Do you think our culture is messed up? Imagine what the culture of ancient Rome was like. Yet Christianity triumphed over it. How\u2019d that happen?<\/p>\n
In his book, \u201cThe Triumph of Christianity,\u201d (which, by the way was one of Chuck Colson\u2019s favorites) historian Rodney Stark describes the religious world on that first Christmas Eve in the Roman World.<\/p>\n
It was a world in which the gods \u201cwere everywhere and thought to be undependable.\u201d That\u2019s because, apart from \u201csome magical powers\u201d and \u201cperhaps the gift of immortality,\u201d there was little to distinguish them from their human worshippers: \u201cthey ate, drank, loved, envied, fornicated, cheated, lied and otherwise set morally \u2018unedifying examples.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, they didn\u2019t care about their worshippers. All they wanted was to be propitiated.<\/p>\n
In other words, they were not worthy of worship.<\/p>\n
Roman society could be just as oppressive and undependable as the gods it worshipped. For most people, life in the empire\u2019s cities could be fairly described, to borrow a phrase from philosopher Thomas Hobbes, as \u201cnasty, poor, solitary, brutish, and short.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was into this world that Christianity was born. It triumphed because it offered an alternative to the oppression of Roman society and the dead-end of paganism, an alternative that was so compelling it outweighed the disadvantages of being identified as a Christian.<\/p>\n
As Stark writes, \u201cin the midst of the squalor, misery, illness, and anonymity of ancient cities, Christianity offered an island of mercy and security.\u201d Here\u2019s the thing: when you read Stark\u2019s words, you realize that we also have something compelling to offer our contemporaries.<\/p>\n
It starts with understanding that many of our contemporaries also worship deities that are undependable and scarcely distinguishable from their worshippers: that\u2019s because they worship themselves.<\/p>\n
The Oxford English Dictionary defines \u201cworship\u201d as \u201cthe feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity.\u201d This worship then transforms the worshipper. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, \u201cthe Gods we worship write their names on our faces; be sure of that … thus, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emerson didn\u2019t foresee the age of social media in which we increasingly worship what we\u2019ve become or at least what we imagine ourselves to be. Many pages on Facebook and Instagram can, with almost no exaggeration, be called shrines.<\/p>\n
Of course, these deities are even more of a dead end than the pagan gods of Rome. What\u2019s more, self-worship can be a lonely place. After all, the Greek gods didn\u2019t play well together, either. While today\u2019s pagans are far from anonymous, they are no less isolated than their ancient predecessors. A 2011 Cornell study found that the average American has only two \u201cgood friends.\u201d<\/p>\n
What we have to offer is remarkably \u2014 or not \u2014 similar to what the early Christians had to offer: what Stark called an \u201cintense community,\u201d a place where, instead of being surrounded by strangers, they are surrounded by \u201cbrothers and sisters in Christ.\u201d A place that when the hard times come, as inevitably they will, \u201cthere [are] people who care \u2014 there are people who have the distinct responsibility to care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stated succinctly, what we have to offer is a better way to be human.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why, despite the often-distressing state of our culture, I am hopeful. The alternative we have to offer our contemporaries is just as desperately needed as what the early Church offered the Romans. What\u2019s needed is for us to proclaim and embody that alternative.<\/p>\n
If we do, it could be Christmas Eve once again.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2013 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Do you think our culture is messed up? Imagine what the culture of ancient Rome was like. Yet Christianity triumphed over it. How\u2019d that happen? In his book, \u201cThe Triumph of Christianity,\u201d (which, by the way was one of Chuck Colson\u2019s favorites) historian Rodney Stark describes the religious world on that first Christmas Eve in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[973,2510,1714,79,1000,4706,909,1961,4705,1155],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5413"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5413\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}