Evangelicals and Tradition: The Formative Influence of the Early Church

Trinity Journal, Fall 2006 by Merrick, James R A

D. H. Williams. Evangelicals and Tradition: The Formative Influence of the Early Church. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005.192 pp. $16.99.

This book is the first in a new series, "Evangelical Ressourcement: Ancient Sources for the Church's Future." Edited by this author, it seeks to infuse today's evangelical church with patristic wisdom. As the vanguard volume, this initial installment instantiates this intention, arguing that if "evangelicalism aims to be doctrinally orthodox and exegetically faithful to Scripture, it cannot do so without recourse to and integration of the foundational tradition of the early church" (p. 18). Williams urges the normativity of the patristic period for today.

Earliest Christian teaching, according to Williams, was almost exclusively oral, "relayed via confessions, hymns, and baptismal instruction" (p. 31). He observes that whereas the early church used ecclesial practices and liturgy to teach and preserve the faith, contemporary evangelicals allow entertainment, emotional-styled worship, and seeker sensitivity to dictate worship. He exhorts evangelicals to recover the ancient church's liturgical tradition, particularly catechesis, so as to be good stewards of the faith.

Combining the apostolic (40-100 A.D.) and patristic ages (100-500 A.D.), Williams contends that this era "is foundational to the Christian faith in normative ways that no other period . . . can claim" (p. 50), for this was a time "in which the formulation of Christian doctrine, canonization, and the interpretation of the Bible took place, making it 'ground zero' for the way in which all subsequent ages of the church have defined themselves" (p. 25). Patristic tradition, then, is canonical with Scripture. The early church received both without distinction yet considered Scripture supreme.

Patristic tradition also functioned as a hermeneutic for reading Scripture in the early church. Williams argues that this coheres with the Protestant Scripture principle and confronts the hyper-individualism of evangelicalism where isolated interpretation is privileged over historic continuity.

Justification by faith and its patristic parallels comprise the subject of ch. 4. Against the common interpretation that the early church until Augustine misconstrued Pauline soteriology into a "works" based religion, Williams looks to writings from Ignatius and Polycarp to show that the early church faced its own confrontation with legalism and propounded a Pauline justification by faith. Fourth-century writers, particularly Hilary of Poitiers, also affirmed salvation by grace through faith. Thus, the "doctrine of justification by faith did not originate in the period of the Reformation" (p. 129). Additionally, since the Fathers had a broader conception of salvation than Luther's reduction of the gospel to justification, they serve to expand evangelical understanding.

The final chapter provides the reader with an introduction to and commendation of the variety of early church confession, exploring creeds, catechisms, the regula fidei, biblical commentaries, homilies, hymnody, and major theological treatises.

I note one disagreement: Williams defines canonicity in terms of church receptivity: "By its very nature, a canon is regarded as canonical only as its contents are consistently received and generally accepted as unique sources of authority" (p. 73). Yet this definition creates a tension between his affirmations that Scripture is supreme but is so only because it was received by tradition. This accent on ecclesial reception ignores the christological dimension of canonicity wherein Jesus Christ as the canon of the church has appointed the apostolic witness concerning him now contained in Scripture to be the foundation of Christian faith (cf. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III.1.1). Tradition's authority is derivative of Scripture's, which itself rests on the authority of Christ.

Two errors: Marcion is misspelled as "Marion" (p. 80), and Karl Berth's Church Dogmatics is referred to as "Christian Dogmatics" (p. 143 n. 72).

Williams's patristic passion is contagious. Evangelicals and Tradition is at once erudite and pastoral, making it a great guide for those who want to retrieve the church's ancient roots and a challenge to those "suspicious Protestants" who are evangelical enough to be skeptical of anything additional to the Spirit's spontaneity and Scripture's simplicity. It should be required reading for seminarians and seasoned clergy as I am confident it will reward readers with a penetrating portrayal of patristic tradition and with an itch to appropriate it creatively into current evangelical life.

James R. A. Merrick

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Deerfield, Illinois