Book review: The Heresy of Orthodoxy

Recently I linked a review of Peter Enns' book by Michael Kruger of Reformed Theological Seminary.  Well, recent by this blog's standards, which is "roughly within the last six months."  I have been meaning to get around to reviewing a book that he and Andreas Kostenburg wrote, The Heresy of Orthodoxy.  I can't recommend this book enough for anyone wanting to deal with the common secular claims about Scripture.  Whether you're dealing with someone who just got done reading a Bart Ehrman book or watching the latest horrible CNN "documentary" attempting to undermine the testimony of Scripture, this book will be an excellent and helpful work to go through because it exposes and examines the root of all those writings: the Bauer hypothesis which is essentially a rejection of any idea of a supernatural establishment of the church, and instead proposes warring groups of Christians with different beliefs that were eventually all subdued under one "orthodoxy" through the power of one of those groups. (You may recognize this as the plot to The DaVinci Code, except with fewer church ninjas.  Not none...just fewer.)

In all seriousness, there are three main reasons this book is a great investment for a believer wanting to understand the history of the church and defend the faith from these sort of attacks:

1. It discusses at length not just the evidence, but the presuppositions that drive the way all evidence is examined by those who follow in the footsteps of Walter Bauer.  The general method of attacking Christianity and establishing a notion of society as a religion-less, secular entity is rooted in the ideas discussed here, that Scripture did not come from men inspired by God and the church does not teach what it does because those men taught the consistent revelation given to them, but rather they just happened to be "the winners" in a battle of differing beliefs.  However, their claims are rooted not in an unbiased examination of historical data, but rather filtering all that data through a worldview that says "there is nothing beyond immediate physical human experience, therefore, it couldn't have happened in the way claimed."  In doing so, those promoting this position make a series of assumptions that reveal that they are not "doing unbiased history," but rather are in fact making theological claims of their own.  
2. It examines the evidence given in support of these claims, and as noted above, shows how the conclusions drawn from their evidential claims require one to start from a position not actually drawn from that evidence, but from a presupposition of secular humanism.  
3. It is written in a way that a lay believer will be able to engage with and understand without having to gain a scholastic vocabulary, and it also has extensive notation allowing those wanting to dig deeper to find many resources to learn more about the subjects being discussed.  

Easter weekend is a time that media outlets love to trot out the latest attempt to undermine the truth of the Gospel, whether it's the latest "Tomb of Jesus" or "Did Jesus really exist?" or "FOUND: The Gospel of ____" nonsense.  This is a time that can be trying for us as we try to evangelize those around us as well as engage in worship with our brothers and sisters: how do we respond to this while still displaying our love for God and our fellow man?  How can we defeat lies with the truth without becoming angry jerks?  Preparing ourselves with what is true, being in Scripture consistently is key, and a book like this only helps to buttress a well-laid foundation with further context.

This is also an excellent opportunity for believers to brush up on their church history, a subject about which many of us are woefully ignorant, which exposes us to this sort of attack.  This book exposes the Christian to and prepares the Christian for that attack with the knowledge needed to engage the thinking behind it, and most importantly, to preach the Gospel meaningfully in response to it.  Not in the "You're a liar and you need Jesus" way I see used so often and so pointlessly on the Internet, but in a way that shows we are listening to what our opponents are saying, and we do have a real response that continues to focus on our need for Christ.  There is another book that focuses on the other common point of attack during this time, but I will review that later...