A question regarding a couple of Pelikan's books

[Ender Wiggin]

Hi,
I took a course in Christian History offered by the University I'm attending, and I have just bought two of the required books that the course will use. I wanted to hear if anybody here has read them, or knows anything about the authors, and what the Orthodox opinion about the books is.

The books are:

Jesus Through the Centuries
by Jaroslav Pelikan

and

The Christian Theological Tradition
(Second Edition)
Editors: Catherine A. Cory and David T. Landry

I just wanted to know what the opinions of some of the members of Monachos who may have read or heard about these books are, so I know what attitude to take while reading them.

Thank you very much in advance...

[Melissa]

Dear Ender,

My husband, Sam, is familiar with Pelikan - says he's a former Lutheran who converted to Orthodoxy about 5 years ago (he wasn't sure exactly when), while at Yale. He's an extremely knowledgable scholar in the field of Early Christian Church studies, and his 'world' was very surprised when he became Orthodox.

Are you at Yale? Sam graduated from YTS in 1979, so it's been awhile, but he loved it (he was also Episcopal then). Good luck with the class.

Melissa

[Richard Leigh]

Dear Ender,

Pelikan's book will be very good. It was one of the last things he wrote while still "officially" Lutheran.

No offense to Melissa's husband, but Pelikan'a students out here (St. Louis MO) were not in the least surprised at his conversion. Pelikan told one of them, "I thought it was about time that I became 'de jure' what I already was 'de facto.'"

Pelikan had always had a reputation among Orthodox scholars to be one of the few protestants to really understand Orthodoxy. One of his students out here thinks his conversion was because he was "slavophile" ("-phile"!? He's Slavic!!!), but the better student is closer, I think, it was due his love for Hellenism. But I rather think it was because he was Orthodox.

Richard

[Justin]

I've read 4 or 5 of Pelikan's books, and I must admit that I don't see what other Orthodox Christians see. Mr. Pelikan is obviously a very learned man, and I certainly don't doubt his sincerity or motives. However, I think Mr. Pelikan is far more ecumenically minded than is beneficial--especially when it is those unfamiliar with Orthodoxy who are reading his books (ie. it is easy to misunderstand Orthodoxy somewhat while reading Mr. Pelikan's books, even if he gets all the "facts" right). I've not read Jesus Through the Centuries, though I have read Mary Through the Centuries and I found it extremely underwhelming. At times I felt like Mr. Pelikan was just compiling various bits of data that he had found over the course of his career.

There are some people on "the right" in Orthodoxy who always seem to get the "facts" straight, but still somehow convey a more extreme tone than would be beneficial. I think of Pelikan as someone who sort of does the same thing, only he is on "the left," so to speak. I don't think it's just because his material was mostly written while a Protestant, because I very much enjoy other Protestant writers, such as Lewis and Chesterton. I guess my suggestion would be simply to remember while you read such works (as the Pelikan book) that they are not written by an Orthodox Christian for Orthodox Christians, but are written by non-Orthodox Christians for an wide-ranging audience. That doesn't make him wrong, but perhaps it does require a bit more critical reading than one would ordinarily do (supposing that one was trying to discern and aquire an Orthodox outlook).

Justin

PS. The only book of Chesterton's I'd suggest avoiding is his 2nd Volume on Church History. I think his treatment of the early Church's view of papal supremacy is about as pro-Catholic as you can get without actually converting to Catholicism.

[Ender Wiggin]

I just want to thank all of you for the information you have given me, as I will take into account all of your comments when doing the reading for the class.

Thank you very much again,

-Ender