In many ways, the twenty-first century offers us the clearest view we've ever had of the early church.
The twenty-first century is in some ways one of the best ever from which to look back and see what early church life was like. In other ways, it may be one of the worst. So let’s start with the bad news first.
We live in a Christian subculture which consists of something like 30,000 denominational groups, and we’ve come to think of that as “normal.” By contrast to the Christian subculture of 1100-plus years ago, though, that’s like saying family life is normal when Mom, Dad, their girlfriends, boyfriends, ex-wives, ex-husbands, and those of Mom’s and Dad’s brothers, sisters, parents, and cousins and the children of all of the above live together in “one big happy family.” No one would know who is really carrying on the family name or who should inherit what from whom.
Before the eleventh century, there really was a Church—in form of government, style of worship, understanding of Scripture.
Before the eleventh century, there really was a Church—in form of government, style of worship, understanding of Scripture. Contrary to what many modern evangelicals might think, however, this Church was not the Roman Catholic Church. Yet if they’ve ever thought about it at all, they probably concluded that it was (Roman Catholics will encourage this misunderstanding as well).
The roots of what we now know as Roman Catholicism were part of the pre-1000 A.D. church, to be sure, but it was only a portion of a much larger amalgamation of closely-affiliated church bodies. This larger combination offered checks and balances regarding theology, church practices, and other important aspects of church life that were lost by the Church of Rome when its leader decided he was supreme. The idea of a one-man show was repugnant to others in this Church who knew that any man on his own was absolutely headed for corruption. And they were right.
The idea of a one-man show was repugnant to others in this Church who knew that any man on his own was absolutely headed for corruption. And they were right.
In an historical event known as the Great Schism in 1054, the leader of the church in the West (Rome) cast off the church in the East and its leaders (in Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and a handful of others). Recognizing the wisdom handed down from the days of Acts in acknowledging that the Church should not be governed by just one “monarch,” the East likewise said good-bye to the West.
The 500-Year Lens
As the Eastern leaders might have feared, 500 years of degeneration ensued in the Western church. By 1500, things had become so bad that a generation of well-meaning new leaders ultimately separated themselves and their followers from Rome, and Protestantism was born. Many of their grievances were serious and legitimate, focusing on aberrations that had developed in their “mother church” since the Great Schism.
Because the church roots of most American Christians lie in the Western heritage, we look back at our history through the Western understanding of what happened in earlier days of the Church. We see Roman Catholicism as problematic, so anything that seems even remotely “Catholic,” we treat with skepticism at best or reject entirely at worst. Some things do need to be rejected, but what always happens in discussions that don’t account for the significance of the Roman Church lens through which we look back, the baby is thrown out with the bathwater.
Many Protestants see things like liturgical worship, Eucharist, feast-and-fast days, sacraments, and certain other theological positions as man-made “rituals” or ideas unbecoming to true Christians. . . . without recognizing that some of those practices and beliefs characterized the One Church for centuries before Roman Catholicism came into being.
Many Protestants see things like liturgical worship, Eucharist, feast-and-fast days, sacraments, and certain other theological positions as man-made “rituals” or ideas unbecoming to true Christians. They write them off as “Catholic” without recognizing that some of those practices and beliefs characterized the One Church for centuries before Roman Catholicism came into being.
In support of this attitude, many even insist on construing these earlier traditions as based more on paganism than the Bible: The Roman Empire and its predecessors were pagan cultures, so any strange-looking practices must be rooted in the culture in which the church developed, not in truly biblical teaching. Sounds plausible—until you discover what the people in those “growing up years” said about themselves, the Church, and the surrounding pagan culture.
Knowing what they had to say would be difficult if they hadn’t written it down. But they did—thousands upon thousands of pages of remarkable, insightful, honorable, self-disclosing, brutally honest, meticulously documented, first hand explanations of everything.
“But how can we know now, 15 or 20 centuries after the fact, what they said back then?” you might wonder. And it’s a valid concern. Knowing what they had to say would be difficult if they hadn’t written it down. But they did—thousands upon thousands of pages of remarkable, insightful, honorable, self-disclosing, brutally honest, meticulously documented, first hand explanations of everything. Which brings us to the good news in looking back from the twenty-first century.
A Source Is a Source, of Course, of Course
Our current “Information Age” offers perhaps the best array of resources about history that the world has ever known. One tremendously relevant example: Hendrickson Publishers sells a 38-volume set—19,288 pages in all—of writings by Christians prior to 800 A.D., and more than 5,000 pages of the collection was written before 300 A.D. Hendrickson has done Christendom a great service by collecting and publishing this extraordinary work.
Accessing this sort of information is similar to the advantage we gain by reading what America’s Founding Fathers wrote outside of official documents like the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Drawing this analogy to American history also highlights the problems created when people assume our modern predispositions offer a clearer window into understanding our forebears. As many conservative readers of the Constitution know, for example, the words “separation of church and state” do not appear in the document. While many lesser-informed citizens assume the words are there and that they mean religious things should be kept out of the public world, the statement actually appears only in a letter written by Thomas Jefferson. Far from aspiring to keep the church at bay, Jefferson wrote about “separation of church and state” to a group of Baptists to assure them that the Constitution’s intent is to prevent the government from interfering with the religious activities of the people. When most of the population doesn’t understand that, though—or worse, when a few intentionally manipulate the truth as a means to some unhealthy end—we find our freedoms abridged.
What you find is a succession of profoundly committed, intellectually brilliant, tenacious, Holy-Spirit-inspired believers who would rather die a more grisly death than most 21st century Americans can imagine than to compromise one iota of their belief system in favor of the debauched pagans around them.
This problem becomes even more acute when we look back over a 2,000-year period and multiple cultures instead of just 200 years and one culture. It means that hearing the original writers for themselves is critical.
To read some contemporary writers’ views of Christians in the first few centuries after Christ, you would think the group as a whole consisted generally of weak-willed, double-minded opportunists who wandered through the early years of the church only mildly preferring the doctrines of Christ over the temptations of paganism. It is wondrously easy, though, to leap directly into the minds and lives of these people. And when you hear them speak for themselves, the picture that emerges is very different.
What you find is a succession of profoundly committed, intellectually brilliant, tenacious, Holy-Spirit-inspired believers who would rather die a more grisly death than most 21st century Americans can imagine than to compromise one iota of their belief system in favor of the debauched pagans around them. These people were the early church, and they and their successors left guidelines for most of how we should still be worshipping, living, and honoring God.