Do the Church Fathers provide an object lesson for “puritans” (neo or otherwise)?

As I mentioned in the comments, this video did not impress me all that much.

But thinking about it now, and remembering all those quotations and knowing there are many more, and remembering other things about how the Church exalted virginity (What, Augustine, are you too good to marry the girl? Well, yes he was, according to himself and everyone else around him), it has me thinking.

Did the Church fathers really help the cause of chastity by this sort of rhetoric? I don’t doubt that the Gospel caused a revolution in morals, but did this rhetoric really help? Is it helping us now to have all these overblown statements on the public record.

So how much good does it do to condemn the church year, anyone who uses a candle in worship, or pictures of Jesus in children’s Bible story books? Do you really think you are helping the cause against idolatry?

Trying to be more radical and “holy” than the Bible never ends well.

4 thoughts on “Do the Church Fathers provide an object lesson for “puritans” (neo or otherwise)?

  1. Mark Traphagen

    I think a good balance is to be careful not to go anachronistic on the church fathers. While I don’t want to let them off the hook in every way–some of what they did or said was just plain outrageous by any standard–I do want to recognize that they were in a different time and place. Some implications of the Gospel have taken centuries to work out (slavery comes to mind).

    I happen to think that mutual respect between gender groups in the church is the next area the Holy Spirit is working on in the church. For 2000 years it has been largely assumed that the (relatively few) passages in the NT seeming to restrict or subordinate women were “timeless truths” based in a “creation order” or some such nonsense. Many of us are waking up now and realizing that just doesn’t make sense. For both slavery and female subordination, Paul was saying “you are free, you are equal….but don’t go grasping that freedom and equality just yet. Bigger things are at stake. The Gospel must go out to the Gentiles. Be willing to limit your freedom so that the Gospel will not be hindered. But wherever you can, and whenever you can, begin to assert that freedom as a display of the eschaton to the lost world.

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  2. Beyond Words

    I love the way you’re willing to wrestle with things, Mark.

    In this videao, it was jolting between the quotes of the church fathers and the picutres of the women–the result was cringing intsead of rightous indignation.

    I agree we need to find a more balanced view of gender/freedom in Chirs– and the Holy Spirit is working in this. It’s painful to go through it–especially if one is in a situation where it would be conisdered “divisive” to question those “timeless truths.”

    I just keep praying, “may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”–may the eschaton come fully!

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  3. mark Post author

    To be clear, the “yeah” meant I’m familiar with Mark’s position. I just don’t agree with him.

    Sorry if I was unclear or disappointed anyone!

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