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Lately (2018-2019), I've been thinking about the fact that in the early days of Christianity, Christians had long attention spans that they used to address the problems of their day rigorously. In The Ante- and Post-Nicene Fathers (which I own and have read in part), we see lengthy treatises written by a wide assortment of Fathers over the course of many centuries against a wide assortment of heresies that they went to much trouble to analyze, define, and name in great detail. Compared to modern care and attention spans, their rigor and concern are off the charts.
Now it's different. We find ourselves living in a theological free-for-all. Nobody knows what heresy is, and nobody cares. We live in a post-modernist, nihilistic age that supposes Absolute Truth doesn't exist, that "Truth" is relative, that everyone can have their "own" truths . . . and if they find that their personal "truths" don't match, they "Agree to Disagree", making reconciliation impossible.
Personally, I have studied Christianity very carefully going back to the beginnings. Within it, I have discovered certain doctrines that I have never been able to bring myself to believe because I don't think they're true. Now in my fifties, as a mature Christian man, I've come to believe that the things that bother me are Christian Heresies that, like weeds mingled with wheat (Matt. 13:36-43), have become firmly established in mainline Christianity.
In this review I will not share these problematic doctrines, these Christian Heresies, in particular. That is for a later discussion.
For now, the purpose of this review is to help people open their eyes to the possibility, the probability, and the existence of heresies at all because as Douthat points out, in our time we've become totally blind to them and have, indeed, become a nation of heretics.
It's a dense book. Every page is worth reading in its own right so I won't try to summarize it here for fear of omitting some important detail. All I'll say here is that you should read it.
But I read it four years ago . . . bought it in January of 2015 . . . and more than four years later, I find myself thinking about it all the time, every time I encounter yet another example of Bad Religion, of Christian Heresies.
As I see it, the problem is epistemological. Epistemology asks, "How can we be sure of anything? How can we be sure of our senses? How can we reality-check or stress-test our perceptions to make sure they are right?" It's about becoming epistemological about Theology and Ecclesiology.
Below, I'll share what quotes I find to be notable in 2019 that I underlined in 2015, and a few words that Douthat added to my vocabulary, that help me navigate, avoid, and survive the many suffocating heresies that engulf us today.
I hope this review helps you do likewise, and that you will read the book.
Now it's different. We find ourselves living in a theological free-for-all. Nobody knows what heresy is, and nobody cares. We live in a post-modernist, nihilistic age that supposes Absolute Truth doesn't exist, that "Truth" is relative, that everyone can have their "own" truths . . . and if they find that their personal "truths" don't match, they "Agree to Disagree", making reconciliation impossible.
Personally, I have studied Christianity very carefully going back to the beginnings. Within it, I have discovered certain doctrines that I have never been able to bring myself to believe because I don't think they're true. Now in my fifties, as a mature Christian man, I've come to believe that the things that bother me are Christian Heresies that, like weeds mingled with wheat (Matt. 13:36-43), have become firmly established in mainline Christianity.
In this review I will not share these problematic doctrines, these Christian Heresies, in particular. That is for a later discussion.
For now, the purpose of this review is to help people open their eyes to the possibility, the probability, and the existence of heresies at all because as Douthat points out, in our time we've become totally blind to them and have, indeed, become a nation of heretics.
It's a dense book. Every page is worth reading in its own right so I won't try to summarize it here for fear of omitting some important detail. All I'll say here is that you should read it.
But I read it four years ago . . . bought it in January of 2015 . . . and more than four years later, I find myself thinking about it all the time, every time I encounter yet another example of Bad Religion, of Christian Heresies.
As I see it, the problem is epistemological. Epistemology asks, "How can we be sure of anything? How can we be sure of our senses? How can we reality-check or stress-test our perceptions to make sure they are right?" It's about becoming epistemological about Theology and Ecclesiology.
Below, I'll share what quotes I find to be notable in 2019 that I underlined in 2015, and a few words that Douthat added to my vocabulary, that help me navigate, avoid, and survive the many suffocating heresies that engulf us today.
I hope this review helps you do likewise, and that you will read the book.
Notable Quotes
"For all its piety and fervor, today's United States needs to be recognized for what it really is: not a Christian country, but a nation of heretics" (6).
"No external enemy of the faith, no Attila or Barbarossa or Hitler, could have sown so much confusion and dismay among the faithful as Catholicism's own bishops managed to do" (132).
"The Mainline has drifted to the sidelines of American life" (144).
"Christianity is a paradoxical religion because [Jesus] is a paradoxical character" (152). "The goal of the great heresies . . . has often been to extract from the tensions of the gospel narratives a more consistent, streamlined, and noncontradictory Jesus" (153).
". . . the idea that a religious tradition could be saved from crisis because a group of intellectuals radically reinterpreted its sacred texts is the kind of conceit that only, well, an intellectual could possibly believe" (176).
"It's interesting to note that the regions and populations most affected by the housing bubble were also the places and people where prosperity preaching was most popular" (207-208).
"Between 1982 and 2006, sixteen thousand American college students filled out the Narcissistic Personality Inventory . . . . In the 1950s only 12 percent of teenages identified with the statement, 'I am an important person.' A half century later, it was 80 percent" (234-235).
"In the Bush-Obama era . . . two heresies of nationalism have taken turns in the driver's seat of both political coalitions, giving us messianism from the party in power and apocalyptism from the party out of power, regardless which party is which" (268).
"Only sanctity can justify Christianity's existence" (292).
"No external enemy of the faith, no Attila or Barbarossa or Hitler, could have sown so much confusion and dismay among the faithful as Catholicism's own bishops managed to do" (132).
"The Mainline has drifted to the sidelines of American life" (144).
"Christianity is a paradoxical religion because [Jesus] is a paradoxical character" (152). "The goal of the great heresies . . . has often been to extract from the tensions of the gospel narratives a more consistent, streamlined, and noncontradictory Jesus" (153).
". . . the idea that a religious tradition could be saved from crisis because a group of intellectuals radically reinterpreted its sacred texts is the kind of conceit that only, well, an intellectual could possibly believe" (176).
"It's interesting to note that the regions and populations most affected by the housing bubble were also the places and people where prosperity preaching was most popular" (207-208).
"Between 1982 and 2006, sixteen thousand American college students filled out the Narcissistic Personality Inventory . . . . In the 1950s only 12 percent of teenages identified with the statement, 'I am an important person.' A half century later, it was 80 percent" (234-235).
"In the Bush-Obama era . . . two heresies of nationalism have taken turns in the driver's seat of both political coalitions, giving us messianism from the party in power and apocalyptism from the party out of power, regardless which party is which" (268).
"Only sanctity can justify Christianity's existence" (292).
Vocabulary
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Deophobia - Fear of discussing religion in public or addressing it in the media.
Fissiparous - Inclined to cause or undergo division into separate parts or groups. Schismatic. Obloquy - Public abuse Perfervid - Intense, impassioned Solipsism - Being stuck in your own head; having no respect for others' experiences, including historians'. |
Respectfully submitted,
Kris Freeberg
(360) 224-4322
[email protected]
Bellingham, Washington
August 4, 2019
Kris Freeberg
(360) 224-4322
[email protected]
Bellingham, Washington
August 4, 2019
