Ernie: Seems to me that the WWECD approach -What Would Early Christians Do?-
implies all kinds of things that you do not find to your liking This is to speak of pietistic Christians, the "true believers" of the time. How many Christians were pietists in some sense of the word ? Your guess is as good as mine but from scattered evidence maybe a figure in the 50% range is more-or-less realistic. But we know it wasn't anything like 100%. Paul's letters make this very clear, hence the many times he scolded fellow believers, and the testimony of Revelation about the seven churches of Asia Minor, some of whom were , uhhh, like, kind of baaad. There's also a lot of stuff in the writings of the Church Fathers, all through the 100s AD until past 200 AD. At best you can say maybe 50%, but possibly the tally was lower. Anyway, this says that you can't get a society where everyone behaves like Christian ideals say is for the best. Even among groups that are 100% Christian. When you factor in everyone else, and until the 300s Christians were never above about 10% or 15 % of the total population, that means 8 or 9 out of 10 of everyone was not Christian. That leaves the question, what do you do about social values issues? "If only everyone was saved in the name of Jesus then all would be well" may sound good in a church community but what about the real world? I mean, it is entirely possible to look at such things in terms of social science. And some very smart contemporary believers are doing exactly that, like Stark and Bainbridge at Baylor, although one of the two has moved elsewhere in recent years. I'm mystified why you take a "prayer solves all problems" approach. Where, in ALL of Christian history, has that approach ever worked? I don't mean, where has it worked in an isolated community of monks?, but in what society? In what country? >From my reading of Christian history the answer is "nowhere." Sure, I also think that a list of historic Christian nations would give you a list of countries where things worked out better, even far better, than if they had been non-Christian, but that was because of smart public policy on the part of Christian leaders in government. ------------------ But let's say that we should focus on the noble 50%. OK, then what? If you say that, and I've read a good deal of material about this population, this is to talk about people who -literally- were willing to give their lives for Christian faith. They also were willing to live in poverty. They were willing to take a stand in public for their beliefs and if this meant an appointment with the lions in a stadium, that was the price they were willing to pay. Know any Christians like that today? I've known exactly two in my entire life, Evangeline here in Oregon, and now-deceased Don West in West Virginia -and he was very idiosyncratic and by no means an Evangelical. This is two out of the 2,000 or so I have known over the years. Not even 1%. You use the noble early Christians as your professed model. Why? Maybe you believe a lot like they did, I can't say, but to grant benefit of doubt... But willingness to go to the wall the way they did ??? Speak out in public for your beliefs even when the outcome would be rebuke and maybe persecution? You've done this.....when??? I can't say that I've been literally persecuted for my beliefs but sort of, and I sure in heck -at least now and then- have taken public stands for my beliefs regardless of whether others approve. You can imagine the many times others have opposed my views, can't you? Hey, I don't like it one little bit, and I complain about it every so often,. but I've been willing to live in poverty for my beliefs. There is no way in hell anyone is going to dissuade me of my beliefs no matter what, and you know it. Would I willingly say hello to the local lions? Nope, I'd take the route that Clement took if it was available, so let's not go too far with this. But, I think I have gone pretty far already. My model is Paul and we all know how much trouble he got into in his life, heck, he was in trouble regularly, almost everywhere he went. I can empathize. Certainly not to the extent he went through, but at least somewhat. I get the idea all too well. But if that is what it takes..... Who is your model and in what ways do you actually follow in his footsteps? For your consideration Billy -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
