Tag Archives: Church History

Manichaeians

06 Friday Apr 2018

Posted by in Church History, Uncategorized

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My knowledge of the Manichaeans derived from mentions in Augustine’s Confessions. Here is a bit more:

As to what Mani taught, it was the well-worn Gnostic account of an evil creator and an evil world, with some especially scandalous details. It was not Adam but an evil archon who had sex with Eve and fathered Cain. Then Cain had sex with his mother and fathered Abel. Later Eve managed to arouse the ascetic Adam to father Seth, thus beginning a race of beings who are noble in spirit but “entrapped in innately evil material bodies.”

Mani created two levels of membership: the Auditors and the Elect. The former ‘heard’ the word but did not live a life that could qualify for admission to the Kingdom of Light upon their death. Rather, they could hope only to be reborn as vegetables and then to be eaten by the Elect and “belched” to freedom from the evil archons and sent on their way to the Kingdom of Light. As for the Elect, they were bound by extraordinary restrictions: no sex, no alcohol, no meat, no baths, and virtually no physical activity of any kind. They could meet these requirements only if Auditors waited on them hand and foot. The Manichaeians enjoyed some success. They missionized far eastward (into China), making converts even among the nobility, as well as far westward—the young St. Augustine was a Manichaean for a few years (but only as an Auditor and without giving up his mistress).

Stark, Rodney. Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome (p. 175-177). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. I wonder what anyone found attractive about such a scheme….

Christ Transforms our Thinking

04 Wednesday Apr 2018

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Church History

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Ambrose to Felix, Bishop of Comum, 380 AD:

Aaron indeed once stood in the midst,* interposing himself to prevent death passing over to the hosts of the living from the carcases of the dead. But He, as the Word, ever stands within each of us, although we see Him not, and separates the faculties of our reason from the carcase of our deadly passions and pestilential thoughts

This quote is interesting because it gets to an element of biblical counseling – or soul care: all clinical psychology is trying to change how a person thinks, desires, acts from some undesired state to what is perceived as a better state. Here Ambrose states two things: (1) Christ does change our thinking; (2) our reason has been corrupted by “deadly passions”.

What I cannot tell is whether he holds to an idea that human reason is uncorrupted and it is merely desire which corrupts. Does he hold that all desire or merely “deadly passions” are the culprit.

Theophilus of Antioch on the False Accusations Against Christians

06 Tuesday Mar 2018

Posted by in Ante-Nicene, Apologetics, Church History, Uncategorized

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Theophilus makes an interesting move, because he seeks to pry his reader (Autolycus) his prejudice; notice the move here:

Nor indeed was there any necessity for my refuting these, except that I see you still in dubiety about the word of the truth. For though yourself prudent, you endure fools gladly. Otherwise you would not have been moved by senseless men to yield yourself to empty words, and to give credit to the prevalent rumor wherewith godless lips falsely accuse us, who are worshippers of God, and are called Christians,

This comes immediately after Theophilus has made the point that Hebrew prophets wrote of what they knew — as opposed to the poets who have no reason for their belief. He then turns to the accusations against the Christians. These accusations seem to come from both Christian use of the concept of “family” and the Lord’s Supper wildly distorted through rumor of a group not well understood:

alleging that the wives of us all are held in common and made promiscuous use of; and that we even commit incest with our own sisters, and, what is most impious and barbarous of all, that we eat human flesh.

Finally, it is the apparent newness of Christianity that seems to be a trouble:

But further, they say that our doctrine has but recently come to light, and that we have nothing to allege in proof of what we receive as truth, nor of our teaching, but that our doctrine is foolishness. I wonder, then, chiefly that you, who in other matters are studious, and a scrutinizer of all things, give but a careless hearing to us. For, if it were possible for you, you would not grudge to spend the night in the libraries

Then in the next several chapters, Theophilus recounts instances of Heathen poets and philosophers espousing the very things of which the Christians had been (falsely) accused (such as cannibalism and holding wives in common). Following that, he again recounts the contradictory opinions of the poets on matters the gods:

And one can see how inconsistent with each other are the things which others, and indeed almost the majority, have said about God and providence. For some have absolutely cancelled God and providence; and others, again, have affirmed God, and have avowed that all things are governed by providence. The intelligent hearer and reader must therefore give minute attention to their expressions; as also Simylus said: “It is the custom of the poets to name by a common designation the surpassingly wicked and the excellent; we therefore must discriminate.” As also Philemon says: “A senseless man who sits and merely hears is a troublesome feature; for he does not blame himself, so foolish is he.” We must then give attention, and consider what is said, critically inquiring into what has been uttered by the philosophers and the poets.

And also the depravity of the gods:

They who elaborated such a philosophy regarding either the non-existence of God, or promiscuous intercourse and beastly concubinage, are themselves condemned by their own teachings. Moreover, we find from the writings they composed that the eating of human flesh was received among them; and they record that those whom they honour as gods were the first to do these things.

Theophilus of Antioch, “Theophilus to Autolycus,” in Fathers of the Second Century: Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria (Entire), ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe, trans. Marcus Dods, vol. 2, The Ante-Nicene Fathers (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1885), 113.

John Patton on the Treatment of Women in Tanna, Before Christianity

18 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Church History, Culture, Uncategorized

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John Patton (1824-1907) was a missionary to the New Hebrides. With the rather common attack upon Christianity in the West as somehow being degrading of women, it is interesting to read Patton’s observations about an explicitly non-Western and non-Christian culture on this point:

Amongst the Heathen, in the New Hebrides, and especially on Tanna, woman is a down-trodden slave of man. She is kept working hard, and bears all the heavier burdens, while he wills by her side with musket, club or spear. If she offends him, he beats or abuses her at pleasure. A savage gave his poor wife a severe beating in front of our house, while in vain we strove to prevent it. Such scenes were so common that no one thought of interfering. Even if the woman died in his hand, or immediately thereafter, neighbors took no notice, if any at all.

…The girls have, with their mother and sisters, to toil and slave in village plantations, to prepare all the materials for fencing these around, to bear every burden, and to be knocked about at the will by men and boys.

Oh, how sad and degraded is the position of woman where the teaching of Christ is unknown, or disregarded though known! It is the Christ of the Bible, it is His Spirit entering into humanity that has lifted woman, and made her helpmate and the friend of man, not his toy or his slave.

“At Home with the Cannibals”.

Leaving all the consequences to the disposal of my Lord, I determined to make an unflinching stand against wife-beating and widow-strangling [when a man died, they would strangle his wife], feeling confident that even their natural consequence would be on my side. I accordingly pleaded with all who were in power to unite and put down these shocking and disgraceful customs. At length, ten Chiefs entered into a covenant not to allow any more beating of wives or strangling of widows, ….One Chief boldly declared, ‘If we did not beat our women, they would need work; they would not fear and obey us; but when we have beaten and killed, and feasted on two or three [they were cannibals] the rest are very quiet and good for a long time to come!”

I tried to show how cruel it was, besides that it made them unable for work, and that kinds would have a much better effect; but he promptly assured me that Tannest woman ‘could not understand kindness.’

“Superstitions and Cruelties.” He then continued onto explain how he sought to teach the men to not abuse the woman. I imagine one point which would be offensive to some now is that he taught the men to bear the heavier burdens, “as men were made stronger, and they were intended to bear the heavier burdens”.

Carl F. Henry, Ways of Knowing.5

11 Tuesday Oct 2016

Posted by in Carl F Henry, Church History, Epistemology, Uncategorized

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The previous post on Henry’s essay, “Ways of Knowing” can be found here.

In the next section of the essay, Henry considers Experience as the basis for knowledge.

Empiricism: Empiricism relies upon the senses rather than upon intuition. However, that simple concept has undergone significant development over history.

Mystics: Mystics argue that their experiences should not be ruled out of court merely because they are not shared by all. However, in contemporary philosophy only objective sense information constitutes an acceptable experience to consider.

Aristotle/Thomas and Modern Empiricism: Aristotle and Thomas considered empiricism as a first step: “perceptual induction”can then lead to propositions upon which one can build. Thomas famously developed proofs for God based upon empirical perception of the world without resort to revelation.

Modern empiricism could not tolerate such a thing:

The special interest of empiricism, moreover, is to identify events for the sake of the prediction and control of perceptual experience, rather than to render them comprehensively intelligible in relation to metaphysical reality (cf. Edwin A. Burtt, Types of Religious Philosophy, pp. 197 ff.).

Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 79.

Applied to Theology:  Hume attacked the Thomistic proposition that one could move from empirical observation to proof of God:

Thomistic contention that the existence of God, and the existence and immortality of the soul, are logically demonstrable simply through empirical considerations independent of divine revelation.1 Hume’s contention was that those who profess theological beliefs on empirical grounds have no right to such beliefs unless they produce requisite perceptual evidence, and that in the absence of demonstrative empirical proof, belief is unreasonable.

Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 79–80.

Henry then draws an interesting line between Hume and Schleiermacher: Schleiermacher expanded the scope of empirical data to “religious consciousness” rather than mere cognition. He grounded Christianity in the human experience — thus attempting to rescue  knowledge of God from Humean skepticism but at the cost of a supernatural Christianity:

Schleiermacher boldly identified the empirical method as adequate to deal with religious concerns and decisive for the fortunes of Christianity, yet he sought at the same time to broaden the definition of empiricism so that—contrary to Hume’s skeptical analysis of theological claims—an appeal to the religious consciousness could yield a positive and constructive verdict. Schleiermacher considered feeling rather than cognition the locus of religious experience, and he applied the empirical method hopefully to the claims of Christian theism. Rejecting the historic evangelical emphasis that the truth of revelation rests on an authority higher than science, Schleiermacher broke with miraculous Christianity and held that all events must conform to empirically verifiable law.

Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 80.

This trajectory leaves open the development of a completely new religion still calling itself “Christianity” without maintaining the same revelatory content (which has happened in great deal in the West).

As Henry notes, what sort of rationale can ground one’s claim of “religious experience” or “truth”. Even empiricism generally can be of little use beyond analysis of material objects:  “But how does one arrive at a permanently valid ought, at fixed norms of any kind, by the empirical method of knowing?” (P. 83) That of course has not stopped many from claiming an absolute authority for empiricism.

It does boast engineering feats, but such feats do not prove or disprove anything with respect to God. One can simply cannot argue from “I made a bridge” to “There is no God.” As Henry explains:

Taken by itself, the empirical method provides no basis for affirming or denying supernatural realities, since by definition it is a method for dealing only with perceptible realities. It cannot, therefore, validate supraperceptible being; nor can it validate moral norms either or confirm past historical events in present public experience. The empiricist must acknowledge that his method leads finally to one of many possible views, and not to final certainty about anything.

Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1999), 85.

 

 

Church unity is dynamic, not political

27 Friday May 2016

Posted by in Ecclesiology, Uncategorized

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Physical succession may be attractive, but it guarantees nothing. That is precisely why we have the written Scriptures, so that the truth of God may be carefully preserved and passed on intact from believing generation to believing generation. Neither biblically instructed Christians of the 16th century nor the Fathers of the church in the early centuries believed that a mere succession of bishops guaranteed that the gospel message would be maintained in its pristine purity.

This is why Calvin’s departure from the community of physical succession was not schism. For how could agreement in the word of God be regarded as schism from the church of God?

The episcopacy that holds the church together in unity is not man’s but Christ’s. The unity of the church, therefore, is not a formal, historical reality made concrete in an institution (the college of bishops or the pope). Rather it is a dynamic reality, born out of living union and communion with the one true bishop of our souls, the Lord Jesus Christ. Rome’s fault was not only its boast in the historic episcopacy but in its failure to make confession of biblical truth and in its anathematizing of those who did. –

See more at: http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2016/05/john-calvin-on-the-true-church.php#sthash.N1ZNCT84.dpuf

The Importance of Holding to the Inerrancy of Scripture

17 Tuesday Nov 2015

Posted by in Apologetics, Church History, Culture, Francis Schaeffer, Scripture, Thomas Brooks

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Photo: Chris DeRham

Francis Schaffer, The Great Evangelical Divide:

Not far from where we live in Switzerland is a high ridge of rock with a valley on both sides. One time I was there when there was snow on the ground along that ridge. The snow was lying there unbroken, a seeming unity. However, that unity was an illusion, for it lay along a great divide; it lay along a watershed. One portion of the snow when it melted would flow into one valley. The snow which lay close beside would flow into another valley when it melted.

Now it just so happens on that particular ridge that the melting snow which flows down one side of that ridge goes down into a valley, into a small river, and then down into the Rhine River. The Rhine then flows on through Germany and the water ends up in the cold waters of the North Sea. The water from the snow that started out so close along that watershed on the other side of the ridge, when this snow melts, drops off sharply down the ridge into the Rhone Valley. This water flows into Lac Leman—or as it is known in the English-speaking world, Lake Geneva—and then goes down below that into the Rhone River which flows through France and into the warm waters of the Mediterranean.

The snow lies along that watershed, unbroken, as a seeming unity. But when it melts, where it ends in its destinations is literally a thousand miles apart. That is a watershed. That is what a watershed is. A watershed divides. A clear line can be drawn between what seems at first to be the same or at least very close, but in reality ends in very different situations. In a watershed there is a line.

 

A House Divided

What does this illustration have to do with the evangelical world today? I would suggest that it is a very accurate description of what is happening. Evangelicals today are facing a watershed concerning the nature of biblical inspiration and authority. It is a watershed issue in very much the same sense as described in the illustration. Within evangelicalism there are a growing number who are modifying their views on the inerrancy of the Bible so that the full authority of Scripture is completely undercut. But it is happening in very subtle ways. Like the snow lying side-by-side on the ridge, the new views on biblical authority often seem at first glance not to be so very far from what evangelicals, until just recently, have always believed. But also, like the snow lying side-by-side on the ridge, the new views when followed consistently end up a thousand miles apart.

What may seem like a minor difference at first, in the end makes all the difference in the world. It makes all the difference, as we might expect, in things pertaining to theology, doctrine and spiritual matters, but it also makes all the difference in things pertaining to the daily Christian life and how we as Christians are to relate to the world around us. In other words, compromising the full authority of Scripture eventually affects what it means to be a Christian theologically and how we live in the full spectrum of human life.

 

Francis A. Schaeffer, The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview, vol. 4 , “The Great Evangelical Divide) (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1982), 327–328.

 

Harold Lindsell, An Historian Looks at Inerrancy:

Lindsell begins his essay looking the history of attacks upon the Scripture from outside the Church. However, the saddest attacks are taking place within the church:

And the leaven is to be found in Christian colleges and theological seminaries, in books and articles, in Bible institute and conservative churches. The new leaven, as yet, has nothing to do was such a vital questions is the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the vicarious atonement, the physical resurrection from the dead, or the second advent. It involves what it has always involved in the first stages of its development–the nature and inspiration of authority…..

Today there are those who have been numbered among the new evangelicals, some of whom possessed the keenest minds and required the apparati of scholarship, who have broken, or are in the process of breaking, with the doctrine of an inerrant Scripture. They have done so or are doing so because they think this view to be indefensible and because they do not regard it as a great divide. In order for them to be intellectually honest with themselves, they must do it. Logically, however, the same attitude, orientation, bent of mind, and approach to scholarship that makes the retention of an inerrant Scripture impossible also alternately makes impossible the retention of the vicarious atonement, and putative guilt, the virgin birth, the physical resurrection, and miraculous supernaturalism.

 

Harold Lindsell, “An Historian Looks at Inerrancy,” in The Scripture Cannot Be Broken, ed. John MacArthur (Wheaton: Crossway, 2015), 25-26.

Thomas Brooks, Precious Remedies for Satan’s Devices:

By all this we see, that the yielding to lesser sins, draws the soul to the committing of greater. Ah! how many in these days have fallen, first to have low thoughts of Scripture and ordinances, and then to slight Scripture and ordinances, and then to make a nose of wax of Scripture and ordinances, and then to cast off Scripture and ordinances, and then at last to advance and lift up themselves, and their Christ-dishonouring and soul-damning opinions, above Scripture and ordinances. Sin gains upon man’s soul by insensible degrees: Eccles. 10:13, ‘The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness, and the end of his talking is mischievous madness.’ Corruption in the heart, when it breaks forth, is like a breach in the sea, which begins in a narrow passage, till it eat through, and cast down all before it. The debates of the soul are quick, and soon ended, and that may be done in a moment that may undo a man for ever. When a man hath begun to sin, he knows not where, or when, or how he shall make a stop of sin. Usually the soul goes on from evil to evil, from folly to folly, till it be ripe for eternal misery. Men usually grow from being naught to be very naught, and from very naught to be stark naught, and then God sets them at nought for ever.

 

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 1 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 20.

Steve Lawson on the Puritan Era

26 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by in Church History, Puritan

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Here are my rough draft notes on Steve Lawson’s two-part lecture, on the puritan era:

 

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Steve Lawson, Puritan Era

Overview of the Puritan Era.
Samuel Rutherford, John Owen, John Bunyan, Matthew Henry (in Crossroads).

Context for these men.

Who were the Puritans?
The Redwoods, the giants in Christianity. — J.I. Packer
Technically inside the Church of England and sought to purify the Church of England.

The Puritans were distinguished by their unwavering loyalty to the authority

All that is good in Evangelicalism has its roots in the Puritans. MLJ, “The very greatness of the men themselves as men of God demands our attention.”

After the initial reformation: 16-17th Centuries.

Begin with Henry VIII (starts the Church of England).
1521: Leo X made Henry, “The Defender of the Faith” for his anti-Lutheran treatise and his defensive of Rome’s seven sacraments.

1527, Henry appealed for annulment and was denied. This provoked separation from Roman Catholic. This separation was not over doctrine; Henry wants to get married again. Therefore, the Roman Catholic doctrine is brought over to the new institution.

Thomas Cramner becomes Archbishop of Canterbury. (1532-1556).

1534: Church of England starts.

1547: Henry dies. Succeeded by Edward VI 1547-1553 (son of Jane Seymour).

Continue reading →

Intinction

04 Saturday Apr 2015

Posted by in Lord's Supper

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Intinction is the practice of dipping the bread into the wine.  The history of the practice in the Christian Church and theological reception of that practice within the Protestant Church is fully discussed here:

 http://theaquilareport.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/IntinctionPaper.pdf

Smith, in Desiring the Kingdom explains that the practice of the Eucharist forms the shape of the human being who partakes:

This intensity is suggested in the very words of institution of the Eucharist: “This is my body.”

Jesus didn’t look around the room or out the window and abstractly announce, “Behold, the goodness of all creation. Look, remember, believe. These are the gifts of God for the people of God.” Such a statement would be perfectly true; creation is just such a mediation of God’s presence. But in addition to that truth, we also need to note that Jesus takes up particular things from creation and endues them with a sense of special presence, an especially intense presence. In this way Jesus seems to establish particular hot spots of sacramentality within a good creation, while also ordaining particularly packed practices. This selective intensity suggests that the affirmation that all the world is a sacrament is not meant to thereby level “the sacraments.”

In the same way, the affirmation that all of life is worship— that all things can be done to the glory of God— should not level the particular intensity of worship as the “work of the people” that especially praises God and forms us in unique, particularly intense ways. If one temptation is to level the sacraments in the name of the sacramentality of the world, a second is the temptation to naturalize the liturgy as just an embodied practice like any other (another kind of leveling). [38]

Sometimes our emphasis on liturgy as a formative, embodied practice that shapes us runs the risk of construing this as a wholly natural or immanent process— as if the formation of disciples in Christian worship operates in much the same way as the formation of Manny Ramirez as an excellent hitter through bodily rituals of batting practice. While worship is entirely embodied, it is not only material; and though worship is wholly natural, it is never only natural. Christian worship is nothing less than an invitation to participate in the life of the triune God. In short, the centrality of embodiment should not be understood as a “naturalizing” of worship that would deny the dynamic presence of the Spirit; to the contrary, the Spirit meets, nourishes, transforms, and empowers us just through and in such material practices.

The church’s worship is a uniquely intense site of the Spirit’s transformative presence. We must never lose sight of the charged nature of these practices. [39] These are not just rituals that are unique because they are aimed at a different telos; they are also unique because they are practices that bring us face-to-face with the living God.

Smith, James K. A. (2009-08-01). Desiring the Kingdom (Cultural Liturgies): Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (pp. 149-150). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

As we change the practice, we change its meaning — we change what happens in the heart. When we both remove the cup as a separate element, remove the words of institution, or partake on our own schedule, we fundamentally transform our goal and its effects. Is that wise?

Book Review: In Search of Deep Faith

09 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Book Review, Church History

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Jim Belcher: In Search of Deep Faith: A Pilgrimage into the Beauty, Goodness and Heart of Christianity.

Jim Belcher, the current president of Providence Christian College, does something quite remarkable: he moves back-and-forth between the past and present.On a sabbatical of sorts, he took his family to Europe with the aim of fostering a consequential Christian faith in his family:

So often our children are taught that faith is about being nice and fair to all. These are good virtues. The problem is that Christianity is more than being nice or kind. It is more than personal success and happiness. It contains, Kenda Creasy Dean says, a creed, a community and a hope. It can be articulated, defended and may call us to die for it….If parents and the church communicate to our kids that the heart of Christianity is only being nice, fair, happy and successful, they will have no resources, no tools, no map in which to navigate the journey of life, particularly when suffering comes — and it most certainly will come. (31)

Belcher and his family travel to particular location. There they learn about a Christian life in that location; they visit the locale where something memorable took place, they reflect upon how that event demonstrates the working of Christ in this world. Such a back-and-forth movement, from past to present, could easily become dull, confusing or plain stupid; but Belcher handles the movement with seeming ease.

The first stop is Oxford where the family looked at the life and martyrdom of Cranmer. He sets up Cranmer’s witness against Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, which is the de facto religion of even most “Christian” children in the West:

For the kids who subscribe to MTD, religion is no more than a hobby that gets abandoned in college. Certainly it is not something worth dying over. (28).

Why would Cranmer willingly die for a faith when most wouldn’t even be inconvenienced for apparently the same claims?

The family then moves on to consider the struggle of Sheldon Vanauken, “As parents we knew that if our kids were going to develop a deep faith, they first needed to understand that they are creatures of desire” (49).

In chapter three, “The Struggle Within”, Belcher considers George Whitefield, Robert Louis Stevenson and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde – and Romans 7.

Chapter four, “The Weight of Glory” looks to the life of C.S. Lewis, “So this is the key to the true self, to human flourishing: finding our acceptance in God and being approved by him. It is the source of freedom, joy, contentment.” (109). This is similar to Paul Baynes, the 17th Century Puritan’s work, Brief Directions for a Godly Life, which begins with assurance of salvation. Only a knowing acceptance before God is sufficient to transform the human heart.

Belcher looks at William Wilberforce and then Van Gough — the unbelieving son of a Christian minister; the French community of Le Chambon (an entire community who protected Jews during WWII); Corrie ten Boom, Dietrich Bonhoeffer & Maria Van Trap.
At the end of the book, Belcher comes back to a question he raised at the beginning: the matter of desire and direction:

Was it possible, I thought, that there isa connection between the order of our desires and the reality of our confidence and trust? Is other words, was what we had been teaching our kids about roots, journey and destination in reality a lesson about ultimate trust? Is to desire God and his kingdom really to trust him? 269

Belcher’s book works. It is readable, engaging, enlightening, comforting. As a father, I was forced to reflect upon my own life and how I engage and raise my children. Have I led them to understand and desire the kingdom of God? Have I shown them the lives of other Christians as examples of how such a life would play out in the “real world.” The real good of Belcher’s book is his repeated demonstration that Christian faith must be consequential for how one lives, or we must wonder whether the claimed faith is a real faith.

I have not quoted out his best insights, so that you must read the book yourself to find them.