| ||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.70
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in Heresies and How to Avoid Them for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.70, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Church of England Newspaper, 22/06/2007
"a splendid collection of engaging and readable
essays"
-Andrew Gregory
essays"
-Andrew Gregory
Product Description
Was Jesus divine? Was Jesus human? Could God suffer? Can people save themselves by their own efforts? Do Christian ministers have to be perfect? These and other questions were answered by the early Christian Church so as to rule in certain orthodox beliefs and rule out certain heretical beliefs. Anyone could be a Christian, but a Christian could not believe simply anything. Here, twelve top theologians, all practising Christians, tackle ancient heresies and show why the contemporary Church still needs to know about them. The contributors argue that heresies are never finally defeated but always continue in some form or other as live options for belief. Christians therefore 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 essays included here are scholarly but accessible, academic but highly relevant. They show how attractive and plausible heresies are and how the Church has always required intellectual effort, moral courage and political skill to resist them.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
There is, the old saying goes, nothing new under the sun. And this well-presented book reminds Christians of every persuasion that some of the basic orthodoxies of belief have been challenged since the beginning of the Church's history. It also provides a good check-list of whether your own christian beliefs - if you profess them - are in fact true to the Church's actual teachings.
The most famous heresis and disputes are examined here, and the arguments are clearly stated. The book's design is intelligent, too, enabling the reader to answer the questions that each particular heresy poses:
So grapple, if you are up to it, with such knotty issues as "Did Christ really suffer on the Cross at all?", "Was Christ human or divine?" "Are we predestined to be saved" etc etc. This is not just a dry book on ancient history, but startlingly relevent to the present, especially to a christian landscape over-run by the whole gimme prosperity prayers of evangelical US churches.
The most famous heresis and disputes are examined here, and the arguments are clearly stated. The book's design is intelligent, too, enabling the reader to answer the questions that each particular heresy poses:
So grapple, if you are up to it, with such knotty issues as "Did Christ really suffer on the Cross at all?", "Was Christ human or divine?" "Are we predestined to be saved" etc etc. This is not just a dry book on ancient history, but startlingly relevent to the present, especially to a christian landscape over-run by the whole gimme prosperity prayers of evangelical US churches.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
9 reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
What Belief Is, What Belief Is Not
4 Dec 2008
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
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.
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
Fantastic!!!
24 May 2008
Format: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.
Rogmaministries@tiscali.co.uk
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.
Rogmaministries@tiscali.co.uk
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Are You A Heretic? Find Out Today!
13 Aug 2008
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
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.
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.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
