{"id":22779,"date":"2018-05-19T10:15:38","date_gmt":"2018-05-19T10:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/km7.a6a.mytemp.website\/journal\/kenneth-stewart-in-search-of-ancient-roots\/"},"modified":"2018-05-19T10:15:38","modified_gmt":"2018-05-19T10:15:38","slug":"kenneth-stewart-in-search-of-ancient-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/km7.a6a.mytemp.website\/journal\/kenneth-stewart-in-search-of-ancient-roots\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenneth Stewart: In Search of Ancient Roots"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Kenneth J. Stewart, In Search of Ancient Roots: The Christian Past And the Evangelical Identity Crisis<\/a> <\/em>(Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2017).<\/strong><\/p>\n

The author of In Search of Ancient Roots<\/a>,<\/em> Kenneth J. Stewart, professor of theological studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, maintains that the roots of the evangelical tradition goes further back than the 17th<\/sup> and 18th<\/sup> centuries and even the Reformation era of the 16th<\/sup> century and be found as early as the middle of the 3rd<\/sup> century when Cyprian, about A.D. 280, questioned the authority of a single \u201cpope\u201d in his The Unity of the Church (De Unitate Ecclesia, PL 4.502).<\/em><\/p>\n

Stewart is a specialist in the history of Christianity from the Reformation to the present, with particular interest in the development of the evangelical movement as it arose soon after the 16th<\/sup> century Protestant Reformation. Stewart holds a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, and has been a contributor to the Blackwell Dictionary of Evangelical Biography<\/a>.<\/em> He bases his argument for an ancient heritage for Evangelical Christianity upon the work of a prior researcher, John Jewel, who in his preaching in England in the late 16th<\/sup> century gave reference to Cyprian\u2019s De Unitate Ecclesia <\/em>in which this Church Father argued against the need of a pope and for the need of a plurality.<\/p>\n

This reviewer feels that Stewart could not have done a better job of referencing. The reason for this reviewer\u2019s praise is that as a student at the Divinity School of Duke University, this reviewer had the opportunity to read in Cyprian\u2019s works in a Historical Theology class. Cyprian maintained that \u201cupon this rock [petra<\/em>]\u201d did not refer to Peter since the feminine form for \u201crock\u201d referenced his confession. Cyprian must have had Paul\u2019s letter to the Corinthians alongside his other reading where Paul stated that no other foundation can be laid for the church than that of faith in Christ Jesus. That, in and of itself, is sufficient as an evangelical contention.<\/p>\n

Chapter two of Stewart\u2019s In Search for Ancient Roots<\/a> <\/em>traces the evangelical message as a recurring occurrence from the very beginning. In Chapter 3, Stewart addresses the need for appraising the Christian past prior to the 19th<\/sup> 18th<\/sup>, and 16th<\/sup> centuries and not treating evangelical Christian faith as product of the camp meetings of the early 1820\u2019s and the later emergence of both Charles Finney and Dwight L. Moody. Chapter 4 does just that by examining the use of the past by Protestants beginning with present-day Protestant denominations and working backwards to the 16th<\/sup> Century and credits the advent of \u201ctype-setting\u201d by Johannes Gutenberg (d. 1468) as enabling mass circulation of the writings of both the early patristic era of the church and of the classical writers of the Graeco-Roman era. \u00a0Stewart found that among the most used by the Reformers was the Comminatory <\/em>of Vincent of Lerian composed in the early 5th<\/sup> century.<\/p>\n

Chapter 5 gives a history of the impact of the Renaissance years between 1460 and the early Reformation era (1517-1568) in bringing to the forefront the writings of Clement, Ignatius of Antioch, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Cyprian, Athanasius, and Augustine. Stewart identified the 17th<\/sup> century as witnessing the most voluminous printing of volumes of the earliest writings of the church. Nonetheless, the influence of Matthias Flacius Illyricus\u2019s (1520-1575) project of 13 volumes, The Magdeburg<\/em> Centuries (1559-1574), <\/em>and John Foxe\u2019s (1516 -1587) Chronicles of the early Christian Martyrs caught the Roman Catholic Church of the 16th<\/sup> century completely off-guard.<\/p>\n

Vincent of Lerian is credited with the slogan, \u201cWe hold that faith which has been believed everywhere, always, and by everyone.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/div>The discussions of each succeeding chapter is thorough and informative in its search for the ancient roots of Evangelical Christianity. There is one little fact left unsaid. It is worth noting that the first use of the term \u201cevangelical\u201d was used by the Lutherans. It is also worth noting that the terms \u201cProtestant\u201d and \u201cPro-test\u201d do not imply or suggest \u201cbeing against\u201d but \u201cbeing for.\u201d It was first used to designate \u201cThe Protest of Spey[i]er\u201d, a formal statement made by several German princes and electors in 1529 for the toleration of the Lutheran believers in Roman Catholic territories and the toleration of Roman Catholics in Lutheran enclaves. It was later extended to include the Reformed and Anabaptist reformers who identified more with John Calvin, Zwingli, and Menno Simons, who, while agreeing with Luther, went further with what was needed for the renewal of the church.<\/p>\n

Aside from the foregoing discursus<\/em>, Stewart\u2019s book is worth serious consideration on two aspects. Each chapter in each of the book\u2019s four parts closes with questions for discussion and consideration with respect to the total mission of the Church with particular attention to the worship of the church.<\/p>\n

Evangelical Christianity, by its very nature, is \u201cWord\u201d centered with respect to its preaching and the use of the Bible thus leaving a void on the side of the church\u2019s worship and \u201cbody\u201d life.<\/p>\n

Stewart is very much aware of this void and he addresses the issue in the closing chapters of the book when he discusses the role of worship and the role of the evangel or \u201cpreached Word.\u201d For the most part, Stewart\u2019s book is addressed to the churches of Lutheran\/Evangelical and Reformed heritage (Calvin\/Arminian) of the 16th<\/sup> century Reformation. The Anabaptists (Mennonites\/ Amish\/ Hutterites) are discussed briefly on two pages of the book and both the German and Dutch Pietists (p.2) and the Moravians (p. 80) are each given one page.<\/p>\n

What we have in Stewart\u2019s In Search of Ancient Roots<\/a> <\/em>is a call for Lutherans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and Methodists, and their \u201coff-springs\u201d to recover their ancient roots. Part three of In Search of Ancient Roots<\/em><\/a> discusses some contemporary trends that \u201cshould give us pause\u201d and part four focuses on three challenges which remain for the evangelical tradition of the church.<\/p>\n

The identity crisis for the evangelical church today is the loss of what comes first: the Good News.<\/em><\/strong><\/div>In reading through the succeeding sections and chapters, this reviewer sees a dominant concern throughout In Search of Ancient Roots<\/a>.<\/em> The apparent concern is that it is \u201cthe evangel\u201d that determines the liturgy and the corporate life of the church, not the other way around. The \u201cGood News\u201d (Evangel\/euangel<\/em>) determines the liturgical life of the church. The shepherds heard the evangel, then they worshiped the baby Jesus. The Magi saw the message in the heavens, then they worshiped. The shape of the liturgy is determined by the evangel. The identity crisis for the evangelical church today is the loss of what comes first. Getting back to the roots would decrease the number of evangelicals crossing over into the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and High Anglican Churches.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the corporate life of the church is best determined by the Evangelical message by enabling the church to function as an organism rather than a corporation. When the Catholic missionaries went into India and China, they were instructed by the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Gospel to be sensitive to the indigenous situation of the lands they entered and not impose a European-style of church life. The church is to function as an organism that lives the \u201cevangel,\u201d not a self-propagating corporate entity. The quest for the ancient roots is a quest for the heart-beat of the evangelical church, which is the Evangel itself, the Spoken Word of God. This was what Vincent of Lerian, in his Comminatory, <\/em>sought to do in the 5th<\/sup> century; to make explicit the essential Word of God as preached and taught irrespective of any corporate, liturgical, or lingual differences whether it be proclaimed in Eastern Europe, Asia, or Africa, or other ends of the earth. Vincent had a missionary\u2019s vision when he wrote. For Stewart, this is the reason for In Search for Ancient Roots<\/a>. <\/em>The evangelical identity crisis is the loss of its essential identity as an organism with a missional imperative. To quote a statement that Martin Luther made in reply to Frederick, the Elector of Saxony, in February 1520: \u201cThe Word of God can never advance without whirlwind, and changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the eyes of this reviewer, Stewart\u2019s book needs to be read by ministers and church teachers. Tolle Lege [Pick up and read.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Reviewed by Woodrow E. Walton<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Publisher\u2019s page: https:\/\/www.ivpress.com\/in-search-of-ancient-roots<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kenneth J. Stewart, In Search of Ancient Roots: The Christian Past And the Evangelical Identity Crisis (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2017). The author of In Search of Ancient Roots, Kenneth J. Stewart, professor of theological studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, maintains that the roots of the evangelical tradition goes further back…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2903,"featured_media":22780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,3197],"tags":[3107,3926,3608,6433,6434],"ppma_author":[4776],"class_list":["post-22779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-history-2","category-spring-2018","tag-ancient","tag-kenneth","tag-roots","tag-search","tag-stewart","author-woodrowewalton"],"authors":[{"term_id":4776,"user_id":2903,"is_guest":0,"slug":"woodrowewalton","display_name":"Woodrow Walton","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/km7.a6a.mytemp.website\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/WoodrowWalton2015_264x264-150x150.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/km7.a6a.mytemp.website\/journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/WoodrowWalton2015_264x264-150x150.jpg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/km7.a6a.mytemp.website\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/km7.a6a.mytemp.website\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/km7.a6a.mytemp.website\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/km7.a6a.mytemp.website\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/km7.a6a.mytemp.website\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/km7.a6a.mytemp.website\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/km7.a6a.mytemp.website\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/km7.a6a.mytemp.website\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/km7.a6a.mytemp.website\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/km7.a6a.mytemp.website\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22779"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/km7.a6a.mytemp.website\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=22779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}