

Pictured are clay pots found with the Dead Sea Scrolls in the
community of the Jewish Essenes.
They represent vessels which contain nourishment. Below are resources developed
by NHI staff related to the early church, especially the first 400 - 500
years. They either expand on early Christian teaching or activity, or
draw upon that well as a resource or inspiration.

NHI Resources on the Early
Church
Slavery and Abolition
Slavery and Abolition in the Early Church:
How the Early Church Got It Right
long ppt presentation
Slavery and Abolition in the Early Church:
How the Early Church Got It Right
short ppt presentation
Slavery in Christianity, Part 1:
Slavery in the Bible, Slavery Today (and ppt)
Slavery in Christianity, Part 2:
Abolitionism from the First to Fifteenth Century
Slavery in the Bible - Worksheet

Powerpoint slides
and
Facebook video part 1
and
part 2

Powerpoint slides
and
Facebook video

Powerpoint slides
and
Facebook video

Women
Women in the Early Church part 1 and part
2
Women in Church Leadership part 1 and part
2
The Rights of Women in the Bible part 1 and part
2

Children
Human Dignity: Does Every Human Being Matter?
Children in the Early Church
Christian Restorative Justice: Beyond Charity -
God's Restorative Justice for Children and
Families

Laws, Policies, and Governance
The Impact of Jesus (and ppt)
The Role of Jesus in Revolution and the Pursuit of
Justice
White American Evangelical
Political Attitudes and Behavior:
Explanation and Correctives
a presentation given to the
staff of Emmanuel Gospel Center, Apr 18, 2018, as a follow-up to how
Christian restorative justice impacts ministry in light of white
American evangelical political attitudes;
audio file here

Concepts of Authority and
Organization
Christian Ethics:
The Church,
Organizations, and Organizational Authority

Judaism and Christianity
The Qumran Community: A Proto-Christian Sect
and
What It Means for Jewish-Christian Relations

The Christian Concept of a Good
God, the Trinity, and the Nicene
Creed
The Son of God Shared in Our Fallen Human Nature
That We Might Share in His Healed Human Nature
A short devotional on the
Gospel of Matthew 1:18 - 25 using quotes from early
church sources
The Council of
Nicaea, the Origin of "the Trinity,"
and the Limitations of Human
Language
on
the linguistic and logical dimension of how theological language works
The Council of Nicaea, the Origin of "the Trinity,"
and the Role of
Political Power
on
the political history of the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, and its later
political significance
Big Questions About God:
Comparing the Earliest Christian Theology
with High Federal Calvinist Theology, and Why It Matters
workbook style, with
quotes and questions
Hell as the Love of God (and
ppt) (short
ppt)
This is a full exploration of how
hell is the love of God because (1) the united church taught that for
over a thousand years; (2) God's Triune nature requires all other activity of
God to flow out of His love; (3) literary exegesis of "fire" shows that it is
God's call to purification
C.S. Lewis' Theology of Atonement
An essay exploring Lewis' atonement
theology ("medical substitution") and dependence on Irenaeus and Athanasius, submitted
by Mako originally
as a final paper to Dr. Gary Deddo for his class, The Theological
Thought of C.S. Lewis
Penal Substitution vs. Medical Substitution:
A
Historical Comparison
An analysis of
the atonement theology ("medical substitution") of early church
theologians, including Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus of Lyons, the Odes of Solomon,
Justin Martyr of Rome, Melito of Sardis,
Tertullian of Carthage, Methodius of Olympus, Athanasius of Alexandria
(paper in progress to include later theologians, bishops, and councils)
Free Will in Patristic Theology
quotations from early
church theologians
Why God is Not Evil, Not One Bit,
According to Irenaeus of Lyons
An attempt at
reconstructing a lost work by Irenaeus, the most important theological
writer in the second century AD and the first "biblical theologian"
after the New Testament writers, based on his existing writings
The Good God and the Healing of
Creation
According to Athanasius of Alexandria
A presentation given Feb 4, 2019
to my class in Orthodox Dogmatics at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Seminary,
at the kind invitation of Father Emmanuel Clapsis

A series of blog posts exploring the
thought and context of Athanasius of Alexandria, who is considered the
fountainhead of Christian theology.

The Christian Undoing of
Scapegoating
Atonement in Scripture:
The Scapegoat Series
(NHI
blog)
Donald Trump's Scapegoating
and the Myth of Retributive
Justice
(Feb 12, 2016)
Donald Trump's Scapegoating
and the Scapegoating of the
Black Community
(Feb 15, 2016)
What Lynching, Torture, and Scapegoating
Have in Common:
Penal Substitution
(Feb 18, 2016)
on
retributive impulses
Why Penal Substitution is a Gateway Drug to Right-Wing
Extremism
(Feb 22, 2016)
on God as
sorting, not uniting, creation
Why Evangelicals Scapegoat Gays, Muslims, Etc.
(Feb 29, 2016)
on the sacrificial system in the Pentateuch
Why Trump and Cruz Are the Direct, Logical Result of
American Evangelical Theology
(Mar 6, 2016)
on Romans and
the Sinai covenant
A Neuroscientific Reason for Why Retributive Justice is
from the Fall,
and Penal Substitution is Immature
(Apr 28, 2016)
on the Fall and the exile
from the Garden

Spirituality, Trauma, and
Emotional Life
Christian Mysticism:
Are We Missing Something?
Jesus and the Shaping of Desire:
An Exploration of
Early Church Spiritual
Practices

Warfare and Conflict
Military Service According to Ambrose of
Milan
Just War Theory According to Augustine of Hippo

The New Testament
The Formation of the New Testament:
Why Not the Gospels of Thomas and Judas?
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