“Let Them Not Share in the Affairs of Life”

[Squire Robertsson]

“Let Them Not Share in the Affairs of Life”: How Ancient Christians Were Viewed as Dangerous to Society

 

[Rockson]

Interesting blog to read. I'd like to read a lot more of the period between say 100 AD to 500 AD.

 

[Reformed]

Interesting blog to read. I'd like to read a lot more of the period between say 100 AD to 500 AD.

A book to read is "Early Christian Doctrines" by J.N.D. Kelly. It goes into great detail on the beliefs and doctrines during the Patristic age.

 

[Reformed]

“Let Them Not Share in the Affairs of Life”: How Ancient Christians Were Viewed as Dangerous to Society

This is one of the reasons why Christianity is persecuted in states like China and North Korea. These nations are not afraid of Christians mounting an armed rebellion. They feel threatened by the idea of Christianity and what it would it mean for the future of their authoritarian rule if the Christian faith should spread.

 

[atpollard]

Would that we were more so!

If the "Worldly Kingdom" is acting and calling us to beliefs contrary to the will of God, then we should be more of a threat to the culture of "the world" and ever less accommodating to its demands. All it requires is courage in us and faith in Christ.

 

[Squire Robertsson]

Those who hold to the Bible as the only rule for Faith and Practice and Soul Liberty are always a danger to a sacralist society. It matters not if the society is that of Imperial Rome, Puritan New England, the Reformed\Lutheran\RCC states of the Reformation, et al.

 

[Squire Robertsson]

The et al. includes all the other sacralist governments and societies.

SNIP et al.

Sacral – By the word “sacral” which we will be using frequently and which we request the reader to impress on his mind, we mean “bound together by a common religious loyalty.” By sacral society, we mean society held together by a religion to which all the members of that society are committed.
pp. 22-23, Verduin, Leonard, The Reformers and Their Stepchildren, Baker, 1980.
​

 

[tyndale1946]

Christianity served as a revitalization movement that arose in response to the misery, chaos, fear, and brutality of life in the urban Greco-Roman world. . . . Christianity revitalized life in Greco-Roman cities by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with many urgent problems. To cities filled with the homeless and impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachment. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. And to cities faced with epidemics, fire, and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective nursing services. . . . For what they brought was not simply an urban movement, but a new culture capable of making life in Greco-Roman cities more tolerable." Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity,Princeton University Press, 1996, page 161.

This is the summary of the following link that I felt would add more understanding to the OP... Its short and to the point... Brother Glen

What Were Early Christians Like?