Orthodoxy & Heresy in the Early Church

A Learning and Fellowship Opportunity
Led by Dr. Lawrence Stewart

With his usual level of research Dan Brown derives heresy from a Latin word haereticus invented in the 4th century CE (The Da Vinci Code, p. 234). Actually written evidence for the Greek (not Latin) word

goes back 800 years earlier. (Which is why Brown's book doesn't make the top 100 sources for the study of church history.)

Walter Bauer published Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity seventy years ago. Although he occasionally jumped to conclusions beyond the evidence and employed the same terminology he labeled anachronistic, the book revolutionized the study of the early church. Christian tradition viewed the church as beginning with unity and diversity occurring later. Bauer argued persuasively that diversity in thought and practice marked the church from the start.

Heresy began as a neutral term meaning a school of thought or some sort of faction. In that sense all the groups in the early church represent heresies. As Christians worked together to define what it meant to follow Jesus some early ideas were rejected. Heresy took on a pejorative sense of wrong rather than just a difference of opinion. Labeling different versions of Christianity as heresy, however, did not always end the debate and some of the issues the early church faced remain surprisingly relevant for today's diverse Christianity.

Please join us on Sunday evenings, 7:00 - 8:00 PM to study this fascinating topic.

April 10 - Jewish Heresies - details

April 17 - Justin Martyr & Anti-Semitic Heresy - details

April 24 - Montanism: A Crisis of Authority - details

May 1 - The Gnostic Family: "I'm More Spiritual Than You." - details

May 8 - A Crisis of Church Discipline - details

May 15 - Christological Heresies - details

Lawrence Stewart received a Ph.D. in the field of Early Christianity from Brown University in 1993. After teaching in colleges all over the greater Kansas City area he now teaches in the Milwaukee area.