Our Christian Heritage: Left for Romanists, EOs, and Liberals?

[Casey]

Why have confessional Reformed institutions (churches and schools) left our Christian heritage for Romanists, Eastern Orthodox, or liberals to translate and study? If I want to look for a pre-Reformation theological work in modern translation, almost inevitably it will be published by a Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or liberal press. Why? Philip Schaff's work is good but, obviously, dated. Why isn't there a Reformed publisher or seminary that maintains an updated set of this important aspect of our history? I can anticipate a response: "there's no need since someone else has already done it," but I don't really like this argument. It's part of our intellectual and spiritual heritage, right? Case in point: SVS Press (warning: icons of the God-man). They publish all sorts of handy little paperbacks. We have the Puritan Paperbacks by the Banner of Truth, when will we get our Patristic Paperbacks? Or maybe we've already got something like this? I'm probably analyzing this situation wrong, but if we really think the Church didn't start in the 1500s, maybe we should publish that way.

 

[Contra_Mundum]

People keep stealing our institutions, our endowments, money given by little blue-haired ladies that their dead husbands left them after a lifetime of work. Know any world-class Universities that were founded by atheists? Liberals?

And there are the living faculty and leadership who keep craving acceptance by the world of academia, who aren't satisfied with being "different" or "unique" and who sell the institution down the river.

So, once in a couple centuries there will be a rich institution with a publishing house, confessional standards, and lots of students and research faculty churning out good stuff like you want to see. And soon, it will be a ripe plum that the unbelieving world gets anxious to pick.

Reminds me also of Genesis 4+5. Cain gets the world that was. Seth gets the world to come.

We might just thank God that we don't have any reason to fear the truth. We'll keep starting new schools, working with cast-off material, and building sacrificially til Jesus comes again.

 

[py3ak]

Perhaps the Reformers et al get a higher priority among us because no one else would republish them. Is anyone surprised that it is Lutheran presses that have brought out the collected works of Luther?