C&C 005 // “Getting Saved” in the Early Church

Tags

christendom, church, church history, conversion

It should be obvious by now that the Christian community stood out in their cultural context. The were different from the people around them; sometimes this difference elicited great hatred, but in many cases it resulted in more people joining the family. And joining the family was not taken lightly. “A process of examination, instruction, and ritual rehabituated the candidates for conversion, re-reflexing them into the lifestyle of an alternative community.” Notice the word “rehabituated” – their actual habits were changed from one set to another. Today we’re going to look at the four stages in this process of “resocialization.”

Stage One: Evangelization – The period of informal contact between Christians and potential believers. I don’t want to make it sound too technical – often it was just simple friendship (not putting invisible targets on the backs of non-Christians and going after them). What they called the stage of “evangelization” ended when persons were admitted by the church for further instruction. Basically, if a friend inquired about becoming a Christian, you would take them to the leaders of the church, where they would be interviewed to determine if they were “capable of hearing the word.”

C&C 004 // Why the Early Church Grew

Tags

alan kreider, christendom, church history, conversion, Conversion and Christendom, discipleship

In the previous post in this series through Alan Kreider’s The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom, we talked about the enormous growth rates of the early Christian movement, seemingly against insurmountable odds. In spite of ridicule and persecution, many people joined the church. Why?

Well, for starters, it wasn’t for many of the reasons we might think. There doesn’t seem to have been much of a public witness. Christians were “silent in the open,” and you probably would’ve been too if it meant keeping your life! If they advocated their faith in public, they could get the whole community into trouble. They didn’t even have explicit campaigns or programs of “evangelization.” Neither did they have particularly attractive worship. In fact, in much of the second and third centuries, non-believers were barred from the Christian gatherings! Of course worship had an impact on evangelism (as we use the word), but indirectly so; it shaped the lives of Jesus-followers such that they would be attractive and question posing (their everyday lives, not their church gatherings. Worship gatherings were designed to enable Christians to worship God, not to attract non-Christians. [As a side note, let’s be sure to acknowledge that this doesn’t necessarily mean we shouldn’t continue to seek seekers; different times sometimes call for different tactics.]

So what about the early Christians was so attractive? There was something new and strange about them; they seemed to open up new possibilities for human existence. But in what specific ways?

C&C 003 // “Rumor Worthy” and “Question Posing”

Tags

christendom, church, church history, constantine, conversion, discipleship, early church, martyrdom

Kreider begins chapter 2, entitled “The Intriguing Attraction of Early Christianity,” with the observation that both Justin and Cyprian were not only converts, but also martyrs. Simply put, their decision to follow Jesus cost them their lives. They were executed for participating in a movement that was “marginal” and “on the fringes of polite and respectable society.” They, along with the rest of the Christians, were literally considered “insane” by most of the people surrounding them.

Yet people persisted in converting to Christianity in ever-increasing numbers.

If, as many scholars suggest, by the time of Constantine (in the early 300s) around 10% of the population had become Christians, then the church grew by an average of 40% per decade during the first three hundred years after the time of Jesus. Despite scorn from the populace and often persecution at the hands of the powerful, the Christian movement grew. As Kreider aptly states, “Something was deeply attractive about it.”

Attractive perhaps, but not exclusively so. Listen to the words of an early critic, the pagan Caecilius from Carthage:

C&C 002 // Cyprian’s Conversion (repost)

Tags

christendom, church history, conversion, cyrian

Although Kreider devotes only four pages to Cyprian’s conversion, we do well to give it significant attention. Why? In part because Cyprian was a very influential figure in the early (and subsequent) story of the church. (Click here to see many of his writings.) In addition, he was the kind of person many churches today covet (at least in our culture). He was a wealthy, successful, powerful high-roller who was also somewhat dissatisfied with the high life. Here’s the story.

Cyprian probably came into contact with the Christian community through a friendship with a leader in the church. Cyprian was intrigued by the church – especially its claim to offer true freedom – but he had mixed feelings about his lifestyle. He ate fine foods, enjoyed the company of powerful elites, and dressed in very expensive clothing. He sensed that most like him who enjoyed these things were more possessed by them than they realized [The rich person “is held in bondage by his gold, and . . . is the slave of his luxury and wealth rather than their master”], but he wasn’t sure he could change. But he did long to be free.

C&C 001.5 // Live Impossibly (repost)

Tags

discipleship, jesus, new testament

In the last post I wrote about Justin’s conversion as part of our quest to investigate the nature of conversion in the early church. Our suspicion is that things have drastically changed over time – the church today doesn’t look a whole lot like the church then – and we’re asking why. One of the details of Justin’s story that stuck out to me was how he dealt with the seeming impossibility of Jesus’ teachings. For the sake of being specific, let’s think of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. It’s no secret that there are some very hard teachings here. (It’s kind of funny that we make the OT out to be tough and Jesus soft, because Jesus actually raises the bar here rather than lowering it.) In fact, through much of the church’s history, and in much of the church today, people claim that Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 5-7 are not meant to be fully obeyed today.

Naming the Beast (Rev 13)

Tags

american culture, apocalyptic, daniel, hermeneutics, new testament, politics, Revelation

Reflecting on the text (Revelation 13)

One of the most notable features of the book of Revelation is “the beast” in Revelation 13 (actually there are two of them). Since the beast is a central aspect of John’s work, we’re going to spend two days discussing it.

The first day will be Reflecting on the Text, focusing on meaning of Revelation 13. The second day will be Living What We Learn, focusing on the application of Revelation 13.

Another way of looking it is that today we’ll be discussing who or what John has in mind when he talks about the beast. Later we’ll explore what John reveals about the beast, and how it applies to us.

Because the beast is such a controversial topic, we need to start by laying out some guidelines for an answer. If we are going to have the right explanation, it must fit certain criteria. More specifically, our answer must correspond to the genres of Revelation.

Do you remember the three genres of Revelation? They are letter, prophecy, and apocalypse (see Rev 1.1-6).

C&C 001 // Justin Martyr’s Conversion (repost)

Tags

alan kreider, church, church history, conversion, conversion and, discipleship, justin martyr

To read the intro to this series (which I’m re-posting and then taking further), click here. Today we’ll look at the conversion of early Jesus-follower Justin Martyr.

Kreider begins chapter one of The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom by identifying the essence of conversion as change, and he then seeks to understand the types of changes that took place in conversion during the earliest centuries of the church. After noting the ambiguous New Testament witness on this matter (due not to confusion or contradiction but simply lack of information), he turns to the stories of Justin and Cyprian in order to better understand what conversion looked like in the church shortly after the time of the apostles.

Justin, who lived in the early to mid second century (AD 100-165) and eventually died for his faith, gives two accounts of his conversion.

New Series – Conversion and Christendom (repost)

Tags

America, american culture, christendom, church, conversion, new testament, salvation

[I started this series some time ago but never completed it. I think it is more than worthy of returning to, so I'm going to repost what I posted back then and then pick up where it leaves off.]

Over the next bit, I’ll be blogging through a little book called The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom by Alan Kreider. Here Kreider aims to better understand the changes that took place in the church during the fourth century (when the Christian faith was legalized and standardized by Constantine and his heirs) by examining their practice of conversion. If we look at how the process of becoming a Christian changed throughout early church history, especially with the beginning of the period called “Christendom,” perhaps we will better understand the larger transformation of the church during this time. (And, by extension, we will gain wisdom for our own time of transition back out of a “Christendom” situation.)

In the Introduction, Kreider lays out three goals:

Retelling Stories, Rethinking Christmas (Rev 12)

Tags

atonement, crucifixion, jesus, Revelation

Reflecting on the text (Revelation 12)

If one thing has consistently characterized human beings from the dawn of time up to our own day, it is our love of stories. We love to tell, hear, write, make up, and act out stories.

We tell stories about tiny experiences as well as huge events, about things that matter greatly and things that are just plain silly. Without stories none of us would be able to make sense of the world.

Entire cultures and societies often revolve around a few central stories, and in our own society those stories are repeatedly celebrated in print and on the silver screen. In the Ancient World (as in our own), many such stories concerned how the world came into being. Other stories have to do with what god (or the gods) are up to.

One of the most popular myths in John’s day supposedly took place on an island called Delos, which was not far from Patmos (where John was in exile when he wrote Revelation).

This story is about Zeus, the king of the gods, who had a son with a woman named Leto.

Two Witnesses (Rev 11)

Tags

church, Revelation

Reflecting on the text

Yesterday we learned a lot, but we nevertheless left many questions unanswered: How do we know John is talking about the church? If he is talking about the church, what exactly is he saying? What’s going on with the bittersweet scroll?

But before we get to our questions of this text, I have a different question: As we attempt to be faithful to God in 21^st century America, what things do we wrestle with on a daily basis?

We can easily notice the great gap between John’s hearers then (first century Christians living as a persecuted minority in Asia Minor) and now (in our case, twenty-first century Christians living in America).

Think about the questions  they were asking on a regular basis, and the problems or issues they were dealing with. They had to face the fact that their friends and family were being persecuted all around them. To put it bluntly, they would have been asking things like: When the government kills my sister or fires my dad, who has won?