As I read through Scripture, I am always looking to understand it better. At the same time, I am listening for God to speak to me. In the process, I notice things. Like today. I noticed Paul’s statement to the Colossians:
I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments.
Colossians 2:4 ESV
Hmmm… the delusion of plausible arguments. That’s an interesting phrase… (So it seems to me, anyway!) I want to explore that a bit further.
Context is always important. the context for this statement is Paul’s letter to the people in Colossae, a very Greek city. He had already been to Athens where the Athenians spent significant time telling and listening to the latest ideas. (Acts 17:21)
In our modern view, we might imagine an ancient think tank in which new ideas are explored and developed toward some greater ends. We might be tempted to see Athens as an incubator of ideas for the benefit of mankind.
Luke, the writer of Acts, was not being complimentary, however, when he made this observation. The context suggests a contrast between a desire for novel ideas and a desire for truth. Ideas for the sake of ideas and novelty for the sake of novelty may be an erudite pastime for the bored elite who enjoy comfort and privilege, but they are not noble pursuits in themselves.
Unless one has a desire to know truth (and put it into practice), entertaining new ideas is only an exercise in futility, diversion and delusion. The ancient writer of Ecclesiastes, writing about a millennia before Paul set foot in Athens, recognized “there is nothing new under the sun”. (Ecc. 1:9)
Even way back then! Chasing after ideas that are new for the sake of novelty is just a distraction from the truth. It is meaningless!
Paul views the sharing of ideas for the novelty of them in the same way modern people might play video games or read a book – entertainment to pass time. He obviously thought little of such things and had no time for it.
Truth had been revealed to Paul in the form of the risen Jesus, whom his people had crucified and Paul had persecuted. Paul’s whole life was interrupted one day as he traveled with the intention of arresting and imprisoning Christ followers in Damascus, and the course and trajectory of Paul’s life was forever changed.
Paul’s life would never be the same. By the time Paul wrote the letter to the Colossians, his motto had become “to live is Christ and to die is gain”. (Phil. 1:21) Other things, including a preoccupation with novel ideas, has become mere distractions not worth his time.
If we can tell anything about the biographical and autobiographical sketches of Paul in Acts and his letters, we can see that Paul was fiercely and uncompromisingly concerned about truth. That attitude led him to persecute the followers of Christ with zeal when he thought the truth lay in that direction.
It was Paul’s commitment to truth that prompted him to turn in the opposite direction and accept the same Jesus Paul had persecuted as his Lord and Savior. Paul gave himself completely as a servant of the risen Lord to the point of sharing in his own body the sufferings of Christ (as described in Colossians 1:24).
Paul’s turn of phrase, perhaps, is what caught my eye as I read through Colossians this morning: the delusion of plausible arguments. It deserves some additional contemplation.
The story about the book has intrigued me since I heard him talk about it. I am taking my time reading through it. Holland is a historian with a particular focus on ancient, classical history. He chose dinosaurs over the Bible as a young child. He was more enamored with Pontius Pilate than Jesus Christ. The ancient, classical world and the likes of Julius Caesar captured his imagination.
His passion became both avocation and vocation. He became a historian. Holland is the best kind of historian, because he realizes that we all have basic assumptions that we bring to the table, and we need to be as candid challenging our own assumptions as we are challenging others.
We all have a perspective, right? We come to whatever we read or hear with certain assumptions that have developed in our thinking. Affirmations of those assumptions sit well, but challenges to those assumptions do not rest easy. You know what I am talking about.
Holland challenges assumptions from all sides, including his own. For that reason, it’s a challenging read, but all lasting growth of any kind comes through conflict and tension.
His worldview? Holland is an atheist and secular humanist. Holland’s basic philosophy of life is informed by the values of basic humans rights: the right to equality, fair treatment and freedoms that we might call inalienable, like the separation of church and state, the value of scientific endeavor and the social necessity of charity and good will.
When he set out to write a book tracing these values back to their sources, he was not predisposed to assume where he would find them, though he certainly had assumptions and presuppositions. Like the paleontologist sifting through layers of earth and civilization laid one on top of another, Holland did the painstaking, tedious work.
Beginning with Darius and the great Persian Empire, Holland sought to uncover the lineage of modern western thought from one empire to the next, tracing the rivulets of thinking to find the headwaters for modern secular humanism.
Holland was looking for the progression that evolved into ideas that inform the modern western mind. He did not focus on the usual events that historians dutifully catalogue, other than to look behind them for their motivation. He focused on thoughts as they developed and the people who championed them and events as they influenced those thoughts and ideas.
In the ancient world, as one might expect, many of those ideas were dressed in metaphysical garb. Holland’s focus, though, is always on the those thoughts and ideas that continue in our modern values today. The ones that died off, like the dinosaurs, are only interesting as side notes to that history.
Much of the book explores the world of discarded gods and beliefs that animated the ancient world. The beliefs of the ancients are the evolutionary precursors to our modern thought. In those layers of metaphysical and philosophical sediment lie traces of our modern values.
In sifting through the soils of history, Holland identifies the beginnings and ancestry of the ethics and values that ground his worldview as a humanist in the sedimentary layers in which they arose. As often is the case in such endeavors, Holland makes some startling discoveries.
What Holland carefully and methodically uncovers is one seismic development that diverted and defined the flow of thinking in western civilization – a metaphysical “Cambrian Explosion”. His find caught him off guard: that western thinking is founded on, permeated with and inextricably intertwined in Christian ideas.
Holland was always taught that the Church held back modern advances, like a stubborn dam that had to be blown up to let the river of progress flow. He assumed the narrative of the Enlightenment was true. Holland assumed we are Greek, and maybe a little Roman, in our modern, western values.
Holland had a nagging suspicion, however, that modern values are not so much connected to the thinking of ancient Greeks and Romans as they are connected to something else.
When Holland gets into the Enlightenment Era in his book, he finds that his suspicions were correct, and he is able to identify the disconnect – an incongruity that bears some candid analysis for its deviation from the origin and trajectory of the historical developments to that stage.
It was Christianity that changed the course of history and added the soil in which modern values took root. Holland also came to realize that Enlightenment thinking grew out of that rich soil that it sought to dig, and this is both ironic and dangerous, like the man sawing off the branch that supports him.
Tom Holland, in his book, Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind, published in 2019, traces western civilization from Darius, the Persian king, through the present time. Holland links the development of modern thinking to its various sources as expressed through the thread of religious views form age to age.
The mode of his analysis is, perhaps, a unique one for an atheist. It also exposes the wellspring of one predominant source for most of the fundamental assumptions of the modern western world. Holland was surprised, himself, to find how prominently one source showed through.
To his chagrin, Holland found that source flowing from the influence of an itinerant, first century carpenter of humble background. Holland’s work reveals that the source of modern western thought is decisively Judeo-Christian, and particularly Christian.
The river in which the Christian spring wells up is, first, Mesopotamian (the Persian version), then Greek, then Roman, but the source of the thinking that invigorates all our basic, western assumptions is not reducible to Persian, Greek or Roman principals – or any combination of all three. Holland’s work demonstrates how the spring of Christianity overwhelmed the river leading to modern western thought and irrevocably changed and defined its course.
Holland traces the assumptions of the modern western world forward through the evolution of religious expression. From Persian Zoroastrianism that was, perhaps[1], the beginning of monotheistic thought, through Judaism converging into the Roman world that combined Greek gods and philosophy, Holland finds from the currents of religious expression the sources of those assumptions that inform the modern western mind and sensibilities.
Holland’s history reveals that the values we take for granted, like the water that comes from a tap, find their source predominantly in Christian origins. Like a spring that swelled the river and came to define it over time, despite its headwaters and tributaries, Christianity overtook the river and ineffably changed and defined its course.
For Holland, the discovery that the values that inform his modern, humanist worldview are Christian came as a paradigm shift from the Enlightenment, modern and post-modern position. His book shows how a modernist can no more escape the spring of Christian influence than drain the water from the river.
The ways in which the theme reveals itself are myriad. Following is one example revealed through the life of Flavius Claudius Julianus. Julian, who would be known as Julian the Apostate, was the nephew of Emperor Constantine. Constantine, of course, set the course of history in his conversion to Christianity and decree to lift the prohibition against its practice. Up to that point, Christianity flourished only despite the efforts to curtail it.
Julian was also raised Christian, but he renounced Christianity to embrace the paganism of his ancestors. Tom Holland describes how Julian sought to reclaim the empire from people who had “’abandoned the ever-living gods for the corpse of the Jew’”.
Julian believed the god, Cybele, had rescued him from the darkness of Christianity. In his effort to promote the worship of Cybele, Julian wrote a letter to the priests in Galatia, blaming them for what he called a lack of faith in Cybele, the god whose temple they kept. His accusation against them? That they were getting drunk in taverns instead of devoting themselves to the poor. Julian committed the funds himself to a program of providing food and drink to the poor, travelers and beggars.
What’s the big deal?
Holland, was a noted historian of the Greco-Roman world before writing Dominion. He knowing well the values of that world. They were incongruous with Julian’s plea. He addresses the incongruity of Julian’s appeal as follows:
“The heroes of the Iliad, favourites of the gods, golden and predatory, had scorned the weak and downtrodden. So, too for all the honour that Julian paid them, had philosophers. The starving deserved no sympathy. Beggars were best rounded up and deported. Pity risked undermining a wise man’s self-control. Only fellow citizens of good character, who through no fault of their own had fallen on evil days, might conceivably merit assistance. Certainly, there was little in the character of the gods whom Julian so adored, nor in the teachings of the philosophers whom he so admired, to justify any assumption that the poor, just by virtue of their poverty, had a right to aid. The young emperor, sincere though he was in his hatred of ‘Galilean’ teachings, and in regretting their impact upon all that he held so dear, was blind to the irony of his plan for combatting them: that it was itself irredeemably Christian.”
“’How apparent to everyone it is, and how shameful, that our own people lack support from us, when no Jew has ever to beg, and the impious Galileans support not only their own poor, but ours as well.’ Julian could not but be painfully aware of this. The roots of Christianity ran deep. The apostles, obedient to Jewish tradition as well as to the teachings of their master, had laid it as a solemn charge upon new churches always ‘to remember the poor’. Generation after generation, Christians had held true to this injunction. Every week, in churches across the Roman world, collections for orphans and widows and the imprisoned, and the shipwrecked, and the sick had been raised. Over time, as congregations swelled, and ever more of the wealthy were brought to baptism, the funds available for poor relief had grown as well. Entire systems of social security had begun to emerge.”
Holland was keenly aware of the pagan world to which Julian wanted to return. It was his focus as an historian. In an interview and discussion with Justin Brierley and AC Grayling, Holland describes how he was fascinated by the extravagant decadence and pomp of the classic Greco-Roman world, but he found nowhere in it any hint of the ethic that is ingrained in modern humanism to care for the poor, save for one source alone: Christianos, the derogatory term given to the followers of Jesus by the Romans.
Throughout the book, Holland identifies the various roots of modern ethics and principals that are no longer seen as distinctly Christian, because they are simply taken for granted – like Julian’s assumption that caring for the poor was a moral obligation, though no such obligation can be traced to the gods and philosophers he embraced in rejecting Christianity.
The idea that correct thinking (belief) is more important than ritual practices, inalienable (human) rights and equality, the importance of education (not just for the elites), the separation of church and state, and many other things find their origins in spring of uniquely Christian thought. The book is well-written and provides much food for thought.
Peter and Paul, the pillars of the Church, were clear that the only citizenship that counts is our citizenship in heaven. (Phil. 3:20) W are only “sojourners and exiles” in this world. (1 Peter 2:11)
Paul submitted to earthly authorities as though they had been established by God. (Rom. 13:1) He submitted to lashing by Jewish authorities five times! He appealed to his Roman citizenship, but, he clearly saw himself not as a citizen of this world. He was a citizen of the kingdom of heaven that is to come.
He used his Roman citizenship to gain an audience for the gospel among the Romans, to be an ambassador for Christ as he spoke to people in the public squares. He used his credentials as a Hebrew scholar to gain an audience for the Gospel in the synagogues.
Paul submitted to the processes and protocols of Roman and Jewish authorities. He recognized their earthly authority over him. He appealed to that same authority, not for his own advantage, but for the purpose of advancing the kingdom of God.
When we get involved in politics in the 21st century, do we submit to the authorities established by God as Paul did? Paul boasted of his lashings. Paul used his Roman citizenship, not to get out of prison, but to get to Rome to support the followers of Christ there.
Do we count ourselves, first, as citizens of heaven? Paul longed to be with Christ. He used his time on this earth to advance the kingdom of God while he longed for the day when he would put off his perishable body and put on immortality.
Do we use our earthly citizenship not for our own advantage, but to advance the Kingdom of God? When we fight for tougher laws and tighter borders and the right to walk around without masks, are we fighting for the kingdom of God?
Paul said what needed to be said for the sake of the Gospel, but he accepted the earthly consequences of his focus on heavenly things. Paul lived in an earthly world that was hostile to him and everything that he stood for. He submitted to the world’s authority, but he did it in obedience to the authority of God for the advancement of the Gospel, the good news of the coming of the kingdom of God.
Sometimes, I wonder whether we resist authorities that to advance our earthly objectives and appeal to political power and influence to secure our earthly advantage. I wonder how often we have it all wrong.
What are our priorities? To whom do we owe our ultimate allegiance? What are our ultimate goals? Are we seeking to advance the kingdom of God at all costs, including the cost to ourselves and our own position in the world?
Paul used his station in life as a Jewish scholar and a Roman citizen not for his own benefit, but for the benefit of the kingdom of God, to gain audience in front of people, and to spread the gospel. How do we use our station in life, our political power and religious knowledge? To whose benefit are our actions accumulating?
Are we fighting to protect and preserve our own families, communities and country in this world only to lose sight of our citizenship in heaven? Are we striving to save our lives only to lose our souls?
These are questions, not accusations. God knows the heart. I pose these questions in my own heart as write them.
Rebecca McLaughlin, in her book, Confronting Christianity: 12 Hard Questions for the World’s Largest Religion, made an observation that inspires my article today. I am indebted to Rebecca McLaughlin and to the many serious Christian thinkers who have plowed ground that make it easy for me to walk the paths after them.
In this book, about a third of the way into the ninth chapter (Isn’t Christianity Homophobic?), McLaughlin talks about loneliness and singleness in the church. She digs up some nuggets that seem to have gotten lost in our modern culture.
She observes that western traditions have developed over the years that have plowed under values that once informed the early church. A tradition of rugged individualism and self-determination that is, perhaps, unrivaled anywhere in the world, is inbred into our American culture. Our suburban lifestyle is uniquely American, with our manicured lawns separated from our neighbors by fences and hedges. These are, perhaps, the gentrified remnants of farmstead claims staked by American pioneers against predators, weather, enemies and neighbors alike.
We circle the wagons today around the family unit that has come under “attack” from secular constructs of village-raised children and re-imagined family structures designed to fit societal mores that clash with us. These changes have caused conservatives and Christians to double down on the traditional, American family construct.
Traditional, though, is normative, and norms change. Not more than 150 years ago families looked different than they do today. In fact, they looked a little more like the modern family than the average person might realize.
Not long after the first generations of immigrants reached the shore of the New World, families and communities of families began to migrate across the country, south, west and sometimes north, clearing areas for homesteads. The fluidity of family compositions can be traced from one decennial census to the next. Not may households remained static from one 10-year census to the next.
My father, who researches genealogies, shines some historical light on the norms of the frontier movement in writing books about those migrations. From census to census to census, stories are told of dynamic changes in family structures.
Family units were ever changing in the combination of husbands, wives, children (both minors and adults), extended family and sometimes even strangers. Family often included a grandparent, niece or nephew, neighbor or border.
Children were born; children died; children moved away and moved back. Spouses died. New spouses moved in, or neighbors moved in who helped with the children and then became spouses… or not. Extended family members, neighbors and strangers, too, moved in and out of family units.
Census records reveal the consistency of flux as frontiers were blazed across this country. One of the many challenges of doing genealogical research through the 19th Century is determining the relationships of the people in those households from one decennial census to another and tracing the changes from decade to decade.
The end of trailblazing and the Industrial Revolution, however, began to affect the composition of family units. Trailblazing gave way to communities, and factories grew up in those communities.
Workers migrated to the fixed location of a factory, and they became grounded and less mobile in their vocations. Family structures became more static and defined in the process. These and other influences formed the mold of the “traditional” American family.
What we assume to be the traditional family unit today is of relatively recent vintage. The Little House on the Prairie is more of a sentimental, re-imagining of the way it was than raw history reveals.
Even then, we get a hint of an interdependence of community that was much more intimate in generations past than our anemic sense of community today. This is true even with more distance separating homesteads than a thin veil of fences and hedges separating suburban lots.
The distance that separates people in modern western life, however, might as well be miles. We live as if we don’t need our neighbors, and we largely don’t even know them. Those fences and hedges might as well be walls.
In that sense, McLaughlin digs up the back-filled soil of modern western culture to uncover an ancient value that has been plowed under by the progress of western development. When St. Paul spoke about the virtue of singleness, he did so in a culture and time when family and community were quite unlike our own – values that we have relatively recently lost.
Navigating by Faith 