Following the Way

Acts 11:26 “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.”

Before being called “Christians” they were known as “followers of the Way”.  I’ve always been taught that change was a good thing, but recently I’ve wondered if we didn’t lose something when that happened.

The early Church was communistic.  They met in peoples’ houses and shared whatever they had so that no one went hungry.  The crucial difference between that and Marxism is that the Church is built around Jesus Christ.  For nearly three hundred years, the Church thrived as an underground movement.  Leaders were of all walks of life.  Male and female, rich and slave, Jewish and Gentile.  The Church was unstructured, meeting in members’ houses and collecting little it did not immediately use to help those in need.  There were a few elders who were looked to for guidance.  

Then Emperor Constantine had a vision of a cross of light in the sky and a voice telling him “by this sign, conquer”.  Was this vision from God? Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea in 325, installed Damasus I as Pope in Rome in 366.  In 352, the Council of Laodicea prohibited women from being priests.  And thus began the Church's gradual consolidation of power and wealth.  Constantine himself was not baptized until he was on his deathbed, in keeping with the thinking of the day that baptism meant a clean slate, and that we must die in a “state of grace”.  Therefore, he got baptized right before he died, so all his sins would be washed away and how he lived his life would be irrelevant.  E Stanley Jones wrote that Constantine wanted any mention of how Jesus lived removed from the Creed.  Note how Jesus’ life is summarized: “He became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, and was made man.  For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, he suffered death and was buried.”  But Jesus did many things between being made man and suffering death.

The list of atrocities committed by the Church is extensive.  The Crusades, the Inquisition, the burning of some 40,000 witches at the stake, the sexual abuse of hundreds of thousands of children.  That barely gets things started.  Underneath the evil headlines are an array of anti-Christian teachings.  Infant baptism conveys the notion that an unbaptized baby who dies will go to hell for all eternity.  Similarly, dying in a state of grace results in the idea that if you are blessed as you die, your sins are magically erased.  And like the Nicene Creed, it is what we do in between that is ignored, when that is perhaps what matters most.

Being a Christian is not something you are, but something you do.  We are meant to follow Jesus on this Way, because he is the Way.  Of course, this led to the fad a few years back of “What Would Jesus Do?”  Unfortunately, as we saw in last week’s post, even with this idea, “everyone (does) what is right in their own eyes”.  If you search the internet on WWJD, you’ll get dozens of different answers.  Here is the right answer.  (Note the sarcasm please.)  Love your neighbor as yourself.  Have mercy and forgive, as you have been shown mercy, as you have been forgiven.  That’s it.  That’s all I have for you.  

2025 Faith and Reason Conference