J. Warren Smith

An Introduction to the Desert Fathers

Prayer & Spiritual Formation

“Contrary to the Protestant caricature, the Egyptian monks of the fourth century went to the desert not to escape reality, but to confront it. They fled the disorienting distractions of city life so that in the quiet of their cells and their chapels they might overcome the self-will of sin and reorient their thoughts, affections, and actions wholly toward God. Jason Byassee's An Introduction to the Desert Fathers is an excellent companion to all who seek to glean wisdom from the monks' encounters with the realities of God and of their sin. By drawing together the world of fourth-century monasticism with our consumerist culture of the twenty-first century, Byassee helps us discern the call of the desert today.”

Biblical Interpretation and Doctrine in Early Christianity

Theology

“Bad narratives are hard to kill. Fortunately, this collection of Brian Daley’s essays with their meticulous reading of the Fathers and Christian Scripture should put to rest the simplistic narrative of von Harnack’s critique of the Catholic distortion of the gospel through its ‘Hellenization’ of Christianity or historical criticism’s dismissal of allegory. On the contrary, Daley’s essays make clear that patristic theologians’ primary text was not Plato or the Stoics, but the Christian Scriptures. And these they interpreted, as did Paul, through the lens of Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection.”

Evangelicals and the Early Church

History & Biography

“In 1994, Mark Noll threw down the gauntlet in The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind challenging evangelical churches to overcome anti-intellectualism and broaden their engagement with a variety of intellectual traditions, not only in theology, but in other disciplines in the humanities and sciences. Surely one sign of an opening of the evangelical mind is the expanding interest over the last decade among evangelical scholars in the Catholic and Orthodox theological traditions of late antiquity and their value as a resource of Biblical exegesis and theological reflection. Evangelicals and the Early Church, as a collection of excellent essays by evangelicals about the relevance of patristic thought for evangelicals, is invaluable both for evangelicals wanting to integrate early Christian theology into a distinctly evangelical articulation of the Gospel and for non-evangelicals interested in understanding the state of the evangelical mind at the beginning of the twenty-first century.”

Jesus the Spirit Baptizer

Theology

“Frank Macchia’s Jesus the Spirit Baptizer offers a needed corrective to the sad fact of the Holy Spirit’s neglect by Christian theology. By depicting Pentecost, not Easter, as the climax of the incarnation, Macchia presents a Trinitarian reading of the Gospel narrative that not only integrates the work of the Son and the Spirit but also offers a robust eschatology full of hopeful anticipation.”

Pilgrim Holiness

Theology

“In a time when critics of Christianity, and religion in general, point to the practices of martyrs as examples of the inherently irrational, violent, and dangerous character of religious devotion, Whitfield challenges Christians to reconsider Christ's call to "take up one's cross" by suspending our suspicions and listening to the stories of the martyrs in conversation with contemporary theological voices such as Rowan Williams, Stanley Hauerwas, Sam Wells, and others.”

Rethinking the Filioque with the Greek Fathers

Theology

“In Rethinking the Filioque with the Church Fathers, Giulio Maspero makes the compelling argument that the Filioque need not be viewed as the source of hopeless theological division. Rather, through an analysis of major Eastern Fathers, especially Gregory of Nyssa with his ontology of relations, Maspero makes the case that the Spirit’s double procession can be conceived of in a way that satisfies Western concerns for the Son’s immanent and economic role without compromising the Eastern concern for the monarchia of the Father who is first cause and source of all. Like the historical theologians of the last century whose study of medieval and early modern theories of justification opened the door for the lifting of anathemas between Catholics and Lutherans, Maspero challenges theologians to consider the possibility that East and West might come together affirming the Western Filioque grounded on classical Eastern pneumatology.”

Scripture as Real Presence

Theology

“Few scholars have contributed as much to the vigorous debate in our generation about the theological interpretation of Scripture as Hans Boersma. His latest offering for our edification, Scripture as Real Presence, presents nine examples of patristic interpretations of important (and challenging) passages from Scripture. They illustrate, for Boersma, an ecclesial hermeneutic that treats Scripture as a sacrament containing a treasure of great value, Christ, hidden and waiting for the church's discovery. Boersma's examples of the rich, polyphonic readings given by the fathers provide models of how pastors and all students of Scripture might unearth the treasure that will give depth to preaching and teaching. Boersma and the fathers transform modern exegesis from reconstructing the past to participating in the life-giving Word.”

The Essential City of God

Theology

“The brilliance of some classics of Christian theology can be obscured by the authors’ allusions to philosophical schools, works of literature, and historical events that were well-known to the readers of their times but are not to students in the present. For this reason, Augustine’s City of God, a window onto the landscape of the Roman empire in its decline, can be confusing. Fortunately, Gregory W. Lee has provided modern readers with an invaluable guide that will explain Augustine’s social and intellectual context so that readers may see both through and beyond his references to the theological insights that make this text a classic.”