Stephen O. Presley, Author at Refcast

God Is Dead. Long Live the Gods.

By Stephen O. Presley — 10 months ago

Written by Stephen O. Presley |
Monday, June 17, 2024
Christians such as Polycarp, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus of Lyons weren’t part of the cultural elite but, following the apostles’ footsteps, worked from below and slowly and steadily guided the church through a pagan world. They didn’t sit in the prominent seats of the senate nor hobnob among the intellectuals populating the philosophical schools. Instead, they worked “organically,” beginning with sincere and robust forms of catechesis and discipleship, slowly guiding people in Christian doctrine and morality, reshaping the way they viewed the world. The church was a school for the broken, the downcast, and those longing to see a better world, and the Christian vision of life guided their way toward true human flourishing.

“I call myself a cultural Christian, but I’m not a believer,” stated the famed atheist Richard Dawkins in a recent interview with Rachel Johnson of LBC News. “I love hymns and Christmas carols, and I sort of feel at home in the Christian ethos,” he continued. He wants the cathedrals and parish churches that speckle England’s landscape, just without the faith nonsense that informs them. This interview is yet another signal that culture is changing. Even atheists seem to long for something transcendent.
Nietzsche quipped that “God is dead.” And in many ways, he was right; in the West, “God” is dead in the sense that Christianity’s theological and moral claims have become unbelievable and no longer unify society. The age of Christendom in the West, beginning with Constantine, saw Christianity slowly suppress paganism and establish cultural hegemony, but the tide is turning. It seems we’re back where we started.
The age of the Caesars is, once again, upon us. Like in a Percy Jackson novel, the pagan gods have taken up residence in our world, becoming the spiritual thread uniting our society and informing its moral imagination. As Christians look for ways to live faithfully in the world, the ancient church provides a helpful model for living in a world that seems increasingly pagan.
Back to a Pagan World
In his book Full Circle: How the Classical World Came Back to Us, British political commentator Ferdinand Mount draws out the parallels between modern and ancient moral diversity in striking fashion:
By the time of the Antonine emperors in the second century AD—that period which Gibbon regarded as the summit of human felicity—Rome was a ferment of religious choice. You could believe in anything or nothing. You could put your trust in astrologers, snake-charmers, prophets and diviners and magicians; you could take your pick between half a dozen creation myths and several varieties of resurrection. Or if you belonged to the educated elite, you could read the poetry of Lucretius and subscribe to a strictly materialist description of the universe. In short, this is a time when anything goes and the weirdest, most frenzied creations of the human mind jostle with the most beautiful visions, the most inspiring spiritual challenges and the most challenging lines of scientific inquiry. It is hard to think of any period quite like it, before or since—until our own time.
Mount is not alone in identifying the second century as the closest parallel to our time. Historian Carl Trueman comes to a similar conclusion at the end of The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self. Similarly in Pagans and Christians in the City, legal scholar Steven D. Smith frames his recommendations for Christian cultural navigation with the second century church in mind.
Read More
Related Posts:

Post Views: 139

Zwingli: Zealous Reformer, Faithful Pastor

By Stephen O. Presley — 11 months ago

Written by Stephen O. Presley |
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
Zwingli the Pastor shows that pastors are as important today as they were in Zwingli’s time. The pastor has an essential role in times of crisis. As Eccher tells us, Zwingli preached powerful sermons to rally people to theological reform for the sake of gospel renewal. Some were so persuasive that his audience ascribed to him a near-prophetic quality. Pastors are the ones God calls to faithfully shepherd his people with virtuous persuasion. But Zwingli wasn’t a perfect pastor, and that’s the point.

On October 11, 1531, Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) died on the battlefield after his Zurich battery was routed by Catholic forces at Kappel. He went into battle believing that God would sustain them—a devastating miscalculation. The accounts of his death vary dramatically. According to one report, the Catholics who found his lifeless body staged a posthumous mock trial, hurling insults at him and condemning him for various offenses. He was then beheaded, quartered, and burned, an unsanctimonious ending to one of the magisterial reformers.
Other reports give different accounts of the events—some fantastical. One suggests he lived long enough to make a dramatic defense of his views under interrogation, while another tale describes how his heart was salvaged from the ashes of his burning body, symbolizing the passion and purity of his message. Discerning truth from somewhat murky history exemplifies the challenge of recounting the complex and fascinating story not only of Zwingli’s death but also of his life.
In his book Zwingli the Pastor: A Life in Conflict, Stephen Brett Eccher includes the many “paradoxes and ironies” that make Zwingli a complex and controversial figure (2). Eccher is honest about the Swiss reformer’s successes and failures and finds lessons in them all. Zwingli’s life is often misunderstood and overshadowed by the other enormous figures of the Reformation, but alongside them, Eccher reminds us that Zwingli labored to see the same kinds of reforms that began from the milieu of Renaissance humanism.
Return to Scripture
Modern-day humanism is different from Renaissance humanism. The former is an “ideology,” while the latter was a “pedagogy.” The Renaissance humanism Zwingli soaked up aimed at personal transformation, primarily through the Scriptures and the wisdom of the tradition. His education led to deep learning of ancient literature and Scripture encouraged Zwingli to trust the Bible and to challenge contemporary assumptions about its interpretation.
According to Eccher, associate professor of Reformation Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Zwingli was convinced Scripture is “literally God’s word” (21). Zwingli believed his people needed to hear God’s Word more than anything else; only Scripture would bring life and renewal. To that end, he made the radical decision, following the example church fathers such as Chrysostom, to preach through books of the Bible (lectio continua), rather than sticking to the standard lectionary readings.
“This decision was a stunning revelation to those present,” Eccher writes, “and was the first formal liturgical change ushered in by Protestantism” (59). At times, especially early in his preaching career, he preached on themes or topics that addressed cultural issues, but eventually, he gravitated toward “an evangelical gospel message,” the kind of message that stirred the hearts and lives of the people under his pastoral care (12).
Zwingli’s humanist education enhanced his preaching with good rhetorical and oratory practices so that a “winsome use of words characterized his preaching” (24). He combined rhetoric with his practical experiences, such as his time on the battlefield, which helped him connect with his audience.
Eccher identifies two key themes that colored Zwingli’s biblical interpretation and subsequently shaped his preaching: clarity and certainty. The former stressed the “Spirit’s determinate power to illuminate,” while the latter implied the “power of Scripture” (37). He combined these points with a Christocentric focus and with what Zwingli called “the Rule of Faith and Love” (45). “Initially surfacing in Zwingli around 1524,” Eccher writes, “this rule established charitas (‘love’) as an axiomatic grid of interpretation that helped to embody the practice of neighbor love in a diverse era” (45).
Read More
Related Posts:

Post Views: 246

Believers in an Unbelieving World: How the Early Church Engaged Society

By Stephen O. Presley — 2 years ago

Standing before the Roman proconsul, Polycarp knew the end was near. The skilled Roman official methodically questioned him and repeatedly demanded that Polycarp worship a pagan image. Each time he refused. The bloodthirsty crowd filling the amphitheater jeered the Christian bishop. Changing tactics, the proconsul encouraged Polycarp to persuade the people. Polycarp felt no compulsion to defend himself before such a hostile crowd. To the proconsul, however, Polycarp responded differently. “We have been taught,” he said (alluding to Romans 13:1), “to pay proper respect to rulers and authorities appointed by God, as long as it does us no harm.”1 While Polycarp held fast to his convictions, the words of the apostle compelled him to respect those in political authority.

This episode, recounted in the early Christian text The Martyrdom of Polycarp, captures the dramatic social pressures the early church endured. In some ways, the episode also reminds us of some of the pressures Christians face today. In his work The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, Carl Trueman diagnoses the ills that afflict our society, and observes the resonances between the ancient and postmodern worlds. “The second-century world is, in a sense, our world,” he writes.2 In spite of all our seeming progress, are we returning to the days when pagans wielded social and political power against the church?

Wisdom from the Fathers

If our modern world resembles the ancient one, perhaps we could glean some wisdom from the ways the early church navigated these murky waters. As Polycarp testifies, the Scriptures were essential to the early Christian apologetic. Passages such as Romans 13:1 and Matthew 22:21, alongside the examples of Old Testament figures such as Joseph and Daniel, guided the church’s vision for engaging the unbelieving world.

Of all the texts used by these early Christians, 1 Peter 2:16–17 clusters key themes of their public and political theologies. “Live as people who are free,” Peter writes, “not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.” Peter knew the faithful were suffering under the weight of societal pressures, but he still admonishes them to “live as people who are free.” While freedom certainly entails release from bondage to sin and death, it also means freedom from the fear of any social or political power. There is no sense of retreat or capitulation in Peter’s words. He expects that the church will embed itself in the fabric of its social context and live freely “as servants of God.”

“Cultural engagement begins with the fear of God.”

The joy of living freely, Peter continues, is found in a fourfold sense of Christian obedience: fear God, honor the emperor, love the church, honor all people. In four short phrases, Peter compresses a vision for engaging society that reverberates through the writings of the early church as they navigated a pagan world.

FEAR GOD

As an aspect of Christian wisdom, cultural engagement begins with the fear of God.3 I take this as a general phrase describing a firm conviction in the nature and work of God and the wisdom of God required for Christian living (see Proverbs 1:7; 9:10; Psalm 111:10). The early Christians formulated these convictions in a doctrinal summary, often called the “rule of faith,” that they confessed at baptism. Once they emerged from the baptismal waters, the rule of faith described the theological framework that guided their spiritual lives.

Irenaeus of Lyons, for example, begins his summary of the rule by saying, “God, the Father, not made, not material, invisible; one God, the Creator of all things: this is the first point of our faith.”4 The second and third points confess Christ and the Holy Spirit, a developed Trinitarian vision of God. This doctrinal summary informed every feature of their doctrine and practice, and fortified a theological and moral dividing line from the inherited cultural ideologies.

This means that the first step of Christian engagement is discipleship. The church’s necessary focus is on training members, helping them to cultivate a sincere commitment to Christ and Christian doctrine. Only when they deeply imbibed the church’s faith could early Christians defend against intellectual challenges, endure social pressures, and even face martyrdom. Eventually their commitment to the teachings of the Scriptures prevailed. The early church succeeded, first and foremost, because the “central doctrines of Christianity prompted and sustained attractive, liberating, and effective social relations and organizations.”5

HONOR THE EMPEROR

While the fear of the Lord was the first step, the early church affirmed the proper place of political power. Just as Peter encourages the faithful to “honor the emperor,” the early church respected those in political authority, even when they oppressed the church (see Romans 13:1–7; Proverbs 24:21).

Early Christian theologians well knew that political power was meant to curb sin and establish order, even though it could be abused. Alluding to Romans 13:4–6 and related passages, Irenaeus observes that “earthly rule” has been “appointed by God for the benefit of nations, and not by the devil, who is never at rest at all, nay, who does not love to see even nations conducting themselves after a quiet manner.”6 Not all civil leaders are virtuous and, in the Lord’s providence, people experience different types of political governance. Some rulers “are given for the correction and the benefit of their subjects, and for the preservation of justice; but others, for the purposes of fear and punishment and rebuke.”7

Based on the doctrine of divine providence and transcendence, Tertullian made the bold claim that the emperor “is more ours than yours [the pagans], for our God has appointed him.”8 He also claimed that Christians pray for political stability, saying, “For all our emperors we offer prayer. We pray for life prolonged; for security to the empire; for protection to the imperial house; for brave armies, a faithful senate, a virtuous people, the world at rest.”9 Though not afraid to criticize the emperor (or any other political figure) for neglecting his duties, Christians respected the place of civil authority.

LOVE THE BROTHERHOOD

Not only did early Christians fear God and honor the emperor, but they also loved the church (Romans 12:10; Hebrews 13:1). Christians in the ancient world, as today, recognized that laws and political structures cannot make people truly virtuous; that remains the work of the Spirit in the church. Political structures can help facilitate that work and provide environments that promote virtuous living. But politics will not save us or make us holy.

“Laws and political structures cannot make people virtuous; that remains the work of the Spirit in the church.”

While the church — either in the ancient world or today — is not perfect, early Christians argued that “what the soul is to the body, Christians are to the world.”10 Even though the people of God are persecuted, ironically the Christians “hold the world together.”11 The early Christian community did not see the church as just another voluntary organization or social gathering but as the locus of God’s redemptive activity. From their vantage point, God is at work in the church, and the nations enjoy the blessings. The Christians, the early apologist Aristides writes,

love one another, and from widows they do not turn away their esteem; and they deliver the orphan from him who treats him harshly. And he, who has, gives to him who has not, without boasting. And when they see a stranger, they take him in to their homes and rejoice over him as a very brother.12

The love among the church is a living testimony of the potential for human flourishing found in the gospel.

HONOR EVERYONE

Finally, while the early church feared God, honored the emperor, and loved the church, they also recognized that Scripture called them to honor all people (Romans 13:7; 1 Peter 2:17). Christians “are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe,” writes the author of the Epistle of Diognetus.13 Instead, “following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life.”14 Early Christians affirmed that all people are created in the image of God and worthy of respect, regardless of social standing. “We are the same to emperors as to our ordinary neighbors,” Tertullian writes.15

The early church pursued holiness and modesty, and in so doing hoped to persuade some. Justin Martyr, reflecting on the way the gospel transformed lives, writes that Christians “pray for our enemies, and endeavor to persuade those who hate us unjustly to live conformably to the good precepts of Christ, to the end that they may become partakers with us of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the ruler of all.”16 Now with renewed vigor and resourcefulness, we need people of faith living with this kind of vision for society: the living testimony of a faithful, virtuous, loving community that honors all people.

We Have Been Here Before

We could say much more about the wisdom of the early Christian approach to living in an unbelieving world. The words of 1 Peter 2:17 and the example of the early church provide a helpful framework to begin thinking through this complex topic. In one sense, the example of the early church may be comforting. We have been here before. The church has survived and even thrived in times like these.

But then again, these days are different. Modern paganism (in the words of T.S. Eliot) is still intermingled with the vestiges of a Christian past. Our social and religious institutions, organizations, and traditions are in transition, tangled in the messiness of losing the Christian mores that informed them. By looking to the early church, we see a vison that resonates with Peter’s exhortation. It begins with fearing God, honoring the emperor, loving the church, and honoring all people. Like Polycarp before the proconsul and the jeering crowd, it won’t convince everyone. Nevertheless, like Polycarp, we walk in faith, and live as people who are free.