Written by J. C. Philpot |
Sunday, August 14, 2022
We want the clouds to part and the light of God’s countenance to shine into our souls to show us where we are, and what we are, and make it clear that we are still interested in the love of the Father, the blood of the Son, and the teachings of the Holy Ghost. It is here we often return to the word of God’s truth for enlightenment. 

Light arises in the darkness for the upright… — Psalm 112:4
We sometimes get into such dark paths that we seem altogether lost, and feel as if there were no more grace in our souls, like one who is still dead in trespasses and sins. And whether we look back at the past, or view the present, or turn our eyes to the future, one dark cloud seems to rest upon the whole.
In those moments, with all our searching, we cannot find to our satisfaction that we have one spark of true religion, or one atom of grace, or one grain of vital godliness, or any trace that the Spirit of God has touched our consciences with His finger.
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Written by John Stonestreet and Timothy D. Padgett |
Wednesday, July 19, 2023
The people who suffer around us deserve our compassion and care. They shouldn’t be told that their lives aren’t worth living or made to think that they’re somehow a burden on us or that they’re taking resources from those who need them. They aren’t Hitler’s Untermenschen just because they don’t live lives of perfect heath and prosperity. They are God’s image bearers, wholly deserving of life’s blessing amid life’s hardships.

A recent story out of the Netherlands reminds us, as the adage goes, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. According to an article in the New York Post, the country, which has long led the world in legalizing and promoting euthanasia, has now expanded the reach of its angels of death to include those suffering from mental illness and even autism. Other countries are falling in line. 
Two years ago, a World magazine article described how the practice of euthanasia is being embraced in Australia. Similar measures were expanded last year both across the Tasman in New Zealand and across the globe in Spain. Canada’s death laws are also being expanded to allow the mentally ill to die. Here at home, 10 U.S. states have “death with dignity” laws. Still, Holland and Belgium are at the front of this race to see how far a culture of death can go. 
Every one of these laws is advanced by an appeal to compassion. We are told it is merciful to allow the ill to end their pain in death. Denying death to those who suffer robs human beings of their innate dignity and our future of “a happier world.” Death can be, the rhetoric goes, a gift of love. Couched in explicitly moral terms, euthanasia is offered as the only ethical choice, with any opposition portrayed as heartlessness and cruelty. 
The word games played in the euthanasia debate would be impressive if they weren’t so evil. Words such as “illness,” “pain,” “compassion,” “mercy,” and “dignity,” are moving targets. It’s the same game played by some of the worst villains in history. 
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Those Christians in the generation leading up to Constantine’s ascent appear not to have been strictly pacificist or “Anabaptist” (for lack of a more convenient term) in their politics. At risk of beating the same old drum, bits of information like this consistently underscore for me the value in studying the history of Christianity between the New Testament and, say, Augustine. Especially for modern Christians who feel alarm or simply aporia at the prospect of de-Christianization, there are helpful and sometimes surprising models to be considered in this era.

On a recent re-reading of Eusebius’ writings about the Great Persecution and the subsequent rule of Constantine, I was struck by how he records quite a few Christians working in the army and imperial administration decades before Constantine was running the show. Sometimes, for instance, it is alleged that the pre-Constantinian church flatly opposed participation in the military. That claim (or versions of it) was always oversimplifying matters, and one can spot it right in the sources themselves.
Take Ecclesiastical History 8.4 (and I shall describe, paraphrase, quote lightly from sources in rather than en bloc for brevity in this post). Eusebius suggests that “he who has taken power”—which I take to be the devil rather than the emperor—thought the best starting place to begin an attack on the church would be the army itself, which itself is a telling remark about where Christians were known to exist in the public sphere. “Very many” faithful Christian soldiers lost their status in the process, claims Eusebius, though here and there some were also killed for their constancy. When telling the stories of the martyrs he knew most personally, Eusebius marks out one such soldier named Seleucus, in the Martyrs of Palestine 11.26. Having already accepted punishment and discharge from the army, Seleucus then faced danger again by associating with the Christians of Caesarea, which led to his death. In general, however, this particular stroke against the Christian soldiery was moderate and not especially violent, comments Eusebius dryly.
In Ecclesiastical History 8.6, Eusebius also mentions one Dorotheus and others working in the imperial palace of Nicomedia, who were probably slaves. Further down, in 8.9, he notes the hitherto respected Philoromos, who sat as an imperial judge “with status and Roman honor” in Alexandria daily escorted by soldiers. In recompense for his unyielding Christianity, the empire had Philoromos condemned and beheaded. Likewise in 8.11, Eusebius goes so far as to claim that the complete population of an entire small town in Phrygia suffered burning en masse, including the imperial accountant on site and the local town officials, all of whom were Christians. Here too Eusebius mentions Adauktos, who came from a notable Italian family and had achieved status and served in imperial magistracies; at the time of his martyrdom, he was currently serving as a financial officer or comptroller general.
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