What Christianity is is constantly being negotiated, debated, and reformed by the human beings who call themselves Christians.
We as a church recently completed a twelve-week study on the Church Fathers, based on Bryan Litfin’s volume, Getting to Know the Church Fathers (2nd ed., Baker, 2016). Litfin’s book covers the many intriguing developments which took place within early Christianity from the second to the fifth centuries A.D. Each chapter is devoted to a particular church father or mother, including figures such as: Ignatius of Antioch, Perpetua of Carthage, Augustine of Hippo, and Patrick of Ireland.
Many of these figures are well known for their participation in the various heated doctrinal debates of their day. As the (standard) story goes, these figures fought tooth and nail to preserve the precious truth of Christian orthodoxy which had been settled from the beginning yet was being threatened by many opponents.
Anyone who has taken the time to research the lives and writings of such figures (in their various historical contexts) quickly learns that this story is not entirely true.
Christian orthodoxy, viewed as a coherent, settled, uniform collection of beliefs and principles, took centuries to develop –I would even say it is still in the process of development.
It was thus anything but settled from the beginning and was not so much attacked by outsiders but was constantly being negotiated and renegotiated by figures within this diffuse movement.
That is why a course on Early Christianity at Boston University can be called “Varieties of Early Christianity.” And it is why Paula Fredriksen can publish a new book on early Christian history called, Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years (Princeton University Press, 2024).
What Fredriksen’s title indicates, in an admittedly provocative way, is that Christianity was so diffuse and so diverse in the early centuries that it may mislead to call it Christianity in the singular, when on the ground, things weren’t that tidy.
All this is to say that Christianity –a movement or way of life founded upon certain stories, texts, beliefs, values, and practices– was constantly being constructed, reconstructed, formed, reformed, negotiated, and renegotiated by Christians throughout the centuries.
Some thing called “Christianity,” doesn’t exist “out there” in the world, not in some essentialist way. What exists, rather, are human beings who give Christianity meaning, who have committed their lives to the values and teachings of Jesus and who attempt to embody Christ’s vision today.
“Christianity,” therefore, is a kind of a catch-all term for the millions of humans in different times and places who worship Jesus and submit their lives to his shaping love.
Christianity, you could say, is as dynamic, mobile, and diverse as the human beings who affiliate with it.
Now, many have noticed (to their utter dismay at times) the sharply contentious nature of Christian discourse. “How can you all be united if you’re constantly fighting over this or that passage, doctrine, or social issue? Why would someone want to join a movement that is fragmented into so many denominations, traditions, and groups?”
What I want to suggest is that Christianity, as a global, transhistorical movement of human beings, is by nature constituted by such activity.
We are not, in other words, to think of it as something fixed, inert, and concrete (“existing out there”) which is either possessed/valued or rejected/threatened. What Christianity is is constantly being negotiated, debated, and reformed by the human beings who call themselves Christians.
We see this phenomenon in the very pages of the New Testament, where there are four different portraits of the one figure Jesus Christ. We see varying perspectives on Torah-observance and Christ-faith (James, Paul), on participation in public rituals (Paul, Revelation), and on a host of other issues. The New Testament itself is a clear window then into the living nature of early Christianity.
The apostles, to be sure, were charged with receiving the words and teachings of Jesus and passing them along to subsequent generations. Such “tradition,” however, was always meant to be embodied, “lived-out” by real human beings in real social situations.
What Christianity looks like then, has been negotiated and renegotiated, contested and (temporarily) settled, formed and reformed, again and again and again.
Lest you think this opens Christianity up to relativity, fluidity, and constant change, let me remind you that certain controls were always in use, be it a canonical set of texts (i.e., Scriptures) or a confessed creed (i.e., Apostles Creed; Rule of Faith), or structure of leaders (i.e., bishops, priests, etc.).
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, but the human beings who follow Christ and the precise circumstances in which they live, change as regularly as the four seasons of nature.
The figures in Litfin’s book did participate heavily in the construction of catholic (what has come to be known as “orthodox”) Christianity.
Through their bold arguments, assertive actions, and heroic lives, they advanced discourse about Christianity, helping future generations “take up” an established tradition and apply it to their own contexts and beyond.
The apparently fractious, frustratingly contentious nature of global and transhistorical Christianity is evidence of its living nature.
Jesus, in other words, did not give us stone tablets into which new laws, truths, and principles were etched never to leave the page. He gave us his very own Spirit, which causes all followers of Christ –male, female, young, old, slave, free– to share the very mind of God.
What this means is that “Christianity” is under the stewardship of Christ’s followers. It is constantly being debated, contested, reformed, and renegotiated, which speaks to its vital, living character.
Both in antiquity and modernity, such contention has at times taken pernicious, unchristian forms. But historically, Christianity has always been “in-process.” To see that still today should come as no surprise.
It is the task of believers right now then, to receive what has been handed down, to digest it through the Holy Spirit, and to embody it in our modern, unique situation.
Christianity, therefore, is alive.
It is not inert, fixed, or at rest. It is what Christians, in their Spirit-filled thinking, reflecting, and doing, “show it to be” at any given moment in history.
As we continue to negotiate and renegotiate our Christian tradition(s), let us welcome the Holy Spirit and commit to the discipline of love.
Let us offer our time, energy, and attention, to the vital task of construction and reconstruction, formation and reformation. And let that activity in and of itself be a living sacrifice offered in living faith to the living Christ.
Jonah Bissell
Pastor