released 5/24/2024

Two interviews from Volume 36 (March 1999) explore why familiarity with the thinking of Christians from the first millennium equips us for our present challenges. First, theologian Thomas C. Oden (1931–2016), general editor of The Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, asserts that “modern chauvinism” (the idea that new always means better) leads to a dismissal of historical exegesis in favor of the latest “trend” in interpreting Scripture. Rather than being conformed to contemporary ideological or cultural trends, we should be informed by 2,000 years of the Church’s wisdom. Oden argues that it is foolish and shortsighted to ignore twenty centuries of the creative and culture-forming work of the Holy Spirit — an incredibly rich legacy of wisdom — just because it is “tradition.” Rather than embrace modernity’s proud “tradition” of being against tradition, we need to return to careful study of historical exegesis, particularly that of the early Church fathers.

Then Darrel Amundsen, co-author of A Different Death: Euthanasia and the Christian Tradition, describes how many of his fellow historians have advanced the claim that, for sundry reasons, the early Church approved of and supported acts of suicide, and that it only changed its position because of the influence of St. Augustine. One reason that scholars are able to believe this, Amundsen explains, is because they accept Emile Durkheim’s vacuous definition of suicide.

27 minutes

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