This is the third in Ben Myer’s wonderful series on the thinking of the early church fathers. This talk examines their view on the burning question of discipleship - what does it mean to follow Christ in how we live particularly in the public square? Ben’s first talk covered their view of salvation - and how they did not have a ‘penal substitution’ model of redemption. His second talk covered their view of the inner life - how we live righteously in our souls and thoughts. So this talk moves to the vexed place of the public square - how do Christians participate in the ‘world’ (or not).
This talk is in a sense ‘unfinished’ - as Ben says, they never got to a simple clear position and there were conflicting positions on this question. What I found illuminating and relevant to us, is that how they confronted this question varied according to the changing circumstances in which they found themselves. So our lesson would be that we have the same task - understand our circumstances and then work out how our faith should work out in today’s world.
Ben finishes with St Augustine’s ‘City of God’ where Augustine developed the theory of our ‘double citizenship’ in two very different kingdoms. And Ben laments how later centuries turned some of this thinking into forms of ‘Christian nationalism’. Finding God or the echoes of the divine in the public square is a vital concern for us all - and particularly relevant as we realise the Christ is Lord of the cosmos not just individual lives. In fact, his Lordship was expressed in very political terms for the first century church - something that Edwin Judge and Mark Strom have stressed in previous talks.
So this is challenging topic and one for which there are probably no easy answers. But Ben’s talk gives us a great perspective to think it through. This year we will be following a ‘so what’ theme in Gospel Conversations - ie what are the ‘so what's for the Creation Gospel so this talk is a great door opener for our year.
Our next talk will address the question of evangelism and how we frame the ‘creation gospel’. I will give this talk and it will focus on our ‘theory of sin’ - a vital topic. I will critique the dominant mental model of sin (or at least the one I grew up with as an evangelical) and offer what I think is a much richer and more biblical model of what this critical thing called ‘sin’ means.
