How could the church have
been so infected by imperial power to render it so ineffective? This is the
question that Roger Mitchell attempts to answer in the remainder of the first
two parts of his book. He introduces key characters and periods in which the
imperial principle was introduced and consolidated. The first of which is
Eusebius of Caesarea.
Father of church history
Eusebius has the distinction
of being referred to as ‘the father of church history’ and his most famous of books,
The... Continue reading ...
How is creation to be
restored and how will peace – in all its manifestations and consequences – be
effected within it and between it and God? Roger Mitchell understands the
gospel way of doing this as a ‘kenotic gift’, a giving away by God of himself
and his power for the good of creation. But it is the opposite of this that he
sees in the church as it was subsumed by the ‘imperial sovereignty’ of the
Roman Empire in the fourth century.
Supreme power
He defines sovereignty as
the e... Continue reading ...
Nobody likes the taxman. But
don’t let that be a sufficient analogy as you read the account of Jesus calling
Matthew as a disciple. Think instead of losing the Battle of Britain, of a Nazi
occupation of the UK, and of your hard-earned money going off to pay for the
Third Reich’s ever increasing empire. Taxmen now wear jackboots and have armed
guards accompanying them. A little different to our current situation.
Just what was Jesus thinking
when he called this most despised of men into his... Continue reading ...
Posted by Dyfed on Friday, June 17, 2011,
In :
Random
A while back I reported (link here) on the way our large supermarkets were using their near monopoly to squeeze every penny out of farmers for their produce and that they were manifesting the same imperial spirit that has done so much damage to the nations. Well it seems they’re at it again – or at least our local branch of Tesco’s is.Apparently the staff at the Bangor branch are intending to go on strike. I have no idea what the strike is about or what problems there are between staff... Continue reading ...
Posted by Dyfed on Friday, June 3, 2011,
In :
Politics
Fair Trade products have become popular and an easy way of helping us shop ethically. And as we know those who benefit are some of the poorest people on earth in developing countries. But should we be extending the Fair Trade concept to include UK farmers?
On Tuesday I highlighted the way imperial power has shifted to multi-national companies to the extent that they can ignore the demands of nation-states. Today I want follow-up that thought with some details about the buying power of our larg...
Posted by Dyfed on Monday, January 17, 2011,
In :
Politics
Having been invented on the billiard tables
of the British Raj in India, snooker has
always been a quintessentially British game, its values reflecting the good
gentlemanly conduct of the Empire. At one time it used to be my favourite sport
– back in the days when the stars of the game were what were rather quaintly
called the ‘home nation’ players: people like Ray Reardon, Doug Mountjoy, the
young Steve Davis, and De... Continue reading ...
Introduction
Evan Roberts was a sham revivalist
and Peter Price, his arch-critic at the time, was the true voice of God during
1904-05 Welsh revival. When did you ever read a Christian author making
these points? The answer, of course, is never. All we’ve ever read says quite
the reverse. And yet the truth, I would contend, lies somewhere in between
these two polemical points. Our history, however, seems to have been inf... Continue reading ...
Can a society ever recover from the
wounds of imperial power that have created deep bitterness and resentment? Can
a community torn in two by national and religious differences ever be made
whole, where both sides feel accepted, valued and equal? What role does justice
and the pursuit and punishment of the guilty have to play in ensuring this
wholeness? These are the deeper questions raised and as yet unanswered
following t... Continue reading ...
The church shaped by the Roman Empire gave us an institution that bears
little resemblance to the vision of the body of Christ in the New Testament.
Before going on to look at the principles for finding a new shape suggested by
Stuart Murray in his Post-Christendom, let’s recap on what he has been
saying so far in chapters 1 to 7. How has the church been shaped by empire?
- Empire church is a church that enjoys pri...
Continue reading ...
Posted by Dyfed on Friday, February 19, 2010,
In :
Politics
It’s been a bizarre week in international politics. First, the story that is still gradually being revealed about the assassination of a Hamas commander in Dubai: now widely thought to have been perpetrated by the Israeli secret service, Mossad. As if that isn’t outrageous enough there is an extra twist in the tail for us in the UK as we hear that those responsible were travelling with British passports. A story worthy of a Bond movie, surely.
And second the rather peculiar visit o... Continue reading ...
The tenderness shown by both Joseph of Arimathea and the three women – Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome – was surely a beautiful thing (Mark 15:42-16:8). The contrast between their actions towards Jesus and the actions of all who had contact with him over the previous three days is great. Thoughtful and gentle, they came to his body to ensure a good burial. They bought linen and spices to care for the body. Their motives were the highest possible.
And yet they ... Continue reading ...
So how was
the church shaped by being at the heart of Empire? What effects did imperial
patronage have upon its mission? In his fourth chapter of Post-Christendom,
Stuart Murray examines some of these issues. He begins by outlining how
significant to this was one particular theologian and thinker. For if the
church was to accept what the Empire wanted then someone had to come up with
the theology that made it all... Continue reading ...
In his blog today Adrian Warnock asks how the native Americans should be reached with the gospel. There doesn't seem to be a comment box on the post but if there was I would have wanted to make this point: the first starting point for any white person from any European background to reaching any indigenous people group with the good news is to apologise for the damage done by past imperial conquest. Then there would have to be strenuous efforts to show that the missionaries come to serve rath... Continue reading ...
On 3 March 321 AD the Roman Emperor, Constantine, passed two particular laws which show how mixed his faith really was. The first called on all judges, inhabitants of cities and craftsmen to rest on a Sunday, though farmers were allowed to work as necessary. The second law called for an inquiry to be made of soothsayers if a building was struck by lightening as to what the omen meant. If the first law ‘proves’ that Constantine was indeed a Christian, then the second surely causes us to do... Continue reading ...
The first step in trying to shape the future is to understand the past, and Stuart Murray’s volume Post-Christendom uses many chapters to detail the history of how the church became dominant in Western Europe.
He begins by taking us back to the fourth century AD when an emperor from the eastern half of the Roman Empire, Constantine, supposedly became a Christian in 312 as he was attempting to wrest control of the whole empire. He succeeded in his quest and was sole emperor until his... Continue reading ...
Empire continues to respond to Jesus and his kingship following his sentencing by Pilate as the soldiers gather to give him a hard time. Mark (15:16-21) tells us that they called a whole battalion together, which could have been in the region of 500 men. Whether Mark intends for this to be taken literally as the whole cohort or just as a figurative term we cannot tell. What it does tell us is that a greater number gathered around Jesus to abuse him.
The abuse is based on Jesus’ king... Continue reading ...
Roger Mitchell's blog is one I follow and today's post on how the Roman Empire affected the church's eschatology is very powerful stuff. Well worth a read. Continue reading ...
In my last post on the emerging Kingdom from Mark 15:1-15, I wrote about how the heart so often displays its condition. In this second post on the same passage I want to look at how the empire – through its representative Pilate – managed to bolt-on something to the Passover celebration that would lead men astray.
Verse 6 tells us that Pilate had added a new custom to the Passover festival by agreeing to set free a prisoner upon the people’s request. Apparently this was a custom that... Continue reading ...
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Posts on my Tumblr site willI now appear here. Tumblr's ability to post by text and email will help me blog even when away from my desk!
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