Stephen
Terry, Director
Faith
Against All Odds
Commentary
for the May 4, 2024, Sabbath School Lesson
"In fact, everyone who wants to live a
godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" 2 Timothy 3:12
Many Christians are familiar
with the history of the persecution of the Christian church. The Bible, in the book
of Acts repeatedly gives instances where Herod and the Jewish religious leaders
attacked the nascent church, stoning Stephen to death and imprisoning Peter. "Foxe's
Book of Martyrs" enlarges upon the Bible's record with the deaths of Christians
presented in gory detail, describing James' death as the result of a beating
with a club. All the disciples but John were hastened
to a premature death by persecution. In a sense, this was "family business"
with the rest of the world seeing this as Jews persecuting Jews, not
distinguishing Jews from Christians. This, of course, had several results; the Christians
often could not appeal to civil authorities about the persecution because it was
deemed an internal matter of Jewish belief. But on the other hand, should the
Jews fall afoul of the authorities, retribution could affect Jew and Christian
alike, because to those enforcing the law, they were the same. They even worshipped
on the same day, the same Sabbath established at Creation and honored by the
Jews since at least back into the Bronze Age.
However, when the Jews revolted
against Rome in the early second century, the Christians made it clear that
they would not support it. Perhaps this was because it was unreasonable to expect
them to join with the Jews in their cause after the Jews had murdered so many
of their number, or perhaps it was because they did not want Rome to think them
to be Jews, for they were a new faith, Christianity, and sought recognition in their
own right. Some Christians even began abandoning Sabbath worship in exchange
for Sunday based on the day of the week when Christ was resurrected. As
their numbers grew and the distinction became clear, Rome began to recognize
this was not simply a conflict within Judaism, but was a challenge to millennia
of paganism, paganism that was responsible for the founding of the Roman Empire
and therefore felt essential for the empire to endure. Rome was noted for allowing
the worship of other gods, and they were often willing to accommodate other
faiths if they were willing to accommodate Rome's paganism. Over time, it became
clear that many Christians would not peaceably coexist with pagans and vice
versa.
In an ill-conceived attempt to
bridge this divide, Emperor Diocletian issued an edict that those Christians
who would burn incense showing their toleration of paganism would be given a
document placing them in good and regular standing with the empire. Those who
refused would forfeit all rights within the empire, even life itself at the
whim of the magistrate administering the required test. Some, even among the
clergy, reasoned that it was only incense that they knew meant nothing for
those pagan gods were nothing and went ahead and burned the incense. Others saw
it as a betrayal of Christ to do so and refused, suffering for their
intransigence.
Later, after Constantine the
Great's battle at the Milvian Bridge, where he conquered his foes using the
sign of the cross, Christianity may have felt a fresh wind blowing that would
mean an end to persecution. Nonetheless, fraught with divisions within the
Christian community, they appealed to the emperor to convene a council to deal with
the disputes. Constantine obliged, convening the Council of Nicaea in 325. The
most notable dispute was that between two bishops, Athanasius and Arius over
the nature of Christ. The emperor decided the dispute in favor of Athanasius.
Nonetheless, the dispute continues to the present with much of Christianity claiming
that Christ is God, and others, like the Jehovah's Witnesses claiming he is not
as Arius did. Some see this counsel as uniting the
brethren, but even if it accomplished that to a degree, it did far more. It set a precedent
that encouraged the church to appeal to the state to enforce its edicts. Later
in the same century a church theologian, Augustine, who taught in Rome and was concerned
by the divisiveness he felt the Donatists were causing, created a theological
framework to justify the church using the power of the state to crush dissent,
a justification that eliminated the Donatist opposition. The Donatists were those
who questioned the ordination and the efficacy of baptisms performed by those
who had given into Diocletian's decree. Augustine came down firmly on the other
side of that issue. While this was tragic for the Donatists, it had a far
greater impact, seldom discussed. It meant that the church could appeal to the
state to enforce dogma, including 1) the canon of scripture, 2) the interpretation
of scripture, and 3) accessibility to the scriptures. Until the Reformation,
this meant that literally and figuratively the scriptures were locked in chains
and only those working closely with the established church could legally teach
and preach doctrine as church and state decreed to be true.
Martin Luther produced his
classic German translation of the Bible in the early 16th century,
but he would not have been able to do so had the church not felt that it was
safe to allow him access to the training to translate them and the documents to
translate. As Luther sought an ever-deeper relationship with God, he saw
discrepancies between those scriptures he had been reading and the practices of
the Roman church. Doubtless, church and state both felt betrayed after giving
him all that training and access when in turn, he nailed his ninety-five theses
to the door of the Wittenberg church excoriating Rome. His was not the first opposition to the
state-church alliance. Others had gone before: Cathars, Waldenses, and Hussites.
But Luther was a church-trained cleric rising in opposition to the power of the
Roman Church that had the backing of the Holy Roman Empire. Luther questioned
even the canon, not wanting to initially publish James and Revelation in his new
Bible. He eventually decided that was not the cross he wished to die upon,
opting instead to champion the cause of righteousness by faith alone.
We might be tempted to think
that his publishing of the Bible in German to widen its availability to the
people was a blow that would break those chains that held scripture captive and
bound, but even Luther had to accept the canon decreed by Rome. He eventually
included James and Revelation. Luther also discovered to his chagrin that his followers,
after generations of living under the example of the Roman church-state union,
had learned that political power was the source of the church's power, and a
peasant army arose to seize that power and throw off the Roman yoke in favor of
Lutheranism. They felt betrayed when Luther disavowed the whole idea of the
church's power deriving from such state-backed atrocities. It did not matter how many the church had martyred using the power of the state,
that was not to be the example for God's people. While he sided with those
who put down the Peasant's Revolt, after his death, a century later in the Thirty
Years War, fought in central Europe, over eight million died as state powers on
both sides sought for supremacy of either Rome or Protestantism. Religious
tension still exists between Northern and Southern Germany with the north tending
to be Protestant and progressive and the south Roman Catholic and conservative.
While these tensions have shaped
us in western society, most are ignorant of the issues at stake. They see the
religious wars of the past and eschew all religion, thinking it will eliminate
the problem. However, Christianity was never the problem. The problem was the
state's desire to co-opt religion as a tool to enforce its will upon the
populace and the church's acquiescence to that desire. We see this played out
when Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kryll bows to the power of the Russian state
and blesses it to murder tens of thousands of women and children in Ukraine. We
may think ourselves distant from such things in the United States, but even
here, we have those who would gladly appeal to the power of the state to
enforce their religious dogma, a fact boldly made plain over the issue of
abortion. The churches, coveting the power of the state, promise to deliver
large blocks of votes and expect their agenda to be advanced in return. This
selling out is causing attrition amongst their ranks from those who see the
discrepancy between the ministry of Christ and the lust for earthy power by the
church. But those errant Christians do not see this as problematic, claiming
that the Holy Spirit is winnowing the body of believers to separate the true
from the false and seeing themselves as the true believers. The next step would
be for those true believers to persecute those who dissent, passing laws and
suborning courts to support those laws that they might work their will. Some
might think this is all about being faithful to God, but it never is. It is all
about power and control.
God is not looking for shepherds
who, at the Second Coming, will present to him a flock of sheep scared to do
anything for fear of retribution. He wants sheep who will love him and welcome
him because they learned to do so from the love of the shepherds who cared for
them. Sheep are gentle and docile, but goats are running about pushing,
shoving, and head butting their way through life. Shepherds of sheep tend to
develop the character of sheep, while shepherds of goats tend to become
goatlike. When all is said and done, goats do not end up in paradise. Sheep do.