Nicaea Still Matters, Because the Church is Still Relevant
Seventeen centuries after Nicaea, the same temptation returns: revise the faith to fit the age. Nicaea Then and Now is a warning against historical nostalgia and a call to doctrinal courage.
Nicaea Then and Now is a new book from Rev. Daniel S. Broaddus and the second collaboration between Saint John the Baptist Press and Ad Crucem Books. The book is a fascinating reprise of important moment for the church and a powerful exhortation to the modern church not to forget the price of its history.
The theological dispute, Arianism, that necessitated Nicaea was not a minor local issue but was widely dispersed throughout the early church. People were not just subordinating Christ Jesus's status but attempting to reform him into a Hellenistic philosopher palatable to imperial government and easier on the ears of parishioners.
Nicaea mattered because the Church fought off the would-be revisionists. Instead, it steadfastly confessed that the Son is begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father. The confession had to be made at great cost, but such is the price of Biblical fidelity.
However, historical reflection is pointless if we only applaud the victory and fail to recognize that its errors can and do emerge in other ways. The pressure to be relevant never goes away, nor does the demand to moderate the purity of doctrine for the sake of a façade of charity and love. We must recognize that the Arian instinct was never entirely killed off.
Consequently, pastor Broaddus does not fall into nostalgia and triumphalism about Nicaea, but exhorts the church to wisdom. To be historically wise is not merely to know what happened in AD 325, but to recognize how the same errors reappear cloaked in new forms and symbols. Maintaining orthodoxy requires vigilance and action.
Nicaea Then and Now is available from Ad Crucem and Amazon:
This looks wonderful. One comment, however: the Greek text on the cover appears to me to be incorrect. The first acute accent should in fact be a rough breathing mark (ὁμοούσιος rather than όμοούσιος). It's a small thing, I know, but I'd hate for folks to "judge the book by its cover" and avoid reading what I'm sure is an excellent book.