An extended review of a 2025 book by Tim Perry
Note: Our print issue contains a shorter version of this review. Faith Today welcomes your thoughts on any of our reviews. We also welcome review suggestions of other media of interest to Canadian Christians: Contact us.
Lexham Press, 2025. 202 pages. $25 (ebook $10)
Division is the word of the day. With such division one rightly wonders if hope remains for us. Tim Perry, a seminary instructor and Anglican priest now pastoring at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Steinbach, Man., is optimistic.
This book is his lament, plea, call, panarion (“a catalogue of heresies and how to treat them”), and his “last love letter to evangelicalism” (p.1-3). Among all the recent books on Evangelicalism and politics, Perry has something worth considering.
The most prominent element of this book is Perry’s commitment to critique both the political left and right (p.24). Most other books show what is wrong with MAGA, or how wokeness will destroy us; Perry carefully shows heretical problems with both sides. In each chapter Perry showcases a different heresy/controversy from the Early Church and its active presence in evangelical churches today.
The first heresy Perry discusses is simony, which is considered a dead heresy as it entailed someone seeking social or political power through manipulating the Church. Perry argues that this heresy certainly is prominent today, and is the heresy behind all the others of today’s evangelical Church.
The heresy originated with Simon Magus, who tried to buy the Spirit’s power from Peter (Acts 8:18-24). Today, instead of the State seeking power through the Church, the reverse happens. “Simony looks different than it used to; . . . it is more subtle, less obvious, and therefore, perhaps, even more dangerous than it once was” (p.45).
As sub-heresies to simony, Perry exposits gnosticism, arianism, pelagianism and donatism to show how the current evangelical trend of equating political and social power with Christian life and virtue are mere reiterations of these misguided ideas. In other words, all these old heresies have manifestations in the Canadian Evangelical Church.
Perry suggests a solution for each heresy. For simony he suggests prudence, namely, careful and patient thinking (p.53-58).
For gnosticism he suggests realism, meaning recognizing the reality of this world and supporting the furtherance of the physical sciences even when their findings seem to challenge our doctrinal stances (p.83-88).
For arianism he suggests incarnation, namely, a more prominent focus on our Triune God through “confessing the Nicene Creed in worship” (p.116) and a recognition of Mary as the theotokos (bearer-of-God) through meditating on the Scripture passages that make her honour clear (e.g. Luke 1:48).
Pelagianism (as Perry applies it) is “the temptation to build the kingdom on our own” (p.145), so he suggests reclaiming the gospel. Thus, “we cannot vote for God” (p.147), and the Church is called to bear witness to God’s kingdom through its message of works and word, not through acquiring political power.
Finally, donatism is thinking that “we” are holy, and “you” are evil. Perry suggests a two-fold solution: first, to withhold judgment on people with whom we disagree (p.167), and then carefully, and communally, identify problems. “Precisely here we run into what might look like evangelicalism’s Achilles’ heel: the seeming lack of an agreed-upon authority that can end the debate” (p.168). Still, there is hope.
The greatest positive element of this book is how Perry carefully highlights the heretical problems in evangelicalism without singling out either the political left or right as culprits. He thus hopes to resist alienating adherents from either side. Another positive is his focus on early Christianity, an era sadly neglected in evangelical circles. Hopefully, his book can spark further interest in this subject.
Speaking as a junior scholar in Early Christianity, I’d argue some of Perry’s overviews lack accuracy. For example, his claim that the gnostic understanding of the physical world was the universal norm (p.72). Rather, the gnostic anti-physical ideas were the minority among the many options, whereas most orthodox Christians agreed with the majority, namely stoics and epicureans.
But Perry rightly notes the common Evangelical rejection of academic specialization and neglect of the Early Fathers is part of the problem (p.108-109). I thus echo Perry’s call for better training in early Christian theology in Evangelical institutions.
Overall, this book is helpful and timely. I second Perry’s concern that “our ‘fighting for Jesus’ should be the first sign to us that we’ve lost him” (p.199), and may it be that “where [the church] is divided and rent asunder,” that our Lord will “heal its breaches” (p.xiii).
Editor's note: We love our reviewers, but we don’t always agree. You won’t either, maybe especially in the Bestsellers and Roundup sections. Do let us know what you think. Sample chapters of most books can be viewed at Books.Google.ca and Amazon.ca. Faith Today earns a small commission when people make purchases using our links to Amazon.ca.