In Defense of The Ancients

Why Historical Christianity Is Needed Now More Than Ever

Modern Americans tend to have a bias against old things. Constant change is the only given in our society. We celebrate this, even worship it. New things are described with positive terms like "innovation," "growth," or "agility," while giving regard to the past is viewed as "stagnation" or "change aversion." Even being "disruptive"—formerly a chaotic and unruly vice—has morphed into a compliment because it means you figured out a way to upset the status quo and reset the tables. Creating your best future is all that matters. Looking backward, so it is believed, keeps you in a quagmire that prevents forward motion. Our entrepreneurial society is addicted to a drug called flux.

Football coach Lou Holtz summed up this mindset when he said, "You're either growing or you're dying. The tree's either growing or it's dying. So's grass. So's a marriage. So's a business. So's a person."¹ Life coach and motivational speaker Tony Robbins likewise has popularized the mantra that "if you're not growing, you're dying." Variations of this theme appear throughout business literature and public discourse. It is ubiquitous among internet inspirational quotes.

Today, it has become axiomatic that if you aren't charging hard into the future, obsessed with the next best thing, you're in danger of shriveling up, or worse, being left behind. There can be no standstill, much less a glance to the rear. We all have a bad case, not just of FOMO, but of FOMOOFT: Fear of Missing Out on Future Things.

The Sea Breeze of the Centuries

In the introduction to a nice little edition of Athanasius's On the Incarnation,² C. S. Lewis had the occasion to comment on this problem, which was recognizable even in his day, and is exacer­bated in ours by the speed of technological change. Lewis writes:

There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. . . . This mistaken preference for the modern books and this shyness of the old ones is nowhere more rampant than in theology.

Lewis recommends reading old books because "a new book is still on trial and the amateur is not in a position to judge it. It has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages." To counteract the modern mindset, which so flippantly grasps for the latest and greatest, Lewis advises us "to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading old books."

Of course, just because something is old doesn't automatically make it better. Take telephones. None of us would prefer to be tethered to a landline anymore. We don't long for the days of, "Operator, please put me through to the bank." Today's phones are just plain better. Or consider medicine. The next time we have an infection, we aren't going back to folk remedies from before the advent of antibiotics. No one today would want to endure Civil War surgical methods. Anesthesia will always beat biting on a bullet. There's no two ways about it: advanced medicine and smartphones are an improvement over the past. Antiquity is not an end in itself.

Furthermore, it's not enough for old things just to offer antique charm. Though nostalgia can be pleasant in its own way, it can't sustain a true appreciation for the past. An antique car, for example, can rarely be more than a hobby. That '57 Corvette might be great for a weekend jaunt, but it doesn't work for schlepping the kids to school every day or taking the family on vacation to Yellowstone. Likewise, antique furniture can look great in your house, but you might not want to sit on that Victorian settee for too long, nor expect a roll-top desk to accommodate all your tech with ease.

The point of appreciating ancient wisdom isn't just to affect a vintage theology to go along with your distressed wood flooring, thrift-store couture, craft beer, and 1920s handlebar mustache. The ancient sources must offer us something more substantial than theological hygge.

Four Reasons Why We Need the Ancients

Instead of just providing a superficial veneer of antiquity, there are real, substantial benefits that come from encountering the ancient writers of the Church. I would like to suggest four of them. Why do we need ancient Christianity? Here are my answers:

1. To curb our appetite for innovation. As I noted above, our culture is addicted to the drug of flux. But the constant pursuit of what's just around the corner—whether it be toys, tech, or theology—can never truly satisfy; for as soon as you obtain the new, you start looking for that which is even newer. The cycle is endless, exhausting, and ultimately lethal.

In the realm of theology, it manifests itself as an urge to acquire the latest book from the up-and-comer of the moment. The blogger with a rising platform, the pastor with a fresh way to do church, the professor with an unheard-of new doctrine—these are the aspirational brands in the ecclesial marketplace of today.

To counter this deadly acquisitive instinct, a conscious choice must be made to partake of historical theology instead of the latest fad sweeping academia or Christian social media. In time, the addictive grip of theological thrill-seeking will begin to loosen. May God have mercy on us all.

2. To broaden our perspective. The willingness to hear diverse points of view is, of course, an important aspect of any humane learning. Certainly, it should mark the mature Christian. Yet what passes for diversity these days is too often a shrill polarization that centers (ironically) on a very narrow set of ideas.

In today's world of instant communication, it's easy to become myopic, to think we are engaging in a broad theological discourse when we are actually just listening to the same voices go round and round.

As Lewis puts it in the essay cited above, "[We] need the books that will correct the characteristic mistakes of our own period. And that means the old books." These ancient sources offer us a chronological diversity that can be gotten by no other means. Only in this way can we escape the raucous echo chamber of our times.

3. To benefit from what has been tested, filtered, and purified by time. The centuries are the gem sieve of the church. A lot of raw earth gets tossed in that sieve, where it gets shaken by the jostling motion of vigorous theological inquiry. The unwanted gravel and mud are washed through the mesh, leaving the gemstones behind. The monks who copied manuscripts, and the printers after them who published books, made decisions about what was worth keeping and disseminating. Does another abbot want the Summa of Aquinas? Copy it for him! Do the people of God want the books of Tertullian? Augustine? Calvin? Edwards? Print them! The nonsense of other writers—or even of these writers—tends to get filtered out by the sieve of the centuries.

What has come down to us is by no means perfect. Yet it has been tested and found desirable enough to pass on to the next generation. This collective decision-making of the Church through history is worth noting.

4. To lift our eyes and see the grandeur of the Church. It is one of the great ironies of the modern age that even as our communication abilities increase, we are becoming all the more ignorant of what is around us. Flooded with stimuli, we can no longer recognize what will make bread and what is mere chaff blowing in the wind. Church life has suffered from this malady as well. Our churches have become puny little things, neighborhood clubs that help us through life and entertain us with God-talk. The mystery, the splendor, the august legacy of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church has been lost in a fog of self-help maxims and religious infotainment.

But not when you read the ancients, for then you taste and see that something far grander is afoot when the people of God come together to worship. This is not to say that every historical writing is a towering magnum opus. Yet taken together, these writings represent the Church's received deposit of wisdom. When you encounter the ancient writers, you are elevated into a higher discourse, and then you realize how mighty and how nourishing is the theological river that courses through the Church.  

Notes
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wMmcoPTmAs.
2. One such edition is from St. Vladimir's Seminary Press's Popular Patristics series, published in 2012.