Review: Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers: Focusing Concern and Action

Reading Scripture with the Church Fathers: Focusing Concern and Action by Christopher A. Hall
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Very thoughtful and good introduction to the Church Fathers especially written for those from a Protestant and Individualistic Christian background. Unfortunately, most clergy and parishioners will likely give up too early on this book before understanding the benefits awaiting them. I would recommend this book to anyone, but I would encourage you to read the final chapter first (chapter 8) so as to bolster your resolve in your discipline to understand and benefit from this book.

Christopher Hall has a strong grasp of the audience that he is writing to and does a nice job preparing them not only to be introduced to some of the central Western and Eastern Patristic Fathers but also to the importance of the Fathers for belief and life today.

The last chapter alone is worth the purchase of the book especially for American Christians who value their Christianity and their "personal relationship with the Lord" as the center of their universe because they believe themselves (and God's interest in them) to be what really matters in life. Not only will the truths in this book potentially ground a teachable heart to the Word, Scriptures, it might also save some from turning away from Christianity and/or the church.

Too often, people not grounded in the core foundations of their faith (and how their beliefs have been handed down from the faithful Covenant People of God) will begin to be disillusioned with Jesus and his church when the church disappoints them, or when Jesus doesn't show up on their timetable. When questioning their faith, and while the world around them offers them so many options, a foundational "big picture" and the greatness of God in the past, present, and future can help stabilize them as they navigate life.

My criticism of the book also comes from statements in the last chapter which reveal the "Protestant Angst" that comes in admitting that we all have informing traditions. The writer (quoting another Evangelical Scholar) talks of the need for different traditions not to "shove their traditions on others". Valid point, but that said, the phrase should be "shove SOME of their traditions" on others. The one, holy, catholic and apostolic church, DOES have quite a bit of core tradition that MUST be insisted upon, and no cross-reference verse in scripture is going to clear it up for us outside of communal interpretation.

The concepts of a slowly gathered Biblical Cannon developed over thousands of years IN AND WITH THE COVENANT COMMUNITY OF CHRIST (both old and new covenants) insists that there is core tradition that we DO require, no matter what Christian group it is. There was a relationship with a Covenant Communal People and our Lord before a word of Scripture was penned (both Old and New Testaments). Through the Holy Spirit, He used the faithful people of God in Community to pen, gather, assemble and disseminate our Holy Cannon. He used the Councils to clarify the Incarnation of Christ, and the Triune beliefs about our saving covenant God (neither of the words " Incarnate" or "Trinity" appear in scripture). This means that the Spirit DOES establish and insist on good and non-optional tradition, no matter the tensions and mystery involved. Supra-scriptura, YES; Sola-scriptura has NEVER been true.

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