{"id":81102,"date":"2019-05-03T07:45:24","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T11:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=81102"},"modified":"2019-05-03T06:53:33","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T10:53:33","slug":"gregory-soderberg-reviews-john-tysons-new-book-the-great-athanasius-an-introduction-to-his-life-and-work-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=81102","title":{"rendered":"Gregory Soderberg reviews John Tyson&#8217;s new book &#8220;The Great Athanasius: An Introduction to His Life and Work&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Why read Athanasius? Besides his importance for our understanding of the Christian faith, his life reads like a thriller at times, full of intrigue, last-minute escapes, and determination to follow the truth, no matter the cost. Furthermore, Athanasius (who was called the \u201cblack dwarf\u201d) reminds us of the eminent role Africa has played in Christian history. In&nbsp;<em>How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind<\/em>, the late Thomas Oden argued that we need to rediscover the early African church, for our sake, and for Africa\u2019s sake. In a time of increasing racial and national tension, we need to remember the foundational contributions of early African Christians like Athanasius.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond the reasons offered here,&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.romans45.org\/history\/ath-inc.htm\">C.S. Lewis wrote a wonderful introduction to an earlier edition of Athanasius\u2019s&nbsp;<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.romans45.org\/history\/ath-inc.htm\"><em>On the Incarnation<\/em><\/a>, which has become a classic essay in itself. In the essay, C.S. Lewis defends the \u201creading of old books\u201d in a masterful way, the old book in this case being Athanasius\u2019s&nbsp;<em>On the Incarnation<\/em>. We often forget that masters of writing like Lewis and Tolkien were themselves inspired by the great spiritual masters of the past, like the \u201cGreat Athanasius.\u201d The church today desperately needs to remember its past, so that we may not lose our way in the future.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/englewoodreview.org\/john-r-tyson-the-great-athanasius-review\/\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">2 May: feast of St. Athanasius Bishop of <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Alexandria?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Alexandria<\/a>, Church Father, defender of Trinitarianism against Arianism <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/otd?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#otd<\/a> d. 373 <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/otd?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#otd<\/a> (Rijksmuseum) <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XWf0LaQhwj\">pic.twitter.com\/XWf0LaQhwj<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 John McCafferty (@jdmccafferty) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jdmccafferty\/status\/1123876388140924936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 2, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why read Athanasius? Besides his importance for our understanding of the Christian faith, his life reads like a thriller at times, full of intrigue, last-minute escapes, and determination to follow the truth, no matter the cost. Furthermore, Athanasius (who was<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=81102\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,162,186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-christology","category-church-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=81102"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81105,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81102\/revisions\/81105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=81102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=81102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=81102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}