Does Church History Matter? by Robert F. Rea (review)

This book argues for the relevance of church history to the concerns of contemporary Protestant congregations. Robert F. Rea targets his argument to “Bible-focused” Christians, who consider the Bible to be the “inspired, infallible, and sufficient” basis for Christian life (p. 74). Although Rea endorses this view of scripture, he notes that it can easily become a basis for dismissing historical theology on the grounds that it is part of man-made “tradition” and thus lacks divine inspiration or authority. For Rea, this is a mistake, as, rightly understood and interpreted, church history deepens one’s capacity to engage and apply scripture. Taking the Bible seriously, in other words, implies taking church history seriously.

In part 1, “How We Understand Tradition,” Rea defines history as “the study of the past in order to understand the present and to improve the future” (p. 23). Specifically Christian history is marked by the “presence, actions, will, and heart of God” (p. 24). Meanwhile, “tradition” broadly understood is a “synonym for church history, Christian history, or historical theology” (p. 29). These overlapping definitions of history and tradition underscore a key point: tradition is inevitable. The simple act of professing Christianity helps to propagate a religion 2000 years in the making. Thus, even groups that dismiss tradition as a determining factor in Christian life and practice are still recipients and transmitters of tradition. Part 2, “Expanding Circles of Inquiry,” argues that strengthening one’s Christian identity requires moving beyond one’s immediate faith community to engage the Body of Christ more broadly. This engagement deepens our understanding of the consensus fidelium that unites a Body of Christ that is not only transdenominational and trans-cultural, but also transtemporal. Learning to see the present through the lens of past thinkers sharpens our insight into the present state of faith communities and helps us integrate them more fully with the Body. The third and final part, “Tradition Serving the Church, “examines how learning from the great exegetes of the past helps Bible-focused Christians to interpret and apply scripture more effectively and gives them powerful tools for addressing contemporary issues in church life.

Rea is at his best when explaining to the Bible-focused Christian why neglecting to engage church history impoverishes church life. He explodes the notion that the Bible is a self-interpreting text and makes a compelling case for why careful attention to the past is vital to the vibrancy of contemporary Christian communities. Yet occasionally there are puzzling gaps in Rea’s argument. For instance: in arguing for the need for more diverse and nuanced biblical exegesis, he traces how emphasis on the literal sense of scripture has changed over the centuries without addressing how conceptions of the literal sense have changed. What the literal sense meant to St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, or Martin Luther differs significantly from what it means to Rea’s bible-focused Christian. Neglecting to mention this is curious, given how it would strengthen Rea’s case for the need to nuance biblical interpretation.

Elsewhere, what Rea takes for granted belies the extent to which he remains embedded in a particular milieu. At one point Rea depicts the 1980s as a critical decade for U.S. Christianity in which public moral failures of prominent Christian leaders and broad cultural acceptance of moral relativism fundamentally altered the cultural and religious landscape (pp. 108–09). This is bound to puzzle those outside of particular fundamentalist/evangelical circles. Christian leaders in the United States have been involved in damaging public scandals since the advent of mass media: what makes the scandals of the 1980s uniquely determinative? Why are the 1980s the watershed moment for moral relativism as opposed to, say, the 1960s? More basically, what does Rea mean by moral relativism? By using these tropes without qualification, Rea risks alienating potential conversation partners from other sectors of U.S. Christianity unfamiliar with how he deploys them.

These caveats aside, Rea is...