Defenders of the Faith

Matthew Knell

Description

The church has been under attack from its inception, but certain struggles seemed to threaten its very existence. In this inspiring book, Dr Matthew Knell celebrates some of these key figures who have kept the church alive in the midst of great adversity, exploring three major periods of persecution from the early church to the present day. This fascinating journey begins with Irenaeus of Lyon, who battled courageously against the theological threat of Gnosticism, followed by Basil of Caesarea, who defended the church from attacks on its spirituality. The book concludes with the modern Chinese church, many members of which have been attacked and even martyred for their faith. Using the examples of these defenders and many others, Dr Knell inspires readers to stand firm in the face of adversity as the global church continues to experience persecution.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• History of Christianity
• History of religions
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Lion Hudson
• Date de parution: 23 mars 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780857219091
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

With a keen eye for detail, a passion for truth and a desire to probe into the valuable lessons we can learn from the past, Matthew Knell has given the Church a wonderful resource in Defenders of the Faith. He pushes us to ask tough questions and to reflect deeply on what it means to be committed to living faithfully for Christ today as we stand in the shadows of those who have gone before us.

There is more to this book than history, however. As all good historians do, Matthew challenges our assumptions of today by teaching us to think deeply about yesterday. If we will heed its lessons and follow its trajectory, Defenders of the Faith will help us to remain faithful while helping us avoid the pitfalls of the past that present themselves today in new guises, but with the same dangers as they have always held.

- Rev Malcolm Duncan (FRSA), senior pastor, Gold Hill Baptist Church

Text copyright 2018 Matthew Knell
This edition copyright 2018 Lion Hudson IP Limited
The right of Matthew Knell to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Monarch Books
an imprint of
Lion Hudson Limited
Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Business Park,
Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 8DR, England
Email: [e-mail]
www.lionhudson.com/monarch
ISBN 978 0 85721 908 4
e-ISBN 978 0 85721 909 1
First edition 2018
Text acknowledgments
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New
International Version Anglicised. Copyright 1979, 1984, 2011
Biblica, formerly International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder Stoughton Ltd, an Hachette UK company. All rights reserved. NIV is a registered trademark of Biblica. UK trademark number 1448790.
Picture acknowledgments
Cover image MagMos/iStockPhoto.com
Inside images: Alamy Stock Photo: pp. 135, 154 Granger Historical Picture Archive, p. 151 Everett Collection Historical; iStockPhoto.com: p. 133 whitemay, p. 137 ZU_09, pp. 140, 145 Natasic, p. 142 traveler1116, p. 147 GeorgiosArt, p. 149 TonyBaggett.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
For Brian and Gill, with thanks for your examples of honesty, gentleness and dedication in faith and life.
CONTENTS
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
I NTRODUCTION
C HAPTER 1

Defence against Cultural Attack:

Irenaeus of Lyon
C HAPTER 2

Defence against Theological Attack:

Basil of Caesarea
C HAPTER 3A

Defence against Political Attack:

The Church in China
C HAPTER 3B

The Church in China:

Considerations from Within the Context
C ONCLUSION
E PILOGUE
F URTHER R EADING
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My first thanks must go to the brothers and sisters throughout history, and around the world, who are the subjects of this book. I count it a privilege and a challenge to see the steadfastness and faithfulness of Christians who have suffered far greater attack in many areas of life than I have faced, and who teach me so much about the dedication to which we are called.
While these thanks may not reach the ears (or eyes, rather) of Irenaeus and Basil, the contributors to the chapter on China - Henry, Tim and Candy - have been very generous with their time and comments to help me convey something of the situation of the Chinese church in recent decades and today. I am also thankful to Peter Anderson for reading through this chapter and providing helpful comments based on his lengthy experience.
The community at the London School of Theology is a great support and provides a healthy challenge as we wrestle together with the revelation of God. Tony Lane is a brilliant example for me to follow in honouring the work of Christians through the centuries. I was fortunate to have the feedback of Nick Chiang and Brent Forrest for this book, and they helped me to keep potentially dense content relatable to the church today. My mum, Marion Knell, was also a wonderful support in this regard.
The Spring Harvest team has been a great encouragement over the last year in creating successive streams of seminars relating to the history of the church. I would particularly like to thank Krish Kandiah and Luke Aylen for their support, as well as Wendy Grisham for putting this book forward for publication. Lion Hudson has been very easy to work with and efficient in getting this book completed on time, with Suzanne Wilson-Higgins and Joy Tibbs providing excellent feedback.
Finally, I have to give the greatest thanks to my wife Ieva for her support in every area of life, and for her patience and grace as I work through manuscripts. Ieva is a constant lesson to me of the need to seek excellence in all that I do, while our daughters Emily and Nicola are sources of immense joy and wonder.
INTRODUCTION
One of the most helpful resources for considering the theme Only the Brave 1 is the church of which we are part. This stretches across the world and back through history, and teaches us so much about the kinds of challenges and attacks that we face and how our brothers and sisters have remained faithful to their Lord and to His word. Life for a Christian seeking to stand firm in the post-Christian West is likely to become more difficult, or at least more complicated, in the years to come, with the growth of secularism in society. Yet at all times in the history of the church there have been threats of many kinds to the faith and its communities, and we can learn from their examples of perseverance and steadfastness about how we can approach the situations that we encounter.
It needs to be made clear at the outset that the result of faithfulness has not always, or even often, been a comfortable, stable, or long life here on earth. Two principles have often been foundational for the church in this regard: holding on to the knowledge that we are a pilgrim people here; and therefore valuing our eternal identity as sons and daughters of God more highly than our standards of life or our prospects here on earth. This follows Paul s teaching in Philippians 1:20-21: I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
What a cheerful start to this book! Bleak as it may sound, it is important that the church in the West recognizes that the comfort and safety in which it has lived for hundreds of years are not the promised norms of the New Testament or the universal experience of the church, either now or in history.
Although we must stand firm against attacks from outside the church, which can be easier to see, we must also remain vigilant to those threats that have made their way into the church unseen, in times of perceived security. One of the greatest challenges arising from the development of Western society is that, while there were clear Christian elements present throughout this process, the nature and effects of sin mean that detangling the threads of sin and grace from the resulting tapestry is a near-impossible task. This is true both in the society of which we are part and also in the churches that have been formed in that context.
We have not practised Christianity in thought, word, and deed, inside and outside church buildings, in a cultural vacuum. As the surrounding culture moves away from any clear link to its Christian past, it is becoming easier to see how the church has been influenced. Two of the topics chosen here back this up: the Gnosticism that Irenaeus faced is back again in the church and has dripped in dangerous teachings on the nature of God and humankind; at the other end of history, the church in China has much to teach us because of its formation through harsh persecution rather than the safety that has largely been the experience of the church in the West.
When we grow up in any culture, we live in a sort of bubble in which assumptions are made about values that should be upheld, and life reflects this in all kinds of ways. Only when one leaves this bubble does one become aware that many of the elements that create these assumptions and preconceptions are not automatic or even right or good. It is similar with church culture. Any community develops ways of reading the Bible, praying, worshipping, and serving. These will come from right intentions and engagement with Scripture, but the tools used for processing them into practice in the developing thought-world, and the context in which they are applied, shape the reality of the resulting experience. This is why, when we join a community with a very different history and development, we see such diversity in Christian thought and expression, at times challenging strongly held convictions.
The church has experienced many blessings as a result of its dominant cultural position, but it has been so closely entwined with that culture that we need to root out some of the assumptions that have become ingrained over many centuries. Christ said that the world would hate His disciples, and yet so rarely was such hatred experienced that it has become difficult to perceive any gap between the church and society. How surprised would we be if someone in Britain were put in prison for following a biblical teaching? How surprised should we be?
It seems likely that bravery will need to be more distinctive a trait of the church as society becomes increasingly secular, and this will involve a degree of change in the reality of Christian life. Fortunately, we will not be entering uncharted territory for God s people, but rather have extensive witness and faithful examples that we can look to for encouragement and inspira