High Degree of Misinformation I Had Received

¶ … high degree of misinformation I had received from traditional teachings about the church and the beginning of Christianity. Moreover, I was struck by the notion that most other people in the Western world receive this same degree of intentional misinformation, so much so that I have even heard people defend the idea that knowledge of the historical church is irrelevant to modern Christianity. Reading through the class material, I was struck by how critical this historical information was to the understanding of the actual church. One critical piece of information is the idea of Jesus as the head of the church, despite him not establishing Christianity as a separate religion. Another critical idea was that prophets could play a continuing role in Christianity, when my traditional understanding had suggested that after Jesus there would be no more Jewish prophets. I also found myself wondering about the very obvious and significant differences between historical biblical elders and leaders and the leaders of the modern church. Prior to this course, I had a historical awareness of the interrelationship between the church and monarchs, but the reading really helped me understand how that relationship developed. I also had a strong belief in the notion of original sin, and it was not until this class that I learned that the notion was not only not found in the New Testament, but also that the person who coined it was considered a heretic. Finally, the reading helped me understand Gnosticism.

For most Christians, membership in a church and adherence to the rules and norms established by the earthly leaders of those churches is considered an integral part of Christianity. However, in Matthew, Jesus makes it clear that he is establishing his church on himself, not on Peter. This notion was subverted throughout much of early Christianity when popes were considered to be necessary interceders between men and God. In fact, a huge portion of modern day Christians still consider earthly leaders to be able to define elements of Christianity and what it means to be devout. This contravenes the idea that Jesus alone is the foundation of the Church, which is specifically mentioned in the church. To me, this notion encourages Christians to consider the Gospel from a personal perspective and interpret the message that God/Jesus is trying to send. That does not mean that a person should not consult earthly spiritual leaders for guidance or help when confronted with difficult spiritual issues, but it does suggest that a person should not place another human's judgment above his or her own because of the personal nature of the relationship with Christ.

Another element that made me reconsider what I knew was the idea of prophets in the Christian church. Stepping outside of the classroom setting for a moment, I know that one of the problems that Christians have with Islam is that Mohammed is said to be a prophet who lived after the time of Jesus. Islam does recognize the existence of Jesus, though not His divinity. However, if one approaches Christianity from the viewpoint that there can be no prophets after Jesus, then Mohammed is necessarily a false prophet. I felt that the information about the Apostle Paul writing about there being prophets after Jesus helped clarify this matter. It certainly made me think of a possible reconciliation between Islam and Christianity, despite the fact that certain elements of the two faiths have previously been seen as irreconcilable.

In fact, the entire discussion of leadership in the emerging church made me question much of what I know about leadership in the modern Christian church. There was a separation between local churches that seemed aimed at limiting the impact of the individual elders in each church. Moreover, there was a rule that each local church was to have two elders. In some modern church environments this is replicated by deacons and other church leaders. However, the reality is that most churches have only a symbolic number of elders and that the power in the individual church is often concentrated in a single individual. This also leads me to think about the popularity of mega churches who reach thousands and thousands of people through television broadcasts. Do these mega churches, with their charismatic and popular leaders, follow the biblical precepts about the number of elders that should be available to a church? Do they follow the idea that a local church's influence is ideally supposed to remain local? I do not think that they do. However, I do not know if this is a necessary consequence of a world where communication and population has changed so tremendously from what they were in biblical times that following a biblical model is impractical or whether it is a sign of people using the church to amass power.

Another "wow" moment in the reading came with an explanation of how the relationship between Christianity and the European monarchy developed. Honestly, until this course, I had assumed that European leaders had always claimed to either be divine or to have some special relationship to the divine. I based this off of my understanding of religious and social practices in ancient Egypt as well as the Greco-Roman practice of claiming some type of divinity or supernatural power. However, seeing that biblical leadership in each church came to reside in one elder and that, as populations grew, some of these elders were able to amass increasing amounts of power, helped me understand the eventual rise of the papacy. Furthermore, as this power increased, it made sense that those in power would shape rules and regulations designed to keep them in power. Eventually, the idea that the bishops would wield a tremendous amount of power became the predominant model of religious leadership throughout Europe. This led to the development of Super-Bishops and eventually the Pope, in much the same form as the modern Catholic Church. However, these bishops were not wielding their power in a vacuum. Regions that embraced Christianity as it developed were already ruled by people, generally in monarchies, though some had oligarchies or even rudimentary representative democracies. However, the men who held secular power were unwilling to sacrifice a portion of that power to those who wielded power in religious circles. Therefore, the two distinct types of power had to be united.

One of the most profound "aha" moments from the reading focused on the notion of original sin. A friend's child attended a Christian summer camp over this summer and was told that she was the "enemy of God" because she was born in sin. The concept of original sin, though it may not be the focus of many modern sermons, continues to form the backbone of belief in many modern evangelical denominations. Therefore, I always assumed that there was a basis for the notion in the Bible, though I could find no references to original sin in either the Old Testament or the New Testament. Learning that the Super Bishop Origen fused Greek philosophy with Christian teaching to come up with the idea of original sin was very interesting, as was discovering that the notion of original sin is not contained in the New Testament. In fact, even reading the Old Testament does not support the notion of people being born in sin; the noted fall in the garden means that people are given the knowledge of sin, not that they are inherently sinners. I was very pleasantly surprised to hear that Origen was branded a heretic by the Roman Church, though his notion of original sin continues to thrive.

Finally, prior to this course I was very confused by the idea of Gnosticism and the Gnostic gospels. My exposure to them did not help me understand why they were so controversial. However, learning that they believed that everything physical was evil, and, therefore, denied the humanity of Jesus, helped me understand why they were controversial. That one fact surprised me. It also made me wonder how they could interpret Jesus' life in any manner without acknowledging his humanity. To me, the most compelling part of Jesus as a leader is not his divinity, but his humanity. Perhaps my opinion is influenced by some of my reading outside of the coursework, such as the new book Zealot, which explores the life of the historical Jesus. However, to me, understanding Jesus as God means, necessarily, understanding Jesus as a man. He came and lived the human condition in circumstances that had him living, if not among the least of people, certainly not among the privileged. As a result, his humanity dictates, to me, the type of charity and compassion that is associated with the best of Christians. To deny Jesus of his humanity is, to me, almost worse than denying his divinity, because, as God, the struggles he faced as a human would have been insignificant.

2. Part 1 of your reading material showed you what the Christian church believed and taught in the first century AD. Part 2 of your reading taught you of the changes that were made. Discuss the changes.

Prior to taking this course, in many ways I considered Christianity to be a static religion. I had not given thought to the notion that Christianity changed rapidly in the first few centuries of its practice. I noticed several critical changes in the practice of Christianity in the first century AD and its later practice. The first change was the idea of a Christ centered church with Jesus as the only leader. The second change was the idea of a church with multiple elders to focusing power on a single leader. The third change was the idea that church leadership should remain local to the shifting of power to leaders located away from the church's physical area. The fourth change was a focus on forceful evangelism. All of these changes helped lead not only to the creation of the position of Pope, but also to a concentration of power in the Pope. The Crusades are a great example of how this religious power and authority gave the Pope actual power over people and allowed Popes to command vast armies of people in a series of wars known as the Crusades.

In the first century, it was very clear that the leadership of the church resided solely in Jesus the Christ. Human leaders of the church were responsible for sharing Jesus' teachings and messages with emerging Christians, but they were not seen as holding any real type of leadership responsibilities in the church. Instead, though dead, Jesus remained the leader of the early church. This underwent a dramatic change in the first few centuries of the religion. Jesus transformed from the actual leader of the church to a deity who was worshipped. This left a power vacuum in the church. This vacuum was filled by earthly leaders assuming greater power and responsibility over the church. However, these leaders necessarily engaged in doctrinal conflicts with one another, which could not be resolved in a system where each earthly leader could claim the same relationship with Christ and authority in the religion as other similarly-situated religious leaders. Eventually, this led to the development of Super Bishops and then the Pope, so that earthly leaders began to claim special relationships to Jesus and special roles as leaders of the Church, in direct conflict with early church policies.

The second change was the idea of a church with multiple elders to focusing power on a single leader. The leadership of the early church was focused on the notion of servant leadership and had two types of early leaders: apostles and prophets. The apostles were a group of men who had been selected by Jesus as the early caretakers, but not leaders, or his emerging church. However, the apostles were differentiated from later elders in the church because of their direct relationship with Christ. They were believed to act with divine authority, an idea that would be expanded upon in later centuries to give support to the notion that the Pope acted with divine authority. These early apostles used their divine commission to spread Jesus' teachings, and, unlike their contemporary earthly secular leaders, they did not concentrate any efforts on demonstrating wealth or ensuring their own immortality though monument or similar buildings. As the Church developed in the later centuries, this emphasis changed. Local churches became more greatly associated with the individuals in power, and, when those individuals had influence over larger groups of people, they were able to exercise that power in ways that were somewhat self-serving and could result in earthly power for the individual. Slowly, rather than local churches led by multiple leaders, churches were led by individuals who, like the apostles, often claimed to have some type of divine commission, though they had no direct commission from God. This led to the development of Super Bishops, who were known as papas, and eventually to the role of the Pope. Even many modern day Catholics view the Pope as the elder in their own small churches, despite having representatives of the church in actual leadership positions.

The third change was the idea that church leadership should remain local to the shifting of power to leaders located away from the church's physical area. Initially, churches were encouraged to be local and autonomous. While autonomy may have allowed for local perversion of Christian ideals, it also discouraged the spread of heretical ideas from church to church. Between the Apostolic Age and the Council of Chalcedon, church polity began to change. Local leaders began to cede control of the local churches to a single elder in each area. Eventually, these bishops gained control over multiple congregations. What this meant is that local churches were no longer autonomous. Even more importantly, it meant that control over a local church was no longer local. Though these geographic areas may have initially seemed small, the reality of travel during that time period meant that even relatively close geographic areas could have had very different needs at different points in time. Autonomous rule allowed church leaders to react and respond to individual, local needs. Moving power outside of the local area meant that it could not be as responsive to the local population. Eventually, the power was vested in the Pope. The popes were initially the super bishop in the area of Rome. However, because Rome was the most powerful city in Christendom during that time period, the super bishop of Rome eventually came to be the leader of all the churches during that time period. In 445, the Roman Emperor Valentinian III established Rome's super-bishop as the Pope of the Christian Church.

Perhaps the most significant change in Christianity from the first century was the role of Christians as victims and persecutors. Early Christians faced a tremendous amount of persecution because of their religious choices. They were the targets of intentional violence aimed at them because of their religion. Despite that, early Christians remained peaceful even when faced with persecution. Unlike the people who came against them and different from the Jewish people for whom Christ was the Messiah, early Christianity was a religious movement that was largely divided from secular overtones. However, as Christianity gained popularity, what it meant to be Christian became less religious and more secular. This allowed for the development of a more forceful form of evangelism. Over time, Christians changed from those being persecuted for their religious beliefs to those persecuting others for their religious beliefs. It became tolerable in the Christian church to use violence against non-Christians. Moreover, this use of violence was seen as somehow divinely-sanctioned because of the call to evangelize among non-Christians. Increasingly, those who had not been reborn were seen as sinners because of a conflation of the idea of original sin with the notion of baptism and rebirth. As sinners, they were considered less valuable than Christians. In many ways, this notion of non-Christians as somehow being lesser than humans contributed to the idea that it was permissible to convert them to Christianity through any means necessary.