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Where do you see a movement to restore the church fathers to evangelicalism?

There is a blossoming of patristic scholars. Many young grad students are going into the field of early church.

It's also happening in the pews. The emergent church is very much engaged with ancient Christianity and Robert Webber and ancient future faith. But I don't know that everything that's happening in emergent circles is an authentic retrieval of the fathers.

I have heard several people argue that the church fathers, since they were closer in time to Christ (although their lives did not overlap with his), were more correct in theology and application than today's church. Do you agree?

I think there's plausibility there, but that thesis has limited merit.

Rather than being close in time, a better thing is being close in geography. So that what we have is a Mediterranean, Greco-Roman, and Semitic viewpoint, and an ancient mindset.

The church fathers were in the same culture that Jesus lived in. They were living in the world that Jesus inhabited. [That common Roman culture] doesn't change until the fall of the Roman Empire in the 6th century. One of the facets of the Roman Empire was the amazing ubiquity of this general culture.

Is tradition something that we should look to for authority in the church, or is that something that we should be suspicious of?

To me, tradition is very important, and it's something we should use. It's not something to be equated with Scripture as a second source. It's not to be done that way. That whole conversation is coming out of the Counter-Reformation. You would find that idea in the Council of Trent, for example, where Scripture and tradition are separate and equal.

No, tradition is rather a friend and a guide. It is a witness and it does not stand over Scripture, but it can serve Christians by helping us to understand what Scripture means.

What role does the Holy Spirit play in continuity and tradition?

The Holy Spirit is the person of the Trinity who indwells the believer, but also believers collectively as the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit is the person of the Trinity who indwells the church. What you have to do is intertwine ecclesiology and pneumatology.

The role of the Holy Spirit that evangelicals typically tap into is "the Spirit in me." So I've got the Spirit and I can sit and look at the text, and I can figure it out. But that's not really the only way to think about the Holy Spirit. Yes, the Holy Spirit is the Comforter, but he is also indwelling the fullness of the church.

What a proper pneumatology does is move us away from pure individualism and move us toward a high ecclesiology that is willing to then look at the collective witness of the church, which I would define as tradition. The Holy Spirit's role, as much as it is to illumine my personal understanding of Scripture, perhaps even more is to illumine the body as a whole. At which I can partake of that gift of time-honored inheritance.

Who is your favorite?

I wrote my dissertation on Tertullian. I have a special affinity for him. Not by any means do I like everything about his personality or his beliefs. He's got some problematic beliefs. But I like his style.

Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Getting to Know the Church Fathers is available from ChristianBook.com and other retailers.

An excerpt is available from Brazos Press.

Bryan Litfin teaches theology at Moody Bible Institute.

Christian History & Biography has several issues on the early church, including The First Bible Teachers, Augustine, St. Antony & the Desert Fathers, Worship in the Early Church, and others.

More articles on history and books are in our full coverage sections.

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October (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51