Quotes for the Journey
The Second of Three Unexpected Points of View
“Christianity summoned proud pagans to face torture and death out of loyalty to a Jewish villager who had been executed by Rome.”1
I love quotes. I collect short snippets that spark ideas and invite me to seek and find new vistas from which to survey human life. This is the second in a series of three posts featuring some of my favorites. This snippet challenges the guilt trip many Christians feel when they share Jesus with others.
While studying for my religion and sociology degrees, I had to sit through four years of intellectual hand-wringing over the dangers of Christianity shared across cultures and religions. Our class was regularly warned about the potent poison of faith combined with “patriarchy,” or “colonialism,” or any other oppressive ideology. There was an underlying assumption that pre-existing religions were to be preferred and honored above Christianity. Bottom line: the good news of Jesus would be bad news for other cultures and people who received it. It felt as though I had to, at least tacitly, support this theme to complete my double major.
I had lived in three different countries at that point. I had worshipped Jesus with citizens of three different lands. None of them seemed oppressed. Their church service hadn’t been poisonous. Sure, the gospel, like anything else, can be subverted by more deeply held ideological commitments. But why was it so hard for my college professors to see that the good news of Jesus, used to force conformity, is not only rightly condemned as an abuse of power, but is no longer the good news of Jesus at all. It has been disfigured. It has become something other than Christianity.
The warnings continued after graduation. Politicians, political commentators, and even a certain brand of Christian leaders join the academics to warn us, with very stern faces, that our desire to share the faith we love and enjoy above all things is an oppressive act toward our neighbor.
I began to wonder if these warnings were less about the negative effects of a distorted religion and more about the obvious power of a properly understood and accepted faith in Jesus. Christianity not only changes lives, but can also transcend any structures established by politics and academia. A community that believes in Jesus brings people together in ways that erode existing definitions and distinctions.
This is where the quote from N.T. Wright comes in.
N.T. Wright has lots of academic and political credentials. He is an English New Testament scholar, Pauline theologian, and Anglican bishop. He was the bishop of Durham and Lord Spiritual in the UK Parliament from 2003 to 2010. Yet, in his present role as senior research fellow at Wycliffe Hall at the University of Oxford, he can see what so many in the academic and political world cannot see. He expresses this incredible cross-cultural power of the faith in this quote from a book on early Christianity entitled, The New Testament and the People of God:
“Christianity summoned proud pagans to face torture and death out of loyalty to a Jewish villager who had been executed by Rome.”
N.T. Wright’s quote encourages me. It highlights the power of the faith that means so much to me. The good news of Jesus has proven itself to be, again and again, more powerful than all human programs, built both out of good intentions or ill, meant to bring humanity into conformity with someone’s dream of a better world. Sure, it can be misused. But this is not a reason to be shy in sharing my faith with others. I believe everyone should have the opportunity to hear Jesus’ invitation and decide if they want to follow.
N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 1, Fortress Press (1992), p. 360.