What Does America Have to Do with Antioch?

Abstract

Teaching patristics is widely neglected in contemporary western schools of theology and religion owing, in part to the historic separation of the western and eastern churches; and attributable to a bias toward a “modern theological approach†among scholars, pastors, and laity. This article argues for the contemporary relevance of patristics using John Chrysostom as an example. John Chrysostom was a fourth-century Christian priest from Antioch and was later bishop of Constantinople. The pastoral environment of fourth-century Antioch is not dissimilar from that of twenty-first century America. This comparability reframes Tertullian’s famous question, “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?†as, “What does contemporary, twenty-first century America have to do with fourth-century Antioch?†The examination of John Chrysostom’s sermons reveals the ways in which he used scripture to communicate a Christian response to the challenges of a society so much like our own. John preached with the goals of transforming the individual into a Christian, his congregants into a church, and his city into a Christian polis.  In the end, the exegetical approach of the Antiochene preacher proves to be as relevant today as it was in the fourth century.