Comment to 'Has anyone read Howard Snyder's book "The Community of the King?"'
  • Howard's position can be observed by his remarks about other authors. This is usually the case. Here are a couple of dynamite quotes from a book that he reviewed on his blog. 

    Kreider shows that “the early church” was not one, but many. This is a positive, not a negative. The church was constantly changing over time. It took on varying modes in different places. Culture was always a factor. With multiple examples, Kreider details how the church was always adapting to culture, inculturatingmostly in positive but also sometimes in negative ways. His extensive discussion of the kiss of peace is fascinating in this regard.

    And:

    One of the pleasant surprises (to me) in the book is now consistently and insistently the church in its first three centuries kept pointing to Jesus Christ and especially to the Sermon on the Mount. Another surprise was how important Isaiah 2 and Micah 4 continued to be, with their promise of the Messiah and the day when the Lord “shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many peoples; they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (quoted, pp. 91-92). Origen said this text (that is, Isa. 2:2-4; Micah 4:1-4) “is one that all believers knew.”

    From his review of The Patient Ferment of the Early Church