Review of Ben Quash and Michael Ward (Eds.), Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why it Matters What Christians Believe, SPCK, (2007). ISBN: 9781598560138.
Maybe it's just the type of Churches I attend but I have never sat in church of a Sunday morning and heard a sermon on why, for example, Pelagius and Arius got it wrong. Perhaps part of the reason is because Peterhouse Chapel at Cambridge University have been hoarding these as this book began life as a series of sermons preached there during one academic term.
As individual essays that began as sermons it will not come as a suprise that one does not find a detailed exposition of the various heresies discussed, nonetheless, they do offer an impressive snapshot of the issues involved in these heresies and suggest ways in which this affects theChurch today.
Heresies and How to Avoid Them is split into two sections. In part one the main christological heresies of the early church are discussed, namely Arianism, Docetism, Nestorianism, Eutychianism, Adoptionism and Theopaschitism. In part two subject matter turns toward ecclesiogical heresies and also includes a broader historical range with essays on Marcionism, Donatism, Pelagianism, Gnosticism, the Heresy of the Free Spirit and Biblical Trinitarianism (which needless to say the editors do not think is actually a heresy!).
As with any collection of essays there is something of a mix in quality, in my view the stand-out contribution in this collection is Denys Turner's "The heresy of the Free Spirit: Are there two kinds of Christian, those with divine wills and those with human wills?" Aside from being an excellent brief introduction to this heresy Turner brings to the fore in a way that other contributors do not (despite a few platitudes to the contrary) the political and moral power of heresy as a reforming power in the church and the lover of Christ and Church that motivates this, even if the outcome is less than noble.
This book is essentially a devotional one and the authors do make a lot of good points. However, despite the rave comments other theo-bloggers have made I was somewhat underwhelmed by the outcome. There is a African proverb "until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter". Despite the conciliatory words this is still very much the problem I have with this book. With the possible exception of Theopaschitism and a sympathy -although still disagreement - with the Donatist position I am on the side of orthodoxy throughout the book but there is no emphasis (surprisingly given the inclusion of the ecclesiological heresies) of orthopraxy; and in my view this failure ranks right up with Arianism et al as a challenge to the Church's proclamation of God's salvation.
