CHURCH HISTORY for newbies and aficionados

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CHURCH HISTORYfor newbies and aficionados
Did you know Could you explain
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Modern Presuppositions

• The H Word
• History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We
  don't want tradition. We want to live in the
  present and the only history that is worth a
  tinker's _at_! is the history we make today
  Henry Ford
• If it is new, it is improved!
• Prideful Arrogance in Re-inventing the Wheel

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Additional Christian Presuppositions

• The D Word
• Doctrine
• No book but the Bible, no creed but Christ, no
  law but love.
• Just me and Jesus
• Faith and Practice trump Doctrine
• Chronological Snobbery
• The Results?
• Spiritual TumbleWeeds
• Cultural Blinders
• Despair

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What will we see in Church History?

• Gods sovereignty
• No Deus ex machina
• God has always had his church
• Few, if any, ivory tower theologians
• "The difference between truth and error is not a
  chasm, but a razors edge. John Murray
• A case study for how worldview and belief impact
  culture
• Ourselves amongst brothers and sisters in the
  Lord

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Political / Cultural Context of the Early Church
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Religious Context of the Early Church Paganism

• Mystery Religions a.k.a. hodge-podge of paganism
• Purification Rights
• Taurobolium of Mithraism
• Fertility Cults (Da Vinci Code not too far off)
• Asclepius shrine in Corinth
• Love feasts
• A la 1 Cor. 8-10

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Religious Context of the Early Church Judaism

• Judaism
• Parties within
• Parties without
• Changes

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Religious Context Church Itself

• Acts 242
• Worship
• Didache (50-120)
• 2 Peter 315-16
• Acts 15
• So, given this religio-socio-cultural melieu,
  what happenned next?

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The Stepfather of the Early Church Gnostism

• 3 Factors that precipitated
• Whats the recipe for the gnosticism?
• Part mindset, part cultural trend, part paganism,
  part Christian

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Gnostic Worldview

• God
• Creation

Ultimate Being 2 Demiurge Evil God of the OT
Ultimate Being Good God of the NT
Aeons Spiritual Beings / Deities dwelling in
the pleroma
Bodies dwelling on the earth
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Gnostic Worldview

• Man
• Soul is a reincarnated spark of deity
• Matter/Body is morally antithetical to spirit
• Fall
• Literal
• Sin
• ignorance and forgetfulness
• Salvation
• Getting back to the pleroma through secret
  knowledge a.k.a. gnosis
• Savior
• Fully divine, fully spirit,but only seemed to
  fully man.

Why was gnosticism such a threat?
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Systematizers Popularizers

• Valentinus _at_ 138-161
• Really complicated, somewhat systematic
• Marcion _at_ 138-161
• Really biblical quotes OT, Mt, Mk, Lk, 1
  Cor., Gal., Eph.
• Less complicated
• Antithesis
• Has anyone ever confronted you with
  contradictions between the OT NT?
• Antithesis Part III
• It is the Christ of the Other, Supreme God Who
  was driven to the cross by the hostile powers and
  authorities of the Creator. The suffering of the
  cross was not predicted of the Creator's Christ
  moreover, it should not be believed that the
  Creator would expose his son to that kind of
  death on which he himself had pronounced a curse.
  "Cursed" says he, "is everyone who hangeth on a
  tree" (Deuteronomy 213, Galatians 313).
• Doctored Gospel of Luke (punny!)
• Removed incompatible parts, like the genealogy!

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Gnostic gospels

• Gospel of Mary (120-180)
• 25) Peter said to him, Since you have explained
  everything to us, tell us this also What is the
  sin of the world?
• 26) The Savior said There is no sin, but it is
  you who make sin when you do the things that are
  like the nature of adultery, which is called sin.
• 27) That is why the Good came into your midst, to
  the essence of every nature in order to restore
  it to its root.
• Chapter 8 the soul ascends through various
  obstacles
• Gospel of James (100-150)
• Since you asked me to send you a secret book
  which was revealed to me and Peter by the Lord, I
  could neither refuse you nor speak directly to
  you, but I have written it in Hebrew letters and
  have sent it to you - and to you alone. But
  inasmuch as you are a minister of the salvation
  of the saints, endeavor earnestly and take care
  not to recount this book to many - this which the
  Savior did not desire to recount to all of us,
  his twelve disciples. But blessed are those who
  will be saved through faith in this discourse.
• "Pay attention to the Word. Understand Knowledge.
  Love Life. And no one will persecute you, nor
  will any one oppress you, other than you
  yourselves.
• Gospel of Peter (70-160)
• 55 And the Lord cried out aloud saying, "My
  power, my power, you have forsaken me." When he
  had said this, he was taken up. 6 And in the same
  hour the veil of the temple of Jerusalem was rent
  in two.
• Gospel of Thomas (50-140)
• (114) Simon Peter said to them Let Mary go
  forth from among us, for women are not worthy of
  the life. Jesus said Behold, I shall lead her,
  that I may make her male, in order that she also
  may become a living spirit like you males. For
  every woman who makes herself male shall enter
  into the kingdom of heaven.

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Various Strains of Gnosticism _at_ 150 (including
gnostic Christianity)

• Asceticism
• NIV 1 Corinthians 927 No, I beat my body and
  make it my slave so that after I have preached to
  others, I myself will not be disqualified for the
  prize.
• Classes of Faith
• 1 Cor. 31-3 I could not address you as
  spiritual people, but people of the flesh
• Uber-spiritual pneumatics (pleroma)
• Semi-spiritual psychics (demiurge)
• Ignoramus hylics (no chance of salvation)
• Sharp Law Gospel distinction
• Galatians 517-26
• Hans Jonas writes, the gnostic master is free
  from the yoke of the moral law, and all things
  are permitted to him. 1 Cor. 6!
• Apprehension of revelation through spiritual
  technologies
• Meditation, etc.
• So, why does gnosticism matter?

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Scientology
Psychology
Mormonism

• Carl Jung 1875-1961
• Father of psychoanalysis
• Jung came to affirm mankinds native divinity
  and called for a return to the Gnostic sense of
  God as an inner, directing presence. Herrick,
  The Making of the New Spirituality, 192
• Jung also heldthe soul experienced
  imprisonment in the body from which it could be
  led into unity with the divine through techniques
  of psychic magic. ibid.

• Joseph Smith (1805-1844)
• Origin of the Book
• Moroni
• Secret Golden Plates
• Man
• ET Adam
• Planet Kolob

• Cosmic Tyrant Xenu
• Thetans
• Auditing

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New Age tinkering with spiritual technologies
to attain secret knowledge and transcend the body
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Gnostic Empire Strikes Back!

• Common elements?

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Matisyahu
Billboard Charts 2006 1 Reggae Album 4 Top 200
Albums 4 Top Rap Album

• Chorus You're a warrior, Fighting for your soul
  Taken from a world above, and brought down to
  this world below Re-united, re-united return the
  princess to the king, Re-united, re-united, she's
  been taken for so long Re-unite them, re-unite
  them and then she'll be filled with joy Re-unite
  them , re-unite them like the days of her youth
• this place is just a shell, external
• "Hasidicism explains that everything in this
  world, everything in this life has an inner
  essence, an inner soul. when it started out,
  before the soul was reincarnated into this life,
  into this body in time and place that we find
  ourselves, it was basking above in the rays of
  godliness, and it comes into this world for one
  reason, it should transform the darkness into
  light. it should take the darkness of this world
  and make it light."

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Free your mind The Matrix
Common Elements?
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You think tongues is crazymeet Montanism
Stepmother of the Early Church

• Montanus _at_ 150
• Marcion is to fundamentalist as Montanus is to
  charismatic
• He wanted to move the church away from dead
  orthodoxy, and back to keeping in step with the
  Spirit.
• no creed but Christ!
• Believed himself to be the spokesman of the Holy
  Spirit, along with his two female disciples
  Prisca and Maximilla
• They rejected the authority of those trained
  under the apostles, and rebelled against church
  government.
• Extremely Ascetic (a la 1 Cor. 7)
• Orthodox in terms of the gospel, scary in terms
  of claiming authoritative divine revelation
• Sound like any contemporary movement to you?

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So how did the church react?

• Determining the Canon
• Developing Creeds
• Defending the true faith / church