Heresies and How to Avoid Them: Why It Matters What Christians Believe

Heresies and How to Avoid Them will help Christians understand why they are expected to believe certain things and disbelieve others. Readers will learn about the decisions that radically affected the course of Christian history, and that still shape Christianity today. Here, ten top theologians, all practising Christians, tackle ten ancient heresies and show why the contemporary Church still needs to know about them. Christians need to remember what these great early heresies were and why they were ruled out, or else risk falling prey to their modern-day manifestations. The contributors show how present debates in the Church are often re-enactments of battles which the Church thought it had won against heresies many centuries ago. The book contains key scriptural passages relevant to each heresy, a glossary of terms, and summaries of historical Church documents in which these heresies were defined and outlawed. Contributors
Professor Denys Turner, Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology at Yale
Dr Janet Martin Soskice, Fellow of Jesus College and Reader in Philosophical Theology
Dr Anna Williams, Fellow of Corpus Christi College and Lecturer in Patristic and Medieval Theology
The Rev. Dr Ben Quash, Fellow and Dean of Peterhouse
The Rev. John Sweet, Fellow of Selwyn College
The Rev. Dr Michael B. Thompson, Vice Principal of Ridley Hall. Topics
Adoptionism--did Jesus become the Son of God at his baptism?
Docetism--was Jesus really human or did he just appear to be so?
Nestorianism--was Christ one Person or a hybrid with a divine dimension and a human dimension?
Arianism--was Christ divine and eternal or was there a time when he did not exist?
Marcionism--is the God of the New Testament the same as the God of the Old?
Theopaschitism--is it possible for God to suffer in His divine nature?
Destroying the Trinity--does God have a simple or a complex nature?
Pelagianism--can people save themselves by their own efforts?
`The Free Spirit'--are there two kinds of Church membership, one for the elite and one for the rest?
Donatism--do Christian ministers need to be faultless for their ministrations to be effective?