First of all, I just want to say how thankful I am to have
been able to go on this cross-cultural. I have learned a lot, and I’ve been able
to do it with a fun group of people. Professors Ramey, Tims, Yeats, and Cenk
have been extremely insightful and have each helped the group with their
respective insights.
Today after our tour of Atatürk’s mausoleum, Cenk, our tour
guide, said regarding the Museum of Anatolian History, “Without knowing your
past, you cannot shape your future.” This trip has illustrated that for me
regarding the history of Christianity. During our downtimes I have been reading
Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright. He
discusses what the early Christian faith looked like and attempts to disprove
some common misconceptions held by Christians today based off these first-century beliefs. Even though this isn’t assigned reading, it has been extremely
enlightening to be able to juxtapose what the early Church thought about Jesus,
the resurrection, and their mission (the subtitle to the book) while also being
able to visit the very first churches. This trip to Turkey has helped prove two
things: the level of dedication the early Christians had to their faith and
how unusual and radical their faith was in the first place.
What has been hitting me over and over and over again is the
level of dedication required to be a Christian in the first few centuries. The
cites we’ve visited have helped show me how difficult just maintaining one’s
faith actually was. To start, there was no Bible, no canon, no internet, no
Bible App. In order to know what the Gospels said, one either had to find one
of very few copies (which would be hard to do in the first place) or, and more
likely, have someone read it aloud to you; after all, the vast majority of
people could not read. Additionally, the first century mail system was the
definition of ‘snail mail.’ It took weeks for messages to get anywhere, yet
Paul traveled all across Anatolia to spread the Gospel. It took a lot of time,
a lot of money, and a lot of perseverance for Paul (or any other apostle) to
accomplish his mission. Furthermore, one would have grown up in a polytheistic
culture, so worshipping other gods would not feel like much of a problem like
it would today. Telling a pagan convert to simply drop all the other gods would
involve much more than a simple decision; it would be a complete culture
change.
 | |
| Like the Icthus Fish, this early Christian symbol let other Christians know where it was safe to meet. |
On top of all that, the early Christians faced plenty of
persecution, especially starting in the second century. Persecution came as a
result of many things: it was a monotheistic religion in a polytheistic world; it flew in the face of Rome’s worship of the emperor; and there were simply
other groups of people that did not like Christians like the Turks or even the
Mongols.[1]
Some Christians even dug underground and lived in caves in order to avoid
persecution. Being a Christian was no easy task in the first centuries. It most
definitely required a concerted effort on a daily basis.
Seeing these sights and learning how people in the first
century lived and worshiped has been fun. And reading Surprised by Hope at the same time has supplemented my learning. We
have been learning how the Church was founded, how the apostles (mainly Paul)
spread the good news they had received. Wright has helped me better understand
what that message really was. After reading some of what Wright suggests, the
early Christian belief seems to have transformed over the years. Wright submits
that our understanding of resurrection
has been seriously derailed, and because of it, our understanding of heaven is
also faulty. Regarding contemporary Christianity, Wright says “that current
orthodox Christianity no longer holds to the belief in physical resurrection,
preferring the concept of the eternal existence of the soul…”[2]
Wright argues for a different understanding of resurrection and therefore a
different understanding of death, citing early Christian orthodoxy. He
understands death to be an enemy, rather than the welcomed friend who ushers us
into a disembodied, spiritual heaven. Additionally, Wright references
Revelation 21 and 22 saying that heaven is not/will not be a spiritual
kingdom, rather, it will meet earth physically. Jesus will be the ruler of
everything, and death will be no more. It would take about 300 more pages to
really go into Wright’s full argument (readers of this blogpost are encouraged
to buy the book). My point in all this
is that Wright’s understanding of death, the resurrection, and heaven, being
derived from first century orthodoxy has helped me see the archaeological
sites we’ve visited in a unique way.
 |
| It is likely that this former synagogue was one of Paul's first stops (Pisidian Antioch) |
Cenk was right when he said we need to know our past in
order to better form our future. On one hand, I’ve been able to see how the early
Christians were living, where they practiced their beliefs, and what their
world looked like; on the other hand I’ve been able to read about how they believed
and how what I’ve seen fits in with that. Being able to learn about our
Christian history has been transformative, and it will most definitely shape my
faith in the future.
--Chris Williamson
[1]Additionally,
in my last post I referenced John Yeatts when I noted that even the Jewish
people (specifically the temple priests) may have been leery of another
religious group seeking permission to refrain from Caesar-worship.
[2] Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the
Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church, 16
No comments:
Post a Comment