EMQ » April–June 2021 » Volume 57 Issue 2
By Jonah Fox
Many Christians in the West intuitively believe that macro religious movements are the best means through which the world is changed, and the gospel is most adequately shared. J.D. Hunter argues that the American religious legacy includes Christianity consistently assuming its perceived right and authority in steering the destiny of the nation. He claims that for those who fall into this line of thinking, “America belongs to the people of faith. It was the ideal of God’s righteousness that provided the principles of ordered freedom.”[1]
It is tempting to look toward macro religious movements, those which tend to be centered on the themes of power and authority, as the means through which Christians ought to participate in mission today. However, these movements are historically infused, in one sense or another, with violence and coercion. Macro movements are often linked with the ruling class of the day, colonial forces, economic institutions, and governments. In a macro movement one finds themes of the purification of indigenous culture, language, and religion which is replaced by a superior (often considered holy) external religious and cultural paradigm. The starkest of examples of a macro religious movement in Christian history is the conversion and subsequent colonial expansion of the Christianized Roman Empire. It is my argument that the macro religious movement that was the Holy Roman Empire set the trajectory for more than one thousand five hundred years of the expansion of Christianity, and many are grappling for the narrative it proclaims still today.
The Original Paradigm for Macro Christian Movements
Though the earliest Christians did, at times, face instances of persecution these are considered to be sporadic rather than systemic by most historians.[2] Realistically, it did not take a great length of time for the early Jesus movement to become influential in courts of great power and authority. Rodney Stark concludes that there must have been Christians within the Roman aristocracy by the end (and maybe as early as the first half) of the first century. He claims, “If the early church was like all the other cult movements for which good data exist, it was not a proletarian movement but was based on the more privileged classes.”[3] Stark rejects the notion that the Roman empire would have seen the early Christian movement as a political force, which would have likely been the case if it was entirely proletarian. Instead, it is important to keep in mind the legitimate historical likelihood that there were Christians among the Roman ruling classes very early on in the development of the faith.[4]
If Stark’s conclusion is correct, then it ought not be a surprise that by 312 the Roman Emperor Constantine would convert to the Christian faith. The tolerance and acceptance of Christianity by Constantine (as well as the Edict of Milan in 313) is among the most significant shifts for the history of Christianity. Neil explains that nearly instantly the Church transitioned “from obscurity into brilliance, from obloquy to the height of popularity.”[5] By the end of the century it is likely that the number of Christians in the Roman Empire increased to around twenty million (a growth of 400% within one hundred years).[6] The ragamuffin group of Jesus followers depicted in the gospels had grown to a significant movement with great influence, authority, and diversity. Theodosius’s Edict of Thessalonica (380) required that all subjects of the Empire confess a trinitarian faith and cease all pagan sacrifice and worship.[7] At this time the Holy Roman Empire was born.
As the Empire expanded in both populous and territory, the barbarian peoples of the North presented both challenge and opportunity in the Roman mind. Neill depicts the work of conquering and converting the Northern tribes and clans as essential to the expansion of the Christian gospel. The survival of the gospel in the West had been joined with the prosperity and expansion of the territories of the Empire. Neill explains, “For five hundred years the major task of the Western Church was that of wrestling with the barbarians in the effort to make their conversion something more than nominal; in the process it found itself transformed from an imperial into a feudal Church.”[8]
This macro religious movement, which developed following the conversion of Constantine, and the conquering of the Northern peoples required a system of maintaining power, authority, and order as the Church expanded to lands further from Rome. Neill argues, “far more difficult than the task of bringing these peoples into the Church was that of making Christian faith effective in their lives, of bringing proud, undisciplined, and illiterate natures under the yoke of the Gospel” (emphasis mine).[9] By nature, the ensuing system developed in this era was one designed to ensure the efficacy of the conversion of non-Christian people in order to develop Christianized, civil, societies. This system took no legitimate interest in the actual faith experience of the people who were subjected to it. Instead it sought powerful, efficient, and effective means to use the Christian faith as a tool in structuring the law and order of the intended society. Questions were not raised in regard to the faithfulness of the gospel being communicated, nor attention given to the context in which it was received. The feudal Church system was designed to produce baptized, civilized citizens of the Empire in lands which had been recently conquered.
The Eastern developments of Christianity became labeled heresy while the theology and practice of the Western Church dominated the definition of orthodoxy. The non-Christian became the other, and plurality and toleration was a threat to both land and power. To consider oneself Christian yet to not be defined culturally, linguistically, and religiously within the Roman paradigm implied, at best, an inferior status. This same spirit would continue through generations of Christian believers, and through shifts and developments of the Church. Though there is certainly risk of oversimplifying in drawing these lines, for many, this is simply the story of the development of the Christian faith throughout the world, and the model that would eventually lead to European and American colonialism. Out of the era of colonialism would arise the modern missions movement through which the gospel would be brought to non-Christian people throughout the world using essentially the same underlying paradigm since Constantine: conquer (though legitimate violence would be deemed archaic in most cases), convert, and civilize. The fact that the Roman model of power and authority (often including violence) has persisted throughout the ages certainly proves itsefficiency for accomplishing its goal (i.e. conversion and civilizing), but it does not prove the biblical faithfulness of this approach to Christian witness. There must exist alternative, historical models of Christian witness.
Micro Christian Movements
An examination of many of the movements of Christian history reveal a different narrative than the one expressed by that of the Roman paradigm. Often in Christian history it is micro Christian events and movements which have given faithful expressions of the gospel to people who do not yet know and follow the way of Jesus. In contrast to macro movements, micro movements are those which are eccentric (in that they deviate from the center), contextual, and focus more on the faithfulness of the gospel being shared (person by person) rather than influencing the narrative of society through power, authority, and violence. By nature, micro movements tend to be less well-known in that they tend to make much less noise and they are not centered on efficacy. It is these micro movements which I believe provide a vision for what Christian witness in the West ought to look like in the future.
Early Christians and the Plagues
Stark raises the Roman plagues (c. 165) as an example of the witness of the early Christians within the society in which they found themselves. During this period twenty five percent to forty percent of the population of the Roman Empire perished by the epidemic.[10] Paganism and idol worship still consumed the Hellenistic world at this time, but as the Roman citizens watched their friends and family die around them they lacked hope that the gods were interested in their plight. Stark cites historians who argue that in its full wrath the disease was likely killing around five thousand people per day within the city of Rome alone.[11] In addition to Rome, this particular disease spread across the world killing hundreds of thousands in its wake. The question of why the gods of Hellenistic culture would turn a passive eye toward the suffering of people under the weight of this plague likely caused many people to question paganistic practices. The physical and emotional suffering and turmoil that people must have felt during this time is truly incomprehensible for a modern person. In this scene, the early Christians offered a message of hope and of a God who is directly familiar with the human experience in the incarnation of Christ.
Additionally, the Christians of this era lived with the conviction that they were expected to act on behalf of their suffering neighbors. Stark cites a recollection of Dionysius from c. 260 in which he writes, “Most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing themselves and thinking only of one another … they took charge of the sick, attending to their every need and ministering to them in Christ.”[12] The Christians extended this care and hospitality to both their Christian and pagan neighbors alike long after the aristocracy and ruling class had fled to the countryside.
The basic nursing provided by these Christians (i.e. food and water) drastically increased the odds of survival, potentially by as much as sixty percent. Stark writes, “if, during the crisis, Christians fulfilled their ideal of ministering to everyone, there would have been many pagan survivors who owed their lives to their Christian neighbors.”[13] Many of these former pagans integrated into the Christian communities which had both cared for them and provided them with a vision of hope and resurrection in their destitution.
These early Christians were not campaigning for their personal rights or fleeing from the scene of disaster within the ancient cities. Instead, they literally opened their homes and their arms to their diseased and dying neighbors. They provided food and water, emptied chamber pots, and carted and buried the dead. This micro movement not only added to their numbers but created the reputation within the culture that Christians would seek to serve and care for their neighbors in need even when the government did not. Through humility, gentleness, and the suffering alongside their neighbors these believers offered a witness to Christ which is completely different from the Constantinian paradigm.
St. Patrick and the Celtic Christians
One instance of a Christian movement which thrived for a period of time outside of the Roman paradigm is that of the Celtic Christian movement begun by St. Patrick. George Hunter explains, “Irish Christianity was geographically beyond the reach of Rome’s ability to shape and control, so a distinctively Celtic approach to doing church and the Christian life and witness emerged.”[14] The Celtic people had long been considered to be among the barbarian tribes by Roman leadership. Those who had previously begun working among the Celts remained committed to the Roman paradigm (conquer, civilize, and convert). However, Patrick and his co-laborers set about giving witness to the Celtic people in a much more contextual way beginning in 432. Having lived for a time as a slave to a tribe of Celtic people, Patrick had a significant degree of cultural intelligence about these people when he felt the distinct call of God to share the gospel in this region. G. Hunter explains, “When the people know that the Christians understand them, they infer that maybe Christianity’s High God understands them too.”[15]
As the Celtic people were primarily nomadic herders, Patrick and his people adopted their way of life and would set up their own camp alongside them learning and mimicking many aspects of their way of life. Patrick and other Christian leaders would seek to befriend the leaders of the Celtic tribe and share the gospel with them. This witness would then trickle into the life and way of the entire clan. Key to the Celtic Christian way was the engaging of the imagination and the whole of life into Christian practice. Celtic Christian prayer was oriented in a way in which every aspect of one’s day (waking, eating, working, bathing, sleeping) was accompanied by a prayer.
Despite the success that the Irish micro movement saw, many of the Roman leaders took significant issue with the practices that were not deemed Roman enough. The lack of conformity to the Roman way represented a threat, rather than an opportunity, to the Church. G. Hunter draws the distinction between the Roman and Celtic models of witness by expressing that the Roman model focused linearly on presentation, then decision, followed by fellowship. Alternatively, the Celtic model for witness was much more fluid and included elements such as: fellowship, followed by conversation which ultimately would include an invitation to commit to the way of Christ.[16]
Plurality, Fluidity, and the Eastern Church
As the Roman paradigm has historically taken precedent in the corporate mind of Christian history, much of the story of the early Eastern Christians is unknown. One such character that Philip Jenkins uses to express important characteristics of the ancient Eastern Church is that of a bishop named Timothy who presided over the Church in and around Baghdad in the late 700s to early 800s. Jenkins writes, “Timothy lived in a universe that was culturally and spiritually Christian but politically Muslim, and he coped quite comfortably with that situation. As faithful subjects, the patriarch and his clergy prayed for the caliph and his family.”[17] The Eastern Church was made up of Christians throughout a vast amount of territory and cultures who were at home within a pluralistic society long before modern globalism. Timothy and the Christians under his leadership lived in direct proximity of their Muslim neighbors, and in submission to an Islamic government. Jenkins is clear that this branch of Christians were well accustomed to living under Persian, Muslim, Hindu, and Chinese rule, and that they acknowledged that their beliefs implied that they were a “minority faith operating far from centers of power.”[18]
In the far Eastern developments of the Church, Christianity had no central core or place in which to locate itself (such as how the influence of Rome spread outward from its central location). The center of the faith was in life together, the Scriptures, and the eucharist. The faith centered on an indigenous expression rather than maintaining an authoritative and approved paradigm passed through a hierarchical structure. This type of grassroots witness alongside formal missions of the Church are the means through which the gospel spread as far as the Pacific Ocean. Along the way, Christian missionaries as well as merchants and other travelers contextualized the Christian faith in ways that local people were able to understand. Bantu notes the importance of Silk Road travelers in the early spread of Christianity to China. He cites a Nestorian limestone stele constructed in 781 which shared of Christianity entering this region which outlines “a description of core biblical doctrines including the Trinity, creation, sin, affirmation of both Old and New Testament canonicity, and the life and ministry of Jesus.”[19]
An orthodox expression of Christian faith had reached China before 800 via monks, travelers, and spice trade merchants; no armies or Crusades necessary. In fact, the witness of ancient merchants was so relevant that Syriac Christians used the word merchant as a metaphor for one who spreads the gospel. These messengers aided in bringing the number of Christians in Asia to twenty million by the year 1000. The gospel had spread throughout an entire continent not through the power of armies, or the conformity of language, worship, and culture. Instead, the transmission of the faith occurred through micro movements which sought to give faithful, contextualized expressions of the gospel to the people whom it encountered.
Why Micro Movements are the Way Forward in the West
In an examination of the vast and diverse history of the Church, it is arguable to claim that micro Christian movements have often been the means through which the gospel has spread, and people have experienced its transforming power. The Roman Christendom paradigm, though effective in its use of power and authority to accomplish its aim, lacks the ability to create a lasting, incarnational expression of the gospel. Micro movements will continue to change the world and transform lives in that they have the capacity to sink deeply within the soil of particular places and cultures. The work of vernacular and cultural translation of Scripture is by far the greatest means through which people across time and space have found their own story framed within the story of Jesus.
The incarnation of Christ into a very specific cultural arena is proof that micro movements have the ability to invite lasting change. Christ did not use worldly power, authority, or coercion to create a movement of transformed and resurrected people. No, the means of Christ were much different: flesh, language, healing, bread, wine, death, and resurrection. It is micro movements that mirror the way of Jesus which have the capacity to give a faithful witness of his gospel to people throughout the world.
Jonah Fox serves as Missions Pastor at Vista Community Church in Temple, Texas and is completing an MDiv in World Christianity and Witness at George W. Truett Theological Seminary. He holds a BA in Christian Studies from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.
NOTES
[1] J. D. Hunter, To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity
in the Late Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2010), 114, https://epdf.pub/to-change-the-world-the-irony-tragedy-and-possibility-of-christianity-in-the-lat.html.
[2] Stephen Neill and Owen Chadwick, A History of Christian Missions (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990), 38.
[3] Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries (San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997), 31–33.
[4] Stark, Rise of Christianity, 46.
[5] Neill and Chadwick, Christian Missions, 41.
[6] Neill and Chadwick, Christian Missions, 41.
[7] Bryan P. Stone, Evangelism after Christendom: The Theology and Practice of Christian Witness (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos, 2007), 116. See also: Theodosian Code 16.1.2.
[8] Neill and Chadwick, Christian Missions, 54–55.
[9] Neill and Chadwick, Christian Missions, 57.
[10] Stark, Rise of Christianity, 73.
[11] Stark, Rise of Christianity, 77.
[12] Stark, Rise of Christianity, 82.
[13] Stark, Rise of Christianity, 90.
[14]George G. Hunter, The Celtic Way of Evangelism: How Christianity Can Reach the West—Again (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2010), 14.
[15]George Hunter, Celtic Way of Evangelism, 8.
[16]George Hunter, Celtic Way of Evangelism, 43.
[17]George Hunter, Celtic Way of Evangelism, 16.
[18]George Hunter, Celtic Way of Evangelism, 20.
[19]Vince L. Bantu, A Multitude of All Peoples: Engaging Ancient Christianity’s Global Identity (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2020), 204.
EMQ, Volume 57, Issue 2. Copyright © 2021 by Missio Nexus. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced or copied in any form without written permission from Missio Nexus. Email: EMQ@MissioNexus.org.
