Questions on Christianity

You will not hear about it much in our church history, but Christians have resorted to violence multiple times when they disagreed on points of theology, even to the extent of killing fellow Christians.  Examples include Athanasius who was “quite prepared to use the violent methods of the streets, when necessary, to accomplish worthwhile goals.” [1]  The historian Ammianus stated:  “no wild beasts are such enemies to mankind as are most Christians in their deadly hatred of one another”. [2]  The Albigensian crusade in 1209 was quite simply a bloodbath and it was also quite simply a war against what the ruling class thought was heresy.  Some of the combatants asked the religious leaders how they were to distinguish the faithful from the heretics and the answer was reported to be: “kill them all, God knows his own”. [3]

There are many ways of interpreting the scripture and these days we generally do not resort to physical violence when we have disagreements in our theology.  However, do we use other forms of violence such as denigrating those with whom we disagree?  Is this the way Jesus wants us to act?  Did not Jesus instruct us to love even our enemies (Matthew 5:43)?

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[1]   Richard E. Rubenstein.  When Jesus Became God.  Orlando:  Harcourt, Inc., Kindle edition, p. 63

[2]   Rubenstain, p. 194.

[3]Tom Holland.  Dominion.  New York:  Basic Books, p. 261.

Our current world situation—the pandemic, the various political upheavals around the world, the loss in confidence in many of our institutions—is inducing anxiety in many people.  What are we to do?

In Mathew 6:25-34, Jesus instructs us not to be anxious about the future for three reasons.  First, God is in control and an example is how he takes care of the animal and plant life in nature.  Jesus asserts we are more important than animal and plant life so God will surely take care of us.

Second, Jesus promises us that if we “seek first the kingdom and his righteousness and all these things [material things] will be added unto you”.  We do not need to worry about material things in the future if we have our priorities right and our first priority should be spiritual matters, not physical.

Third, Jesus observes something we all should know—the evil we see each day is enough for us to address that day.  Trying to address future evil just adds to our work load and removes our focus on today’s evil. If we address the evil of today, it will go a long way to eliminating the need to address evil in the future.

I have heard the story of a church in Germany during WWII which was located near a railroad track that served one of the concentration camps.  Each Sunday morning a train taking Jewish people to the camp passed by the church and the church members could hear the cry of the people on the train.  Hearing this cry every Sunday morning eventually disturbed the church members and they found themselves singing louder to drown out the cry of the people on the train.

Now many are critical of those church members.  My question is:  If you were a member of that church, what concrete actions would you take to assist the Jewish people?  If you organized an action to stop the train and free the Jewish prisoners, it is a distinct possibility the Nazis would take retaliatory action against that community.  The Nazis were known to randomly round up people in a community that defied their orders and kill them.  If that happened, and it most likely would have, then the members of that church would need to decide who they would save—the Jewish people  on the train or members of their  community.  Knowing this, what action would you have taken?

Many people in Germany during WWII faced this question.  As Bonhoeffer noted, they were “trapped in a situation of ethical impossibilities.  In the light of the monstrous evils being committed all around, what could one do and what should one do?  In letters from his ordinands, we read of how tortured they were in knowing when to protest and when to accede, when to go to war, even if they knew it was unjust, and when to take a stand. . .” [1]

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[1]   Eric Metaxas.  Bonhoeffer.  Nashville:  Thomas Nelson, 2010, pp. 470-471.

The prominent atrocities we have discussed in the past few blogs are no different that occur on a daily basis in our world.  People are starving all the time in our world but Stalin’s use of starvation to kill the people of Ukraine gets all the headlines.  This is similar to when a plane crashes.  The crash fills the news but many more people are killed in automobile accident each year and those receive scant attention.

When we read of people starving or a crime being committed, we attribute that action to one or a few individuals.  We tend to think that it is just a few individuals in our  world are capable of committing such atrocities.  However, when we look at the high profile cases of suffering we have documented, it is obvious that thousands of people were responsible for this suffering, not just the leaders of these countries.  It was not just Hitler and his closest advisors who were responsible for the death camps.  It took thousands of people to build those camps, outfit them with the barracks, gas chambers, and ovens, round up the Jewish people, transport them to the camps, and run those camps.

Now we might think that we in America are not capable of such actions but we did allow slavery to exist in our country for many years.  During the war the United States fought in the Philippines at the beginning of the 20^th century, atrocities were committed on both sides.[1]  During the Second World  War, we sent thousands of Japanese to concentration camps.

The lesson we hopefully will learn from history is that all of us are capable to the atrocities we have described.  The Bible is so accurate in its assessment of our soul which is need of a thorough renovation that only God can bring.

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[1]   Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex,  New York:  The Modern Library, 2002, p. 104.

At church during the Easter Sunday services and while our pastor was preaching on what John had to say about the resurrection, I did some back tracking and read about the crucifixion and burial of Jesus.  What caught my eye were two characters who we might call closet Christians.   “Closet” being defined as “a state or condition of secrecy or carefully guarded privacy”.

“After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body.  Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been laid. So because of the Jewish day of Preparation, since the tomb was close at hand, they laid Jesus there.”  (John 19:38-42) ESV

Both Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus were secret followers of Jesus and today we might be critical of them because of that.  Yet when all of Jesus’ disciples save one had deserted him (John was busy taking care of Jesus’ mother as Jesus had commanded him), they did what no one else did—take proper care of the burial of Jesus’ body.  These two prominent Jewish leaders (and they were prominent because how else would they have access to Pilate to request the body of Jesus) were protecting their careers by not openly supporting Jesus but when Jesus needed them most, they stepped forward.

Now I am not saying we should not challenge Christians to be more vocal about their faith, but God can use closet Christians to accomplish his purposes.  Maybe that is why Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:1:   ”Judge not, that you be not judged.”