Intro to Early Christianity - Andrew

(Forgive the picture, I'm merely responding to Lauren's request to "Bring it!")

We've been through a pretty impressive amount of early church history, which makes me wish I had begun this blog a little sooner. I think for a start I'll just discuss a few of the things that I've learned of found interesting.

Our discussion of the early church was intriguing to me because it felt heretical. I am not a believer, and I do not have a church affiliation, but my childhood and youth came about within the church. Religion was an essential part of my life and I have been struggling to deal with the residue of it ever since. Back to the original point. Kip talked about Paul's trip to Athens and the way that he preached using the statue of the unknown God. It is amazing that the early church was able to make its message relevant to so many different communities, and it makes sense that they would have to employ tactics like this to grab peoples attention. And that is precisely what bothers me. If the church is what it claims to be then why does it need to sell itself long and elaborate marketing campaigns. Paul was just the beginning of this. Today we have mega-churches and a Roman Catholic church that tries to shut down any movie that is offensive, not to mention those seemingly harmless billboard messages "from God". Seriously, does anyone want to feel guilty for stealing vodka from their grandmother while driving down the interstate (completely hypothetical situation, of course)? As far as the heretical nature of this discussion, the way we investigated this passage makes Paul's speech into something of a deceit. Obviously in one way Christ is the "unknown god" because the Athenians had no knowledge of him, but he is certainly not one among many. Despite the Israelite's many attempts, theirs is a monotheistic religion.

I don't want to go on this for too long. I just find the idea of someone selling Christianity to be a disturbing notion, but I'm willing to concede that someone much more knowledgeable than myself could come up with elaborate arguments for why this is not the case. Christ said, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." ( John 13:34-35). To me the fact that Christianity is constantly trying to sell itself with catchy slogans, beautiful art, elaborate buildings, and tailored messages is just proof of its massive failure to uphold Christ's most central commandment.