RESILIENT FAITH: HOW THE EARLY CHRISTIAN “THIRD WAY” CHANGED THE WORLD

Gerald Sittser (aka Jerry) is the best-selling author of Water from a Deep Well, A Grace Disguised, and The Will of God as a Way of Life

He is the beloved and long-term professor of theology at Whitworth University, where he serves as senior fellow and researcher in the Office of Church Engagement.

The following interview centers around Jerry’s latest book, Resilient Faith. (paid link)

The interview was conducted by David George Moore. Some of Dave’s teaching and interview videos can be accessed at www.mooreengaging.com.

Moore: What (perhaps who!) were the motivating reasons behind writing this book?

Sittser: Like all academics, I read, especially primary sources that are relevant to my field of study. Many years ago, I read a phrase in a second-century document known as “The So-Called Letter to Diognetus” that awakened my curiosity. The anonymous Christian writer used the phrase “Third Race” to describe the early Christian movement. It is apparent in the immediate context of the document that the Roman official, Diognetus, to which the document was written, was familiar with the phrase. The movement was so unique in his mind that it required a new classification. It created a “Third Race” of people, or what I call a “Third way.”

That one phrase lodged itself in my memory. What about the Christian movement made it so new, unique, and appealing (or disturbing) that it had to be classified as radically different from the first race (Rome) and the second race (Judaism). This discovery launched me on a conquest to learn what made the early Christian movement so different. Over time friends of mine, mostly fellow scholars and colleagues, urged me to write a book on it. It is not a traditional text on early Christianity. We have enough of those. The book explores what made the movement unique and successful.

Moore: Timothy George likes to say that there is much that occurred between the death of Jesus and the life of our grandmother, yet most of us are ignorant of these things. Why is knowing history of little interest to many Christians?

Sittser: I am wondering how many people even want to learn much about their grandmothers!

I think there is both a good reason, and a bad reason. The good reason is that we assume the apostolic age is the ideal. So why not simply return to it, which the majority of renewal movements have tried to do. They want to rediscover and imitate the original. There is therefore really no reason to study history, once we leave the apostolic age. The rest of history tells a story of corruption and decline. It is at best a cautionary tale. Of course, there are exceptions. If reformed, then the Reformation has something to teach us; if evangelical, then the 18^th-century awakenings; if mainline and progressive, then the social gospel movement. These movements have some value. But knowing the whole of history seems a waste of time. It is best to return to the original. That desire to return to and reclaim pristine Christianity runs as a strong current among Christians, especially evangelical types.

The bad reason is that many American Christians, especially evangelicals, are quite anti-intellectual. Of all disciplines of theology, history seems the most inaccessible and irrelevant, a series of names and dates that mire us in the past. Bible study is more immediately useful; it is the Bible, after all, the holy book of Christianity. Theology, too, seems more relevant because it addresses matters pertaining to doctrine, and thus the truth. But history? It is messy, complex, full of dark moments and ugly stories. Why bother?

Moore: You supply a wonderful bibliography at the end of your book. What two or three books would you say are the best starting points for those who have little background in the first 500 years of the Church’s history?

Sittser: I would always encourage readers to read original or primary sources, many of which are surprisingly accessible, and often moving. Read “The So-Called Letter to Diognetus.” It is short (only 12 pages), elegant, and powerful. It demonstrates that the ancient world of Christianity is not so different from ours. Read the accounts of the martyrdom of Polycarp or Perpetua. These accounts move my students to tears. Read a short collection of sermons, by, say, Basil of Caesarea or John Chrysostom. They remind us that what preached in the 4^th century could probably preach today. My students are surprised, even shocked, by the relevance of these texts. The single best secondary source is Robert Louis Wilken’s The Spirit of Early Christian Thought. He is a masterful writer, and he gets inside how early Christians thought and practiced that makes sense of it all.

Moore: You have much to say about the fading influence of Christendom. What is Christendom, and how should the church in America view itself as a result of no longer having the superstructure of sorts that was Christendom?

Sittser: Christendom emerged very slowly over hundreds of years, and the process was never complete. Not every person living during the Middle Ages or Reformation was serious about faith, or even Christian at all. After the fall of Rome and the decline of the empire, it took literally centuries for mostly monk-missionaries to win tribal groups, out of which Christendom emerged. The result was the creation of a symbiotic relationship between church and empire (or state), Christianity and culture. Both entities needed each other. A more serious expression of Christianity never died, though Christendom made Christianity as a religion much less distinct and serious than we find in the early Christian period. The vast majority of people living in Europe were Christian; but many of them were nominal.

The story in America departs from the European narrative in several ways. Europe maintained state-established religion well into the 20^th century. In America the Framers believed that this arrangement was bad for the state, and bad for religion. Hence the “separation of church and state.” Religion in America became a competitive enterprise, which is why American religion is both creative and diverse (and divided!). Over time America developed what I would call a “cultural establishment of religion.” The vast majority of people living in America claim Christianity as their religion, and many regularly attend church, too. Presidents end their State of the Union addresses with “God bless America.” Christianity is alive and well in America. It is culturally established, though that arrangement is changing. We see evidence of that in cities on the two coasts. Rates of traditional Christian belief and church attendance are much lower in cities like Seattle and San Francisco than they are in cities like Chattanooga and Sioux Falls, especially among people under the age of 35. The “cultural establishment of Christianity” has less holding power than it used to have. In my mind the church has to adjust, not by becoming more coercive but by becoming more winsome and persuasive, and more faithful to the apostolic faith.

Moore: From my own work, especially the forthcoming documentary on the Dones, I was glad to read that you believe “indifference and even intellectual laziness” contribute to many drifting from the Christian faith. The psychologist and gadfly, Jordan Peterson, likes to tell young men that they have no credibility to protest when their rooms are unkempt. It seems you agree that many drift from the faith for less than compelling reasons. Would you unpack the problem of Christians who are intellectually lazy and share a few things that can be done to address it?

Sittser: Well, that is not exactly what I would argue. I want to be as charitable as I can be! I would say that for many in their twenties the air they breathe makes it easier for them to drift from traditional faith, from involvement in local churches, and from the practice of Christian disciplines. The choice to leave Christianity used to require more effort and commitment. The decision NOT to believe demanded a conscious commitment to resist the religious status quo of Christendom. Not so much anymore. Hence the drift we see.

I would be quick to add, however, that many people in their twenties care about important matters. They volunteer for worthy causes. But they frame their convictions and pursue causes without much reference to Christianity. They might pursue the protection of the planet, but not because God created it and Jesus was incarnated to redeem it.

A post-Christendom culture demands less from those who reject Christianity; it demands more from those who choose to become or remain Christian. It seems more the case that the burden of proof rests on those who decide to believe and live as Christians. Christian professors and pastors need to think this through. Traditional apologetics might have to make room for a more psychological and sociological defense of Christianity. For example, we know that Christian belief makes a person more stable, makes for better marriages, and makes for a healthier society. For those suffering from loneliness, anxiety, and depression, all of which are increasing, this is good news. This research might provide a way to make a new case for Christianity. I recently read Lost Connections, which Oprah loves! Though the author claims to be an atheist, his research actually makes a case for Christianity, however indirectly. These newer methods of apologetics are good allies to older methods that we find in intellectuals like C. S. Lewis. We can trace the results of faith—a happy and healthy life—to the source, which of course is Jesus Christ, the redemption he offers and the life he calls us to live.

Moore: The late Dallas Willard used to say that discipleship was not taking place in most of the churches he visited. Do you agree with him, and if so, what happened to make this central ministry of spiritual formation lose its place in the life of our churches?

Sittser: Christendom makes discipleship an option, not a requirement. During the medieval period the word “conversion” applied to people who chose to become monks or nuns. They were “converted” to the religious life. In other words, if everyone was Christian by default—Christian by virtue of living in western society, Christian because they were born and baptized into it—then discipleship was reserved for those who made a special decision to be serious about faith, to practice and live it. Discipleship was for the few, not the many. Everyone was assumed to be Christian; some people chose to be disciples.

That basic assumption lingered for centuries. Renewal movements emerged over the centuries to Christianize Christendom, to challenge people to live as Christians. Just consider the monastic movement (e.g., Cistercians), or the mendicant movement (e.g., Franciscans), or the awakenings (e.g., Methodists). But what happens when Christendom fades? It tends to have the effect of eliminating nominal Christians. There is simply little or no reason to be Christian anymore. Cultural pressure virtually disappears. If anything, there is more pressure NOT to believe. But the fading of Christendom does provide an opportunity—and even makes it a necessity—to make genuine disciples.

I conclude the book by describing the long on-ramp that early Christian leaders created to move people from traditional religion into the Christian fold. The difference between the two—paganism and Christianity—was so great that a simple, short, convenient conversion would have made no sense. Most people in the ancient world knew nothing about Christianity. Consequently, Christian leaders created a process of training called the “catechumenate,” which was embodied in a two to three-year process of formation. Christian leaders believed that such training was inherent to the faith (Jesus, after all, is Lord) and necessary for its survival and growth. The twin temptations of accommodation to culture or isolation from culture would have meant the death of the movement. Instead, early Christians influenced the culture without excessive compromise and maintained an observable difference from the culture without excessive isolation.

Moore: What are two or three things you hope your readers take away from reading Resilient Faith?

Sittser: Really, only one. The early Christian movement created a “Third Way.” It is easy for us to forget how new and unique this movement was, and still is. Rome had never seen the likes of it before. It introduced a new kind of belief, worship, identity, authority, community, and way of life. The movement was new because Jesus was new. Rome had never seen the likes of Jesus before either. Consequently, the movement grew out of the uniqueness of Jesus. As Luke proclaims in the Acts of the Apostles, this movement “turned the world upside down,” and did so long before Constantine assumed the throne and laid the groundwork for the Christian empire and the emergence of Christendom.

In our increasingly post-Christendom setting, we have much to learn from a movement that flourished in a pre-Christendom setting. Mere survival would have been impressive enough. But they did far more than survive. They flourished without state establishment and cultural privilege. They had no big church buildings and budgets, no favored political candidates they could vote into office, no conservative (or liberal) supreme court judges, no large-scale non-profits, no big publishing companies, no celebrity preachers, no internet, podcasts, blogs, Instagram, and Twitter. Yet they surpassed all expectations and succeeded against all odds. Perhaps we have something to learn from these early Christians!

By Ruth Tucker

In all my years of writing, I had never heard the term kill fee. Not until the news broke that porn star Stormy Daniels had been paid a large sum to prevent the story of her relationship with Donald Trump from appearing in the National Inquirer. Michael Cohen, the fixer, had worked it out. He killed the article. Only months later I submitted a solicited online article on Amy Carmichael to Christianity Today and I ended up with a measly $75 kill fee.

I had thought the piece was well-written and balanced (not as one-sided as is this short post), and I assumed it would be accepted with few changes. After all, through the years I’ve written many articles for CT, including cover stories. My editor, however, did not like my perspective. Finally, after a number of re-writes, I emailed the Editor in Chief. He wrote back: “I’m not sure what happened here–something weird.  You are an outstanding writer of history.” But the editor held her ground. He encouraged me to work with her which involved still more significant changes. I gave it my best shot—then the kill fee.

Amy Carmichael has long been the Evangelical Virgin Mary—and one of the most celebrated Protestant missionaries of all time. She served in India without home leave for more than 55 years. She founded the Dohnavur Fellowship, an independent mission (including orphanage), as well as the Sisters of the Common Life, a community of women who made vows of celibacy. In addition to all of that, she authored more than 30 books. Her most well-known—and most controversial—activity, however, was that of rescuing Indian girls from temple prostitution. This work was criticized by other missionaries and Indians alike who believed she was exaggerating the problem—and in some cases making it worse. Nevertheless, her stories inspired millions of Christians around the world.

She was born in Millisle, Northern Ireland in 1867. In her twenties, she testified to God’s call to become a missionary. She applied to join Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission, but was rejected. She then sought support from individuals associated with Keswick movement and at age 24 sailed for Japan as an independent missionary. With no preparation, she arrived as a stranger—no one to greet her or help her become oriented. Writing home, she complained that language learning was virtually impossible, that resident missionaries fought among themselves, and that the climate was “dreadful upon the brain.” After just 15 months, she relocated: “I simply say that I left Japan for rest and change, that when at Shanghai I believed the Lord told me to follow Him down to Ceylon [Sri Lanka], and so I came.”

Soon after that, she returned home. But in less than a year, she sailed for India, this time her work sponsored by the Church of England Zenana Mission, founded to evangelize women segregated in zenanas (female quarters). But she was not suited to work under the authority of others. She left the Anglicans and established her own mission with no oversight, organizational ties or interaction with resident missionaries. They were too lax in their work. They took vacations and joined together for celebrations. Not those at Dohnavar. Amy did not take furloughs, or holidays; neither would her workers. She made a vow of celibacy, so also her workers.

She also had strong opinions on straight-forward evangelism. Sarel, one of her faithful converts, wished to teach women to knit as a means to evangelism. The wool had been donated—no mission funds needed. But Amy was adamant. This is how other missionaries operated. The true gospel “needed no such frills.”

Amy’s own words and actions reflected her contempt for other mission work: “O to be delivered from half-hearted missionaries!” On one occasion while horseback riding, she saw ahead two Anglican bishops and “various old ladies.” They “parted with alacrity as we shot through, and we caught a fleeting glance at their gaze of astonishment and horror.” That she was amused by their horror is telling. Again, she writes: “Once I ran over a man. I did not mean to—he wouldn’t get out of the way and one can’t stop short in mid-gallop.” Although written in a style to entertain her readers back home, the account was condescending to the people—and culture—with whom she was working.

In fact, Amy seemed to purposely challenge cultural norms and at times to provoke violent incidents with Hindus. Husbands were head of the home—no marriage equality. But Amy, hoping to win another convert, wrote: “Will God move in [her] heart so that she will dare her husband’s fury and the knife he flashed before her eyes? If so, our bungalow will be in the very teeth of the storm, angry men all around it, and we inside, kept by the power of God.”

When she began her work in India, missionary candidates had long been trained to be conscious of cross-cultural ministry. Indeed, William Carey, a century earlier, made every effort to learn about native culture and present the faith in relevant terms. He preached against destructive practices but was humbled by his own struggle to learn language and customs, always conscious that he was an uninvited visitor to their sub-continent.

While Amy adopted traditional dress style, she scorned many Hindu cultural practices. On one occasion, while walking in the countryside with Sarel she noticed a stone cairn—a religious icon. Amy tells of her outrage: these stones in “honor of the false gods, in the midst of the true God’s beauty. . . . We knocked them over and down they crashed.” Such stories troubled other missionaries and short-term volunteers who worked with Amy.

The most noted supporters of Amy’s work who visited Dohnavur were members of the Neill family. Although the parents—both of whom were physicians—and their daughter stayed only a short time, the son Stephen remained for more than a year. He was Amy’s pride and joy, a brilliant Cambridge graduate (later to became an Anglican bishop, a missions professor and author). Yet the relationship soon soured and she dismissed him.

The precise reasons for his dismissal are unclear, but he had organized sport activities for boys outside the compound and disagreed with her on other issues. For him, the year-long relationship had taken a serious toll: “such darkness and suffering that it took me many years to recover . . . and the scars are still there.” Why didn’t he leave with his parents? Amy had a magnetic pull not entirely unlike a cult leader. Stephen remembered his first thoughts on meeting her—”an impression of power.” And he learned quickly that the “smallest disagreement” was not allowed. The wonderful stories about Dohnavur were, in his assessment, no more than “myth.”

Neill was certainly not alone in his criticisms. “There arose during the early years,” according to Elisabeth Elliot, “a fairly strong ‘Get-Amy-Carmichael-out-of-India’ movement among missionaries and Indian Christians.” But Amy felt she had no need to explain herself. She was absolutely convinced she was obeying God. “Our Master . . . demands obedience,” she wrote in Gold Cord. “Sometimes the Spirit of Jesus gave a direct command. . . . Sometimes an angel was sent, sometimes a vision. . . . In the end our God justifies His commands.”

Twenty years before she died in 1951, Amy was seriously injured in a fall and from that point on was bedridden. Yet she soldiered on, fully in charge of her mission to the very end. Today, a Google check of her name generates more than seventeen million results, a clear indication of her renown.

It has been a very busy start to the academic year. I’ve been planning to dig into the book (and video course) by Doug and Jonathan Moo Creation Care: A Biblical Theology of the Natural World, but haven’t had the time. Today, finally, we return to look at chapter 4, Members, Rulers, and Keepers of Creation (episode 3 in the video series).

We start by looking the (in)significance of humans. We are creatures like all other creatures on earth. The study of biology shows just how true this is – from our genome to the chemistry and material structures that allow us to live and function. Biblically, this extends to our very souls. Jonathan emphasizes this in both the book and the lecture.

As I begin writing this chapter, I (Jonathan) am sitting near the shore of the Pend Orielle River in the far northeastern corner of Washington State n a cool and cloudy August morning. The breeze is rustling the aspen leaves above me and causing a mixed forest of aspen, western redcedar, hemlock, Engelmann spruce, Douglas fir, larch, white pine, grand fir, and lodgepole pine on the hills across the river sway gently back and forth. Three white-tailed deer bucks are slowly picking their way along the opposite shore, and a red squirrel is chattering loudly behind me. An osprey has just flown into a Douglas fir nearby. …

All of these creatures … and even the inanimate rocks and soil and water and clouds, are, I know, bringing God praise and glory simply by being what they were created to be. Yet what, then, I wonder, of me and my kind? (p. 68)

The picture at the top of this post is an osprey, although perched on a dead birch on a lake in northern Minnesota where I enjoyed watching it fish and eat rather than along a river in Washington state. Below is an image of the osprey eating the fish I watched it catch. As a human I am not a bird, or a cat, or a chimpanzee. But it is hard to identify precisely the features that set us apart. Turning to scripture it isn’t the soul. Jonathan points out: “We, like all other living things, are earthly creatures, formed from the dust of the earth, adam from the adamah. Our possession of  the life-giving breath of God, making each of us a nephesh or psychē or “soul,” does not distinguish us from other living things, all of whom are also animated by God’s same life-giving Spirit.” (p. 70)

We are reminded of our insignificance in many passages.

A voice says, “Cry out!”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are grass,
their constancy is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
when the breath of the Lord blows upon it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand forever.”
Isaiah 40:6-8

As for mortals, their days are like grass;
they flourish like a flower of the field;
for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
and its place knows it no more.
Ps 103:15-16

Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
James 4:14

But we have a special relationship and vocation. These do set us apart. The verses from Psalm 103 above are bracketed by verses comparing God’s care for humans to that of a good father for his children.

As a father has compassion for his children,
so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.
For he knows how we were made;
he remembers that we are dust.
…
But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
on those who fear him,
and his righteousness to children’s children,
to those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments.
Ps 103:13-14, 17-18

Psalm 8 and Genesis 1 take this further and identify a human vocation.

what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?
Yet you have made them a little lower than the angels,
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet
Psalm 8:4-7

Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:26-27

Our position in creation is defined by relationship and vocation. As humans we are created to be in relationship with God and to serve as his image in the world. To rule and subdue as his image is not a calling to destroy and deface. Rather it calls for care of the ‘garden’ extended to all of creation, to fight against God’s enemies, to rule for the good of the ruled not aggrandizement of the ruler. We rule under God, to image God’s care to all of creation as best we can.

Godly rule is described in Psalm 72 and embodied in the life of Jesus. “As Christians, we will finally only understand that humanity’s rule ought to look like by focusing on Christ.”  (p. 72)

Give the king your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to a king’s son.
May he judge your people with righteousness,
and your poor with justice.
May the mountains yield prosperity for the people,
and the hills, in righteousness.
May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,
give deliverance to the needy,
and crush the oppressor.
Ps 72:1-4

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,
Phil. 2:5-7

Our vocation as the image of God is a corporate human calling, it is always subordinate to God, and it is for the good of the whole of creation. God has made his covenant with all leaving creatures. Here we turn to Genesis 9:

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. … God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” Gen 9:8-10,17

Jonathan concludes the chapter:

But creation care is first and last simply about being human. It is about becoming who we have been created to be as God’s image bearers in the community of creation, living as God calls us to in all of life – in our eating and sleeping, our working and playing, our planting and harvesting, our buying and selling, our loving and dying. The biblical vision is a holistic, all encompassing one, and it includes us all. (p. 86)

Obviously, this is only a few brief ideas and highlights from the chapter – but covers an essential point. Creation care isn’t relegated to a small cadre of specialists, and it should flow from our nature as children of God created in his image.

How does this vision of our calling as God’s image on earth and God’s care for creation change our understanding of ‘creation care’?

How do our insignificance and our significance come together to shape our understanding of ourselves and our role in God’s creation?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

By Ruth Tucker, who is continuing her weekly series at Jesus Creed.

The “coloured people”, poor as they were, had been paying their pledges for remodeling Philadelphia’s St. George’s Methodist Church, “and just as the house was made comfortable, we were turned out from enjoying the comforts of worshiping therein.” These are the plaintive words of Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME).

“If you go to Philadelphia today and stop at the corner of Sixth and Lombard streets, you stand on hallowed ground,” writes Richard Newman in Freedom’s Prophet. “Here one of early America’s leading reformers built an internationally famous church, wrote pamphlets of protest that served as models for generations to come, and championed liberty and justice for all.”

In 1777, at age 17 Allen was converted at a Methodist revival. Three years later he purchased his freedom and at the same time discarded his old name, “Negro Richard.” When he was 26, he settled down in Philadelphia where he began a Methodist society that soon numbered more than forty committed members, a congregation that wanted to form its own church. But the local Methodists would have none of it. One particular leader “was much opposed to an African church, and used very degrading and insulting language to us, to try and prevent us from going on.”

Allen was told that he and his congregation must associate themselves with St. George’s. As a faithful Methodist he agreed. That’s when the real clash began. Word of his effective ministry had spread, and soon his followers could no longer fit into their assigned seats. Then one Sunday, during the morning prayers they spilled into the whites-only section. The “coloured people” stayed on their knees, not wanting to make a commotion, that is until two church leaders began to forcibly push them away so that they wouldn’t contaminate the white people.

Allen and the black congregants rented a storage shed for their own worship but were quickly threatened by trustees who insisted they return and pay their pledges in full. Throughout his personal narrative, Allen resists leaving the denomination despite ill-treatment. In fact, many local blacks wanted nothing to do with the Methodists, opting rather to associate with Anglicans. But Allen objected. “I was confident that there was no religious sect or denomination that would suit the capacity of the coloured people as well as the Methodist.… All other denominations preached so high-flown that we were not able to comprehend their doctrine.”

In 1794, after years of struggle with the white Methodists, Allen purchased his own property—a vacant rundown blacksmith shop—and paid to have it moved and remodeled. This would be the new Bethel Church. His sacrificial efforts, however, did not go unnoticed by sympathetic whites, particularly two Presbyterians, Dr. Benjamin Rush and Robert Ralston. They contributed money and moral support.

Moral support also came from a “sympathizing friend and tender father,” President George Washington, who presided in the nation’s capital in Philadelphia. Allen wrote a eulogy to him on his death in 1799, convinced that the President’s word on freeing his own slaves as well as his hopes that slavery would soon be abolished would come true. Allen lived large on hope, but reality too often ruled the day.

The immediate reality for him was that the local Methodists simply could not stop themselves. The harassment continued. They demanded that the new church become the property of the Conference. Allen refused. After all he had been through, he and his people were determined to be independent. Okay. Let them go their own way. Indeed, one of the local leaders kindly offered to draw up the corporation papers that would allow Bethel to keep the building and land that had been paid in full. “We cheerfully submitted to his proposed plan,” Allan wrote in his narrative. But, as it turned out, this church leader had pulled a fast one. “He drew the incorporation, but incorporated our church under . . . the white Conference, and our property was gone.”

Initially, Allen, “being ignorant of incorporations,” did not even realize he had been double-crossed, but several years later this dishonest man became the head of the Philadelphia Methodist churches, at which time he demanded the keys and record books, and insisted that Allen hold no meetings without his permission.

With the help of outsiders, Bethel Church eventually regained ownership of its property. But then the Conference insisted that the church must be served several times a year by licensed white lay preachers—ones who were far less qualified than Allen himself. So, suck up your pride “Negro Richard” and let them preach. One little problem, however. For the service of these barely qualified lay preachers, Bethel was charged $600 per year, far beyond the means of this impoverished little church. Finally, writes Allen, “an edict was passed … that if any local preacher should serve us, he should be expelled,” and “a circular letter [was published] in which we were disowned by the Methodists.”

We could wonder why Allen was so longsuffering. But from the time he was converted he lived on the hope of becoming a Methodist preacher. Finally, Francis Asbury to the rescue. In 1799 he ordained Allen in a simple ceremony, an historic event, making Allen the first black Methodist minister. It was a step forward, but the racial discrimination continued. It would take seventeen years before Allen was able to bring together four congregations to form the AME.

Allen lived in an era long before denominations started splitting. He ministered for more than three decades before he felt it was right to form a new denomination. He lived fifteen more years after that, serving as Bishop of the AME until his death in 1831. Had he lived another three decades to the onset of the Civil War, he would have seen the issues in a different light. New denominations were popping up all over. One well-known split became the Southern Baptists, separating themselves as a race with the God-given right to own people as property. So also other denominations. In founding the AME, Allen saved Methodism for blacks to independently face the torturous generations ahead.

There is no way in a short post that I can do justice to a life so full as Allen’s was. Here I’ve focused primarily on the awful discrimination that shadowed him most of his life. To get to know him, better I recommend Freedom’s Prophet by Richard Newman (New York University, 2008). It’s the definitive biography: well written, 40 pages of notes and an excellent index.

Today the AME numbers more than two and a half million, one of whom is Billie Suber, my friend and former business partner. I’ll never forget the cold January day in 2008 when she boarded one of two busses leaving her church parking lot in Grand Rapids for Washington D.C. The occasion was the inauguration of our first black President. For Richard Allen who gorged himself on hope, that day would have felt like the wait had been far too long. For Billie, amid the crowds and bitter cold, the wait was measured in hours. For me, the wait was measured by her play-by-play phone calls.

Andrew Bartlett, in his new book Men and Women in Christ (MWiC), asks if Paul affirms or denies hierarchies in Christian marriage?

Good question. He explores these questions with finesse and nuance and even-handedness.

Being willing to take the lowest place for the good of others is at the heart of Christian love and living. Jesus taught this and also lived it, both in his ministry and supremely at the cross (Mark 10:42-45;John 13:1-17; 15:12-17; Phil. 2:5-
-8). Because Paul’s view of the world is Christ-centred, this theme is often picked up in his teaching:

‘loving,… preferring one another in honour’ (Rom. 12:10)…

This has significant implications.

The fellowship of God’s church is therefore built not on hierarchies but on humble love.

However, this does not mean that Paul is opposed to all hierarchy. He endorses the existence and exercise of authority where appropriate. For example, believers should submit to civil government, because it is God’s provision for the active restraint of evil (Rom. 13:1-7). And he endorses the appropriate exercise of authority by parents over children. We know this because one of the qualifications for eldership is that elders should have their children under proper control (i Tim. 3:4-5 – ‘having children in subjection’). Paul is innocent of today’s Western cultural distaste for hierarchies.

Grudem says that Paul’s use of hupotasso implies a hierarchy of husband over wife. He claims that hupotasso is always used of submission to an authority. … Grudem’s reasoning skips over an essential interpretive decision which has to be made when we read the texts concerning wives’ submission. Does Paul mean that wives should submit because their husbands are in authority over them? Or does Paul mean that wives should behave as if their husbands ranked above them, even though in Christ husbands and wives are not in a hierarchy but are on an equal footing as brothers and sisters? On the first view submission is appropriate because the wife should recognize the husband’s authoritative position. On the second view submission is appropriate simply as an expression of Christian humility. On either view the idea of ranking is central to Paul’s meaning. The question is whether it is an objective ranking, reflecting the existence of an actual hierarchy, or whether it is a subjective ranking, reflecting a deliberate choice to behave with humility towards another person. This makes a real difference to Paul’s readers, since the first view affirms a husband’s unilateral authority and the second does not.

Conclusions:

• Paul is not opposed to hierarchies where they are appropriate.
• The word ‘submit’ (hupotasso) carries the idea of being ranked below someone else. But Paul’s instruction to wives to submit does not of itself imply the existence of a hierarchy in marriage. We have to decide whether he means that wives should submit because their husbands are in authority over them or whether he means that wives should behave as if their husbands ranked above them.
• Submission in Christian relationships does not mean giving unquestioning obedience to another person. There is no Christian duty to follow another person into wrongdoing.
• There was not a uniform view of marriage in first-century culture, but typically the husband had unilateral authority over the wife.
• Paul’s instructions to wives to submit, and to husbands to love, are partly driven by practical considerations.
• Paul endorses the authority of parents over children but not of slave owners over slaves. Comparing the three household relationships (wife to husband, child to father, slave to master) does not establish that Paul approves of husbands having unilateral authority over their wives.

In Search of the Common Good

Jake Meador is editor in chief of Mere Orthodoxy, an online magazine and is a director with the Davenant Institute.  His writing has appeared in First Things, National Review, Christianity Today, Commonweal and Books & Culture.

The following interview revolves around Jake’s new book, In Search of the Common Good (foreword by Tim Keller).  The interview was conducted by David George Moore.  A few of Dave’s teaching videos and other videos can be found at www.mooreengaging.com.

Moore:  Give us an idea what, perhaps who, motivated you to write this book.

Meador: It was two separate trends that I was observing in parallel. Within about a five-year window, a number of Christian intellectuals wrote books raising concern about the future of the church in America. Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option is the most well-known. At the same time, a number of books also came out from more mainstream publishing houses about the decline of civil society in America. J. D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy would likely be the most popular on the right. Robert Putnam’s Our Kids is probably the biggest title on the left. What I wanted to do with my book is weave those two trends together so that I could say something about the cause of decline that also offers a clear path forward for Christians. If it’s true that we live in this anxious, lonely, and disorienting world, what does the command to love one’s neighbor call us to in such a context? I wanted to answer that question.

Moore: I would like you to respond to a marginal note I made in my copy of the book.  In thinking of your book, I wrote “If God created the world, we need to guard against doing too much tinkering with it.  Yes, we are stewards who are given the creation mandate, but we must be careful how much we desire the world to be remade in our own image.”

Meador: This is an important question. The Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck said in his work that “grace restores nature,” and I think that’s an important insight into how this ought to work. On the one hand, Bavinck’s framing recognizes that the world truly is fallen and so as we fulfill God’s call to have dominion over the earth and to love our neighbor, both will necessarily involve working on the world in ways that change it. We must, Berry says, break the body of creation simply in order to live–we kill animals in order to eat meat, we break up the earth in order to farm. That being said, “grace restoring nature” comes with a kind of seat belt built into the process: As we are transformed by grace, we are enabled by God to restore nature, not to build something entirely new or to override nature or to crush nature. It’s important we understand the idea of ‘stewardship’ rightly. The power of a steward is relativized by the health of the thing entrusted to them. Theirs is not an absolute dominion, but a contingent one that is defined and judged by how their authority is used to serve the life of the thing they are stewarding. Benedict XVI says that ‘the book of nature is indivisible,’ which means that a human society that survives only by committing acts of exploitative violence upon the earth is itself going to be an unhealthy society—which, of course, is precisely what we have today.

Moore: Early on you write, “…we must face the fact that many of the wounds contributing to the American church’s decline are self-inflicted.”  Unpack that some for us.

Meador: There are two great evils that have been characteristic of American evangelicalism for about the past 30-40 years. The first evil is a disordered relationship to politics that is closely tied to the rise of the religious right. The religious right has distorted our lens for viewing politics by frequently reducing Christian political witness to the accomplishment of certain policy objectives brought about by civic action intended to help the “right” political party acquire power. I don’t think it was originally intended this way, but over time what that has done is it has crowded out other political values, civic virtues, and a more robust approach to political life amongst evangelicals. It has made us power-chasers and, when combined with evangelical fears over persecution, has the effect of (we think) authorizing us to support even a moral abyss like Donald Trump if he will protect us from the godless liberals and pick up a couple policy wins for us. In other words, it makes us entirely indifferent as to political means because we apparently believe that the means justify the ends. I know of no other way to read something like Wayne Grudem’s deplorable endorsement of Trump than as precisely this sort of sub-Christian political thinking.

The other great evil is the seeker-sensitive movement. Willow Creek Church is exemplary of this movement and, if their recent job listing for a senior pastor is any indicator, they learned basically nothing from the abuse scandal involving their founder, Bill Hybels. A seeker-sensitive church is the American version of the “modernist” church lampooned in the old BBC sitcom “Yes, Minister.” In one sketch, a government official is explaining “modernism” to the Prime Minister. He says that the church wishes to be more relevant. The PM, bless him, says “to God?” and the official laughs and says, “of course not!” Later the official explains to the PM that the Queen is a non-negotiable part of the Church of England but belief in God is “an optional extra.” It would not be terribly difficult to translate many of those jokes into the American context with the seeker-sensitive movement as the target.

If you look at something like that Willow Creek job listing, you see a great deal of bleating about leadership and vision, the things valued by the American suburban business class that serves as Willow’s base, and alarmingly little about a rich prayer life, devotion to God, generosity toward the poor, a love of the Scriptures and the sacraments, and so on.

We might put it this way: If we suppose that the Ten Commandments are concerned with piety and with justice, then the seeker-sensitive movement taught us to be indifferent to piety while the religious right taught us to be indifferent to justice. And an ostensibly Christian movement that is indifferent to both of those will not be long for this world and will, indeed, alienate many people—and with good reason! Indeed, it would seem to be precisely the sort of religious movement that the Old Testament prophets as well as Christ himself spend so much of their time condemning.

Moore: You are the beneficiary of parents who live a vibrant and compelling vision of the Christian faith.  How would you encourage Christians struggling with cynicism due in no small part to not seeing a compelling vision of the Christian faith being lived out, even though growing up in so-called Christian homes?

Meador: The first thing I would want to say is that I am deeply sorry.

The second thing is I would encourage them to do everything in their power to find mature Christians who really are wholly given to the life God calls us to in Scripture. Having that support in your life is often going to be essential for one’s own spiritual health.

The third thing would be to attend closely to the voice of God in the Scriptures. The Bible knows something of people who follow God while alone and in the wilderness. And if the biblical record is any indicator, two of the great temptations to people who are attempting to do that are grumbling and despair. The Israelites believe God has abandoned them in the wilderness and grumble. Elijah believes God has abandoned him in the desert and nearly gives in to despair. The answer to both these sins is the same: Believe the promise of God offered to you in the Gospel. God does not forget his people. He is not indifferent to their suffering. He is familiar with sorrow, acquainted with grief.

And also: God is overflowing with life, joyous in his own perfections and delighted to share his goodness with us. So he also calls us to rejoice evermore. St Paul wrote those words and he was in prison when he did so. Why do we rejoice? Because we worship a good and loving God who has made provision for us in the Gospel so that we can know him for eternity. And we can see a taste of that goodness to come even today, even when we are lonely and deprived of Christian fellowship. Even if you lack close Christian community, you still live in the theatre of God. You see his works every day. He lays them out before you and, as the French Catholic writer Sertilanges puts it, his works “desire a place in your thought.” Give them that place. If music delights you, get a record player, buy some of your favorites on vinyl and make a habit of sitting in an otherwise silent room and letting the music roll over you. God made that music and he loves it too. Enjoy that and be comforted.

A similar discipline could apply to any number of things. Develop a good palate for wine. Learn to bake and relish the unique flavors you can create. The world is overflowing with things that are delightful and they are all gifts, they come down to us from ‘the father of lights,’ to quote St John. So cultivate the discipline of looking toward the good, even when there is much ugliness set before you and even when that ugliness takes the particular form of hypocrisy, spiritual pride, self-righteousness, and so on.

Moore: Most people, including most Christians, equate politics with advocacy for one candidate over another.  How can we recover a more expansive (and ancient) sense of politics as what our contribution ought to be to the polis or city where we live?

Meador: Your political life did not begin when you became old enough to vote. It began when you were conceived. From your earliest moments of existence, your life was made possible and sustained by others. You only came into this world after being wrapped, quite literally, in the love of another human being, for what else is a mother’s womb then a place in which we are wrapped in love? We must recover this wider understanding of politics if we are to have anything useful to say about common life at all, including about electoral politics and public policy. We are all naturally gregarious as human beings. Our existence is not possible apart from the existence of other human beings and something inside us longs to be connected to others. One practice that may be helpful is to make a list of the political communities we are part of. We are all part of a family. That’s one. But then we should also list out any community of three or more people that we are part of that is organized around the enjoyment of some recognizable good. That could include our job. It hopefully includes our neighborhood. It might include a local coffeeshop where you’re a regular or your local CSA or a neighborhood board. For Christians, it ought obviously to include your church and, perhaps within your church, a small group. These are all communities that we belong to, that we have some stake in, and that we can contribute to in order to make the lives of others somehow more delightful and enjoyable. So I think we begin there. Recall that when Jesus was asked “who is my neighbor?” is answer was the Parable of the Good Samaritan. One thing we should take from that is asking “who is my neighbor?” is often a cutesy question that is meant to emancipate us from the obvious and immediate obligations put upon us by the people we encounter every day. Learn to love the people you are stuck with. Start there and you’re on your way to a healthy political life—and, through the assistance of the Holy Spirit, something of Christian virtue as well.

Moore: You do a terrific job of showing how certain constraints and order bring the best freedom.  In a culture that prizes an untrammeled sort of freedom, how can we winsomely model that the truest freedom comes from sacrifice and delighting in God’s order?

Meador: Pope Paul VI says that Christian love, rightly understood, has four characteristics: Freedom, Fruitfulness, Fidelity, and Totality. Freedom means that love cannot be coerced. I cannot make a person love me. And if I do something kind for another person under duress, they might benefit from what I do but I have not loved them in that act. Most of us are clear on this point. But the others are often neglected, I fear. Fruitfulness reminds us that love produces an outcome. This is most obviously seen in marriage in the form of children. But all love is fruitful. Fidelity means that love must be committed. We recognize this, again, most clearly in marriage. But anyone who has been abandoned or betrayed by a friend will know something of this sting, I think, and therefore why it is that love must be faithful. Totality means that when we love a person, we love them completely. Love is a conscious acting to promote the good of another. But if I merely try to promote my child’s physical well-being by giving them food and a place to sleep while remaining indifferent to their emotional, spiritual, or social well-being then I have not loved my child, even if I make great sacrifices to make sure they have food and shelter. So we need to remember that love requires more than mere freedom. Indeed, there will be times when the most loving course may not feel like freedom to us precisely because we are consciously limiting our own options in order to faithfully love another person. But this is good, and, indeed, is a more perfect freedom because freedom is ultimately not about the multiplication of choices set before you, but about the actualization of a single, correct choice.

Moore: What are two or three things you hope readers take away from your book?

Meador: First, that there is always cause for hope because God’s promises are sure and do not fail. That alone is cause enough, of course. But we can also talk about another lesser reason for hope.

Second, I hope it gives us a tenderness toward our neighbors. We live in a deeply disordered world and that disorder often manifests in depression, anxiety, despair, and various forms of unhappiness. To remember that as we live alongside people is important.

Third, I would love for people to adopt a consistent practice of Sabbath. The Sabbath disrupts us, it reminds us that we are made to know God, and it creates a space in which we can share unhurried time with others. It creates a space in which we can both encounter God through public worship with his people in which we hear the Word preached and receive the Eucharist and in which we can give and receive hospitality to one another. If you want to identify one concrete thing you can do to try and repair civil live in your home place, I think adopting a consistent Sabbath practice of public worship and giving and receiving hospitality would be a great place to begin.

I began leading a discussion class last Sunday using The New Testament You Never Knew, featuring N. T. Wright and Michael Bird. In the initial session Tom Wright comments that the New Testament is explosive and powerful.

I think anyone who picks up the New Testament will find, if they give it a chance, that it is one of the most explosive books ever written. … it forms one complete, rather strange, but very powerful book.

He goes on to say that it is powerful because Jesus and his followers believed that he, Jesus, was the place where heaven and earth come together. These comments are in the first minute or so of the 5 minute preview of Session 1 that Zondervan has posted on YouTube.

In our class, two of the discussion questions in the study guide brought a conversation that is quite pertinent given the last two posts on Rebecca McLaughlin’s book (Religion->Violence? and To Tell the Truth) and the comments that followed.

In what ways could we consider the writings of the New Testament “Explosive” and “Powerful”?

Have you experienced this power unleashed in your own life through the teachings contained in the New Testament?

A friend noted that it was reading the New Testament that brought him to Christ, back when he was about middle school age. It wasn’t a Romans Road or Bridge presentation. It wasn’t any conviction of his own sinfulness or his need to be saved from fiery torment or destruction in the afterlife. Although he does believe that “that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” as Paul puts it in 1 Cor. 15:3, an appreciation of the importance of that came aspect of the faith later. It was simply sitting down and reading the New Testament – in large chunks.

The explosive power of the New Testament started with a realization of the ethic of love and forgiveness and the revolutionary nature of the kingdom of God contained in the teachings of Jesus, and later in the letters of Paul. This simply isn’t like anything else. Of course, the texts can be perverted by human seeking after power and wealth. But an honest and complete reading just doesn’t support those interpretations.

I would say it is the same for me – although the realization of the explosive power of the New Testament came much later than Middle School. I’ve written about this before and gathered some of the texts that impress me and provide an answer to the question “how can you be a Christian?” so often posed in our secular culture. It is worth listing them again.

“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. …Do to others as you would have them do to you. (Lk 6:27-28, 31)  (See also Mt 5:43-45)

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mt 20:25-28) (See also Mt 23:8-12, Mk 10:42-45, Lk 22:24-27, Jn 13:14)

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mk 12:29-31) (See also Mt 22:36-40, Lk 10:25-28)

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (Jn 13:34-35)

Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. (Rm 12:10)

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited. (Rm 12:16)

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. (Rm 12:18)

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. The commandments, … are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. (Rm 13:8-10)

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (1 Cor 13:4-7)

Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (Ga 6:2)

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. (Ep 4:2-3)

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. (Ph 2:3-4)

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. … If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.  But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. (Ja 2:1, 8-9)

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. (1 Jn 4:7-8)

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. (1 Jn 4:16,19-21)

And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love. (2 Jn 5-6)

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” … Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” (Mk 10:17,21) (See also Mt 19:21, Lk 12:15, Lk 12:33-34, Lk 18:18,22)

This is softened a little later in the New Testament, I think because call isn’t to radical poverty, but to radical love. Love of wealth hinders, even prevents, love for one another.

Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life. (1 Tm 6:17-19)

Keep on loving one another as brothers and sisters. … Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (He 13:1-5)

And now a slightly different set of directions – but related to those above.

Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. (Rm 13:13)

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. …   But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other. (Ga 5:16, 19-26)

Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body. … Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. … Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ep 4:25-32)

But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. (Ep 5:3-4)

Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. …But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. … Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Col 3: 5, 8, 12-14)

Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.  (Ja 3:13-17)

Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. (1 Pt 3:8-9)

For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. (2 Pt 1:5-7)

If we consider these instructions given to the people of God (aka “the church”)  in the pages of the New Testament we will have a much better understanding of Christian faith. And bear in mind the frequent warning that “by their fruit you will recognize them” – both those who are true and those who are false.

None of us will accomplish these with perfection – but they should be the aim and the ideal.  If they aren’t, then something is wrong. But it isn’t Christian faith that is wrong.

In what ways do you consider the writings of the New Testament “Explosive” and “Powerful”?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

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If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a hundred times. When someone says “I’m a pacifist” (or something remotely close), the hands go up with a series of “What abouts.” Ron Sider, in If Jesus is Lord , has heard them all and responds to many of them.

What about Jesus’s statement that he came to bring a sword? Or the fact that there are several stories about devout soldiers and none were told to stop being soldiers? Jesus used a whip to cleanse the temple. He even told his disciples to buy a sword. In places, the New Testament seems to praise Israelite warriors and endorse the destruction of the Canaanites. Does not the use of military symbols endorse military action? Jesus warned about wars and rumors of wars. Does Matthew 15:4 mean Jesus endorses capital punishment? Romans 13 certainly says that government uses the sword to execute divine vengeance on evildoers. In fact, the New Testament says that God punishes evil, and the book of Revelation uses violent, bloody imagery to describe the final victory over evil.

Do not all these things add up to a clear endorsement of the legitimate use of killing to overcome evil? Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan put it bluntly: “To proclaim an absolute pacifism . . . requires dismissing or ignoring Jesus’s own authoritative statements, vast tracts of Scripture pertaining to divine judgment. . . and the book of Revelation.”

I offer his brief summaries for some of his questions, and none omitted are at the top of “gotcha lists.”

When we read Matthew 10:34 in context, it becomes quite clear that Jesus’s words have nothing to do with his disciples using the sword. Rather, Jesus uses metaphorical language to warn that his followers will experience rejection by family and severe persecution from those who reject his message.

The subsequent statements of Christian authors (after the New Testament and before Constantine) further undermine the view that the silence about whether the soldiers who met or believed in Christ should continue as soldiers means that Jesus and the New Testament authors thought that the military profession is legitimate. As the section in chapter 13 titled “Pre-Constantinian Christianity” shows, every single Christian author in this period who raises the question of killing says Christians should not do that. Every Christian author who discusses whether Christians should join the Roman army says they should not. And the Apostolic Tradition (a church order probably dating from the mid-second century to the first part of the third) specifically deals with how to treat Roman soldiers who become interested in Christian faith and request preparation for baptism. They can be prepared for baptism—but only if they agree never to kill! And baptized Christians who join the army must be excluded from the church.

[Temple cleansing] is story demonstrates the coercive power of moral authority. But it in no way supports the use of violence, much less killing.

[Buy a sword] Preston Sprinkle has examined ten highly respected commentators on this passage. Many were not pacifists, but nine of the ten understood Jesus’s words in a figurative way, not a call to armed defense. Darrell Bock says Jesus’s words about buying a sword are to be understood in a symbolic way. Reformed commentator William Hendriksen says clearly, “The term sword must be interpreted figuratively.” British New Testament scholar I. Howard Marshall comments, “The saying can be regarded only as grimly ironical, expressing the intensity of the opposition which Jesus and the disciples will experience.” Most commentators agree with Hays that in this passage, “the reference to a sword has a figurative purpose.
”

[Military leaders] b argue that Stephen’s and Paul’s sermons justify Christian participation in war is simply to read into the text what the text does not say.

[Military symbols] A quick explanation of Paul’s use of military symbols shows that he explicitly says that Christians do not fight the way the world does.

[Romans 13] Paul embraces the typical Jewish understanding that all governmental power comes ultimately from God, who works in history to achieve God’s purposes. But that does not mean that God wills or approves of all that political rulers do. Jesus told Pilate that Pilate’s power comes from God (John 19:11), but that does not mean that God approves of Pilate’s unjust decision about Jesus. Again and again the Old Testament says God uses pagan rulers (e.g., Isa. 10:5-11; 13:3-5), but God clearly disapproves of some of their actions (10:12). Nor does Paul think God approves when the Roman authorities persecute Christians. Nothing in the text suggests that Paul means that God approves of all the actions of the governing authorities that God somehow ‘establishes.” The text does not even say God wants government to execute vengeance via the sword. It simply says that government does that and God uses that to restrain evil.

[What about God’s violence?] To say that in the end some people depart eternally from God is not to claim that God preserves some people in conscious existence in order to punish them eternally. I am inclined to understand eternal separation from God as the result of God taking our freedom so seriously that God (with immeasurable sorrow) allows people to reject God’s offer of loving forgiveness so long that they cease to exist. It would be unloving for God to force them to embrace God’s love. If some people experience eternal separation from God, it will be “because they have resisted to the end the powerful lure of the open arms of the crucified Messiah.’

[Revelation’s violence] he central point is that God finally conquers evil. We should not try to decipher the symbolic imagery to decide how exactly God in Christ does that. Even more important is the fact that nowhere does Revelation say that the saints fight in this final battle. Hays is right: “A work that places the Lamb that was slaughtered at the center of its praise and worship can hardly be used to validate violence and coercion. God’s ultimate judgment of the wicked is, to be sure, inexorable. Those who destroy the earth will be destroyed (11:18);… but these events are in the hands of God; they do not constitute a program for human military action.’

Careful examination of these passages confirms the view that the New Testament consistently teaches that Christians should never kill.