The Christian religion has been stuck for 2000 years. This number is mindboggling, 2000 years, at least 350 generations of peoples have come and gone. Moms, Dads, Uncles and Aunts have been relegated to mere distant memories or disappearing all together, forever, from the face of the earth. Could it be high time for the Church to take account of all those years and the opportunities either missed or realized? How has the Church done?
There are
more appropriate sources to answer that question but one more amateurish opinion
will not spoil the stew. The failure of
the Church has been, for 2000 years, a lack of vision to match the times. The Church has been stuck in the world of St.
Augustine of Hippo, (354 to 430). The
life and times and visions of St. Augustine are made plain in his writings, “Confessions”
and “The City of God”. Having been led for the first time to check out the
importance of this early Church leader, this amateur bought the Penguin Classic
editions of each book.
The
“Confessions” is the life story and spiritual journey of St. Augustine as he
lived it in his time and place. Augustine’s
story is a search for spiritual authenticity. “Confessions” opens to us the chaotic world of
fourth century history and culture in which Augustine searched and is a very
interesting read. However, let us move on to “The City of God”.
Thank you,
God, for Google. Understanding the
cultures and craziness of the time of Augustine, for me, would be impossible
without the search bar. My speed is not
the speed of scholarship, just enough to get the gist of what was
happening. In my mind, Augustine was fighting
the spiritual wars of his time, arguing for and defending his spiritual life
choice, the Christian faith. Augustine
was a thinker who could match wits with all comers but what impressed me was
his conversational tone, he was having a conversation with the religions,
philosophies and cultures of his day.
The City of
God is a collection of twenty-two books that St. Augustine wrote over his
lifetime. Each book is further divided into Chapters and then a string of faith
statements, critics and assumptions he puts out there and then explains and
defends with reason and the Bible which had just been translated into the
Greek, the people’s language.
The full
title is “Concerning the City of God against the Pagans”. St. Augustine wrote throughout his lifetime
in order to clearly define what it means to be Christian. Was it confrontational? Most definitely but also conversational, a
conversation, Christian to Pagan, that would confront and at the same time be engaging. The word we use today is evangelistic, conversation
with a winning motive.
On page 894, Augustine makes a turn and the writing of the last three Books were written three years before his death. Maybe he was ill or maybe all Christian hope for the pagan culture of his world was lost. Anyway, a condemning spirit seems to have entered his life. On page 894, the message is, “The end of the wicked”. The Christian death threat of last resort, the threat that is unproveable speculation in our world.
And the conversation stops.
The Church
has been stuck in this “them and us mentality” for two thousand years.
G. Goslaw
Landers, Ca.
