Dr. Ian Clary, an Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Colorado Christian University, lives with his wife Vicky and four children in Lakewood, CO, rather a long way from his native Canada. His doctoral work looked at issues dealing with the Christian interpretation of history with a particular focus on early-modern British evangelicalism. He serves as a co-host of the Into Theology podcast through The Gospel Coalition Canada.
Ian, you are an Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Colorado Christian University. Tell us about your journey into academia. What was it that you found compelling about the study of historical theology?
I grew up in a family that put a premium on reading—my mom intentionally got my sister and me to read and my dad was an example of someone who read a lot. My parents didn’t really understand what books were “classics,” and because they weren’t Christians (my mom is now, thanks be to God), they didn’t think that theology or church history was important. Nonetheless, I grew up loving books. As a kid, I often would read my dad’s Louis L’Amour western novels. I didn’t realise it at the time, but they were quite historical, and I’m sure something of my love of history was sparked there. We have a family cottage in Temagami, Ontario, and so I became enamoured with Native Canadian culture, which is also quite historical. It wasn’t until I got saved in my final year of high school that I started to think more about theology. This first came when some charismatic friends accused me of not being concerned with some parts of the Bible because I didn’t practice speaking in tongues—I really delved into the theology of charismatic gifts to prove them wrong! Ha! Also, my friend who led me to the Lord in high school since abandoned the faith, and so I read a lot of apologetics in order to try and answer his questions.
After high school I felt a call to go into ministry, but didn’t quite know what that meant. Heritage College and Seminary started an extension campus in my hometown of Windsor, Ontario, and so I started to explore this call by pursuing an undergraduate degree. It was there that I met Dr. Michael Haykin who came and taught an intensive course (similar to Tennent!) on Church History II, where I first learned about the Reformers, the Puritans, and evangelicalism. I was hooked! I haven’t looked back since, completing graduate and doctoral work in church history. Though I struggled for years with whether I should be a pastor or an academic, I continued to study church history for my various degrees, adding in a love for the ancient church and eventually medieval Christianity.
How does the discussion of history and theology in combination enrich the conversation, in your opinion? Could you share an example of how your own thinking about a theological concept has changed or deepened when considered in its historical context?
My academic discipline is called “historical theology,” which is something of a neologism. Up until the last hundred and fifty years or so all theology was basically “historical theology,” that is, theology was always conducted in conversation with the past. As theologians became more and more dislodged from history in the modern period, however, there was a need to add the qualifier “historical” to stress the importance of history. So much theology today is abstract and seems to have no clear grounding. So in many respects I see myself as both an historian and a theologian; my training is more historical, as I love doing straight church history.
My approach to “intellectual history” is best seen in the work of historian Quentin Skinner, who stressed the notion of understanding human thought as it is located within the flow of history. When looking at figures of the past, Skinner advocates that we “see things their way.” I could give many examples of the way that historical considerations have shaped, and even changed, my theology. The one example that jumps to mind is my move away from the “presuppositional apologetics” of Cornelius Van Til into a more traditional view of natural theology. As I read more and more in the history of early Protestant theology (with the aid of scholars like Richard Muller), I began to see that my own tradition was indebted to the theologies that came before—especially from the ancient and medieval church. They all advocated for a kind of natural theology that made sense in light of their strong view of the doctrine of God, which I also began to accept. Another example might be the development of my political theology that used to be injected with a strong libertarianism and stressed “freedom of religion.” Now I am much more indebted to the thought of the Magisterial Reformers who put a higher premium on “freedom of conscience.” In both of these examples I am indebted to the work of the Davenant Institute, of which I was a board member. Their project is to resource today’s church with the riches of the Protestant past.
What’s the relevance of church history for local congregations today? How do you think a church might be impacted if the pastor did or did not study church history?
I think that church history is indispensable for churches, whether of today, or any period of history. I lecture on the creeds to open my Introduction to Theology course at CCU, and I stress their absolute importance for local congregations and for individual Christians. The ecumenical creeds—those creeds that were published by the early councils like Nicaea, Ephesus, or Constantinople—succinctly and clearly describe the core of the Christian faith for us. Most of my students have no idea what they are, yet they are so fundamental to understanding Christianity. The creeds have a binding authority that they derive from scripture (the primary authority), and thus they help define what orthodoxy is. For someone to intentionally step outside of the creeds is to explicitly deny the Christian faith. Protestants have long valued the creeds. Martin Luther would have his students swear an oath to them before they could graduate from Wittenberg University, which I think is a pretty neat idea! We need to recapture them as part of our weekly liturgy to help our members understand the God that they are worshipping.
The Easter season in particular spurs theological reflection in a heightened way. What are some theological questions you wish people would pause to consider at this time of year? What are some of your favorite Resurrection writings/sermons/stories from history?
Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide are some of the oldest observances on the church calendar. While I’m so thankful that evangelicals have begun to observe Advent (another Lenten season of fasting), I hope that more will also come to appreciate Lent. It originally developed for catechumens in preparation for baptism in the ancient church. It then grew to include all of the faithful as the worldwide church fasted in preparation for the death and resurrection of Christ. One book that I’ve used in courses I’ve taught on spirituality during the Spring semester is Phyllis Tickle’s Eastertide, that has a series of daily readings and prayers that tap into the ancient practice of praying the “office” or “hours” (these are drawn from her larger Divine Hours series, this one for Springtime). They set a helpful rhythm for daily worship. Not everyone will love all of the prayers, but by and large they’re quite good. For Holy Week I think that The Final Days of Jesus by Andreas Kostenberger and Justin Taylor is quite good as they work through the key biblical texts from the gospels. From church history, one might dip into Martin Luther’s Easter Book edited by Roland Bainton, though I believe it may be out of print.
I understand you are serving in an advisory capacity for the new Journal of Classical Theology, which exists “because a classical retrieval is needed in every facet of the church.” Can you tell us a little about that project? What would “classical retrieval” look like? Why is it so important?
I was kindly invited to work with Brian Orr and some others on the Journal of Classical Theology that wants to help retrieve the church’s historic view of God as exemplified in the thought of theologians like the Cappadocian Fathers, Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Calvin, Owen, and others. “Retrieval” has become something of a keyword for those of us who want to mine the past for use in the church today. There has been a rediscovery of classical views of God in the last number of years amongst evangelicals, particularly the divine attributes and the Trinitarian relations, that has been heartening. I do fear that “classical theism” has become a phrase merely employed in debate without much thought; we can see this playing out on social media before our eyes each day. I’d love for JCT to transcend such debates and do real constructive theology that is grounded firmly in Scripture and the Great Tradition. Debates are important, of course, but theological debate should mainly function to sharpen all of us so that we might better worship God. All theology should be doxology.