Pacifism: The Early Church

Posted on October 19, 2009 by Jay F Guin

pacifismThe conventional pacifist argument is made by David Hoekema, executive director of the American Philosophical Association —

The early Christian community understood Jesus’ commands to prohibit the bearing of arms. Christians refused to join the military, even though the Roman army of the period was as much a police force as a conquering army. Those who converted to Christianity while in military service were instructed to refrain from killing, to pray for forgiveness for past acts of violence, and to seek release from their military obligations. A striking example of the pervasiveness of pacifism in the early church is the fact that Tertullian and Origen—church fathers who stood at opposite poles regarding the relation of faith to philosophical reasoning—each wrote a tract supporting Christians’ refusal to join the military.

A profound change in the Christian attitude toward war occurred at the time of the emperor Constantine, whose conversion to Christianity helped bring the Christian community from the fringes to the center of Western society. From the time of Constantine to the present, pacifism has been a minority view in the Christian church. The just-war tradition, rooted in the ethical theories of Plato and Cicero and formulated within the Christian tradition by Augustine, Aquinas and the Protestant Reformers, defends military force as a last resort against grave injustice. According to this view, when the innocent are threatened by an unjust aggressor and all other remedies have failed, Jesus’ demand for sacrificial love may require us to use lethal force.

In short, the early church was uniformly pacifistic until Constantine blended church and state to the point that the church came to approve war, although only in limited circumstances. Continue reading →

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Restoration Movement Resources

Posted on October 19, 2009 by Jay F Guin

I’ve decided to split my “Progressive Churches of Christ websites” page into three pages —

* Progressive Church of Christ Congregations

* Progressive Church of Christ Blogs

* Restoration Movement Resources

Therefore, I’ve moved some of the links from the original page here. This is for sites that help with research or focus on articles dealing with the Restoration Movement.

Please send me suggestions for any additional materials.

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Pacifism: Introduction

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Jay F Guin

pacifismI’ve been planning on studying pacifism since high school, I suppose. And I’ve just never gotten around to it. But it does keep coming up.

I finished high school in 1972. The class of 1970 had draft lottery numbers for the Viet Nam war. If a male student’s birthday was among the first 1/3 drawn, he was drafted. If he was in the second 1/3, he might get drafted. The last 1/3 were not likely to be drafted.

The class of 1971 had lottery numbers (the numerical order in which birthdays were drawn), but they weren’t drafted. You see, Nixon got re-elected by promising to end the War, and that meant an end to the draft.

The class of 1972 was the first class with no lottery numbers. My parents and I spent many an evening before learning that considering whether I should join the National Guard or otherwise seek a deferment. We’d seen lots of our friends come back from ‘Nam messed up, and not many of us were keen on going. And unlike previous wars, there was little criticism of those claiming conscientious objector status. All my friends and I were in constant discussion about whether to submit to the draft, volunteer for the Air Force or Navy (commit to serve longer, but with less risk of combat), claim conscientious objector status, or seek to avoid the draft some other way. Some kids shot a toe off, figuring a missing toe would earn them 4-F status — meaning unqualified for the draft.

Then a couple of years ago, one of my sons thought of joining the military. And so I figured it was time to pull out the materials on pacifism and sort through it all, but he changed his mind (quite on his on). And so I put the study off.

But it seems to be the time. I’ve got the books. I just need to see whether I agree with them. Continue reading →

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Ministry Ideas: Vision 2000

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Jay F Guin

I was pondering where all these ministries came from? Well, they come from the Holy Spirit and the hearts of devout people. But why did they come now and not some other time?

Some of these ministries have actually been around quite a while, but we’ve lately had an explosion of ministry initiatives that involve more commitment and more compassion than ever. What else contributed to all this innovation?

And I think a big part of it is our old Vision 2000 effort from around 1995. Continue reading →

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Available Light: Response by Al Maxey

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Jay F Guin

Good Morning Jay,

First, I apologize for taking so long to get back to you. It has been busy here. I have read your articles, however, and I agree with much of what you say. In fact, I thought your presentation was excellent.

Clearly, you and I agree on the nature of final punishment. Immortality is conditional, thus for one who is lost to be tortured everlastingly, that person must be MADE immortal by God for that very purpose. In other words, his punishMENT will be eternal LIFE in misery. God doesn’t promise LIFE to those who are lost, He promises DEATH. The degrees of the punishING, I believe, deal well with the great divide between people like Hitler and those who may have rejected the Lord, but who still lived decently (for a worldly perspective) with those about them. Continue reading →

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Communion Meditations: Discerning the Body

Posted on October 17, 2009 by Jay F Guin

CommunionIn a minute, I’m going to read two brief excerpts from 1 Cor 11.

The church at Corinth was abusing the Lord’s Supper. Members were being thoughtless toward one another, particularly treating the poorer members badly. Paul responded by saying,

(1 Cor 11:26, 29)  For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. … 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.

The commentators like to argue over what “body of the Lord” refers to. What are we told to recognize? I think that there are multiple meanings here.

Traditionally, we’ve been told to reflect on the death of Jesus, which is true, of course. Thus, we were taught that “body” is the literal, physical body of Christ hung on the cross for our sins. And I think that’s true.

But others argue that “body” refers to the congregation — the body of Christ. After all, the problem Paul was trying to resolve was the congregation’s rudeness to each other and divisiveness. He wanted them to recognize that they are each part of the same body — a body that should be united in love. And I think that’s certainly true as well.

And there’s another important thought here we get to through the phrase “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” What is it about the Lord’s Supper that says “Jesus is dead”? And why the emphasis on Jesus’ death rather than his resurrection — when Paul later says in 1 Cor 15 that the resurrection is what gives us our hope.

(1 Cor 15:14)  And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.

At first (and second) glance, it seems strange to focus on the death of Jesus here. It’s his death AND resurrection that saves us, isn’t it?

But we are taught that when we were baptized, we died to sin.

(Rom 6:2-3)  By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

Here’s the point. We declare the death of Jesus not just by meeting in a building away from most other people — we proclaim his death by dying to sin. Our lives declare the death of Jesus — not just the eating of this crust and sipping of this juice. Indeed, if we do those things and yet don’t give up sin, we make a mockery of his death.

The way we proclaim Jesus’ death is by being the body. We discern the body by recognizing that we are the body. We are Jesus incarnate on the earth. We are his body, called to do what Jesus did while his first body was on earth — the mission of God: declaring the good news of the kingdom, doing works of compassion, and making disciples for our rabbi.

Therefore, the church — this community, this temple of the Holy Spirit — does not truly recognize the body until we see that we are not just united into the church, but we have been joined into the body to do the mission of God on earth, to continue what Jesus began. That’s recognizing the body. You see, “the body” is both the body of Christ and the church — today, they are the same — but “body of Christ” isn’t just a metaphor. It’s a job description.

Therefore, when we take this spiritual meal together, we are strengthening out connection to the body. We are re-committing to the mission Jesus gave us. And we’re recommitting to do that mission as a body — with each part doing its work as part of the work of the body. And by becoming more and more what we were called to be — and showing it our assemblies and throughout the rest of the week, too — we proclaim the death of Jesus. We show that we have died because he has died.

And this is why take this meal together — because being together shows the world how Jesus changes lives creating a holy community that shows the world who Jesus is and what he did.

Bow with me —

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Available Light: The work of the missionary

Posted on October 16, 2009 by Jay F Guin

The work of the missionary remains urgent, for at least these reasons —

  • Those who never hear the gospel cannot be saved and so cannot live eternally with God. Imagine someone who never heard of God seeing a drowning man. If this someone is a good someone, and if he can, he’ll rescue the man. After all, common decency tells us that life is much better than death and that we owe it to our fellow man to rescue him from death — especially from a death that could be painful. Who would turn away from a dying man he could save? We don’t have to believe in perpetual conscious torment to be motivated to save the lost from death.
  • Bringing salvation to the lost pleases God. If we love God, surely we will want to do what pleases him!
  • When people are added to God’s Kingdom, there are more soldiers in God’s army. Not only does this give the Kingdom the ability to grow geometrically, it gives Jesus more hands and feet to care for those in need and to lift up the oppressed. You see, bringing the lost into the Kingdom helps realize the Lord’s Prayer —that God’s will be done on earth as it in heaven.

I’m sure there are more reasons, but these should be enough to make us understand the urgency of mission work.

On the other hand, if God were to save some based on available light, the problem we’ve been wrestling with wouldn’t really be solved. After all, if a missionary were to preach the gospel in a village that’s never heard of Jesus, there may be people there who would have been saved under the doctrine of available light but are lost because they aren’t persuaded by the missionary. Indeed, an ineffective missionary might manage to damn souls by the thousands.

I greatly sympathize with the motivations behind this doctrine, but I think, in the end, conditionalism is a better, more scriptural solution.

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Links to Church of Christ Blogs and Related Sites

Posted on October 16, 2009 by Jay F Guin

I’ve just added a new page listing a whole bunch of Church of Christ blogs and other sites. A page is like a post, except it doesn’t change locations. Rather, the way to a page is to click on the link on the left side of the screen right under the caption “Pages.”

It’s not complete, but it’s pretty far along.

I didn’t want to have one of those 200 blog blogrolls in the margin, because it’s just too much information in little tiny print. And there’s no way to really talk about it.

Rather, I thought it would be good to accept site suggestions from the readers and see how big a list we can compile. And please praise and recommend where praise and recommendation are due. No criticisms allowed, however.

Here are the rules — Continue reading →

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Available Light: A solution

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Jay F Guin

We are considering a post by Al Maxey and another post by Leroy Garrett arguing that, for those who’ve never heard the gospel, their salvation will be determined based on their response to what they know of God from other sources.

Let’s go back and reflect on the problem we are wrestling with. Traditionally, in both Catholic and Protestant churches, it’s been taught that those who never hear the gospel are eternally damned. And “eternally damned” means that these people will suffer never-ending, conscious torment for their sins.

In one sense, this is entirely fair. They did, after all, sin. In another sense, it’s entirely unfair. After all, who (other than Jesus) can fully meet the requirements of God’s law?

The solution, I think, is found in Al’s post of several days ago — the very post that advised me of his views on “available light.” Al writes,

The wages of sin is declared to be death, not torture, although the second death will most assuredly not be pleasant, and will be far more unpleasant for some than others, depending upon the nature of their rebellion against God and crimes against humanity.

Al takes the same position taught by Edward Fudge in The Fire that Consumes and endorsed by Leroy. And I agree (it’s good to at last find myself in agreement with these heroes of the faith). My defense of this position will be found at “Surprised by Hell.” Continue reading →

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Election: “Those he called,” Part 2 (Paul)

Posted on October 14, 2009 by Jay F Guin

Paul’s use of “called”

So let’s take a fresh look at Paul’s use of “called,” which is surely informed by the prophetic use of the word.

(Rom 1:5-6 NASB) through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for His name’s sake,6among whom you also are the called of Jesus Christ;

The Christians in Rome are “the called of Jesus Christ” among the Gentiles. Notice it’s not “you have been called” but “you are the called.” “Called” is a status in this passage (the NIV misses this but the NASB gets it right). Just so in —

(1 Cor 1:24 NASB) but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

— “called” is again a status, not a verb. Continue reading →

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