Defending the Faith in the Early Church

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Defending the Faith in the Early Church

• Kingdom Builder Seminar
• April 3 4, 2009

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Why is the History of Early Apologetics Valuable
for a post-Christian Culture?

• Context of disestablishment
• Context of Religious Pluralism
• Context of Persecution

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Persecution of Christians

• Causes of Persecution
• Nature of Christianity
• Baseless Rumors
• Scapegoats
• Anti-Social
• Anti-imperial
• The Name Pliny (c. 112)
• I Pet. 412-16
• John 1518-21

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Who Were the Early Apologists

• Justin Martyr (d. 165)
• First/Second Apology
• Dialogue with Trypho
• Athenagoras (c. 176)
• Plea for the Christians
• Tatian (d. late 2nd cent)
• Oration against the Greeks (178)
• Tertullian (d. 220)
• Apology

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How did the Early Christians Defend the Faith?

• Ask for a Fair Hearing
• Today Dont expect a privileged hearing. Just
  for the same respect and courtesy that is given
  to non-Christian religions.

• We demand that the charges against the
  Christians be investigated, and that, if these be
  substantiated, they be punished as they deserve
  or rather, indeed, we ourselves will punish
  them. But if no one can convict us of anything,
  true reason forbids you, for the sake of a wicked
  rumour, to wrong blameless men, and indeed rather
  yourselves, who think fit to direct affairs, not
  by judgment, but by passion. Justin, 1st Apology

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How did the Early Christians Defend the Faith?

• 2. Clarify Misunderstandings
• Three things are alleged against us atheism,
  Thyestean feasts cannibalism, Oedipodean
  intercourse incest. But if these charges are
  true, spare no class proceed at once against our
  crimes destroy us root and branch, with our
  wives and children, if any Christian is found to
  live like the brutes. And yet even the brutes do
  not touch the flesh of their own kind and they
  pair by a law of nature, and only at the regular
  season, not from simple wantonness they also
  recognise those from whom they receive benefits.
  If any one, therefore, is more savage than the
  brutes, what punishment that he can endure shall
  be deemed adequate to such offences?
  Athenagoras, Plea for the Christians

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Common Misunderstandings

• Atheistic
• Cannibalistic
• Incestuous
• Donkey Worship
• Sun Worship

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Clarify Christian Worship

• And on the day called Sunday, all who live in
  cities or in the country gather together to one
  place, and the memoirs of the apostles or the
  writings of the prophets are read, as long as
  time permits then, when the reader has ceased,
  the president verbally instructs, and exhorts to
  the imitation of these good things. Then we all
  rise together and pray, and, as we before said,
  when our prayer is ended, bread and wine and
  water are brought, and the president in like
  manner offers prayers and thanksgivings,
  according to his ability, and the people assent,
  saying Amen and there is a distribution to each,
  and a participation of that over which thanks
  have been given, and to those who are absent a
  portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are
  well to do, and willing, give what each thinks
  fit and what is collected is deposited with the
  president, who succours the orphans and widows
  and those who, through sickness or any other
  cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds
  and the strangers sojourning among us, and in a
  word takes care of all who are in need. But
  Sunday is the day on which we all hold our common
  assembly, because it is the first day on which
  God, having wrought a change in the darkness and
  matter, made the world and Jesus Christ our
  Saviour on the same day rose from the dead.
  Justin, 1st Apology

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Mis-Understandings of a Post-Christian Culture?
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How did the Early Christians Defend the Faith?

• Provide Answers to the Big Questions
• Monotheism?
• Incarnation?
• Multiple Religions?

• For what reason, men of Greece, do you wish to
  bring the civil powers, as in a pugilistic
  encounter, into collision with us? And, if I am
  not disposed to comply with the usages of some of
  them, why am I to be abhorred as a vile
  miscreant? Does the sovereign order the payment
  of tribute, I am ready to render it. Does my
  master command me to act as a bondsman and to
  serve, I acknowledge the serfdom. Man is to be
  honoured as a fellow-man God alone is to be
  feared,-He who is not visible to human eyes, nor
  comes within the compass of human art. Only when
  I am commanded to deny Him, will I not obey, but
  will rather die than show myself false and
  ungrateful. Our God did not begin to be in time
  He alone is without beginning, and He Himself is
  the beginning of all things. God is a Spirit,
  not pervading matter, but the Maker of material
  spirits, and of the forms that are in matter He
  is invisible, impalpable, being Himself the
  Father of both sensible and invisible things. Him
  we know from His creation, and apprehend His
  invisible power by His works. I refuse to adore
  that workmanship which He has made for our sakes.
  
• Tatian, Oration, 4

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How did the Early Christians Defend the Faith?

• Go On the Offensive
• - Message of Salvation
• - Supremacy of Christ

• And if these things seem to you to be reasonable
  and true, honour them but if they seem
  nonsensical, despise them as nonsense, and do not
  decree death against those who have done no
  wrong, as you would against enemies. For we
  forewarn you, that you shall not escape the
  coming judgment of God, if you continue in your
  injustice and we ourselves will invite you to do
  that which is pleasing to God.
• Justin, First Apology

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Take on Pluralism
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The Fundamental Fork in the Road

• Bridge Building Justin, Athenagoras, Clement,
  Origen, etc

• Bridge Burning Tatian, Tertullian, etc

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Defending the Faith in a Post-Christian Culture

• Challenges and Possibilities