Going with the Flow

In Why Christianity Happened (Westminster, 2006), New Testament scholar James G. Crossley adds an intriguing reason for the rise of Christianity to the usual set of factors.  It is widely understood that the Roman Empire created a set of conditions conducive to the expansion of the Christian religion, such things as relatively rapid communications and an era of peace and stability.  Church historians also point to the person of Christ himself and the quality of church life as factors in that growth.  To this list, Crossley adds another factor, which was that an increasing number of citizens of the Empire were attracted to monotheism as a theological choice.  Judaism had something to do with the spread of monotheism, but there were also pagan versions as well.  Thus, when the Jesus Movement cut loose from Judaism and the cultural restraints it placed on converts, there was a ready pool of people primed in a sense to receive this new religious movement (see pages 99-101).

Like a depressingly large number of "facts" when it comes to the history of the Jesus Movement/church in biblical times, this is a matter of speculation although Crossley makes a good case for the argument that monotheism was an attractive, cutting edge theology at the time.  IF he is correct, it suggests that the Jesus Movement took hold because of its congruence with the spiritual temper of its times, not because it stood over against that temper.  It spoke to the spiritual aspirations of at least one key segment of Roman society in spite of the political opposition it provoked.

It only makes sense that any viable religious faith must speak to the spiritual and theological sensibilities  of an important part of society in its time and place.  In our time, that segment of society to which Christianity speaks most fully seems to be increasingly the more extreme end of conservatism,  which embraces dualistic doctrines that are increasingly at odds with the growing secularity and multi-culturalism of international culture.  It seems to speak best to that segment of society that represents where we have been spiritually and theologically rather than where we are going.  That segment is quite large, so Christianity is in no danger of disappearing any time soon; but it does seem that it has lost a key trait that made it the exciting faith of choice for many in Roman times.  It seems to be losing its ability to go with the spiritual flow of our age.  As I say, in ancient times the Jesus Movement spoke to where we were going; today Christianity seems to speak best to where we have been.

This is, of course, a matter of speculation, but it is not unreasonable speculation and is worth a good deal of thought.

Some Things Never Change

Fourth Century Christian art

According to Alister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction (pp. 16-19), one of the hot button issues of the ancient church was the relationship of culture and classical learning to the church and its faith.  In the second century, Justin Martyr took what we would call today a liberal position on the question.  He was willing to draw widely and deeply from culture, writing "Whatever all people have said well belongs to us Christians."  He wrote that, "those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists." (First Apology, 46)  In the third century, Tertullian articulated the opposite position, namely that the church must divorce itself from "pagan" culture and learning.  These things only lead the church into error.  Eventually, St. Augustine (354-430) arrived at a formulation that became the default western Christian approach to culture, which McGrath describes as a "critical appropriation of classical culture."  Augustine's perspective was that, "whatever was good, true, or beautiful could be used in the service of the gospel." (McGrath, p. 19)  Augustine also believed, however, that these good, true, and beautiful elements of pagan culture had to be freed from that culture and grafted onto the tree of the Christian faith.  In modern terms, Augustine leaned toward a conservative position but mixed a bit of a more liberal approach in with it.

The ancient fathers of the church, thus, staked out three alternatives to the relationship between faith and culture;  One could largely embrace culture and use it to express faith.  One could largely reject culture and see it as an enemy of faith.  Or, one could pick and choose elements of culture useful to the faith.

These three choices are still with us today.  In fact, they stand at the heart of the ongoing controversy among Christians concerning culture in general and science in particular.  However, in early 21st century America the matter is slightly more complicated.  In fact, evangelicals in some ways are closer to Justin Martyr, the ancient "liberal," than either Tertullian or Augustine.  They tend to equate certain American values with the Bible and their faith and to conflate patriotism with their Christian faith.  We have even coined recently a new name for some of these folks; they are "teavangelicals."  In the U.S., on the other hand, progressive Christians tend to be critical of social and patriotic values while open to more liberal aspects of culture including science.  In fact, Tertullian's option hardly comes into play these days.  Augustine seems to have won the day for Christian conservatives while Christian progressives tend toward Justin's position that "anything said well" is Christian.

From a liberal perspective, however, we do well to be more precise about what we mean by anything being said well being Christian.  It doesn't mean that we take over or claim as our own all that is good, true, and beautiful.  Where we find value in the teachings of other faiths, for example, we recognize that we do not "own" those teachings just because we find them helpful for our own Christian faith.  Thich Nhat Hanh can speak powerfully to Christians, but he is not a Christian.  His writings are not Christian.  We insist on that for the sake of his integrity as much as our own.

At the end of the day, Christians of all stripes are still called upon to evaluate contemporary culture and make critical choices about what is good, true, and beautiful in light of Christ.  He remains the measure of culture.  Our failure across the theological spectrum is that we too often confuse him with culture and chain him to ways of thinking and behaving that aren't Christ-like.  Idolatry remains a threat, although today it more often takes the form of ideology rather than images.  In any event, some things never change.  The challenge of Christ and culture is one of those things.