Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe [Paperback]

Ben Quash (Editor), Michael Ward (Editor), Stanley Hauerwas (Narrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2007

Heresies and How to Avoid Them will help Christians understand why they are expected to believe certain things and disbelieve others. Readers will learn about the decisions that radically affected the course of Christian history, and that still shape Christianity today.

Here, ten top theologians, all practising Christians, tackle ten ancient heresies and show why the contemporary Church still needs to know about them. Christians need to remember what these great early heresies were and why they were ruled out, or else risk falling prey to their modern-day manifestations. The contributors show how present debates in the Church are often re-enactments of battles which the Church thought it had won against heresies many centuries ago.

The book contains key scriptural passages relevant to each heresy, a glossary of terms, and summaries of historical Church documents in which these heresies were defined and outlawed.

Contributors
Professor Denys Turner, Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology at Yale
Dr Janet Martin Soskice, Fellow of Jesus College and Reader in Philosophical Theology
Dr Anna Williams, Fellow of Corpus Christi College and Lecturer in Patristic and Medieval Theology
The Rev. Dr Ben Quash, Fellow and Dean of Peterhouse
The Rev. John Sweet, Fellow of Selwyn College
The Rev. Dr Michael B. Thompson, Vice Principal of Ridley Hall.

Topics
Adoptionism--did Jesus become the Son of God at his baptism?
Docetism--was Jesus really human or did he just appear to be so?
Nestorianism--was Christ one Person or a hybrid with a divine dimension and a human dimension?
Arianism--was Christ divine and eternal or was there a time when he did not exist?
Marcionism--is the God of the New Testament the same as the God of the Old?
Theopaschitism--is it possible for God to suffer in His divine nature?
Destroying the Trinity--does God have a simple or a complex nature?
Pelagianism--can people save themselves by their own efforts?
`The Free Spirit'--are there two kinds of Church membership, one for the elite and one for the rest?
Donatism--do Christian ministers need to be faultless for their ministrations to be effective?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The Rev. Dr Ben Quash is Dean and Fellow of Peterhouse and is the author of Theology and the Drama of History (CUP, 2005).

The Rev. Dr Michael Ward is Chaplain of Peterhouse and author of The Theological Imagination of C.S. Lewis (OUP, 2006).

Product Details

• Paperback: 148 pages
• Publisher: Hendrickson Publishers (June 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1598560131
• ISBN-13: 978-1598560138
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #798,022 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"Michael Ward has established himself not only as the foremost living Lewis scholar, but also as a brilliant writer" (The Times Literary Supplement). Dr Ward is Chaplain of St Peter's College, Oxford. He read English at Oxford, Theology at Cambridge, and has a PhD in Divinity from St Andrews. He lectures widely on theology and imagination, and presented the BBC1 television documentary, 'The Narnia Code'. His main claim to fame, however, is that he handed a pair of X-ray specs to Pierce Brosnan in the James Bond film, 'The World Is Not Enough'. More details at www.michaelward.net

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What Belief Is, What Belief Is Not, December 3, 2008

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Kevin L. Nenstiel "omnivore" (Kearney, Nebraska) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe (Paperback)

In an age when the study of systematic theology by laypeople has largely gone by the wayside, a book like this which discusses these topics in plain English is a Godsend in more ways than one. Twelve theological scholars craft a history of epistemological controversies in Christian interpretation. In the process they define what orthodox Christian belief is, and what it is not. A good blanket synopsis might be: belief is transcendent and a goal of lifetime study, belief is not simple or pat.

These essays began life as a series of sermons. This is helpful, since it means they are not written in academic jargon. However, these sermons were delivered by professional theological scholars, so this isn't a light bedtime read. Plan to dedicate time to committed study of this book, coupled with references to scripture and time spent in prayer.

This book divides heresies in two groups, controversies on the nature of Christ, and controversies on the nature of salvation. Within these groups the heresies are paired up so we see, for instance, the Arian heresy (Christ is a separate being created by God) and the Docetist heresy (Christ is so thoroughly God that He has no humanity whatever) in contrast to each other. Seeing them laid out this way, it appears the most common root of heresy is a tendency to absolute thinking: God must be all one thing or all the other.

The twelve chapters are mostly lucid and can be read and reread easily. Three of them resist quick reading. Nicholas Adams' abstruse, allusive guide to Pelagianism raises more questions than it answers. Anders Bergquist's guide to Gnosticism requires endurance to plow through his dense, marathon-length paragraphs, some of which run to nearly two pages. And I can't put my finger on why, but Michael Ward's overview of Theopaschitism was just opaque to me.

I wish I could read about some of the specific heresies in more detail, since they seem to reveal a great deal about their culture and about Christian faith. But since the chapters don't cite sources, I lack any way to do that. An appendix includes a list of books for further reading, but most of them appear to be other synoptic books like this one. A little more detail in that regard would be rewarding.

Most Christians who fill pews on Sunday morning are woefully unprepared to deal with challenges to the intellectual structure of their faith. The world wants to make Christ simple and salvation cheap, which they are not. If more Christians take time to read guides like this one so they could be aware of what their faith is and what it is not, the church could be a flourishing fountain of rich, thoughtful discourse for spiritual seekers in our difficult, baggage-laden age.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic!!!, May 24, 2008

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Dr. T. Irvine (Londonderry, Co. Londonderry United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe (Paperback)

What a great little book!
As someone that works with the cults, I found their indepth but clear explanations and discussions essential to understanding some of the issues involved in early church doctrines. The authors are very fair to those that held less orthodox beliefs, suggesting that many 'heretical' beliefs began out of a desire to provoke thought and get to the meat of a dogma or belief.
I would recommend this to any Bible student, seminarian, pastor or interested lay person. It's a real gem with lots of information and clarity.

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Are You A Heretic? Find Out Today!, August 12, 2008

By 

Richard Hill (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe (Paperback)

This is a very readable book, owing to the fact that each chapter was originally a sermon, which had actually been preached, not just written. Each chapter details a different heresy following the same pattern: What is it, what are the key Scriptures concerning it (whether supportive or destructive), then the sermon itself detailing the historical form the heresy took and in fulfillment of the title, a how to avoid them today. A strength of this book is the sometimes sympathetic look it gives to the heretic himself. It is not the case with all heretics of the early church that they simply wanted to destroy the truth or somehow distort it for personal profit. Many of the men labeled heretic were as sincere about their faith as the orthodox opponents who eventually triumphed over them. They were just wrong. An excellent aspect of the chapters is that they provide some perspective on the "what if" factor of the heretic. What if Arius was right, what would that mean to Christianity? This brings the reader into the debate and allows him or her to understand that these teachings were not declared heretical because they differed from the people in power, but because they really were contrary to the consistent teaching of Christ.

The format of the book makes it a quick book to read. The information packed into each chapter is definitely worth keeping on hand. This book will become a handy reference for those who confuse all the heretical -isms; one chapter per heresy makes it easy to find what you're looking for. The only criticism I have is that the last part of every chapter was devoted to seeing how each heresy was present today and how to avoid it, and this seemed a little forced in some of the chapters. For example, chapter 4 on Eutychianism, the author was forced to concede that this was not a prevalent heresy today, even though he continued from there to tell the reader how to avoid it.