I’m starting to think that the reason so many people have a hard time with Christianity and Christians is that we’re not really Christians.
We live in the most powerful country in the world, perhaps in the history of the world. We have prosperity, a massive military, and are the world’s only true superpower.
We call ourselves a Christian nation. “In God We Trust” is printed on our money. Our president is sworn in with a Bible. We say the pledge of allegiance as a nation “under god.” The identity of the church has been grafted into the fabric of America to the point that the majority of Christians have a hard time distinguishing between the two.
But here’s the crazy thing – the story of the Bible is the story of a God who never associated himself with a superpower. He wanted a people “set apart” from the world, a people with no king other than Himself, a people who did not hoard their money, did not fight their enemies, who tried to love people and reflect God’s glory in everything they did.
The early church understood these things, and tried to embody them. They lived during the peak of the Roman empire – a nation similar in might and prosperity. And they did everything they could to set themselves apart from it. Consider the following – how many of these statements sound like anything you’ve ever heard from a Christian or a church?
“The Christians form among themselves secret societies that exist outside the system of laws.” ~ a letter to Origen
“He called Abraham and commanded him to go out from the country where he was living. With this call God has roused us all, and now we have left the state. We have renounced all the things the world offers” ~ Justin Martyr
“You cannot demand military service of Christians any more than you can of priests. We do not go forth as soldiers wit the Emperor even if he demands this” ~ Origen
“I recognize no empire of this present age” ~ Speratus
“I do not wish to be a ruler. I do not strive for wealth. I refuse offices connected with military command.” ~ Tatian
“All of us throughout the whole wide earth have traded in our weapons of war. We have exchanged our swords for plowshares, our spears for farm tools.” ~ Justin Martyr
“The professions and trades of those who are going to be accepted into the community must be examined. The nature and type of each must be established… brothel, sculptors of idols, charioteer, athlete, gladiator… give it up or be rejected. A military constable must be forbidden to kill… a proconsul or magistrate who wears the purple and governs by the sword shall give it up or be rejected.” ~ Hippolytus
“You who are God’s servants are living in a foreign country, for your own city-state is far away from this city-state. Knowing which is yours, why do you acquire fields, costly furnishings, buildings and frail dwellings here? … Acquire no more here than is absolutely necessary. Instead of fields, buy for yourselves people in distress in accordance with your means.” ~ Hermas
“We who formerly treasured money and possessions more than anything else now hand over everything we have to a treasury for all and share it with everyone who needs it. We who formerly hated and murdered one another now live together and share the same table. We pray for our enemies and try to win those who hate us.” ~ Justin Martyr
“The desire to rule is the mother or heresies” ~ John Chrysostom
“Emperors could only believe in Christ if they were not emperors – as if Christians could ever be emperors.” ~ Tertullian
All of this started to change with Constantine, who claimed to be a Christian, slapping crosses on his army’s shields as they expanded the Roman empire. Theodosius later made Christianity the state religion and made it a crime to not be a Christian. Every soldier was soon required to be a Christian. Charlemagne instructed his “Christian” armies to kill pagans who did not choose to be baptized.
One wonders if the last 1700 years have been an enormous, heartbreaking exercise in missing the point. The Crusades, the Inquisition…the War on Terror. Christianity has been so thoroughly co-opted, morphed, twisted that we don’t even realize it. We praise the words of Christ and Paul and then immediately ignore much of what they said.
What if every Christian you ever met was living violently opposed to their God and didn’t even realize it?
