I have not read Getting to Know the Church Fathers yet but I plan to. It is my hope that this book will better inform evangelicals on the ‘Church Fathers’.

The following is a description of the book:

Many evangelical Christians know very little about the early church fathers. Others have heard just enough to be suspicious of them and their treatment of Scripture. Still others are becoming interested in this neglected but significant community of believers.

In Getting to Know the Church Fathers, patristics scholar Bryan Litfin introduces readers to ten ancient Christians and dispels the misconceptions that have tainted many evangelicals’ view of them.

Litfin’s personal and accessible approach to the church fathers–including Augustine, Ignatius, Origen, Perpetua, and Tertullian–reveals the riches of the Christian tradition and how much Christians today have been shaped by them in the ways we worship, pray, study Scripture, and live as a community.

Each chapter tells the story of one figure’s life and work, and concludes with probing questions for discussion or reflection, guides to further reading, and a fresh, vivid translation from the church father’s original writings. The book is ideal for students, professors, church groups, and others seeking to learn more about historic, orthodox Christianity.

Author Information: Bryan M. Litfin (PhD, University of Virginia) is associate professor of theology at Moody Bible Institute.

“To me, tradition is very important, and it’s something we should use,” says Prof. Bryan Litfin of Moody Bible Institute, interviewed by Christianity Today in A higher ecclesiology for Evangelicals. But

It’s not something to be equated with Scripture as a second source . . . . [T]radition is rather a friend and a guide. It is a witness and it does not stand over Scripture, but it can serve Christians by helping us to understand what Scripture means.

Litfin is being interviewed on his new book Getting To Know the Church Fathers, and in the interview gives what seems, to an outsider, a helpful explanation of the conservative Evangelical’s understanding of the Fathers and their place for Christians today.

Transubstantiation is derived from the Latin term tansubsubstaniato, meaning ”change of substance”. This term was incorporated into the creed of the Forth Latern Council in A.D. 1215

Transubstantiation is defined by the Roman Catholic Church’s Council of Trent as follows: “By the consecration of the bread and wine, a conversion (or change) is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His blood; which conversion is, by the holy Catholic Church, suitably and properly called Transubstantiation.”

The Catechism of the Council of Trent expands this belief by stating: “In this sacrament are contained not only the true body of Christ, and all the constituents of a true body, such as bones and sinews, but also Christ whole and entire”. It also explains, “Christ whole and entire, is contained, not only under either species, but also in each particle of the same species.” (Species = bread and wine)

The Church of Rome teaches that when the priest in the Mass blesses the bread, it is no longer bread but Jesus Christ himself and similarly the wine is Jesus Christ himself.

In the final analysis, it is important to note that David Lister calls on Roman Catholics to go back to the Word of God and search for the truth.

Read the complete post here.