It's what they do to prophets

After Matthew 5:10-16

All kinds of ways,
all kinds of reasons
to persecute a person,
a believer, but only
one that matters:
when it’s persecution
for righteousness’ sake. 

And what is righteousness,
you might ask; some
examples, please. 

When they revile you.
Lie about you.
Utter evil things about you.
Attack you with words
and deceptive charges
and unfounded accusations
and outright lies simply
because you’re a believer.
You don’t even have to do
anything; just be. And they
hate you because when they
see you and they see me. 

You are blessed.
You inherit the kingdom.
|You receive a great reward.
So be glad, for this is what
they do to prophets. 

Photograph by Possessed Photography via Unsplash. Used with permission.

 

The persecution twist

After Romans 12:14 

Revenge and retribution

are out. When persecution

comes (and it’s inevitable),

pray for your persecutors,

and bless them. This isn’t

about an eye for an eye,

or one-upmanship or scoring 

one on the opposition,

or making them look

foolish or hypocritical,

even if they are. They do

just fine on their own,

thank you very much, 

and there’s no need

to pour lighter fluid

on their bonfire. Even

if you have the upper

hand, love them, love

your enemies, love

your persecutors, 

bless them,

pray for them.

 

Photograph by Elijah M. Anderson via Unsplash. Used with permission.

The wolf takes control

After Acts 8:1-7

He hears the speech, a sermon

really, directed against the rulers,

among which he considers

himself, or at least their helpmate,

and he nods and smiles, giving

approval as the speaker is rocked

with stones, pummeled to death

with rocks. This will stop it,

this will stop the infection and

the disease. He will root it out,

infectious cell by infectious cell,

searching the city house to house,

finding them, ordering guards

to drag them away and confine

infectious cells to cells with bars,

cells with chains.

And the flock scatters to the winds,

seemingly blown without thought,

without direction, fleeing 

for safety, for life, finding

themselves in small towns and

minor cities, places of little

consequence. And still fired

by the holy wind, they do

the only thing they know to do:

they speak, they preach, they tell

the truth of what they know.

Photograph by Rajashree Patra via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Judging by the values of another century

I was reading Peter Ackroyd’s Tudors, which by necessity has a heavy emphasis upon the religious turmoil in 16^th century England. I say “by necessity” because the reign of the Tudors coincided – was directly connected to – the English Reformation. Henry needed a male heir, and so he eventually forced the matter (he did wait quite a few years, however, before he married Anne Boleyn, hoping the Pope would grant a dissolution of his first marriage).

Religious affairs in England – influenced by Luther’s Reformation in Germany – inevitably became entangled with dynastic concerns and political affairs. And a lot of deaths. Ackroyd notes that 308 people were executed during Henry’s reign for violation of the Treason Act of 1534; 300 Protestant martyrs were killed during Mary’s much briefer reign; and 200 Catholics (including 123 priests) died during Elizabeth’s reign.

And then Ackroyd says this: “The historian here often pauses to deliver a lament on human bigotry, but the temptation should be resisted. It is not possible to judge the behavior of one century by the values of another” (emphasis added).

What a quaint idea, I thought. What a refreshingly quaint idea. In that one short statement, Ackroyd lays waste to one of the dominant themes afflicting universities in particular and society in general in the 21^st century.

He’s not saying that something like the Holocaust shouldn’t be judged by today’s values; it was judged by the values of the 1940s and every decade afterward, and rightfully so. But he is saying that we in our 21^st century smugness think we are so much more knowledgeable, so much more tolerant, and so much more intelligent that those who lived in centuries past.

My response to that sentiment is this: Consider the leading candidates in this year’s election for President of the United States, in both major parties, and then tell me how much more knowledgeable, tolerant and intelligent we are. Or better still, follow a disagreement on Twitter – any disagreement.

No, Ackroyd is right. We may have more information at our fingertips, but access to information does not equate to knowledge, and it certainly doesn’t equate to wisdom.

We should read read history with a good measure of humility. The human condition has not changed much over the centuries, if it has changed at all.

Illustration: The depiction of the burning of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, at the stake in Oxford, England in 1556, during the reign of Queen Mary; from the Book of Martyrs by John Foxe (1563).

Related: My review of Tudors.

And on that day

After Acts 8: 1-3

And on that day, that day

of Stephen, that day

of Stephen and the stones

that moment of begging

to forgive them, them

with the stones

and on that day a madness

broke out, a great boil

erupting, spewing itself

across the city, splattering

the people, marking

the door frames

with blood

dragging them

through door frames

with blood

forcing them from the city

into Judea, into Samaria

forcing them to carry

the gospel outwards

Douglas Boin’s “Coming Out Christian in the Roman World”

My masters program at Washington University in St. Louis involved a series of seminars that focused heavily in the history and religion areas. Two courses, “Athens and Jerusalem” and “History of the Early Church,” shared a number of themes and readings. And one of those themes had to do with persecution of the early Christians in the Roman Empire during the period from Nero (circa 64 A.D.) to Constantine and the legalization of Christianity in 312 A.D.

The persecutions tended to be local or regional, and they tended to be sporadic. They were certainly not ongoing and empire-wide, with a few exceptions, notably toward the end of the period, when the Emperor Diocletian did authorize a persecution across the breadth of the empire (his wife and daughter, as it turns out, were Christians). But most of the persecutions were local or, at most, regional. (I can recall doing a research paper on the persecution in 177 A.D. at Lugdunum, what is now Lyon in France.)

As Douglas Boin notes in Coming Out Christian in the Roman World: How the Followers of Jesus Made a Place in Caesar’s Empire, Christianity didn’t just “emerge” legally with the Emperor Constantine at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 A.D. Nor was Christianity the cause of the empire’s fall, as Edward Gibbon (and others) argued. The story is more complex,

and Boin takes a painstaking view of rather disparate events and people from all over the Roman world to help explain what happened.

An assistant professor of Ancient and Late Antique Mediterranean History at Saint Louis University, Boin received a B.A. in Classics from Georgetown University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Classics from the University of Texas at Austin. He’s does extensive archaeological research at Ostia, once the seaport for the city of Rome.

He relies upon the writings of the early church fathers Tertullian, Cyprian, Ignatius of Antioch, among many others; original Latin / Roman sources, including like Tacitus, Trajan, and Cicero; and Jewish sources like 2 Maccabees and Philo of Alexandria. He ranges the empire, from Ostia and Rome to Alexandria and what is now Iraq.

Douglas Boin

And he goes beyond the period of Constantine and Christianity’s legalization, coming to the question of how Christianity, once an illegal and unpatriotic “cult,” managed to outlaw traditional Roman and other religions within a century of its own legalization (Ambrose of Milan, a figure connected to St. Augustine, plays a significant role in influencing imperial policy).

Coming Out Christian is an academic work but written in an accessible, sometimes almost entertaining style. And because it’s an academic work, and not a theological one, Boin does not accept traditionally ascribed authorship of a number of parts of the New Testament.

But even from my own evangelical perspective, I find it a valuable book, not the least reason being how contemporary scholarship is employed to understand ancient questions and events.

Photograph by Enzo Abramo via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Against the Flow: A Dark Vision of Relativism

The prophet Daniel had two visions that terrified him. One was of four beasts (Daniel 7). The other was of a ram and a goat (Daniel 8). Both were connected to the idea of a ruler who would terrorize the faithful (the faithful Jews, in this case).

Theologians and Biblical historians see the point of these visions in the person of Antiochus Epiphanes, the descendant of one of Alexander the Great’s generals who ruled what today is Israel, Syria, and part of Iraq, and who almost conquered Egypt. Antiochus believed he was a god, or perhaps “the” god, and everything was to reflect his deity: coins, building inscriptions, buildings, culture, religion – including the Jewish temple at Jerusalem. He was determined to Hellenize his empire, including Israel.

When the Jews resisted, he struck back, and hard. The temple was turned into a temple of Zeus. Faithful Jews were imprisoned and killed. Circumcised babies were killed, hung around their mothers’ necks, and thrown from the walls of Jerusalem.

Antiochus overreached (a gross understatement). He inspired the successful Maccabean revolt. He lost Palestine. His legacy is cited in the New Testament as “the abomination of desolation.” What is also clear is that the story of Antiochus Epiphanes is not over; both the account in Daniel and references in the New Testament suggest more is to come, at some point in the future.

In Against the Flow: The Inspiration of Daniel in an Age of Relativism, John Lennox discusses what happened, and what could happen, in great and fascinating detail. As he’s been doing previously in the book, Lennox draws the parallel with the multi-god worship practices on Daniel’s time with the relativism that dominates so much thinking today. And this he explains why this is important.

“Relativism weakens intellectual and moral resistance to totalitarianism,” he says, “and opens us up to manipulation and deceit; so that in the end the ‘truth’ we believe is dictated by those who hold the power.”

Earlier this month, a very small example of what can happen was noted.

Edward Schlosser is the pseudonym of a college professor. He writes for Vox, the online news and commentary site. In early June, he published an article that has gained a fair amount of notice: “I’m a Liberal Professor, and My Liberal Students Terrify Me.” What he described is the growing fear of professors, even and perhaps especially liberal ones, of offending their students in the normal course of teaching.

As in, “Your reading of that quotation by Mark Twain offends me.” Or, “You are not taking my opposing view seriously enough.” Professors have been reported and disciplined for less. Yes, in America. I wish I was making this up.

As Rod Dreher at American Conservative says, “Welcome to the Maoist Cultural Revolution.”

I have to admit it’s difficult for me to feel sympathy for a self-acknowledged liberal college professor. This is what post-modern thinking comes to – so far – and what “progressive” professors may well have brought on themselves.

It’s the ultimate challenge of relativism, boomeranged back on the very people whose thinking and beliefs enshrined relativism as the new religion. If everything is relative, your truth is no better than my truth, your “facts” no better than mine, and if you offend me or cause me anguish, I will report you, because I have the power to do so.

The implications reach far beyond the college classroom. Imagine a U.S. Internal Revenue Service punishing groups because they adhere to the “wrong” political philosophy. If they have that power, they can use it.

For the past several weeks, I’ve been discussing Against the Flow and how the book of Daniel in the Old Testament has meaning application for us today. This post is based on Chapter 16, “The Four Beasts and the Son of Man,” and Chapter 17, “The Vision of the Ram and the Goat.”

Painting: The Triumph of Judas Maccabeus by Rubens, circa 1630.

Because the stone cracks

After 1 Peter 1:3-9 

A river flows

from the cracked stone

water washing over cleaning

over and through, the pouring

unexpected 

As the river flows

it tests, strengthens,

builds, the icy tearing

of its fingers emptying pores

of accumulated dirt 

The river purifies

fading the stain with mist,

a vapor dissipating 

a cleansing away

to a revealed whiteness 

because the stone cracks: hope

because the stone cracks: birth

because the stone cracks: inheritance 

Photograph via Wallpapergate.

Dislocations of Faith

The Apostle Peter’s first letter was written to believers in what is now Asia Minor, or Turkey. We don’t precisely know what they were experiencing, but the sense is that they were suffering persecution for their faith. Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire ran the full gamut—from mild, to torture and death. Most persecutions tended to be regional or local, like the one Peter is referring to.

No matter how mild or severe, what persecutions did then, and what they do today, is to disconnect Christians from the familiar environment and culture they live in. 

To continue reading, please see my Daily Reflection today at The High Calling.

Photograph by Ken Kistler via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Sitting in the caves

We sit huddled

the city’s caves offering

a respite

a single candle burns

dim light

our faces and thoughts

shadowed

cries echo above us

we sit, hiding,

not stirring

an occasional glance

offered the passageway

an occasional glance, uneasy

offered the graves

running feet above

what follows:

boots thudding above

cries anguished

then silence

we sit in caves

a spared remnant

Illustration: Crypt of Saint Caecilla in the catacomb of Callistus in Rome. Image adapted from Walter Lowrie, Monuments of the Early Church (New York:The Macmillan Company, 1901).

Open door

Before us is an open door,

a door we cannot close,

not individually,

not collectively,

an open door that remains

open because it must,

to what it is designed to do.

Through the door comes

the whirlwind,

the gathering storm,

raging as it is meant to do.

The door is open;

the building stands.

It stands.

Photograph by Jana Illnerova via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

I went to Smyrna

I went to Smyrna, my usual

sales trip, bringing with me

what I had to sell. I arrived

amid the cries, torches in the night,

soldiers dragging men, women

off, children taken, too, and some

too young left behind. What is

this, I asked my innkeeper, what is

this thing. Avoiding my eyes

he said, simply,

it’s faith. As he pushed the ledger

to me to make my mark,

his hand shook.

It’s faith, he said.

Only that.

Photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

It wasn't a knock

It wasn’t a knock

but a pounding, shaking

the door. He sat, the pages

open before him, hearing

the vibration from the door,

an axe hacking at an already

fallen tree. He knew the time

had been coming, arriving

in thunder. He first thought

to hide the small cross

around his neck, the cross

that was his noose. Instead,

he waited for the door

to give way.

He heard the first splinters.

Photograph by Teodoro S. Gruhl via Public Domain Pictures. Used with Permission.

Follow Me – into Persecution?

Early on in my faith, I spent a fairly considerable amount of time reading church history. I was even able to take a seminar in early church history as part of a masters degree program at Washington University in St. Louis. While it was more than 20 years ago, what I remember most about the course was two things: the professor’s deep admiration for the late 19^th and early 20^th century church historian Adolf von Harnack (a leading proponent of what was then called “higher criticism”) and my research project on forms of government in the early church.

You can’t read anything about church history for very long without coming into the subject of persecution. I originally understood (likely thanks to a lot of movies) was that the Romans spent 300 years avidly persecuting the church before finally throwing in the towel. In fact, it didn’t actually happen that way. Persecutions tended to be local or at most regional, with a few notable exceptions, such as the empire-wide persecution under Diocletian about 300 A.D.

The major charge against the Christians wasn’t that they believed in Christ; it was that they wouldn’t worship the emperor as a god.

Not long after receiving my degree, I was among a small group of corporate speechwriters asked by a national PR association to write a short article on a speech I deeply admired. Most of the group selected speeches like the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, or “Blood, Sweat and Tears” by Winston Churchill. I selected Stephen’s speech before the Sanhedrin, the one that ended in his death by stoning and the persecution of the church in Jerusalem.

My article wasn’t used. I was asked to write on something “not religious.” I declined, pointing out that the articles that would be printed actually had religious underpinnings and even direct references to God, while mine didn’t refer to God. They declined to print mine, an indication of what was already happening in American culture more than 20 years ago. I don’t consider this a form of persecution, but it was an example of anti-Christian discrimination.

Things have not gotten better since then.

What I said in my article was that Stephen’s speech and death, and the persecution of the church in Jerusalem that followed, had actually resulted in the first great wave of Christian evangelism, scattering Christians from Jerusalem to cities all over the Mideast and perhaps all the way to Rome. Paul, a leader in the persecution effort, was on his way to Damascus to extinguish the church there when he had his roadside conversion.

This became a pattern for the next three centuries. Persecute the church – and watch it grow. In fact, whenever the church has experienced persecution, it has grown. Today, in places where Christians face imprisonment and often death for their faith, the church is growing.

“We often think persecution is horrible, and certainly in many ways it is,” writes David Platt in Follow Me: A Call to Die. A Call to Live. ”But persecution is often a sign that the gospel is progressing. As long as the gospel lies dormant in a country or amid a people, and as long as no one is coming to Christ, then no one cares about Christianity. It’s only when the gospel spreads and people are converted to Christ that opposition begins to arise against Christianity.”

Persecution is a terrible thing, but for Christians, it is also a sign.

We’ve been reading David Platt’s Follow Me as part of a book discussion at TheHigh Calling. Today Marcus Goodyear concludes the discussion. Please visit the site to see his comments and the discussion.