Book Review: Basil of Caesarea: His Life and Impact

Basil of Caesarea: His Life and Impact by Marvin Jones. Christian Focus (2014), 176 pp.
Cross Focused Reviews Blog Tour

Because I’m writing my dissertation on the fourth-century theologian Gregory of Nazianzus, I jumped at the chance to review this biography of his contemporary and friend, Basil of Caesarea (329–379). Marvin Jones’ volume is one of the first to be released in Christian Focus’ new Early Church Fathers series. The series, edited by Michael Haykin, is meant to reacquaint evangelical Protestants with their ancient forebears in the faith–since, as Haykin points out, the Reformers and Puritans unhesitatingly claimed and studied the Fathers, even when they did not always agree with their interpretations.

Marvin Jones provides an overview of Basil’s life, conversion, and theological contributions, including a close look at a selection of his major writings, such as On the Holy Spirit and the Hexaemeron, a sermon series on Genesis 1. I am always curious how a contemporary Protestant will assess a figure like Basil whose context is, in many ways, far removed from ours. While I will spend time on a few caveats, I should also stress that I thought Jones did a commendable job of demonstrating why Basil deserves our attention.

One claim that gave me pause came in Chapter 2, when Jones writes, “Asceticism was a means of obtaining purity before God. In the modern Evangelical world, the concept of holiness and sanctification could be thought of in the same realm.” I think it is important to tread carefully with this comparison. Jones’ larger point, that today’s evangelical church needs a revived focus on holiness, is excellent. But asceticism in late antiquity is a distinct phenomenon; it does not correspond neatly, in every respect, to the way a twenty-first-century Reformed Protestant would talk about sanctification. These two things might indeed be in the “same realm,” but there are important differences in the respective views of attaining holiness. Helpfully, in Chapter 3, “Solace in the Desert,” Jones discusses Basil’s reforms of monasticism, which sought to undercut isolationism and pride by stressing that monastics’ efforts should be in the service of the church and society, not only of individuals. Basil himself worked against the potential extremes of asceticism, which is a good reminder that the phenomenon was not monolithic in the early church. I just would have appreciated more of a critical assessment of asceticism from an evangelical perspective.

Material in Chapter 2 on the homoousios, and especially Chapter 4’s detailed review of the development of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, would be rather tough sledding for many readers. For this reason, I would hesitate to recommend this book to someone who lacks a basic familiarity with the early development of Trinitarian doctrine. The strength of Jones’ analysis, though, is that he never loses sight of the contemporary application of these issues. He rightly praises Basil for paving the way for the Nicene (Constantinopolitan) Creed, and thus for Christians today, with his articulation of Scripture’s teaching on the Spirit. Basil’s theology was driven by concern for proper doxology, the church’s worship of one God in three Persons.

The bibliography seemed a bit dated to me (lacking some of the recent major scholarship like Ayres’ Nicaea and Its Legacy), so I probably wouldn’t use this book if I were teaching a college course. However, it is still well researched, to the extent that I would have liked to hear a bit more of Jones’ voice and fewer quotations from other writers.

There are two things I especially enjoyed in this book. First, I loved the emphasis on preaching. In Chapter 2, Jones notes that “Basil’s sermons were delivered to the congregation with the understanding that the preacher was God’s appointed herald of truth.” In the concluding chapter, he adds, “The sermons of Basil reveal to the Evangelical world that the Word of God is central to the Christian community. The accountability of leadership to surrender to the authority of the Word is neglected today.” In my dissertation I discuss the Fathers’ powerful sense of the efficacy of the preached Word, so it was encouraging to see Jones emphasizing this theme as well. Do Protestants today retain this trust in the power of the Word?

Finally, I loved the emphasis on theological literacy and its importance for worship. Jones takes for granted that Basil’s theological writings were always pastorally motivated; they were not simply intellectual exercises unconnected to the worshiping life of the church. He sums it up well: “Basil comprehended the truth that seems to be forgotten by Evangelicalism today: if the theology of the church declines, no amount of doxology can recover it. One simply cannot praise God without a firm grasp of the truth of God.” Jones’ portrait of Basil of Caesarea offers a good model for the recovery of boldly Trinitarian preaching and worship.

The publisher provided me with an electronic review copy of this book, and I was under no obligation to give a favorable review

I'm Still Here.

Once you're past the coursework stage of a Ph.D. program, you tend to lose track of the boundaries that marked life for so many years -- deadlines, breaks, starts and ends of semesters. I only noticed that tomorrow marks the end of my school's spring semester because I happened to glance at my Google Calendar and think, "Oh. Right. I knew mid-May was significant somehow. Wow." I've felt a certain wistfulness as I've watched friends celebrate the end of classes, submission and/or grading of papers. I remember all those milestones viscerally, but they aren't really connected to my life anymore. As it is technically the end of my semester, however, it's as good a time as any to offer a little update.

It turns out that, not only is it easy to lose track of semesters, those semesters stack up alarmingly swiftly into years. A few times over the past year, I've had the chance to talk with wonderful "younger" students ("younger" in the sense of progress, not age; chronological age is another thing that gets somewhat relativized at this stage...) who've commented that it's so great to hear the perspective of a student who's been around for so much longer. Every time, my mental response has been something akin to, "...Oh, wait, you're talking about me? But I've only been here for...oh, CRAP."

Emotionally, I'm still stuck somewhere around May, 2012, at the completion of my coursework, and what I remember as a high point in my confidence and sense of calling. It's very, very tempting to look back on the past two years and wonder what in the world I've been doing, whether it's a bad scholarly dream I'll wake up from at some point. Believe me, I could spend many blog posts enumerating my disillusionment with the academic life. But not only is that putting too dark a spin on it all, it's unhelpful. While it's true that a lot of my drive and vocational certainty have been lost, and I've been grieving that pretty hard, it doesn't account for the good.

So here is the good news:

• I am still ABD! It turns out they don't revoke your Candidacy status even when you're lousy at it. ;-)
• I've written sections of a chapter. I won't give you a page count in this public forum, but it is most definitely pages, plural.
• It's reasonable to project that I can have a draft of this chapter completed by September.
• I'm still on track to finish in the calendar year 2015, which isn't far off my original goal and is well within the expected time frame for most students.
• I'm assured of university funding for 2014-2015, which is a great deal more than many fifth-year doctoral students receive.
• Even when I got badly stuck and depressed over the course of this winter, I was able to pull out of it and press forward, thanks to my supportive husband, prayerful friends, and not a few conversations with doctors/therapists.
• There are still little flashes of reading and writing and Greek translating (!) that feel fun and meaningful.
• I don't have any plans of giving up.

And the best news -- perhaps the hardest for me to fathom, but of great comfort to me in recent days -- is that God doesn't waste the seasons of life that feel aimless and barren. He is building something beautiful through them, and thankfully, I don't have to know what the end product is going to look like -- simply trust that, mysteriously, even my flawed and unfinished efforts are able, in Christ, to glorify Him.

Looking Back on 2013

What follows is not an exhaustive review of 2013, but just a few impressions that have stuck with me about my year.

Home & friends

This year has seen several changes. The first was moving to a new neighborhood. I was initially upset at the prospect of moving from a location in which we had been comfortable for nearly three years. It seemed to portend changes in other routines in which I felt secure. As it turned out, the new apartment (and the relative ease of finding it!) have been an example of God's provision for us. Even though I was not excited to move from the edge of the suburbs into St. Louis proper, we have found the new place to be a better deal and a more suitable situation than we would likely have sought out otherwise. Living in South City is pretty much like living anywhere else that we have lived together, though a bit of a trek from church and most of our friends.

One of the happy outcomes of our move, however, has been living closer to my friend Rebekah. It has been lovely to connect for more than one cramped lunch-hour per week, and our friendship has flourished more than ever. This fall Bekah launched a Psalm-singing group which has proven to be a delightful occasion for fellowship. One day we were discussing Rosaria Butterfield's book, and just a few days later, my friend cheerfully announced that a stack of psalters had arrived in the mail and that we were all invited over for singing and dessert the next Lord's Day evening! It is one of the many reasons I love this girl. I hope the group will draw more interest in the coming year.

Speaking of fellowship, one of the very hardest things has been saying goodbye to the Cowans. Since we met in the same small group at our pastor's house in 2011, Coralie, Jonathan, and their family have become some of our dearest friends. We felt sought out by them, even though we weren't a seminary family like them and many others in our church, and we'd been attending the Kirk for several months longer than they had. It meant so much for me and Kevin to be invited into the life of a family in this way, something I don't think either of us realized we missed and longed for after years of frequent moves and the rootlessness of student life.

This month the Cowans moved to New Brunswick where Jonathan will be pastoring a church, an opportunity the Lord has clearly prepared them for. Even having prayed for such a thing and knowing what a blessing it would be for them and for Christ's church, I was caught off guard by how painful the reality of distance can be -- that even when it accompanies something beautifully right, the loss of proximity somehow feels wrong. I suppose it has something to do with that sense of home and presence that marked our time together.

The most wonderful thing, though, has been the way that spending time with them has consistently moved us to love Christ more. It is a precious thing to have friends who make Jesus more beautiful to you, and that is something that won't change or fade. Even though the feeling of presence will no longer be quite the same, I hope God will teach us to extend hospitality to others as has been graciously done for us, and as I know the Cowans will continue doing in their new church.

Academics & depression

In light of multiple changes, it isn't surprising that, this year, St. Louis didn't feel as much like the haven we imagined it to be when we first arrived. While the Lord was gracious to bring us here, His purpose wasn't necessarily to shelter us from hard things.

One case in point is that this year felt like being stuck in a rut. It's easy to exaggerate, because on one hand, I successfully defended my dissertation topic and advanced to ABD/candidacy status, which is a major milestone! I am so thankful to have reached this point after months of struggle and uncertainty, and to have the opportunity to write a dissertation in my field after more than a decade of working toward this point.

On the other hand, I experienced an almost overwhelming sense of stagnation this year. It's as if my passion, creativity, and focus have seeped out little by little, along with the facility with language and love of study I've depended on for as long as I can remember. Reading and writing have become wearisome in a way that they never were before. It is dispiriting, even humiliating, to feel as if the gifts I have spent my entire adulthood, really my entire life, exclusively cultivating and building much of my identity around are slipping from my grasp. Attempts at tweaking my routine and "just trying harder" have mostly amounted to finding new ways to fail and become discouraged.

One factor is depression. I believe I've been seriously depressed over the past year, and likely longer than that. It's nothing new; it's been recurrent through much of my adult life, and rather than being strictly situational, it probably has a physical basis that is triggered by anxieties and other factors. It can be fairly manageable, but I've dealt with it better at some points than at others. This past year was not one of the better times. Ironically, the best way to not let chronic depression define me is not to avoid admitting or dealing with the problem, but to confront it head-on. Seems pretty obvious, right? Somehow, though, in the thick of it, it just isn't.

The worst thing about depression, for me, is the overall sense of uselessness it brings. When I am unable to work well, my confidence that I have something to contribute plummets, and I start to feel like dead weight wherever I go, whether at school, at church, even hanging out with friends. As you might imagine, after awhile, that feeling erodes any sense of connection to community. It is hard to believe that I bring anything of value to others when my mind and emotions seem to be perpetually out of whack. Hopefully, with treatment, I'll start feeling like my old self soon, these feelings will fade, and I'll be more capable of connecting to people again. And I am getting help with the symptoms, so while I am grateful for understanding and support (VERY grateful -- I know that another person's depression can be frustrating to sympathize with, even if one has experienced it personally), you don't need to be too worried about me. You could pray that I will regain my ability to concentrate so that I can progress on my dissertation, and maybe that I'll regain some of my love of writing in the process.

Looking toward next year

Thankfully, I've never lost sight of my manifold blessings -- a husband who loves me so well (who would have thought that would happen for me?!), a supportive family, a comfortable home, a church where I can count on being fed with the Word every single week.

While part of me just wants to say good riddance to 2013, and to wish that even if things don't become less hard, at least they might be a different kind of hard, I'm content with whatever God will use to mold us into better servants of His church. I am trusting Him to reign well over my life, as He does over all things.

An unlikely hymn of thanksgiving

Last summer I described this as the hymn of my heart, and that's still decidedly true. Over the past several months, though, a different old hymn-text, likewise authored by John Newton, has been uppermost in my thoughts. Here is the lightly edited adaptation by Laura Taylor of Indelible Grace (I could offer some funny commentary on the archaic language in the original, but that's for another day):

I Asked the Lord

1. I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith and love and every grace,
Might more of His salvation know
And seek more earnestly His face.

2. 'Twas He who taught me thus to pray,
And He, I trust, has answered prayer
But it has been in such a way
As almost drove me to despair.

3. I hoped that in some favored hour
At once He'd answer my request
And by His love's constraining power
Subdue my sins and give me rest.

4. Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart
And let the angry powers of Hell
Assault my soul in every part.

5. Yea, more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Cast out my feelings, laid me low.

6. "Lord, why is this," I trembling cried,
"Wilt Thou pursue thy worm to death?"
"'Tis in this way," The Lord replied,
"I answer prayer for grace and faith."

7. "These inward trials I employ
From self and pride to set thee free
And break thy schemes of earthly joy
That thou mayest seek thy all in me,
That thou mayest seek thy all in me."

I knew this hymn before, but it made my stomach hurt. I couldn't quite imagine singing it in church with anything like a grateful heart. I didn't want to believe that the Lord might go about answering my prayers in such a way. Certainly I prayed to know His presence better, and seeking Him might entail some rough seasons—indeed, it already had—but He would meet me with something gentler than despair and crossing of schemes. Right?

More than a year later, I think I can understand something more of what Newton was getting at in this hymn. The Lord has been working out a lot of things in a deeper way in my heart, and very little of it has been easy. In fact, much of it has involved His removing those things I stubbornly look to for comfort and purpose instead of Him, blurring my images of the future so that the only thing I can discern with clarity is Himself. He is the only thing I can rest on, because He doesn't change or disappoint. Not like my abilities as a writer or scholar, or my plans for how things would unfold for us as a family, among other things. Most of those dreams aren't bad, and the fact that my direction and purpose in those areas has withered doesn't mean they'll never be restored, if not in the way or timing I'd expected.

The point, though, is that He is greater than those, by an incommensurable measure; they cannot even be compared. And there isn't going to be some definitive moment when I believe this once and for all; even if it isn't always this intense, His work of subduing my sins and setting me free from myself is going to be, mercifully, ongoing. Until the time of earthly joys is ended.

I can't pretend I understand the depth of woe Newton is describing here; I've been preserved from so many things. And I still don't know if I could sing this hymn in church without grumbling or tears. Certainly not every week. But when I read or listen to this hymn now, I recognize His work, and the sweetness of it, much more clearly than I could have a year ago. I wouldn't trade it, and that realization alone is something to be thankful for.

Book Review: Awakening Faith: Daily Devotions from the Early Church

Awakening Faith: Daily Devotions from the Early Church edited by James Stuart Bell. Zondervan (2013), 384 pp.
Cross Focused Reviews Blog Tour

I was excited to review Awakening Faith for obvious reasons. I'm well acquainted with the resurgence of interest in the church fathers among evangelical Protestants, and it's one of the things that compelled me to pursue doctoral work in patristics. Though I'm aware of a few books responding to that interest from an academic perspective, I was not familiar with any devotional books geared to that demographic.

The first thing I noticed about this book is that the daily entries included no citations indicating the larger works from which the excerpts had been drawn. I don't think this only bothered me because I'm a grad student; I felt that it got in the way of my ability to fully understand and appreciate what I was reading.

Here is an example of what I mean. I was really struck by #107, "Death's Power is Broken," by Braulio, a figure I had not heard of before (the helpful biographical sketch in the back explained that he was a seventh-century Spanish bishop). However, I had to do a fair bit of Googling before I was able to identify the letter this excerpt came from, and then, though I was not able to confirm this in a scholarly edition, I was a bit surprised to notice that the translation in Awakening Faith seems to have omitted a line. The book's translation reads, "The hope of resurrection encourages us because we will see again whomever we lost on earth. [Christ] is so powerful that it is easier for him to raise someone from the dead than it is for us to wake someone who is sleeping!" But when I tracked down a rendering of the work elsewhere, I saw that the line, "Of course, we must continue to believe firmly in Christ; we must continue to obey his commandments," seems to have appeared between those two sentences originally, though the book includes no ellipsis to indicate an omission.

I'm not suggesting that this is an illegitimate choice on the part of the editor, but that it made me wonder what other editorial choices were made in this compilation. Without knowing more about his principles for selection, it is hard to guess; and the lack of citations makes it difficult not only to read more of a work that piques one's interest, but also to get closer to the original language and intent of the various authors. I was surprised not to find a bibliography at the very least.

I hope this illustrates that I'm not setting out to be pedantic, but that some gesture toward the larger context of these writings is important -- not only for appreciating the writings in themselves, but for one's ability to apply them personally, much less use them devotionally. If Bell's goal is to encourage more reading of the fathers, then I thought he might have done more to make the fathers' writings accessible to an unfamiliar audience.

This leads me to a hesitation about the reading of the fathers within an evangelical or confessional Protestant setting (as my friend Coralie discusses in her own review). It would be easy to pick up Awakening Faith expecting consistency of thought among the figures represented, and continuity of theological ideas between their period and ours; but neither is reflected in this selection of readings, especially when it comes to areas like the sacraments, soteriology, and sanctification.

While looking at areas of difference can be illuminating, prompting us to ask different sorts of questions than those we are accustomed to asking, it can also be very confusing. I am still running into this challenge, as I am beginning a dissertation on fourth-century preachers and finding that some of John Chrysostom's sermons are not recognizable to me as the proclamation of the gospel. It's disorienting, and I think it would be even more so for readers who don't encounter it every day.

I liked aspects of the book. There were many beautiful excerpts I enjoyed reading and that were worth lingering over (especially, I noticed, on the person of Christ, and on suffering and death), and it presents an impressive variety -- far from being limited to a few famous names, it covers a wide swath of the Latin-, Greek-, and Syriac-speaking church, even pushing into the more northern frontiers, and it extends from the second century through the eighth.

Though it contains plenty of good material, and I expect to refer to it again for my own purposes, I hesitate to recommend this book for general use. Even as someone who has studied the church fathers for the better part of a decade, I felt a bit like I had been tossed into the deep end without the means to orient myself properly. I think a volume like this is needed, but that to be as edifying as possible, it should provide more guidance in how to read the fathers well.

The publisher provided me with a review copy of this book, and I was under no obligation to give a favorable review

Gratitude

"Strong scholars and successful professors experience bumpy roads in graduate school and after. Learn how to fall on your face and pick yourself up. Learn how to turn the train around. Learn how to glean good lessons from bad teachers in an effort to be a good teacher to those undergraduates under your care. Learn to look up, act on faith that the Big Principle has purpose: failing an exam does not mean that you don’t belong here. The only people who don’t belong in the classroom, library, laboratory, or lecturing from the podium are those who fear confrontation of incommensurable truth-claims, and who seek safety over the production and excavation of ideas—even scary ideas. [. . .] If you remember the Big Questions and claim them in your heart as your Big Questions, you will find that there are more ways to succeed than to fail and you will be connected to something that matters. Don’t fret because your path to those Big Questions doesn’t look like somebody else’s journey. Don’t fret when the path is lonely or treacherous. Look up." --Rosaria Butterfield, in The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert

As I mentioned last time, I didn't pass my prospectus defense at the end of September. I was fully expecting to have to endure a second defense sometime this winter (and, if that wasn't successful, of possibly being asked to leave the program); but, after submitting revisions to my advisor early last week, I was thrilled to learn that he and my committee members not only approved of them, but thought they were excellent, and had given me clearance to begin writing my dissertation. I could hardly believe it, in fact. I am so thankful to have ABD status and to be moving forward at last!

This past year has been a truly awful experience in many respects. I never quite reached the point of wanting to walk away, but my confidence in my academic vocation was nearly shattered on more than one occasion. I'm not sure I could give a clear and consistent explanation for why the past 15 months were such a mess for me. I think there are multiple factors, and I'm not too inclined to delineate them here. While I still have questions about my long-term suitedness for academia (and, unfortunately, I don't entirely have the luxury of putting those on the shelf while I work on the dissertation--there's the matter of the job market, for one), I am more confident that I have a place here for the time being. It is such a relief to be on the other side of this long year of waiting and ambiguity!

Some of my classmates have suggested that the prospectus is the toughest obstacle in the Ph.D. program, and that it will become easier from here. I don't know whether that will prove true for me, but I am betting that, as difficult as it's sure to be, researching and writing the actual dissertation will turn out to be a much more pleasant (or at least tolerable) experience than writing 6 or 7 drafts of a 30-page proposal. Either way, as other friends have pointed out, I've been confirmed in the hunch that getting through a dissertation is as much about persistence and stubbornness as it is about particular intellectual gifts.

I have a tentative goal of finishing in the spring of 2015, but I am still discerning how feasible that really is, especially if I am teaching next year, etc. For now, I'm thankful for the privilege of getting to focus exclusively on writing until next May. And of getting to spend a little longer in school, with the time and resources to pursue questions that are of interest to me, and that I hope are important to the church.

Thanks for loving me and being patient with me through this process (you all know who you are)--for not letting me lose sight of my Big Questions, or lose perspective on where my lasting joy and identity lie. More than anything, the past year has given me greater trust in God's faithfulness in bringing me through difficult circumstances, even when the significance of what I'm enduring feels like a mystery at best and useless at worst. I'm going to need a lot more gumption to get me through the rest, so please keep me in your prayers.

The state of the dissertation is . . . tenuous. But I'm hanging in there.

If you've followed my dissertation posts over the past year, you know that nothing about this process has been easy. That's continued to hold true, as I have long exceeded the timeframe within which I had hoped to defend my dissertation topic and begin writing chapters. Two weeks ago, I failed my first attempt to defend my topic to my committee. I'll have another shot, so right now I am trying to make some revisions that were suggested to me at the defense. If I can submit passable revisions within two weeks, then I will be in a much better position and might even be able to begin writing.

One of the issues that was brought up surrounding my defense was whether I have enough passion to sustain this project. Maybe that is supposed to be a straightforward question, but I have never found it to be so. Even at the point (two years ago . . . a time I've been foolishly longing for of late) when I could unhesitatingly say that I enjoyed my academic work, my enthusiasm and energy could vary considerably over the course of a given week, subject to so many factors of mood and circumstance. I really don't know how to quantify something like "passion."

If it's a question of whether I can muster the perseverance to write a good dissertation, then I believe I can. And I know that even if I struggle all the way through the painful dissertating transition from student to "scholar," that doesn't necessarily mean I can't be a great teacher. If anything, some failures along the way might help mold me into a better teacher.

All the same, I do wonder if my committee is onto something, in that I think I might be a better theology nerd/avid hobbyist than theology scholar. Maybe I'll write more about this at another time. I assure you the distinction means something in my mind, even if I'm not quite able to articulate it yet.

Anyway, no matter what happens or what I discover about myself as a scholar in the next few weeks, I can say that the past few years of graduate study have been a wonderful privilege, I wouldn't trade them, and most importantly I believe that God is using them and will continue to use them. It hasn't been a waste. I'm so grateful for everyone's kind interest, support, and ongoing prayers along the way. I'll keep you posted.