READ Dead Christians.

[Michael Snow]

In this segment, Thomas Kidd, professor of church history, and Dr Michael Reeves recommend reading the Christians of history, following the advice of CS Lewis, 'read an old book before you read another new one; if you have not time for both the old and the new, read the old'

 

[Bobber]

In this segment, Thomas Kidd, professor of church history, and Dr Michael Reeves recommend reading the Christians of history, following the advice of CS Lewis, 'read an old book before you read another new one; if you have not time for both the old and the new, read the old'

With all due respect I don't agree with this at all. One for sure can get some good things or many from an old ancient writer but to say read an old book before a new suggest you get a more scholarly read from them then the new. Fact is there's more people in current day more highly educated in the languages in the Bible with tools which speed up their capacity to assess the scriptures then people of hundreds of years ago ever had.

 

[jas3]

In this segment, Thomas Kidd, professor of church history, and Dr Michael Reeves recommend reading the Christians of history, following the advice of CS Lewis, 'read an old book before you read another new one; if you have not time for both the old and the new, read the old'

That's good advice. The writings of the Church Fathers are an invaluable resource for understanding Scripture and theology. I listened to some of the talk and it sounded like Dr. Reeves was referring to more recent writers (18th-19th century) who are still good resources in that they're removed from our cultural context. Even that would be a huge improvement over reading only modern authors.

 

[Michael Snow]

With all due respect I don't agree with this at all. One for sure can get some good things or many from an old ancient writer but to say read an old book before a new suggest you get a more scholarly read from them then the new. Fact is there's more people in current day more highly educated in the languages in the Bible with tools which speed up their capacity to assess the scriptures then people of hundreds of years ago ever had.

I will defer to C.S. Lewis on the wisdom of this. Listen to Dr. Michael Reeves take on this in that video (3 min.)

Recommended Classics​

” We all…need…to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading the old books.” - C. S. Lewis

 

[Bobber]

I will defer to C.S. Lewis on the wisdom of this. Listen to Dr. Michael Reeves take on this in that video (3 min.)

Recommended Classics​

” We all…need…to keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only by reading the old books.” - C. S. Lewis

But the breeze of the centuries is not by any means clean. I'm not saying older writers out of our century shouldn't be considered. I have numbers I've liked as well. A mistake can be made though by thinking the further back you get to the time of Christ the more pure the doctrine gets. Now if you're talking about the writings of the Apostles it's absolutely pure but it only took a few years for distortions to come about. Paul even warned about teachers in his future.

 

[jas3]

For reference, here is the text of Lewis's preface:

C. S. Lewis Preface to On the Incarnation - Credo Magazine

The following Preface to Athanasius's On the Incarnation was written by C. S. Lewis (1898 – 1963) and is published on Credo in the spirit of retrieving the Great Tradition. There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that…

credomag.com

 

[jas3]

But the breeze of the centuries is not by any means clean. I'm not saying older writers out of our century shouldn't be considered. I have numbers I've liked as well. A mistake can be made though by thinking the further back you get to the time of Christ the more pure the doctrine gets.

Lewis explicitly rejects the idea that older writers are inherently less prone to error. His point is that the people of any given time period tend to be blind to some things they take for granted as true, things of which they would find criticism in older books written by authors living in a time removed from whatever the collective errors of the present are.

 

[RileyG]

Yup! It’s always helpful to learn from our ancestors in faith