Beginning with the Church Fathers

Some things are changing right now at Eighth Day Institute, but something that will always remain is our commitment to the teachings of the Early Church. Since the Institute was founded in 2008, the holy Church Fathers have been at the center of our mission to renew culture through faith and learning. But why?

More than a series of semi-familiar names along the spines of prestigious Christian classics, the Church Fathers together give us our best picture of what Christian unity could look like today. In their words, even today, many centuries later, we can still hear what the Church sounded like in Her first 1000 years as one Body. We can still hear Her speaking not across denominational lines, but as one voice.

But more than this, if you (like us!) often find yourself intimidated to actually crack open something of the Church Fathers (How do I know this is a trustworthy translation? or Why did the translator keep all these Greek words in here, anyway?) you might be surprised to know what their voice can sound like. In fact, Robert Payne's totally enthralling introduction to the Church Fathers, The Holy Fire: The Story of the Early Centuries of the Christian Church in the Near East, characterizes the voice of the Early Church like this: they were like children.

One approaches the minds of Christians with trepidation. They were aware of Jesus as we shall never be aware of Him. They had the trustfulness of children. Living in the lost world of darkness and of death, they knew that light and life entered in the person of Jesus. Because Jesus had come, none could harm them; and so they could cry defiantly, "Who can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ?" [Payne, 9]

The writings of the Church Fathers are undoubtedly powerful and influential: sweeping, passionate, erudite. Payne's un-put-downable book shows us all these characteristics and more in what we now call Patristics. But underneath the accolades they have rightly earned is, simply, their childlike faith. For the first few generations of the Church, all we had were the love they had for Jesus to keep His words. That's it. We had nothing else. But their love for Christ was enough to sustain one Body of Christians for a millennium, and it is still enough for us today.

So join us, please, in reading the Fathers like children, us and them. Here is your license to, at least for a moment, put away the concerns of today's world (as real and imminent as they were 2000 years ago), and allow the Church Fathers to bring you nearer, as natural as children, to our Heavenly Father.

Before all things we thank Thee that Thou art mighty; to Thee be the glory forever. Remember, O Lord, Thy Church, to deliver it from every evil and to make it perfect in Thy love...Let grace come and this world pass away. [Didache, 9, 10]