Justin Holcomb's Know the Heretics is a book for every student and pastor's bookshelves. In a world where the notion of heresy is equated with any theological difference, Holcomb breathes life into the dusty word and dispels all the misunderstandings.
According to Holcomb, heresy is a "weighty charge" that deserves serious attention in the Church's thinking, precisely because heresy's root is in sloppy biblical reading and exegesis.
This short book introduces readers to the various controversies that have threatened the Church throughout its history. He gives attention to how each heresy is a misreading of the biblical witness, and therefore highlights the dangers each heresy poses for the Christian's life and witness. Whether it's a misreading of the Law, or a misreading of the nature of the Triune God, Holcomb has given us a gift -- a gift of thinking again about the spiritual health of the Church that is orthodoxy.
It's tempting to believe the old lie of progress -- CS Lewis' notion of "chronological snobbery" that Holcomb mentions -- that we've come so far. That heresy is a meaningless issue these days. But as the book outlines in chapter after chapter, the Church hasn't gone as far as some want to hope. These heresies still haunt us.
"This book is a case study of fourteen major events when the church made the right call -- not for political or status reasons ... but because orthodox teaching preserved Jesus' message in the best sense, and the new teaching distorted it", as Holcomb says.
And each chapter highlights the real spiritual problem with our "chronological snobbery": Our spiritual apathy. Whether it's Seballianism or Docetism, we seem to think they just don't really matter. And as Holcomb rightly argues, it's that spiritual apathy that wounds the spiritual lives of Christians these days.
It's not that we don't care. The issue is deeper than that. The heart of the problem is that faith seeks understanding. Faith thinks, as well as loves. And thinking about grace or the Trinity is hard work. Sloppiness with that hard work, though, lands us among these heresies.
Reading Holcomb's Know the Heretics is refreshing. It did my spirit good. But it was good precisely because it was hard. For pastors especially, this book poses genuine questions, and keeps us from all the wrong answers.
I would encourage this book for all who've started walking the way through the Church's history. But I recommend it enthusiastically for all those who preach and offer pastoral counseling.
Holcomb has given the Church a beautiful gift. The chance to ask all the right questions, and avoid all the wrong answers.
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