Written during this week's overseas family vacation in Ghent, Belgium, this book review will also be featured on my Goodreads page soon.
Disclosure: This book
is on my required reading list for the ordination process in the Church of God. I submitted a more in depth book report to my
Credentials Advisory Committee.
Several books have been written about the history of the
Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) reformation movement. “
I Saw the Church,” however, is the first
book to organize our church’s history with an emphasis on development of
theology and practice, rather than merely document a timeline of events and
church leaders. In other words, it’s not
a chronological history. The non-chronological
layout was disorienting at times (flashing back and forward to various
decades/centuries, church leaders dying or bowing out of the scene and then
reappearing in the narrative later, etc.), but upon my second reading it made
sense why author Merle Strege made this stylistic choice.
Regarding the content itself, I was impressed at how candid
and thorough Strege was with researching this book. Church history is placed within the context
of then-current developments of the universal Christian church and society as a
whole. Before reaching the more love-oriented
modern era depicted at the end of the book, I learned much about the earlier
eras of my own church movement.
Many parts were inspiring, though I occasionally found
myself scribbling exclamation points in the margins at some of the primitive ideas
that somehow went unchallenged for so long.
I would’ve counted myself among the dissenters who revolted against the
original tendencies towards legalism, exclusivism, and anti-intellectualism. Strege offers an unflinching look at how the
Church of God has wrestled through issues of doctrine (though we don’t
officially have a creed other than the Bible), theology, practice, organization,
and social issues.
Throughout my life, I’ve found myself taking pride in our church
movement’s relatively liberal stance towards women in ministry, racial
equality, government, and other issues.
This book helped me to understand that our movement’s earlier leaders
had some rather eccentric views, mistakes
were made along the way, major disagreements occurred (as well as silly minor disputes),
and that it’s unrealistic to expect a completely smooth evolution of thought
and practice from a church that is comprised of imperfect people. Regardless of the peripheral troubling spots
in our church’s earlier history, it was inspiring to read an account of the men
and women who have followed the call to pursue the vision of holiness and
Christian unity.
“I Saw the Church” is written for anyone interested in a
balanced, thoughtfully laid out examination of how the Church of God’s grass
roots beginnings evolved into to our present era. The non-chronological structure takes some
getting used to, but in retrospect, it was well worth the effort. This book is a wealth of information and
insight into the heritage of our holiness movement.
