Stupidity not necessary for conversion

As Christianity penetrated the well educated society of Alexandria, the choice for the convert seemed too often to be between clever, eloquently defended heresy on the one side and a dim, obscurantist orthodoxy on the other. It was one of Clement's principal achievements to render this dilemma unreal and irrelevant...

-Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, 95

Books!

In the college Sunday school class, we recently finished an overview of church history. As we sped through church history, every now and then we came to a book that had an important place in church history, usually accompanied by my gentle encouragement, “You must read this!” The following is a list of some of those books. Take this list as an encouragement to investigate history theologically and theology historically, not necessarily as an endorsement of every book listed. Plus, now more than ever, the accessibility of these books renders the church even more excuse-less for being not being historically minded.

1. Mark Noll, Turning Points (this is the book we used as our outline for the class)
2. Nick Needham, 2000 Years of Christ's Power, vol. 1-3 (a good, readable overview of church history)
3. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews - great for knowing the historical context of the gospels
4. St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation - absolutely indispensable. Also, a great book to read on Christmas holiday. Free online version here.
5. St. Augustine, Confessions and City of God and On the Trinity
6. St. Benedict's Rule
7. St. Patrick's Confessions
8. Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way - An in-house overview of Eastern Orthodoxy.
9. Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
10. Martin Luther, 95 Theses and Bondage of the Will
11. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion
12. Iain Murray, Wesley and the Men Who Followed
13. Philip Jakob Spener, Pia Desideria
14. John Murray, Redemption, Accomplished & Applied and Song in the Public Worship of God
15. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism
16. Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism
17. Greg Bahnsen, Always Ready: Directions for Defending the Faith (re: Cornelius Van Til's presuppositional method of apologetics)
18. Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live? and Collected Writings

What books might you add as being important pieces of Christian history?

Merry Christmas

I'm so happy about this. Dr. Jack Kinneer was one of my professors at RPTS. This Christmas season he's done some good work debunking popular Christmas myths, especially the ones about Christmas being based on a pagan holiday and Jesus being born in the Spring or Summer. So if your conscience permits you, have a merry Christmas!

Last words

Wir sind Bettler. Das ist Wahr.

We are beggars. That's the truth.

These are the last written words of Martin Luther. Mark Noll has a great section in his chapter on Luther and the reformation on Luther's theology of the cross. It is, by far, the most expressive and deeply felt part of Turning Points. Although justification by faith through grace is certainly at the heart of Luther's theology, it's the cross that was, for Luther, the only full picture of such justification, the only place where God came into the world in a real, humbling, miraculous, and touchable way.

One more taste before this Sunday's church history lesson:

We are Christians and have the gospel, which neither the devil nor men can abide, in order that we may come into poverty and lowliness and God may thereby have his work in us.