us to be open to new debates over what represents orthodox theology—i.e., what is the “correct” or “acceptable” way to talk or think about the nature of God in our postmodern world?  How can we be faithful to the message of the Gospel and yet present it in a way that seems authentic and credible to people with very little exposure to Christian beliefs and teachings?  Ideas that we have long held about the nature of God (and especially about what it means to be the Church—the Body of Christ—in this world) may need to be reexamined.  I by no means think this means that we jettison everything we believe. I am however suggesting that like the church fathers, we must be open to dialogue with others who may not share our beliefs so that we can all work together toward the common good of humanity.  Perhaps working together, we can find real solutions to the problems that our world faces today.  As in Acts 15, we trust that what emerges from our dialogue would be pleasing to both us and to the Holy Spirit.  We also pray that our efforts would be pleasing to the church fathers on whose legacy the Church is built, and also pleasing to the generations of believers that come after us.