Taking it to Da Hood
May 10th, 2009 | by Matthew Smith |When I started this blog I was going to write something in it every week but I now see it’s been almost a month since I managed to put fingers to keyboard. Alas, in this time I have read exactly one more chapter of The First Christian Centuries so at this rate of 19 pages per month, I should finish the book by June next year. Clearly I am going to have to deal with a motivation issue. Then again, as I typed this paragraph, my baby daughter awoke in a bout of teething agony and I realised that it’s not all to do with my motivation.
Anyway, on with the actual theology. The second chapter looks at what we know about the first fifty years of Christianity. We get most of our information from Acts and Paul’s letters that refer to events in this period. As far as historian’s can tell, Peter was the leader of the Church during this period and it was based in Jerusalem. These years represented a change in Christianity from being mostly rural to being city based and with Jerusalem having a large population of pilgrims from other countries, Christianity began to spread far and wide straight away. We don’t know exactly how it spread to all of the countries but sometimes we get mention of Paul or another apostle going to meet an existing established community in one or another country. The urbanisation of Christianity brought it into conflict with the established jewish leaders and persecution from these groups started up pretty quickly. John’s gospel describes “the Jews” anachronistically as persecuting Christians which was probably the case at the time the gospel was written rather than when Jesus was alive (since Jesus was a Jew and there were no groups that identified as Christians distinct from Jews until after his death). But this persecution seemed to be aimed at the followers of Christianity rather than the leaders probably because the leaders were held in high esteem. The effect of this seems to be that Christians were also forced to scatter throughout Judea and into other countries and Christianity soon became a religion of gentiles – the Jewish word for people who were not of Jewish heritage.
In terms of demographics, it seems that the converts to Christianity generally mirrored the social strata of society, it was not just made up of the “poor and outcast” which was traditionally thought but also had key members with wealth and social status (McKechnie spends a bit of time looking at arguments for and against this analysis of the demographics too). It is hard to estimate how many Christians there were at the end of fifty years. One historian looks at the growth rates of cults today to estimate that there must have been thousands, but others think there must have been many more than that when they look at literacy and the fact that Christians had written the Gospels: for these books to have been written there must have been a lot of literate Christians to make it worth the effort and when you look at literacy rates (noting that Christians would have had higher literacy rates because of the higher number of Jews amongst them) you tend to end up with a figure in the tens of thousands.
So at the end of fifty years, we have Christianity spreading far and wide amongst rich and poor despite and partly because of persecution by the Jews. McKechnie ends the chapter by observing that at that phenomenal growth rate, the Christians were probably only a few years off meeting their goal of bringing Christianity to the whole world but of course, the Roman empire put a stop to that and the next chapter deals with how Christianity became outlawed under Nero.
The most interesting thing for me in this chapter was the discussion of Christianity becoming an urban religion and how that changed the nature of it. The interaction between urban and rural thought is fascinating even if you think of how it works today with more educated and liberal thinkers generally in the cities. There is a mutual suspicion that results from these differing intellectual values yet the message of Christianity seemed to impress both groups equally. Also, the urban base meant that high profile people were converted which would have boosted the religion’s credibility and acceptability as well as provided some monetary resources to help establish the new community. I’m not sure of how correct I am in saying that today’s Christianity is much more popular amongst the rural (or at least the uneducated) than in the cities. Where Christianity spread exponentially in the first century through the cities, it struggles to be taken seriously today. Then again, packaged in the right way, it could be poised to re-ignite a society that is now bringing up groups of people who have virtually no exposure to it. I have heard of and read a few books over the last decade or so that express excitement about young people’s spirituality being set to take off in new ways but I see little evidence of it. Still you never know how things will unfold and maybe history can repeat.
5 Responses to “Taking it to Da Hood”
By Andrew on May 11, 2009 | Reply
Urban environments allow ideas and trends to travel quickly. Unfortunately, this also increases the risk that they will be treated as little more than novelty. To those with virtually no exposure to Christianity, it could be just another idea on the endless sea of choice, rather than the only genuine alternative to aimless meandering.
By Lisa on May 11, 2009 | Reply
It could be that rather than being more popular among the rural population that it is more popular among those who are looking for something solid to hang onto in the face of constant upheaval. This would cover many rural areas, but may be why it is also popular in the less well off outer suburbs of major cities where it is the conservative evangelical churches that are growing. They offer the comfort of black and white morality and something seemingly solid in a grey world full of uncertainty.
By Matthew Smith on May 11, 2009 | Reply
That’s a good point Andrew and one that came through when I read David Tacey’s “Spirituality Revolution” a few years ago. He admits that newer forms of spirituality will mix and match religions so it doesn’t necessarily mean that Christianity has a future in its traditional form.
Lisa, the census data over the last few years does indicate that the fastest growing form of Christianity falls into the “other” category which typically means Pentecostal or Charismatic groups although the Catholics are at least growing as fast as the population (while all other groups are growing slower than the population growth if they are growing at all (and some rather vocal conservative anglican evangelical groups are not doing as well as they would like either)). I think the conservative moralism is a big part of it but there are consumerist factors too: Pentecostal churches tend to “sell themselves” and don’t shy away from marketing campaigns, and activities designed to make converts. The underlying mentality of saving souls by selling the promise of happiness and good times works. Traditional churches look on with a mix of distaste and jealousy I think.
We have made friends with some people who go to a charismatic church in our suburb and it does sound attractive the way they adjust their forms of worship to be inclusive of children and families in a way that traditional contemplative liturgies can’t.
By Lisa on May 12, 2009 | Reply
I’ve been reading up on the origins of the work ethic, and apparently the Methodist Church was not so different in its beginnings, only they were ‘selling’ the promise of happiness and good times in the Hereafter rather than the present. It helped to keep the working classes (who had little chance of social mobility) hardworking and obedient for the masters of industry, who found Calvinism much more appealing. Calvin, according to one book, saw the accumulation of personal wealth as the sign of God’s blessing, so no wonder the two doctrines appealed to different social classes. In our individualist, consumerist, instant-gratification society I doubt there are too many Churches that could grow on a promise of happiness to come rather than happiness and belonging now.
I take your point about traditional liturgies not readily including children and families (although I think this can be done with effort). I have also seen churches that have bent over backwards to accommodate ‘young people’ lose the very ones they are trying desperately to keep, and have come to think that maybe there is a place for growing children into some of the more traditional rituals of the church; if for no other reasons than that they can provide time for contemplation and the comfort of familiar routine.
By Andrew on May 12, 2009 | Reply
As a former pente I can say that the view from inside was also distasteful. I saw that the presentation was more important than the message, in much the same way that junk food has all the appearance of real food without any nutritional value.
Recently I’ve been reading Kierkegaard. He writes that the revelation-fact of Christianity is actually offensive to those it encounters, rather than appealing. Note that his intended audience are those who had a prosperous life and who grew up in a “Christian” society. The gospel parallel is the rich young man. Nevertheless, he makes a great point that Christianity is not meant to be glamour, but will be a difficult experience.