I’m eager to finish the last two parts to the four-part Aquinas series on how to grow in knowledge, but I really have to interrupt it today, with some exciting news.
In my book Pope Peter, I suggested that an important question for Protestants to grapple with is, “Should the pre-Reformation Church, and all of the Christians before 1500, be treated as apostates?” But I acknowledged that delving into this question is difficult because there’s a widespread tendency to ignore the Church Fathers:
Besides admitting or denying it, there’s a third way of responding to the “apostasy” problem: simply ignoring it. Gavin Ortlund, a Baptist pastor, admits that “we contemporary evangelicals have a tendency to neglect” Church history before the Reformation, “acting as if the important stuff basically skipped from the first to the sixteenth century.” He asks rhetorically, “How many Christians between the apostle John and Martin Luther do you think today’s average American evangelical can name?”
So imagine if I actually got to sit down via Skype and delve into this question with Gavin Ortlund himself. And for the sake of this hypothetical, imagine further that Gavin is a gentleman and a scholar. Now imagine (if you can indulge this fantasy just a little longer) that this discussion was moderated by two really moderators, one Catholic and one Evangelical, who asked good, probing questions, and gave both of us plenty of time to think through and respond to those questions without a lot of yelling or cross-talk.
If such a world did exist, I imagine that it would look a lot like this:
If my face offends you, you can also catch the discussion in podcast form over at the Cordial Catholic podcast.
In all seriousness, I was pretty nervous ahead of doing this, but was so glad that I did! I’m very grateful to Gavin, as well as to our moderators, Austin Suggs and K. Albert Little. This topic was on the Church Fathers and their proper role in the life of the Christian, but we’re already talking about potential future discussions on topics like the papacy.
By the way, if you want to see the value of discussions like this, seriously just read the YouTube comments. It’s so weird and wonderful to get to point people to YouTube comments in a positive way, but they’re so far filled with people (on both sides of the Reformation divide) who were edified by the discussion. Speaking of comments, I’d love to hear your feedback!
I have just watched this! It was absolutely fascinating. Thank you for being part of it! I have just come along to your blog from the video, and it is all very interesting. Thank you for explaining things in such an eloquent way. I look forward to reading your book. Stay safe.
Thanks, Scarlett! I’m glad you found it interesting!
Very impressed with all of these men. The Protestant is very impressive in quoting the Church Fathers, given that his faith background is not known for doing this.
He is – I think he’s been a good influence within the Evangelical world!
Also, the level of Spirituality in all of you is very admirable. Most discussions by Catholics and Protestants are laced with pride and arrogance on both sides. This was anything but that. Thank you all and GOD bless you my brothers.
Shameless Popery is a great…and maybe the best… resource for someone wishing to delve deeper into Christian History and the lives and writings of the Church Fathers. I never learned so much Christian history from any other Catholic blog!
Joe is basically just an awesome teacher in these regards!
Joe, I really enjoyed watching The debate/discussion with Gavin. I hope and pray that this can be continued. I am forwarding the link to my family and friends.
Well done, sir! This was enjoyable to watch. Dr. Gavin Ortlund is solid and well read, so you set the bar high with him. The Ortlund’s are a well respect and incredibly smart family within the Evangelical world. I will tune in for any more sessions you all do. Grace and Peace to you!
Thanks a lot! I’m looking forward to your feedback as we do more of these…
Watched the whole thing. I’m not a fan of Mr Ortlund, not because he’s a Protestant, but because he’s so bloody inconsistent in the space of 60 minutes.
He comes out swinging at Newman’s all-too-true quip, “To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.” You can tell how galled and bothered he is by the claim.
Now Mr Ortlund *INSISTS* this isn’t true, spills tons of words telling the audience how classical Protestantism listens to the Fathers where there is great consensus, and he even at one point tells Joe Heschmeyer that he would tell any Christian to listen to the constant witness of the early church over against his own private opinions. Sounds really good, right?
Mr. Heschmeyer takes him to task and questions Mr. Ortlund’s rejection of baptismal regeneration — a doctrine that enjoys universal and early witness if there ever was a doctrine that did so. Mr. Ortlund had no forthcoming answer, in spite of his claims that “sola scriptura” does not turn a deaf ear to the Fathers. (He did say he’d have to look into it, as if a PhD in historical theology wasn’t aware of this fact.)
There were lots of other holes in Mr Ortlund’s assertions and reasonings against the Christian faith as Christ established it, but Newman is vindicated. Mr Ortlund isn’t deep in history — he isn’t listening to the early church. This only points out the obvious problem: he is in practice pope over the church, chooses to submit neither to constant testimony nor to conciliar teaching. He is “irenic” but has yet to demonstrate he’s really gone deep into history.
With regard to Gavin’s point on a couple of fathers statements on Mary… if there was really no notion of what we now know as the Marian Doctrine, why are they weighing in on the matter at all? These statements of her non sinlessness and assumption or not came from somewhere.