{"id":17706,"date":"2019-01-21T09:40:51","date_gmt":"2019-01-21T14:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=17706"},"modified":"2019-01-21T10:00:10","modified_gmt":"2019-01-21T15:00:10","slug":"people-of-the-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=17706","title":{"rendered":"People of the Way"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cac.org\/people-of-the-way-2019-01-21\/\"><strong>People of the Way<\/strong><\/a><br><strong>Monday, January 21, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/aYjzKk-TeP8\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Church historian Diana Butler Bass has brought new light to forgotten or misconstrued elements of Christianity. Today I share some of her research on what early Christians thought it meant to follow Jesus:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Throughout the first five centuries people understood Christianity primarily as a way of life in the present, not as a doctrinal system, esoteric belief, or promise of eternal salvation. By followers enacting Jesus\u2019s teachings, Christianity changed and improved the lives of its adherents and served as a practical spiritual pathway. This way\u2014and earliest Christians were called \u201cthe people of the Way\u201d\u2014bettered existence for countless ancient believers. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Christian defenders, such as Justin Martyr (ca. 100\u2013ca. 165), used the example of Christian practice to make the case that Jesus\u2019s way \u201cmended lives\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We who formerly . . . valued above all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we have into a common stock, and communicate to everyone in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different manners would not live with men of a different tribe, now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies . . . . [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To Justin, the old ways had passed; a new way opened in Jesus. Far from being divisive, Christianity was an inclusive faith that might bring diverse peoples together. However one interpreted the effects of the new faith, both enemies and defenders of Christianity understood that the new religion transformed people, giving even women, peasants, and slaves a meaningful ability to reorder their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The way was based on Jesus\u2019s teaching recorded in Mark 12:28-34. An unnamed questioner asked Jesus, \u201cWhich commandment is the first of all?\u201d and Jesus responded with what is now called the Great Command: \u201c\u2019You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.\u2019 The second is this, \u2018You shall love your neighbor as yourself.\u2019 There is no other commandment greater than these.\u201d Loving God and neighbor was, according to Jesus, the way of the Kingdom of God and the path of salvation. In the account of this teaching in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus adds, \u201cdo this, and you will live\u201d (Luke 10:28). . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus\u2019s followers took these words seriously. In many cases, and unlike contemporary practice, the process of becoming a Christian took several years, an extended time of teaching spiritual inquirers the way on which they were embarking. Christianity was considered a deliberate choice with serious consequences, a process of spiritual formation and discipline that took time, a way of life that had to be learned in community. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In many quarters Christian communities are once again embracing the ancient insight that the faith is a spiritual pathway, a life built on transformative practices of love rather than doctrinal belief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cac.org\/new-wineskins-2019-01-20\/\"><strong>New Wineskins<\/strong><\/a><br><strong>Sunday, January 20, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Jesus said, \u201cPeople do not put new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the skins burst, the wine spills out, and the skins are ruined. Rather, they pour new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved.\u201d<\/em>&nbsp;\u2014Matthew 9:17<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Christians have often preached a Gospel largely comprised of words, attitudes, and inner salvation experiences. People say they are saved, they are \u201cborn again,\u201d yet how do we really know if someone is saved? Are they actually following Jesus? Do they love the poor? Are they free from their ego? Are they patient in the face of persecution?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s not enough to talk about some kind of new inebriating wine, some new ideas. Without new wineskins\u2014changed institutions, systems, and structures\u2014I would argue that transformation cannot be deep or lasting. As Dorothy Day (1897\u20131980) often said in her inimitable Kingdom style, \u201cNothing is going to change until we stop accepting this dirty, rotten system!\u201d Personal \u201csalvation\u201d cannot be divorced from social and systemic implications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s easier to talk about the wine without the wineskins, to talk about salvation theories without any new world order. Unfortunately, Christianity has not always had a positive impact on Western civilization and the peoples it has colonized or evangelized. So-called Christian nations are often the most militaristic, greedy, and untrue to the teacher we claim to follow. Our societies are more often based&nbsp;<em>not&nbsp;<\/em>upon the servant leadership that Jesus modeled, but on the common domination and control model that produces racism, classism, sexism, power seeking, and income inequality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s not to say our ancestors didn\u2019t have faith, that Grandma and Grandpa were not good people. But by and large we Christians did not produce positive change in culture or institutions that operated differently than the rest. Christianity has shaped some wonderfully liberated saints, prophets, and mystics. They tried to create some new wineskins, but often the church itself resisted their calls to structural reform. Take for example the father of my own religious community, Saint Francis of Assisi. He was marginalized as a bit of a fanatic or eccentric by mainline Catholicism, as illustrated by no Pope ever taking his name until our present Pope Francis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even today many Christians keep Jesus on a seeming pedestal, worshiping a caricature on a cross or a bumper-sticker slogan while avoiding what Jesus said and did. We keep saying, \u201cWe love Jesus,\u201d but it is more as a God-figure than someone to imitate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People of the WayMonday, January 21, 2019 Church historian Diana Butler Bass has brought new light to forgotten or misconstrued elements of Christianity. Today I share some of her research on what early Christians thought it meant to follow Jesus: Throughout the first five centuries people understood Christianity primarily as a way of life in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17706"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17706"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17710,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17706\/revisions\/17710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}