My Seminary Class

I wrote a while back that I had been accepted into the distance education program at Covenant Theological Seminary. Yet, I never followed up with info on my class and how its going. I am currently taking one class, detailed below, and will be taking one class this fall, and another this spring. Our hope is to start chipping away on my seminary education while I can. (We will need a bit more support for this as well, so please pray).
I started taking Ancient and Medieval Church History in about mid May. The book for the class has been so interesting it has been consuming most of my day; I am already about half way through it. I have never really been a huge history buff, or at least have never been invested enough to actually plow through a big tome on the subject. Yet, for some reason I have really become enthralled with the history and growth of the church. As well, I can hardly remember the last time I actually finished a full book. The philosophy program at UW conditioned me to read a work for the main point and then move on. It did this through either our reading list being made up of journal articles ( which are delightfully short and sweet) or through assigning short passages in books; just enough to get the argument.
It has been so cool to see the way the Lord has protected and guided his bride throughout the centuries. Some of my favorite pieces of learning have been the formation of the NT Canon, the formulation of the Apostle's creed, the fuller articulation of our faith in response to heresies, and the great number of African Theologians.
The African fathers of the church have been a favorite realization of mine. Of course those theologians were all within the borders of the Roman Empire, and so had access to education etc. Nonetheless, it would be well worthwhile to point out to my African brothers and sisters that there is a full heritage of godly leaders who have blessed the body of Christ in great and lasting ways. This of course is an argument against the lingering paternalism in our western minds, as well as the lingering colonialism in, at least, Malawian's minds. There is no reason to ever think of Christianity as something to which African's can't add a thing, or which belongs to us in the west.



Athanasius was a great example of what I have in mind. He was most likely a poor copt, (the lowest class in Egypt in the 4th cent., living along the Nile), and was called "the black dwarf", because of his dark complexion, though the icon doesn't quite relfect it. He was known for his godliness and not so much for his esoteric profundity. As such he was elected bishop of Alexandria, having been the disicple of Alexander (the former bishop). The Arian controversy (the doctrine that Christ was created, and was not God himself, against which the council of Nicea was formed) began with a disagreement between Alexander and Arius. This doctrinal disagreement eventually produced the Nicene Creed (which we still use today) as an articulation of our trinitarian faith. Athanasius was one of the greatest champions and defenders of the Nicene Creed, fighting his whole life against Arianism. So, this poor Egyptian copt, was used as a great defender of our faith. My prayer is that this African heritage would be revived. There are a good number of African Theologians at this point, yet not many of them teach, defend, and articulate the same faith we have in the scriptures.

Anyway, if you have read all the way through this, thanks for indulging my historic interest. I intend to post some thoughts on the condition of the Malawian church in the coming weeks; so keep an eye out for them.