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a non-linear story, bankrupt Christian traditions, biblical authority, by grace, Christian Calling, Christian community, Christian Preaching, Christian Submission, common purse, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Phyllis Tickle, Rachel Held Evans, Redemption of Creation, Richard Foster, Spirit Power, the Christian story, the story of God, Twelve Disciplines
Things Christianity Lost Early On
What do I mean when I say that Christianity has lost much of what once typified its beliefs, practices and disciplines and that with those losses, much of our potential witness of and for the kingdom of God has been diminished?
First, what I do not mean. I do not mean that the Spirit of God is not active in the lives of people today. For a great telling of her own true story, if you have not already heard it, listen to the amazing testimony which Nadia Bolz-Weber shared at a recent ELCA youth convention. RHE has it posted on her blog. God has always worked with whatever we have, by faith, given God to work with.
I mean, rather, that basic teachings, disciplines and practices which were present in the early church did not survive for very many generations. If you look over the list of subjects on which I have commented, these are expressions of faith which were practiced and which were basic ways people believed and behaved during early Christianity.
I am not saying that Creation Theology, Calling, Guidance, Healing, Homileo, Mutuality, Pacifism, Simplicity and Common Purse were ever perfectly lived out by any early Christian community.[1] I Corinthians gives us a glimpse of how bad things could be in a primitive church community: debating with each other during worship; turning the common meal into a mirror of Roman society where some had nothing to eat and others got drunk, proposing that women again be reduced to second class citizens, wondering why they could not still use the services of prostitutes… But in II Corinthians they were also being taught the common purse and were learning to share their resources among themselves as well as with others. If they ever followed Paul’s advice for public worship, they experienced powerful formal worship without losing its give and take (Homileo) or the full participation of women (Mutual Submission).
It is not clear how many Christian communities participated in a common Calling to Redeem Creation, in a Simple lifestyle or in Mutual Submission to each other. We do not know how common Healing was among them nor do we know how fully they engaged in Guidance, a discipline which we see exercised in Antioch of Syria and Jerusalem in Acts 13:1-4 and 15:25. We do know that for centuries all Christians were Pacifists and that for centuries most communities Shared Their Resources fully.
In the early generations these things were being taught. Then, at some point early on, they were not being taught; they ceased to be taught. Whether suddenly or gradually, each of these beliefs, disciplines and practices were lost because they were no-longer emphasized by current Christian leadership.
Early Christians practiced the discipline of Guidance together. Then, a few centuries later, Guidance disappeared from the practice of the churches in the society and it, along with Meditation, Solitude, Simplicity and Study could only be found in the monasteries. Christians were taught early on that all were called to holy living which would “bring to nothing the things which are;” then, a few centuries later, only the clergy were seen as having a holy vocation. The early generations understood that the Jewish male discussion of Torah had expanded to include women who could pray and prophesy along with the men; then, such exposition of the scriptures became, once again, the prerogative of males only. Yet, even more restrictive than in Israel: Scripture study and discussion was reserved only for special males, set apart as priests, an office which God had demonstrably abandoned in AD 70. Early on, believers understood all creation was their inheritance; then, at some point, it became orthodox to see going to heaven as the ultimate future of every Christian.
My subject in these posts: the basics of Christianity, what Christianity is about and how its people relate to their work, to each other, to their future and to their Lord changed; it became something altered: a society-changing community became a religion for an empire and/or, single-gender, communal outposts, often purposely insulated from and largely irrelevant to their larger societies. Christianity had changed in substantive ways, not so as to become no-longer Christianity but it changed so much as to be no-longer able to achieve its original corporate earthly mission.
That is because neither a religion of an empire nor intentionally irrelevant, single-gender communities can fulfill either the great commission – make disciplined followers out of all the earthly nations – nor live out the Lord’s Prayer in life: bring the ways of heaven, the kingdom of God, the majesty of Godʼs name down to the earth.
My Thesis Summarized
In the early centuries Christianity moved away from its essential purpose and task. That is what I mean when I say Christianity “fell” early in its history; it turned away from what it was always meant to be and do. This is not a matter of how well people were practicing the faith; it was a matter of what was actually being taught as the faith. Christianity still collects citizens of the kingdom who often, incidentally, do many good and kind things during their earthly sojourn prior to leaving for heaven: witness, Nadia Bolz-Weber. It just rarely ever sees putting those kingdom citizens to work transforming society within and through their daily callings as having anything whatsoever to do with “salvation.”
Practices Regained Because of the Reformation.
I did not comment in this series on Prayer, Study or Service among Richard Fosterʼs Disciplines.[2] Prayer was largely lost to the laity in churches of the monastic or Papal periods;[3] as was Study. Prayer and Study are firmly in the hands of the laity again: these are specific victories of the Reformation. Since then Prayer has belonged to everyone who is not afraid to let the laity pray without a script while Study largely became the forte of some Lutherans and among Congregationalists and Presbyterians, even of lay-people! Service, a Discipline which was to some degree elevated by the Franciscans and other mendicant orders of the Papal period, eventually became a hallmark of the Methodists. And although Mutual Submission on the male/female axis has taken a long time to catch on, most older Protestant denominations understand that women and men may both and equally be yoked to all forms of ministry, in and outside of the congregations. The more progressive churches figured out the ordination of women in the early 20th century. However, the Pentecostals beat them to this by several decades because in the revivals of the late 19th century and onward, the Spirit of God, again, fell fully on both men and women.
I Am Praying to See It All Again!
So where does this leave us today? Recognizing that much of what was powerful and vibrant about primitive Christianity has been either lost along the way or has shrunk down to pitiful shadows of former practices of faith. Think of the tradition of congregating for a common meal called the agape feast. These meals were held at tables around which Christians gathered during worship. In modern worship centers and sanctuaries all that remains of those tables is the tiny wooden ledge on the back of each pew where we stick used communion cups.
We are also left with an explanation of sorts for the dim shadow of power which we see in much of Christian expression today. How can a community which meets for exactly an hour once a week to listen to a paid spokesperson talk for twenty minutes or less about things dimly remembered concerning triumphs which may or may not have actually occurred in the distant past, a community which then disperses to insular dwellings without any further thought of the day’s “religious” activities be expected to change the world? It has not even been changed itself. “Long ago and far away” was compelling enough to catch up some of us, even Nadia. The gospel, however, is and was always about “here and now.”
If Christianity is to emerge again as a world-shaking power, it must rediscover its “here and now.” We need to pray, to pull on heaven, to raise up that “Spirit-led, Spirit-intoxicated, Spirit-empowered people” Foster hoped for in print nearly forty years ago! Only by the power of God might we become “a disciplined, freely gathered, martyr people who know in this life the life and power of the kingdom.”
Justice-bringers, hope-sowers, honor-sharers, flesh-healers, care-givers, sacrificing saints for all to see, resurrection power, “here and now.” It has happened before. Pray with me it all happens again!
Comments? Hopes? Prayers?
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Endnotes
1 Back to Post N. T. Wright has said (and I suspect has also written) that when St. Paul urged the Christians at this or that church to love each other even more than they had done, Paul did not mean, “You have warm, fuzzy feelings for each other; I want you to have even warmer and fuzzier feelings!” No, Paul meant, you have begun contributing to each others needs — love in action — now love each other even more; be even more involved in lifting each other up! Christians then fell short just as we do now and needed encouragement to be and do all they were called to be and do just like us.
2 Back to Post Fosterʼs Inward Disciplines are: Meditation, Prayer, Fasting and Study. The Outward Disciplines: Simplicity, Solitude, Submission and Service and the Corporate Disciplines: Confession, Worship, Guidance and Celebration. See, Foster, Richard, Celebration of Discipline The Path to Spiritual Growth, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1983 [1978])
3 Back to Post Here and elsewhere I use the four approximate periods of “settled” Christianity, each of roughly 500 years which Phyllis Tickle has made popular in her work on periods of deep change within Christianity: CE 30-500, the early period; 500-1000, the monastic period; 1000-1500, the Papal period and 1500-2000, the reformation and post-reformation period. We are therefore, says Tickle, living in a chaotic period (which may yield deep and lasting change) which she refers to as “The Great Emergence”, after-which the “Christianity” which emerges may well last until 2500 of our era if King Jesus does not “meet” those who live “in the air” (a welcoming party, escorting the king down to occupy fully his redeemed creation).
Stephanie Jill Rudd said:
Reblogged this on livinginthemonasterywithoutwallsdotcom and commented:
I agree whole heartedly with this post and find expressed, so beautifully, the bankruptcy of the present doctrine, compared with the richnes and inclusivity of its earliest days. The spiritual experience in the earliest days was whole, round, allowing for expression and experience. It has become fractured, incomplete with much hidden, the doctrine of Roman Catholicism has excluded women from priestly roles where at first they were included as equals in God’s eyes of full unhindered participation in ALL aspects of religious life. And thankyou-for entitling this post to me…very humbling and very special.
gracetracer said:
Thank you, Stephanie, for your supportive comments. It is good to make your acquaintance.
We live in a time of change at a greater level than most encounter. Have you read Phyllis Tickle’s The Great Emergence? She sees our generation as having a once in half a millennium opportunity to influence a “new” Christianity which will last for 500 years. I always recommend that book and Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline (plus most anything by Tom Wright) to those who want to know where I am coming from. Feel free to comment here, Stephanie. I get my share of hits on this site but mine is a fairly introverted lot and discussions are not frequent here. Which is why I love to comment elsewhere, especially @ RHE’s site.
Did you click on the Nadia link up above? All I can say is, “About time!”
Blessings!
faithhopechocolate said:
This is scarily relevant. If only more people could see that it’s the community, that it’s people working and living and praying together, that changes the world.
gracetracer said:
Thank you, Chocolate (may I call you Chocolate?).
These things have all been said before one way or another but now is the time to not only say but do them. I refer you to the posts behind this summary. You may find good things to chew on (although nothing so good as chocolate!)
Trace
faithhopechocolate said:
You may indeed call me Chocolate!
I’m a new member of an Anglican Religious order/community and so am currently on a steep learning curve with how to live with this particular group of women but also having to learn the history of Christianity and how it relates to the development of monasticism, the Rule of St Benedict, things like the reformation and the Oxford Movement and of course, living in the 21st Century. So I’m reading anything which I reckon might be relevant, and one of the aims of my blog is to try to promote the Religious Life as so many people aren’t even aware that there are monks and nuns who are not Roman Catholic!
gracetracer said:
Chocolate, I hope you find me helpful. I am not particularly kind to the monastic tradition on some levels of what I write but I know the deep debt all Christian traditions owe to the regular tradition.
Were it not for the monasteries of the fifth century, Christianity in the western Roman empire would have been crushed like it was in North Africa. Moreover, as Richard Foster notes several times in A Celebration of Discipline many of the Disciplines which once belonged to the entire body of Christ were preserved by the orders: Meditation, Fasting, Simplicity, Solitude, Submission, Service and Guidance were preserved in the orders and had very little impact for centuries in the general culture. After the Reformation, the peace churches, as we call them here in the U.S., took up Simplicity, Submission, and Guidance as well as the practice of the Common Purse.
If you read me right, you will note that I am greedily praying to see all these things returned to their rightful owners, the common, everyday citizens of the kingdom of God on the earth, every last man, woman and child who names the name of King Jesus.
Stick with me, Chocolate! We will not always agree but I suspect we have much to learn from each other!
(P.S., Did you read my stuff on Paul and misogyny, especially posts One, Two and Three for the RHE synchroblog in late May, early June? I would love to know what you and your sisters think of my exegesis!)
God bless you on your adventure with the king!