How Did the Early Christians Influence Their Culture?

Christians are wondering how to deal with the aftermath of the Supreme Court ruling forcing all fifty states to recognize homosexual unions as marriage. The decision was lauded by those on the left as the last word on the question. Corporations changed their social media icons to include the homosexual rainbow colors. Government agencies like the Department of Education and the White House showed their unabridged support for the decision. Many people saw themselves ostracized or compared to bigots or ISIS because of their Christian views, even from friends and family members.

The fallout from this court case clearly shows that Christianity is now an outsider faith. For those in the West, it is a position Christians hadn't experienced since prior to Constantine's ascension in Rome. We aren't used to such a position, but we can look to the actions of those who lived in even greater peril for to understand how to hold fast to our faith and still significantly impact a pagan society.

Learning from the Early Christians

The early church was also an outsider faith, viewed with suspicion and denounced in its first two hundred years, too. But even with life-threatening persecution, the early church not only grew, but changed minds and hearts. Christianity's critics originally condemned the faith as a dangerous superstition causing sedition. Pliny wrote to Emperor Trajan in AD 112 discussing the Christian problem, reporting "whatever the nature of their creed, stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy surely deserve to be punished."1

But near the end of the century, views of Christianity began to change. Galen of Pergamon was an influential Roman physician and philosopher. He described Christianity not as a superstition, but as a philosophy. He explains:

Most people are unable to follow any demonstrative argument consecutively; hence they need parables, and benefit from them just as we now see the people called Christians drawing their faith from parables and miracles, and yet sometimes acting in the same way as those who practice philosophy. For their contempt of death and of its sequel is patent to us every day, and likewise their restraint in cohabitation. For they include not only men but also women refrain from cohabitating all through their lives; and they also number individuals who, in self-discipline and self-control in matters of food and drink, and in their keen pursuit of justice, have attained a pitch not inferior to that of genuine philosophers. 2

According to Robert Wilken, such a characterization is significant. By speaking of Christianity as a philosophy, he gave the faith legitimacy not for regarding abstract ideas, but also of a guiding force for living. Wilken writes, "Philosophy in Galen's day had become less a way of thinking than a way of living. Although philosophers were the inheritors of intellectual traditions that dealt with great metaphysical issues… they had gone into the streets of the cities to address the populace and to offer men and women advice on how to live."3

Living Out Your Values

When we read Galen's account of Christians, we see that it is the impact of Christianity on the changed lives of the Christians. They no longer would cohabit, they would exercise self-discipline and self-control, and they sought justice for the wrongdoings they saw in their day. Wilken himself identifies this as the significant factor in seeing Christianity more positively. "What led him to call it a philosophy was the success Christians had in leading men and women to a life of virtue."4

Christians today need to follow the model of these early believers. We need to begin by exercising our self-discipline and self-control in our own lives. That's a difficult task. We must make hard judgments in our entertainment choices. We must respect marriage and hold those in our churches to the high standard that the Bible lays out for it. As Christians we should be different from the society and it should show.

It is the integrity of the early Christians in their personal lives that gave their arguments a gravity they wouldn't otherwise have. While I understand the outrage so many believers have shown for the Obergefell decision, our first step in making a difference in our society is to make a difference in our own lives. Perhaps then our arguments may become more persuasive with our critics.

References

1. Pliny, Letters 10.96-97. Accessed at http://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/pliny.html
2. Wilken, Robert Louis. The Christians as the Romans Saw Them. New Haven: Yale UP, 1984. Print. 79.
3. Wilken, 1984.
4. Wilken, 1984.
Image courtesy Nick Thompson and licensed via the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) License

WALL-E, Morality, and Men Without Chests

In the 2008 Pixar film WALL-E, humans are not the hero. The movie portrays people as very advanced technologically: they can create space ships that house the population of the planet. They can build robots that will function autonomously for hundreds of years. They have floating chairs and auto-changing clothes. Work seems to be passé.

Even with accomplishing the things that we toady dream about, the film doesn't want you to think humans are in a better position. It wants you to realize that they've traded an important part of their humanity for their comfort and convenience. They've lost the idea that work, exercise, struggle, and the natural order are part of the human condition. In the consumerist culture of WALL-E, humans' drive to satisfy every desire has made their bellies so fat they can no longer stand on their feet.

Our Growing Bellies and Shrinking Chests

It should be no surprise that the comment on humanity in WALL-E wasn't about the distant future, but about our culture today. We're the ones who are driven so much by our desires that we've grown fat and forsaken the richness that denial of pleasure offers human beings, and that fatness is not only physical. We've let out appetites overwhelm us on questions of morality, too.

The fatness of our bellies was famously noted by C.S. Lewis in his short book The Abolition of Man. Lewis, drawing from Plato, extends the idea. Human beings have two centers of motivation: his reasoning and his appetites. We can come to a decision that X is the right thing to do by weighing the pros and cons, and looking at the consequences of the outcome, not only for ourselves but for others and for society in general. This is reasoning, or being ruled by the head.

The other source of motivation is our appetites. Appetites and desires are universal, but they really don't require much thought. You feel them and seek to satisfy them. Appetites are pictured to be ruled by the belly, that is the stomach and genitals. They are not constrained to only sexual or gastronomic satisfaction, though. Desire to get the "next new thing" or the desire to avoid work, like in WALL-E would qualify.

If we were to be ruled by only our appetites, we are no better off than animals. It is our head, our ability to reason and curb appetites that make us civilized. But how do we do this, when our appetites are so powerful within us? Lewis says we have traditionally allowed the head to rule over the belly through the chest. He explains the chest is the center of magnanimity. It is:

emotions organized by trained habit into stable sentiments. The Chest-Magnanimity-Sentiment — these are the indispensable liaison officers between cerebral man and visceral man. It may even be said that it is by this middle element that man is man: for by his intellect he is mere spirit and by his appetite mere animal.1

We are in the World of WALL-E Right Now

Our culture has given itself over completely to its appetites. Individuality has trumped reason. We are told that sex doesn't matter in marriage, the only institution recognized as the appropriate to rear children. We're told that biology has nothing to do with gender although it has everything to do with sexual orientation. We care more about finding self-fulfillment in whatever our desires may be than we do to upholding the time-tested pillars that uphold society for all. Owen Strachan believes the Obergefell ruling demonstrates this: "Our self-obsessed society has made good on its orientation. We now care more about personal feelings and rights we deemed are owed to us than we do about duties to God, family, country, and community."2

Because we no longer value magnanimity (does anyone even know what the word means today?), the belly has his way and becomes more and more engorged. We are, as Lewis claimed, Men without Chests. But it also makes us men without feet and men without a natural home. We are adrift on a craft built entirely of comfort and we've forgotten how to walk. The problem is, sooner or later we are going to fall out of our lounge chairs and we won't be able to get up again.

References

1. Lewis, C. S. "The Abolition of Man." The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002. Print. 704.
2. Strachan, Owen. "5 Implications of the Supreme Court Same-Sex Marriage Decision." ThoughtLife. Patheos, 26 June 2015. Web. 30 June 2015. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thoughtlife/2015/06/5-implications-of-the-supreme-court-same-sex-marriage-decision/.

How Not to Get Mad When Talking with Non-Believers

The recent decision by the United States Supreme Court to recognize same sex unions across the country has changed our nation. Corporations and government institutions that had previously provided an appearance of neutrality displayed their applause by adopting a rainbow colored version of their logos on social media and their web sites. The White House became the Rainbow House both virtually and in reality for an evening. Of course, many people followed suit and also cheered for the decision.

I believe that the Supreme Court decision will cause more discussions about the nature and definition of marriage, not less. Like many contentious issues of our day, this will cause emotions to rise, quickly devolving disagreements into exchanges that are more venomous and less Christianly. I was speaking with one online friend who told me how difficult it had been for him in such exchanges. He admitted, "I worked so hard to show [their] flawed thinking but they refused to see their error. I know I'm not ready for debate because I get too angry."

It is difficult to engage others when passions are high. It is harder when the other side has produced a rather consistent campaign of name-calling ("bigot, hater!") that slander you instead of wrestling with your arguments. But just as we are told homosexual practice is wrong, we are also commanded to love our enemies.

How do we do this? We must look at others and see them the way Jesus did. The Woman at the Well was a bit arrogant with Jesus. She was flippant in their exchange, even though she was the one who had a problem with morality and keeping a husband! Yet, Jesus didn't yell at her, he loved her but stood firm in his conviction.

Dallas Willard explains this approach:

We must see the soul and the person in its ruined condition, with its malformed and dysfunctional mind, feelings, body, and social relations, before we can understand that it must be delivered and reformed and how that can be done. One of the greatest obstacles to effective spiritual formation in Christ today is simple failure to understand and acknowledge the reality of the human situation as it affects Christians and nonChristians alike. We must start from where we really are. And here we recall that all people undergo a process of spiritual formation. Their spirit is formed, and with it their whole being. As I said earlier, spiritual formation is not something just for especially religious people. No one escapes. The most hardened criminal as well as the most devout of human beings have had a spiritual formation. They have become a certain kind of person. You have had a spiritual formation and I have had one, and it is still ongoing. It is like education: everyone gets one—a good one or a bad one. We reemphasize that those are fortunate or blessed who are able to find or are given a path of life that forms their spirit and inner world in a way that is good.1

Jesus saw the woman at the well as someone who didn't know about the things of God. In talking with her, Jesus was able to lead her to repentance. Whenever I engage others online or in person, I've found it better to see people as deceived. They're deceived by the world, by the Devil and by themselves. Like a young child, they are simply regurgitating a lie they want to believe. That's the beginning of compassion.

References

1. Willard, Dallas. Renovation of the Heart: Putting on the Character of Christ. Colorado Springs: Navpress. 2002. 45.
Image courtesy Jessica Flavin [CC BY 2.0].

How to Debate Same-Sex Marriage After SCOTUS

This afternoon, I had a mini debate on Twitter with a gentleman about same-sex marriage. I wanted to reproduce it because it was a good and respectful dialogue; these are the kinds of conversations that help clarify Christian beliefs and positions to those who may not be familiar with all the reasons why so many are deeply concerned about the SCOTUS decision to redefine marriage.

To set up the conversation, I had tweeted an article entitled, Labeling peaceful proponents of traditional marriage “religious extremists” is as misleading as it is mean-spirited. That lead to Chip's first comment:

ChipSalonna: Labeling it "traditional marriage" is as funny as it is misleading. http://t.co/7qEomYUJlm

Comereason: No. Marriage has been traditionally recognized as one thing for all of human civilization...
However, I use the term natural marriage because there a biological component involved as well.

ChipSalonna: Riiiight. Ever hear of Mormons? Or Muslims? Or Solomon?

Comereason: Yes, I have. So?
Can I ask you a question? How many wives did a Mormon or a Muslim or Solomon need to take before he was considered married?

ChipSalonna: After the first wife, how many more wives did a Mormon or Muslim have to take before they weren't considered married anymore?

Comereason: You make my point. The reference to traditional marriage is not a reference to NUMBER, but to the TYPE of union. 1 man, 1 woman..
2,000 years of western civilization is enough to claim something is tradition(al). Still, natural marriage a better descriptor.

ChipSalonna: So, you're ok with polygamy/polyamory? I find it hard to imagine that's true but I can't wait to see where this goes.

Comereason: No, I'm not Ok with it. It is a deviant form of marriage, a distortion of the ideal. But it is a kind of marriage.

ChipSalonna: "Deviant". But "traditional". At least polygamy has THAT going for it.

Comereason: None of this is relevant to whether the union of two people of the same sex should be called a marriage.

ChipSalonna: See my other tweet w/link to Wikipedia.

Comereason: It's easy to Google things and Wikipedia is notoriously inept at being factual in hot button issues.
For example, Rome had marriage laws spelled out in the patria potestas, but those laws did not apply in same sex issues.
I agree that Greece, China, and even parts of India today have homosexual relationships. No one called it marriage, though.

ChipSalonna: As you wish. We call it "marriage" now.

Comereason: Do you have a Social Security number?

ChipSalonna: Rhetorical. What's your point?

Comereason: How many Social Security numbers should each person in the U.S. have?

ChipSalonna: [Waiting...]

Comereason: The IRS reports that there are many thousands of people who are issued multiple SS#'s. It doesn't make any of those NOT a SS#.
Further, you SHOULD only have ONE. But they are all real SS#s. What you are trying to argue is that because there have been...
...multiple SS#s in the past, its OK to call a driver's license a SS#. Both are identification, both issued by the govt.
There are so many similarities, who cares about the little differences?

ChipSalonna: I get the point with your analogy. And I've already accepted that you view 1MnW as "deviant" but "traditional". The *big*...
...difference is that we're talking people &their feelings & freedoms, not numbers or pieces of paper. I assume that...
...ultimately you view SSM as bad b/c God says so. So, here's a hypothetical for you. If God came to you and said "Hey,...
...Lenny, the Bible had a few mistakes with the homo stuff. It's really ok for them to get married." Would you continue to...
...make the "secular" arguments you're making now?

Comereason: You're absolutely right that this isn't about pieces of paper but about people. We can agree on that.
My argument isn't just procedural. I'm concerned about the people involved. Do you know why Govt got involved w/marriage at all?
Or (to be more specific) why they continue to be involved?

ChipSalonna: I'll come back to your question. But would you abandon your arguments given God's "retraction"?

Comereason: Actually, the Bible really doesn't say anything about same sex unions. If we were discussing a purely civil contract...
...such as CA's civil unions, I wouldn't be fighting it--and I didn't when it was passed. Marriage is different, though.

ChipSalonna: So, you consider your arguments to be *purely* secular? You don't trace any anti-SSM thoughts back to God? Truly curious here.

Comereason: No. I believe all truth is God's truth and he designed the world to run a certain way. We get a clearer picture from the Bible.
But I believe I have arguments that can be accepted even if one doesn't hold to the Bible as a moral principle....
... Marriage has a consistent basis across all cultures and all faiths. Thus I can offer secular arguments.

ChipSalonna: Ok, so in my hypothetical, if God "clarified" the issue, you'd have to say your secular arguments were somehow wrong. Yes?
(Not a trap. Just getting a clear picture.)

Comereason: I don't doubt your sincerity. I'm just trying to understand. I have a hard time seeing how that would be possible, though...
Human beings are created in a specific way. God would be saying something that argues against his created order.
The only institution that all of humanity has recognized as proper to creating and rearing children is the family. That's it.
The primary reason Govt gets involved is for the welfare of the child. That's why deadbeat dad laws are on the books....
The Govt recognizes marriages because it then knows who he responsible parents are for the child, unless otherwise stated.

ChipSalonna: Except that you said biblical teaching isn't clear on the marriage issue.

Comereason: I said God didn't explicitly say "no same sex unions." The Bible is clear on sexual activity between those of the same sex.

ChipSalonna: So, it seems to matter little (from a secular point of view) whether we're talking about civil unions, marriage or shacking up.

Comereason: I don't gamble and I don't drink but I'm not pressing for prohibition.
I don't condone shacking up, but there should be no law against it.
There's a difference between tolerating an action and changing the definition of an existing institution.

ChipSalonna: I meant civil unions, marriage or shacking up w.r.t SSC.

Comereason: Right. All of those are in a different category from marriage.
But it hurts kids. It takes two people to create them, yet they're denied the right to have even a chance at a mom & dad.

ChipSalonna: Gotta run. It's been fun. I'm sure we can have Round 2 later.

Comereason: I really appreciate the respectful tone, Chip! That's why I'm willing to converse. Thanks for that.

I want to again thank Chip Salonna for his respect and genuine sincerity in trying to at least understand my positon. he is to be complimented for being a gentleman.

What About Slavery in the Bible? (video)

"Why would a God of love allow the Israelites to won slaves, even giving them laws on ownership?" It seems to be a common objection by some who seek to demonstrate that the Bible is incoherent. However, as Lenny explains in this short video, the concept of slave in the Ancient Near East wasn't the same thing as it was in the pre-Civil War south. It was much broader, including serfdom and share-cropping type relationships.