Theological Questions

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Theology is an intellectual, ongoing quest for understanding faith from within a tradition—distinct from neutral religious studies and from catechesis—and theologians articulate the present, engage the past, and build the future of that tradition.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Theology vs faith: intellectual understanding expressed in words, not just heartfelt belief; you can have faith without theology.
• Theology vs religious studies: theology studies a tradition from within (not neutral), while religious studies aspires to neutrality and studies religions from without.
• Theology vs catechesis: catechesis is a "snapshot" teaching current answers; theology is an ongoing process aware of history, diversity, and future development.
• Common confusion: theology ≠ making you a better Christian; it's an intellectual discipline, not a measure of faith.
• What theologians do: teach, write, deepen understanding of tradition, articulate faith better, and contribute to future teachings.

🔍 Defining theology

🧠 Intellectual understanding

Theology is an intellectual kind of understanding, as indicated by the Latin word intellectum. Intellectual understanding occurs in the mind and can be expressed in words.

• Not just internal or intuitive feeling.
• Must be articulable and communicable.
• Example: the excerpt contrasts the author's great-grandmother (remarkable faith without theological education) with theological study—both are valid, but theology is the intellectual path.

🔄 Ongoing quest, not closed knowledge

• Theology is described as "an ongoing quest, not a closed body of knowledge to learn."
• It is not a fixed set of facts to memorize.
• The process continues: theologians today build teachings that will shape future catechisms.

🎓 Part of intellectual education

• Theology will not make you a better Christian than someone with deep faith but no education.
• However, it is "an essential part of a well-rounded intellectual education."

🆚 Theology vs other disciplines

🆚 Theology vs Religious Studies

Aspect	Religious Studies	Theology
Stance	Aspires to neutrality	Studies from within; fair but not neutral
Scope	All religions equally; no one more true	Takes one faith tradition as starting point
Method	Studies behavior, literature, societies from without	Seeks meaning beyond scientific description
Example setting	Secular public universities (e.g., University of Texas)	Mostly private universities

• Religious studies can study prayers and rituals without asking if a god responds; can study the Bible like Shakespeare's Hamlet.
• Theology takes one tradition (here, Christianity) as the path of questioning, though questions can be asked within any tradition.
• Don't confuse: learning more about Christianity in a theology course ≠ claiming it is the only truth; good grades require knowing what others thought, not agreeing with them.

📸 Theology vs Catechesis

Catechesis means "teaching." It usually means teaching the current set of answers to theological questions without too much concern for the history or diversity of thought on the issue.

• Catechesis: typical for children or adult converts; focuses on present teaching of a single tradition.
• Theology: aware of past, articulates present, builds future; includes history and diversity.
• Metaphor: "catechesis as a snapshot of theology."
• Example: if you want to align with official Catholic teaching, consult The Catechism of the Catholic Church; this course will represent current Catholic teaching but also include other perspectives.
• Timeline: many people over thousands of years contributed to current teachings; in fifty years, a revised Catechism will reflect today's theologians' work.

👩‍🏫 What theologians do

👩‍🏫 Professional activities

• Many intellectual people of faith do theology alongside other professions.
• A professional theologian's main title is "theologian"; they spend most of the day:
  • Teaching in a theology department.
  • Writing books and articles for deeper understanding, better articulation, or new ways of thinking about faith.
• Like most professions: basic knowledge of the whole field + specialization in a particular area.

🧭 Theologians' role in tradition

• "Theologians are aware of the past, articulate the present, and are ultimately responsible for building the future."
• They bridge historical tradition and contemporary challenges.

📚 Major areas of theology

📖 Biblical theology

Biblical theology seeks questions and meanings from the Bible.

• What "Bible" means: from Greek ta biblia (τα βιβλια), "the books"; one big book containing many books.
  • Jewish Bible: 22 books (can also be counted as 39).
  • Christian Old Testament: same books as Jewish Bible (39).
  • Christian New Testament: 27 books about Jesus.
  • Some additional books recognized by some Christians but not others.
• Scope: ideas of ancient authors + history of interpretation over 2000 years.
• Jews and Christians have found meanings beyond what human authors imagined—acceptable because the Bible is recognized as revealed or divine in origin.
• Catholic emphasis: understanding divine meanings expressed by particular human beings in particular historical contexts.
• Advanced study: reading original languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek), related ancient literature and history.

⚖️ Moral theology

Moral theology focuses on how the Christian life should be lived through our moral choices.

• Builds on theory of sin, conscience, forgiveness, reconciliation.
• Sometimes firm teachings on specific issues; sometimes complex thinking about ambiguous dilemmas.
• Two major sub-areas:
  • Social justice: Christian response to injustices (inequality like racism/sexism; economic injustice like poverty, living wage, social security).
  • Medical ethics: sanctity of life at beginning (embryos, fetuses) and end (life support, euthanasia).

🧩 Systematic theology

Systematic theology focuses on articulating the traditional faith in light of new ideas in philosophy and culture.

• "Systematic": every individual belief should be consistent with every other belief, part of a larger "system."
• Why needed: biblical writers and past theologians never faced specific challenges of modern science, globalization, democracy, feminism, genocide, etc.
• Goal: find a consistent way of responding to these challenges through engagement with existing Christian traditions.

🗂️ Additional categories

• Some theology departments use additional categories: history of Christianity, liturgical studies, spirituality.

🎓 Theology education and careers

🎓 Theology major structure

• At St. Mary's: ten theology courses distributed between Scripture and Thought and Practice areas.
• Sample courses:
  • Old Testament, New Testament (survey of biblical writings).
  • Moral Theology (theory and practice of doing right; abortion, euthanasia, personal opinion vs. firm teaching).
  • Catholic Social Ethics (religion and politics, faith and citizenship).
  • Health Care and Medical Ethics (stem cell research, brain death).
  • Christology (is Jesus God, human, both, neither?).
  • Ecclesiology (what is the Church? do we need it?).
  • Sacraments (how objects and actions become encounters with the divine).
  • Theology in the Southwest (regional language and culture shaping faith experiences).

💼 Career paths

• Combinations: theology major/minor can combine with other fields; Christianity involved in many endeavors beyond Sunday worship (non-profit leadership, healthcare, law, government, media).
• Direct employment areas: teaching and parish work.
  • B.A. in Theology: enough to teach in Catholic grade school or high school; qualifies for youth or parish ministry jobs.
  • Master of Arts (M.A.): generally two years.
  • Ph.D.: five years; needed to teach college-level theology and write books.

📋 Sample job description (Professor of Systematic Theology)

• Tenure-track position; demonstrate robust research agenda and teaching excellence.
• Teach range of courses (diachronic and thematic) in systematic theology.
• Desired interests: interreligious dialogue, ecumenism, global Christianity, theology in the Southwest, Latinx theologies, liberation theology, black theologies.
• Teach core introduction to theology synthesizing faith-seeking-understanding from Catholic/Marianist perspective.
• Create learning environment respecting diverse cultural and religious backgrounds.
• Contribute through service in the "family spirit" of the Marianist charism.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The Israelites were an ancient civilization whose lasting impact came not from military power but from producing the Bible and pioneering the transition from a nation to a religion that survived without a homeland.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Who they are: an ancient people who produced the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, living on through the Jewish people and claimed as spiritual ancestors by Christians and Muslims.
• Three meanings of "Israel": a person (Jacob's other name), a people (descendants of Israel), and a land (their territory).
• When they existed: as an independent nation from approximately 1250–587 BCE, with biblical writing continuing until 164 BCE.
• Common confusion: "Israelite" vs "Judean/Jew" vs "Israeli"—Israelite refers to the ancient civilization (1250–587 BCE), Judean/Jew to the people during and after the Persian period, and Israeli to modern citizens of the state of Israel (1948–present).
• Why they survived: they innovated the idea that a people could maintain identity and beliefs as a dispersed minority (Diaspora) without a homeland or central government, transitioning from nation to religion.

🏛️ Identity and terminology

🏛️ The three meanings of "Israel"

The word "Israel" operates on three levels:

Meaning	Definition	Example from excerpt
Person	Jacob's alternate name	Abraham's grandson Jacob is also given the name "Israel"
People	Descendants of Israel	"Israelites are the people who claim descent from Israel the person"
Land	Territory where Israelites lived	"The land or territory in which the Israelites lived is also called the land of Israel"

• The ending "–ites" means "sons of" or "descendants of."
• Don't confuse: the same word can refer to different things depending on context.

🔤 Israelite vs Judean vs Jew vs Israeli

Israelite: refers to the ancient civilization, especially the period 1250–587 BCE.

Judean: refers to the people in the Persian period (after 538 BCE); later shortened to "Jew."

Israeli: refers to a citizen of the modern state of Israel (declared independence in 1948).

• These terms are connected through the Jewish people but separated by about 2500 years between ancient and modern.
• Example: An ancient person living in 800 BCE would be called an Israelite; someone from 400 BCE would be called a Judean; someone today holding citizenship would be called an Israeli.

🌍 Claims of descent

Different groups claim connection to the Israelites in different ways:

Group	Type of descent	How it works
Jewish people	Biological and spiritual	Born of a Jewish mother; certain beliefs and practices expected but don't define being a Jew
Christians	Spiritual, not biological	God's relationship expanded from one nation to all nations through belief in Jesus
Muslims	Part of salvation history	Israelite prophets revered as true prophets; Muhammad descended from Abraham's family

• Don't confuse: for Jews, being Jewish is primarily about birth (maternity), not just beliefs; for Christians, it is about belief, not biology.

📍 Geography and scale

📍 Location and size

The Israelites occupied a small territory at the crossroads of major ancient civilizations:

• Neighbors: Egypt, Mesopotamia (Babylon, Assyria, Persia to the east), and the Mediterranean (Greece, Rome).
• Scale: the excerpt compares modern Israel to south Texas on the same scale to show how small the territory is.
• Key cities: Jerusalem (most important from biblical authors' perspective), Nazareth, Bethlehem.
• Geographic features: Sea of Galilee, Jordan River, Dead Sea.

🌐 Why location mattered

• "Their ideas drew from many directions and spread in many directions, always by persuasion rather than force."
• Being at the crossroads meant exposure to multiple civilizations' ideas.
• The Israelites were never a large or powerful empire; their economy was simple.
• "We would hardly know they ever existed if not for the Bible."

⏳ Historical timeline

⏳ Key dates and periods

The ancient nation of Israel existed from 1250 to 587 BCE; biblical writing continued until 164 BCE.

Date	Event	Period name	Notes
1250 BCE	Earliest written record	Pre-monarchic	Loose confederation of independent tribes; not united or strong
1000 BCE	David unites twelve tribes	Monarchic period begins	First time all tribes united under one king
930 BCE	Split into North and South	Divided monarchy	United Monarchy ends
720 BCE	North defeated by Assyria	—	Northern Kingdom destroyed
597 & 587 BCE	South defeated by Babylon	Babylonian Exile begins	Independent monarchy ends; never restored
538 BCE	Cyrus allows return	Persian period	Babylonian Exile ends; much of Hebrew Bible written now
333 BCE	Alexander conquers region	Hellenistic Period	"Greek speaking"; Jews confronted Greek philosophy
63 BCE	Roman Empire takes over	Roman period	Jewish history continues but biblical writing mostly complete

📅 Dating terminology

The excerpt explains two parallel systems:

• BCE (Before Common Era) = BC (Before Christ): same years, different assumptions.
• CE (Common Era) = AD (Anno Domini, Year of the Lord): same years, different assumptions.
• Scholars prefer BCE/CE because it is more neutral and "does not presume a particular faith."

🔄 Survival and transformation

🔄 From nation to religion

The Israelites pioneered a radical innovation after the Babylonian Exile (587 BCE):

Diaspora: a people that has been dispersed from its original homeland but maintains communal identity as small minorities spread over many places.

What happened:

• Temple and city of Jerusalem destroyed; leading citizens taken into exile as captives.
• They could have assimilated to the majority culture that defeated them.
• Instead, they developed the idea that their God had not been defeated but planned the exile for their long-term good and remained with them.

Why this was radical:

• "This may seem obvious today, but it was a radical innovation that allowed a people to transition from a nation to a religion."
• They maintained beliefs and practices in homes and small communities even though most people around them had different beliefs.
• "The might of the victorious civilization did not amount to the correctness of their ideas and behaviors."

Result:

• Generally, "Israel" refers to the phase as a politically sovereign nation; "Judaism" refers to a religion or people.
• "It is the same people and the same tradition, transformed but not broken."

🏛️ Why most civilizations disappeared

The excerpt contrasts the Israelites with other ancient civilizations:

• Many ancient civilizations produced more art, literature, military strength, technology, and intellectual innovation than Israel.
• Most were defeated or faded away and ceased to exist.
• Israel survived because "they managed to maintain their identity without a homeland where they were a majority, or a central governing body."

Example: When captive Israelites were taken to Babylon, they saw an awe-inspiring city, but they held on to their own identity and beliefs.

🔍 Sources of knowledge

🔍 The Bible as primary source

Most of what we know about the Israelites comes from the Jewish Bible (Hebrew Bible / Old Testament):

Hebrew Bible: basically the same as the Old Testament; books common to Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic Bibles written in Hebrew.

• The term "Old Testament" implies a New Testament (Christian perspective).
• Scholars prefer "Hebrew Bible" as more neutral when not presuming Christianity's truth.
• "Even if we do not assume that the Bible is revealed by God or that its claims are true, reason alone establishes that it is a record of the literature and ideas of an ancient civilization."
• It tells us what questions they asked, what meanings they found, and how they viewed history.

🏺 Archaeology as secondary source

Archaeology: the study of or discourse about ancient things; mostly means digging up old objects (artifacts).

What archaeology preserves:

• "Hard" objects: stone, clay, pottery, statues, metal tools and weapons.
• Writings on stone, clay, and (under right conditions) leather or papyrus.
• Building outlines, skeletons (reveal diet and lifestyle).

What is missing:

• Soft objects that decay.
• Writings on wax tablets (do not last).

How it works:

• Dirt accumulates over time, so digging deeper goes further back in time.
• "Taken together, we can know many things about the ancient world by piecing together various hints from their literary and physical artifacts."

Example: An archaeologist digging away dirt around a horned altar in an ancient Philistine city.

🙏 Religious significance

🙏 Why Catholics study the Israelites

The excerpt explains the Catholic perspective on the Israelites' importance:

• "The reason a Catholic university wants you to learn about the Israelites is because our tradition believes they were right."
• "They had true insights into God, who we are as human beings, and what God expects us to do."
• Christians do not accept everything they said but consider their questions and points worthy of consideration.

📖 Catholic view of revelation

Catholic Christianity understands God's role in producing the Bible as complex:

Not this:

• Some Christians imagine God dictating the entire Bible word for word to humans who passed it on without change.

But this:

• God's role incorporates "human language, expressions, literary devices, and other cultural assumptions."
• "The Bible did not just fall out of the sky and hit them on the head."
• "They spent hundreds of years working on the ideas and articulation of the biblical books."

What Catholics believe:

• The Bible is revelatory: "God is revealed through the Bible."
• Revelation includes prophecy (God speaking to humans) but also truths made known through reason, families, teachers, and the created world.
• "The Catholic tradition holds that they did a particularly good job, with God's help."
• The Bible is "a reliable guide for understanding the central points of God's desire for our salvation."
• However, "the human expression relies on ancient language, culture, historical and scientific assumptions that can be incomplete, flawed, or just plain wrong."

Don't confuse: Catholics believe the Bible is revelatory and reliable for salvation, but not that every historical or scientific detail is perfect or that God dictated every word.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The Israelites developed a distinctive conception of God as perfectly just, uniquely ethical, eventually the only God, creator of all, and freely covenantal—moving far beyond the ancient Near Eastern view of gods as powerful but flawed, bribable, and subject to fate.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Ancient Near Eastern gods: immortal, spiritual, personal, and super-human, but full of drama, rivalry, needs, and imperfections—more like comic-book superheroes than the God Christians teach today.
• Israel's ethical breakthrough: the Israelites conceived of their God as perfectly just, unbribable, and fundamentally ethical, making justice the most important attribute of God and the most important expectation for humans.
• Stages of monotheism: Israel moved from polytheism (many gods, one supreme) → henotheism (worship only one God, others exist) → monotheism (only one God exists; idols are imagined or demonic).
• Common confusion: early biblical texts that mention "other gods" reflect earlier stages of Israelite thought (polytheism or henotheism), not the later monotheistic view that only one God exists.
• God as creator and covenant-maker: God created all that is without need or opposition, yet freely chooses to enter binding contractual relationships (covenants) with humans, promising reward for justice and exclusive reverence.

🏛️ Ancient Near Eastern gods vs. the God of Israel

🏛️ Characteristics shared by all ancient gods

Gods in the ancient Near East: immortal, spiritual (invisible like breath/wind but powerful), personal (with personalities and interactions), and super-human (superior in strength, knowledge, wisdom).

• The existence of gods was not controversial in the ancient world; denial of higher powers is a modern phenomenon.
• These characteristics were the baseline; the Israelites' distinctiveness lay in what kind of god they had.

🎭 Drama and imperfection of other gods

• Ancient Near Eastern gods were far from perfect: full of gossip, intrigue, rivalry, competition, and conflict.
• They resembled comic-book superheroes more than the God Christians teach today.
• Early conception: gods as forces of nature (sun, water).
• Later conception: gods as politicians with councils, roles, designated authority, love, jealousy, mating, and children.
• Gods were born, had levels of maturity, and could be bribed or persuaded with gifts (sacrifices) and flattery (praise).
• Example: a natural disaster might be explained as a turf-war between Land and Sea (both divinized).

🌍 Tolerance and fate

• Advantage: the ancient system was tolerant and inclusive—"Your people worship a different god? Fine, they're both gods."
• Religious wars were less likely (though not impossible) because adding gods or imagining one gaining dominance while another fades was acceptable.
• Limitation: gods were powerful but not all-powerful; they were subject to a still higher power of fate—impersonal, unchangeable, like a law of the universe (comparable to gravity).
• Don't confuse: fate is not a being or active agent; it cannot be manipulated like the gods.

⚖️ Israel's ethical God

⚖️ Perfect justice, unbribable

Israel's God: perfectly just, behaves with perfect justice, and expects justice of God's people.

• Other gods had a sense of fairness and held roles of judge, but the Israelites pushed further: their God could not be manipulated.
• Deuteronomy 10:17–19: "the LORD, your God, is the God of gods... who has no favorites, accepts no bribes, who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and loves the resident alien... So you too should love the resident alien."
• God acts in defense of those who do not receive justice on earth.

📜 Justice as theological principle

• Other nations had laws and concepts of justice, but those were practical consequences, independent of the gods.
• The Israelites were the first to present ethical laws as absolute commandments by God.
• Exodus 20:13–15: "You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal."
• Justice was foundational and more important than other aspects of religion (festivals, offerings, songs).
• Amos 5:21–24: "I hate, I despise your festivals... let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream."
• Example: God rejects religious rituals if they are not accompanied by justice and righteousness.

🔺 From many gods to one God

🔺 Stage 1: Polytheism (one supreme god among many)

• Early Israelites believed other gods exist, but one God is superior—like a king among gods.
• Exodus 15:11: "Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods?"
• Psalm 82:1: "God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment."
• This is not different from the idea that Marduk or Zeus is king of the gods.
• Some Jews and Christians interpret these subordinate divine beings as angels, but early Israelites called them gods.

🔺 Stage 2: Henotheism (worship only one, others exist)

Henotheism: being devoted to only one God while acknowledging that other gods exist.

• Israel has an exclusive contract with the God of Israel; other nations have their gods.
• Exodus 20:2–3: "I am the LORD your God... you shall have no other gods before me."
• God is "jealous"—there are other gods to be jealous of; God demands to be ranked first.
• Deuteronomy 6:4 (original understanding): "O Israel, obey the LORD, our God, the LORD alone."
• Don't confuse: this does not deny other gods exist; it demands exclusive loyalty to the LORD.

🔺 Stage 3: Monotheism (only one God exists)

Monotheism: the assertion that only one God exists; other gods that humans assert to exist do not exist—they are imagined, or demons, but not in the category of God.

Idol: a human-made object (often a statue of metal, stone, or wood) worshiped as if a god but is not God.

• Deuteronomy 6:4 (later Jewish understanding): "Hear, O Israel, the LORD, our God, the LORD is one."
• Isaiah 41:29: "Ah, all of them are nothing, their works are nought, their idols, empty wind!"
• Isaiah 45:20–21: "There is no other God... There is no just and saving God but me."
• Psalm 96:5: "For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but the LORD made the heavens."
• The absolute unity and oneness of God is an aspect of monotheism.

📖 How to distinguish the stages

Stage	Belief	Example
Polytheism	Many gods exist; one is supreme	"Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods?" (Exodus 15:11)
Henotheism	Other gods exist, but worship only one	"You shall have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:2–3)
Monotheism	Only one God exists; others are imagined/idols	"There is no other God" (Isaiah 45:21)

• Common confusion: early biblical texts reflect earlier stages; later texts reflect monotheism. The idea developed over time, through stages.

🌌 Creator of all that is

🌌 God as first cause

• Israel's neighbors thought of natural forces (sun, storms) as gods or directly controlled by gods.
• The Israelites emphasized that the entire visible cosmos was created by God—it is creation, distinct from the creator.
• God is responsible for and in control of everything; in Greek philosophical terms, God is the first cause, the unmoved mover.
• Nehemiah 9:6: "You made the heavens... the earth and all that is upon it, the seas and all that is in them. To all of them you give life."

🌌 Purposeful, orderly, self-sufficient

• God is purposeful and deliberate about creating in an orderly way.
• God does not face challenges or opposition.
• Human beings are created with no ulterior motive.
• God is above the world as its creator; God is not a personification of nature.
• God does not need creation; God is self-sufficient.
• Don't confuse: Israel's neighbors had creation stories, but Israel's understanding of God as creator stands out in its emphasis on God's purposefulness, lack of opposition, and self-sufficiency.

🤝 Covenantal and transcendent

🤝 God freely chooses relationship

Covenantal God: God does not need us, but God freely chooses to enter into a binding contractual relationship with us.

Covenant: basically a contract.

• If God does not need anything, why do we exist?
• Israel's neighbors' gods were more powerful but not above bribery and influence.
• Israel's God is more transcendent (above us), but not so transcendent as to be distant.
• God makes demands as part of the contract, but not because of some need.
• God promises: if we live our lives a certain way (characterized by justice, love of neighbor, and exclusive reverence for God), God will reward us; if we do not uphold our end, God will punish us until we return to compliance.
• Can we sue God for breach of contract? No—the point is we won't have to.

🌟 Beyond human metaphors

• Israel's neighbors imagined gods as super-human through extension of human/animal characteristics (stronger, more powerful, faster).
• Early Israelites pictured God in human form, but moved away from thinking of God as even comparable to humans.
• They continued to use metaphors but recognized that metaphors for God are only metaphors.
• Hosea 11:9: "For I am God and not a man, the Holy One present among you."
• God may be compared to a father, protective mother, husband, warrior, king, or judge, but the comparisons are limited—God is not actually any of those.
• Implication: God may be compared to a male human, but God is not male.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Ancient Israelites developed multiple competing explanations for why evil and suffering exist in a world governed by a single, perfectly good God, ranging from divine punishment for sin to cosmic battles with evil forces, because no single answer satisfied all contexts or all people.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The core problem: Monotheism created a theological corner—if one God controls everything and is perfectly good, why does evil exist and why do the righteous suffer while the wicked prosper?
• Polytheism had easy answers: Israel's neighbors explained disasters as conflicts between multiple gods (e.g., Land vs. Sea) or divine distraction, but monotheism eliminated those options.
• Multiple solutions coexisted: Different Israelites favored different explanations at the same time, and some fit certain contexts better than others; the excerpt warns "you may not like all of them."
• Common confusion—community vs. individual justice: Deuteronomy applied punishment/reward to communities over generations, but later thinkers (like Ezekiel) insisted every individual gets exactly what they deserve, leading to the need for afterlife justice.
• Evolution over time: Ideas developed from slow communal chastisement (Deuteronomy) → personal prosperity (Proverbs) → radical individual justice (Ezekiel) → afterlife judgment (Daniel, 164 BCE) → cosmic evil forces (Satan).

🏛️ The polytheistic baseline and the monotheistic problem

🏛️ How polytheism explained evil easily

• Israel's ancient neighbors had "little trouble explaining why bad things happen" because the cosmos was full of drama and conflict among many gods.
• Natural disasters: explained as turf wars between divinized forces (e.g., Land vs. Sea).
• Military defeat: "our god was outwitted or overpowered by the enemies' god."
• Personal suffering: "maybe my protector god was distracted or mad at me because I did not offer enough gifts (sacrifices) and flattery (praise)."

🔒 The monotheistic corner

The Israelites "backed themselves into a corner by asserting that there is only one God in charge of everything, and that God is perfectly good."

• With one God controlling all outcomes, there is no rival god to blame and no divine distraction excuse.
• The excerpt notes diversity: "Previously… we saw diversity in the Hebrew Bible as ideas developed over time. On this issue, we see diversity at the same time because different Israelites favored different ways of dealing with the same question."

📖 Defining theodicy

Theodicy: "the question of God's justice in light of injustice/evil/suffering in the world."

• From Greek theos (god) + dikē (justice).
• Related terms:
  • Omnipotent: all-powerful.
  • Benevolent: wishing good.

⚖️ Two classical formulations

1. The logical problem: "If there is only one God who is perfectly good and powerful, why does evil exist? If God is all-powerful and chooses to let evil exist, then God is not perfectly good. If God wishes to defeat evil but cannot, then God is not all-powerful."
2. The fairness problem: "Why do the righteous suffer while the wicked prosper? If the cosmos is governed by a just judge, then everyone should get what one deserves."

🌫️ What counts as "evil"?

• The excerpt deliberately does not define "evil" up front because "the different answers seem to be focused on different conceptions of evil."
• Examples range in scale:
  • The Holocaust (6 million Jews murdered).
  • Not getting a deserved promotion.
  • A random flat tire on the way to a job interview.
  • Untimely death of a sister in a freak accident.
  • Timely death of a grandmother.
• "All of these can be conceived of as evil, injustice, or suffering, at least at the time for the person involved."

🪨 Early solutions: chastisement and long-run justice

🪨 Suffering as divine chastisement (Deuteronomy)

"God wills suffering for our own good, the way a parent punishes a child."

• The logic: God does not want us to suffer or sin, but if we sin, God chastises us so we will repent; once we repent, suffering ceases.
• The function: suffering is just (we deserve it), meaningful (tells us we are doing something wrong), and functional (prompts us to change).
• First response to suffering: "If you are suffering the first thing you should ask yourself is what have you done wrong to deserve it. Change that, and the problem will go away."

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Community-level, slow-moving justice

• Deuteronomy applies this system to communities as a whole over the long course of history, not individuals instantly.
• "If a single individual is wicked in a just society then the society will punish that individual. Only if society as a whole is wicked does it become necessary for God to step in."
• God punishes with "broad punishments like famine, plague, and invasion."

⏳ Timing struggles

• "Deuteronomy did not claim that the punishment immediately followed the sin, or that restoration immediately followed the repentance. These things moved slowly, and could take generations."
• Problem: "Many Israelites did not think it fair that they should be punished for what their grandparents did, or that their repentance would not pay off until their grandchildren."

❌ Don't confuse: Instant Karma

• The excerpt contrasts Deuteronomy with "Instant Karma" (popularized by John Lennon).
• Instant Karma: "the cosmos will pay you back for the good or evil you put into it, and will do so instantly… If you do a bad thing in the morning a bad thing will happen to you later in the day."
• Deuteronomy is "the opposite"—justice works slowly over generations and communities, not instantly for individuals.

💰 Prosperity for the righteous in one lifetime (Proverbs)

"Hard-working, righteous people do prosper in the long run, and lazy, wicked people fail."

• Proverbs "builds on the perspective of Deuteronomy, but applies it to prosperity within a person's lifetime."
• The "suffering" here is smaller scale: "not on the scale of war and famine, but poverty or mere lack of success."
• The claim: "If there appear to be exceptions in the short term, one must look harder to see that everything eventually works out justly. Setbacks and challenges build character for the righteous, while success is hollow and fleeting for the wicked."
• Controversy: "This perspective is controversial because it seems to suggest that the wealthy are wealthy because they deserve it, and the poor are poor because they deserve it. It is probably no coincidence that the book of Proverbs was written by some of the most privileged people in Israelite society."

🌌 Accepting mystery and radical individual justice

🌌 God's plan is unknowable (Ecclesiastes, Job)

"God's justice cannot be understood by human beings."

• These books "do not so much explain suffering in the world as challenge the human capacity to understand the explanation."
• The argument: "God may have reasons for causing good or bad things to happen to someone that humans do not and cannot understand. Maybe the sinner deserved it. Maybe the suffering will lead to greater happiness. Maybe it is part of God's larger plan."
• "We are not God, we do not know what God knows, and we are not as smart as God, so we cannot expect to understand or dictate what God should do. We should basically accept God's plan."

🙏 The Serenity Prayer parallel

The excerpt quotes:

"God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

⚠️ Limitations

• "The logic is strong but for many it fails to satisfy the basic human desire for an explanation."
• "It also emphasizes accepting what happens over taking responsibility for overcoming injustice."

⚖️ Radical personal responsibility (Ezekiel)

"Every individual gets exactly what that individual deserves."

• Ezekiel "completely rejected even the possibility that a righteous person might suffer or a wicked person get away with it."
• Context: "In the time of Ezekiel, many saw themselves as exceptions who did not deserve to suffer but were suffering because of wicked neighbors or ancestors."
• Ezekiel's response to the Babylonian invasion: "God sent angels to mark and protect the righteous while the wicked were left to be slaughtered by the Babylonian army."

🔮 Implication: afterlife becomes necessary

• "This radical assertion of God's justice is nice in that we would like to believe in such perfect fairness, but it is hard to reconcile with the world around us."
• "Ezekiel himself did not imagine an afterlife… but it seems to be inevitable given his claims."

⏰ Late developments: afterlife and cosmic enemies

⏰ Justice in the afterlife, not this life (Daniel, 164 BCE)

"An individual's soul and/or resurrected body will be judged directly and perfectly by God at some point after death."

• Today Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all believe strongly in an afterlife with perfect judgment.
• "If a person was wicked and unpunished in the first life, punishment would be extra severe in the second life. If a person was righteous and persecuted in this life, the reward would be extreme in the second life."
• Timing: "Remarkably, this idea developed fairly late. In the Hebrew Bible it is only found in the last chapter of the last book to be written, namely the book of Daniel, finished in 164 BCE."
• Context: "Daniel was written during a period of persecution, when it would be impossible to deny that wicked things happen to good people. Here I don't mean just a flat tire, but being killed simply for the religion you practice."

😈 God has enemies (Satan and evil angels)

"There are evil angels (or other cosmic forces) that are more powerful than humans, though less powerful than God."

• Developed "around the same time" as the afterlife idea.
• The problem it addresses: "The evil which the righteous face in this life cannot be explained by chastisement, bad luck, or bad choices made by human enemies. The suffering seemed super-natural in its scope, power, and evilness."

👿 Satan as rebel angel

• "Satan, at least in later times, is imagined as one of God's angels who rebelled against God, was cast out of heaven, and spends his time plotting vengeance against God and God's people."
• "Satan targets the righteous and helps the wicked."
• Reversal of Deuteronomy: "Quite the opposite of Deuteronomy, according to this model if you are suffering it is because you are especially righteous."

⏳ Judgment day is coming

• Evil forces "are attacking God and God's people, and temporarily they are succeeding. They are doomed to failure, but in the present they are doing just fine."
• "There will be a judgment day when everything is set right, but for now God is waiting until that predetermined day."

🔄 Monotheism preserved

• "This idea may sound like a return to polytheism in that there are super-human forces that battle and impact the human realm."
• "The monotheistic stamp is the inevitability (though delayed) of perfect and radical intervention by an all-powerful and all-just God."

📚 Found in apocalyptic literature

• "Chronologically, this solution goes more with the following unit on the early Jews and Christians. It is found especially in the apocalyptic literature, most of which was excluded from the Hebrew Bible."

🎯 Free will (later, under Greek influence)

"Free will gives us the power to choose."

• "One more concept was articulated later, under the influence of Greek philosophy, but is consistent with the Deuteronomistic view and its derivatives."
• The logic: "God did not create evil, but God did create free will and gave it to human beings. God wants us to choose good, but in order for there to be a choice there has to be an evil choice alongside the good choice."
• "Evil happens because humans fail to choose the good."
• "God could have eliminated the evil choices, but then it would be meaningless if, like robots, we follow the pre-determined script to do good."

🌡️ Evil as necessary contrast

• "Some philosophers claim that evil has to exist because we could not know the good if there were not evil with which to contrast, much like 'hot' is only understood in contrast to 'cold.'"

📝 Exercise: matching passages to theodicy views

The excerpt includes an exercise to match biblical passages to the theodicy views outlined above. The passages illustrate:

Passage theme	Likely view
"A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich."	Prosperity for the righteous (Proverbs)
"Whatever happens, it was designated long ago… man cannot contend with what is stronger than he."	God's plan is unknowable (Ecclesiastes)
"Many of those who sleep in the dust… shall awake; Some to everlasting life, others to reproach and everlasting disgrace."	Justice in the afterlife (Daniel)
"Parents eat sour grapes and their children's teeth are blunted… The person who sins, only he shall die."	Radical personal responsibility (Ezekiel)
"When you have children… should you act corruptly… you shall all quickly perish… Yet when you seek the LORD… you shall indeed find him."	Chastisement and repentance (Deuteronomy)
"The watchers, the sons of heaven, saw [daughters of men] and desired them… they swore… and bound one another with a curse… and began to defile themselves through them, and to teach them sorcery."	God has enemies (evil angels/apocalyptic literature)

Example: The Ezekiel passage explicitly rejects the proverb that children suffer for parents' sins ("Parents eat sour grapes and their children's teeth are blunted") and insists "The person who sins, only he shall die"—radical individual justice.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

For the Israelites, theology was inseparable from practice: their understanding of God demanded exclusive worship, pilgrimage festivals, ethical behavior, and purity standards that defined their identity and maintained their relationship with God.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Practice over creed: The Israelites emphasized how to live rather than abstract theological statements; beliefs always came with practical implications.
• Exclusive relationship with God: Israel was called to serve God alone, not Ba'al or other gods—this exclusivity was the core boundary that defined Israelite identity.
• Pilgrimage festivals: The Temple in Jerusalem was the central place to worship, with three annual festivals when the whole nation gathered.
• Ethical and purity standards: God expected ethical behavior (economic justice, protection of the vulnerable) and ritual purity (clean foods, avoiding impurity sources), though these standards evolved and differed from modern ethics.
• Common confusion: Ritual impurity vs. moral impurity—ritual impurity (touching a corpse, menstrual blood) was not sinful but required purification before approaching sacred things; moral impurity (idolatry, murder, adultery) polluted the Temple from a distance and required blood sacrifice to cleanse.

🛡️ Exclusive identity: Not Canaanite

🛡️ The boundary of exclusivity

A people called to live in a special and exclusive relationship with God.

• The Israelites were expected to serve God alone; conversely, God's promises and blessings were only for Israel.
• The most important boundary: not being Canaanite.
• This was difficult because Israelites originated in Canaan—same language, same architecture—so religious practice became the key differentiator.

⚔️ Cannot worship both gods

• The God of Israel (LORD) could not tolerate Israelites worshipping Ba'al, the Canaanite god.
• The excerpt compares this to marital fidelity: just as a spouse cannot tolerate infidelity, God cannot tolerate worship of other gods.
• In most of the ancient world, people celebrated festivals to multiple gods; Israelite prophets demanded exclusivity.
• Don't confuse: The problem was not that others worshipped other gods, but that an Israelite worshipped another god.

💍 Intermarriage controversy

Intermarriage: marriage between members of different groups.

• In the ancient world, religion was closely tied to ethnicity, so these distinctions were not clear-cut.
• The Israelites feared that marrying a non-Israelite would lead the Israelite spouse to worship the other god, offending the God of Israel.
• Debate existed: some said conversion was acceptable; others completely ruled out intermarriage.
• Modern parallels: Most Jews today fear intermarriage will dilute Jewish identity; Catholicism endorses marriages committed to raising children Catholic.

🌍 Pluralism vs. relativism

• The Israelites did not seek to wipe out all other religions.
• They believed their own people must choose one god or the other, not both.
• The excerpt notes: pluralism (awareness and tolerance) is good, but Catholicism opposes relativism (the idea that any religion is equally true or that truth varies by person).

🕍 Pilgrimage festivals

🕍 The Temple in Jerusalem

The Temple was by far the best place to address God (praise, requests, thanks) and celebrate being God's people.

• The Israelites believed they could pray to God from anywhere, but the Temple in Jerusalem was the central, legitimate place of worship.
• Although local shrines existed early on, the main teaching was that there is only one legitimate Temple.
• Individuals or families could travel to Jerusalem at any time for particular needs.

🎉 Three annual festivals

• The main emphasis was on pilgrimage festivals: the whole nation gathered in Jerusalem for a week at a time.
• Originally agricultural, celebrating three major harvests: early spring, late spring, and fall.
• What happened: Israelites gathered from all over, saw extended family, sang, danced, and brought offerings of meat, fruits, and vegetables.
• God took a little; the people shared most of it—sharing was emphasized.
• Example: A family would travel from their village, bring a lamb and grain, offer part to God, and feast with relatives and the poor.

🕌 Later practice

• Judaism today: Celebrates festivals in the home, since there has been no Temple in Jerusalem since 70 CE.
• Catholicism: Has pilgrimage journeys to holy sites (emphasis on the journey), but no requirement for a particular time or place.
• Islam: The Arabic word haj is a variation on the Hebrew word for pilgrimage festival (hag); Muslims who are able are expected to journey to Mecca at least once in their lifetimes.

⚖️ Ethical practices

⚖️ An ethical God

The Israelites conceived of their God as an ethical God who expected ethical behavior from God's people.

• The concept of an ethical God is enduring, but specific standards have changed over millennia.
• Christians today are often disappointed reading the Old Testament: some ideals seem impossible, others seem barbaric by modern standards.
• The Hebrew Bible mixes practical laws (impartial judicial system) with unenforceable ideals ("love God with all your heart," "love your neighbor as yourself").

💰 Economic justice

• The ideals may never have been fully followed:
  • Forbidden to charge interest on loans to fellow Israelites or deny loan requests.
  • Debts automatically cancelled every seven years.
• This was a super-natural financial system: God guarantees prosperity, especially for those who share.
• Goal: "There shall be no needy among you—since the LORD your God will bless you in the land." (Deuteronomy 15:4)
• Example: An Israelite lender could not refuse a loan request even in the sixth year (knowing debt cancellation was coming).

👩 Patriarchal society

A fundamentally patriarchal society.

• Women were the property of the men who controlled them (father, then husband).
• Women's rights were limited and could be overruled by men.
• Women were excluded from religious authority and many major religious practices (at least those recorded in the Bible).
• Many double standards: expectations for women differed from those for men.
• The entire Bible is written from a fundamentally male perspective.

Progressive for their time:

• Compared to the cultural context, biblical laws were actually progressive and sought to protect women.
• Restrictions on sexual relationships benefitted Israelite women compared to a society where men could do whatever they wanted.
• Don't confuse: Not acceptable by modern standards, but feminist Jews and Christians can still find inspirational messages by reading past these problems.

⛓️ Slavery

Although slavery was allowed to exist, the restrictions on slavery and rights of slaves were so liberal that slavery resembled contracted labor more than slavery.

• The Bible's standards do not seem ethical today but were an improvement at the time.
• Slavery was regulated to resemble contracted labor.

⚖️ Capital punishment

• The Bible calls for capital punishment for many offenses.
• Progressive aspect: Abolished capital punishment for property crimes (you can't be executed for stealing).

🧼 Purity and holiness

🍖 Food purity

The Israelites were only allowed to eat meat and drink milk from clean animals, such as sheep and cattle.

• Prohibited animals (unclean) are listed without explanation.
• Patterns:
  • Predatory or scavenging animals (vultures) were prohibited.
  • Bottom-feeders (crab, lobster, catfish) were excluded.
• Pork prohibition (debated reasons):
  • Perhaps they intuited that pork spreads disease more easily.
  • Perhaps it started as a local custom differentiating them from enemies.
  • Perhaps they recognized pigs compete with humans for food (eat the same food), whereas other animals eat grass.
  • Perhaps it was the smell.
• Today: Jews and Muslims agree pork must be avoided; most Christians accept it.

🧴 Ritual impurity

It was not necessarily a bad thing to be in a state of ritual impurity, but it meant that one could not touch sacred things (such as the Temple) until a cycle of time and washing was completed.

Sources of ritual impurity:

• Touching a dead body
• Skin disease
• Semen
• Menstrual blood

Theory: The common theme is death—skin disease represents decay, menstrual blood indicates a failed reproductive cycle, semen outside a womb missed its target. The implied ideal is many children.

Important: These normal parts of life were not inherently bad; they just meant restriction on contact with sacred things until purification.

🩸 Moral impurity

Moral impurity is a kind of pollution created by sin, particularly idolatry, adultery, and murder.

Type	Source	Effect	Remedy
Ritual impurity	Normal life events (corpse, menstruation, semen, skin disease)	Person cannot touch sacred things	Time + washing
Moral impurity	Sin (idolatry, adultery, murder)	Pollutes Temple from a distance	Blood sacrifice

Why moral impurity is serious:

• Unlike ritual impurity, keeping the impure person outside the Temple is not enough.
• Moral impurity pollutes the Temple from a distance.
• God is holy; holiness is incompatible with impurity.
• If moral impurity pollutes the Temple, God will leave—then God will not bless and protect the Israelites.

🩸 Blood and holiness

• For the Israelites, blood is holy: it is the life-force, the divine spark that makes us alive.
• Shedding human blood was completely prohibited.
• Shedding animal blood was okay only if the blood was given to God.
• Meat could be consumed, but never the blood.
• How blood was used: Holy blood was sprinkled, poured, or scrubbed on holy objects of the Temple to make them holy; it could also be sprinkled on humans to make them holy.

🐑 Animal sacrifices

• The Israelites rejected the idea that God needs sacrifices for food or bribery.
• Reasons for sacrifice:
  • Blood of sacrificial animals maintained the holiness of the Temple (removed moral impurity).
  • Food sacrifices were shared with others, especially the poor.
  • Priests who worked in the Temple relied on a portion of food offerings to feed themselves and their families.
• Today: Judaism does not practice animal sacrifice since the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Greek and Roman domination forced Jews to redefine their identity around essential beliefs and practices rather than political sovereignty, leading to internal debates that eventually split into Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Loss of centralized identity: After the destruction of the Second Temple (70 CE) and expulsion from Jerusalem (135 CE), Jews had to maintain identity without a capital, temple, or nation.
• Two survival strategies: Rabbinic Judaism organized around teachers and Jewish law; Christianity rejected ethnic origin and law as membership markers, defining God's people by faith in Jesus.
• Greek philosophical influence: Ideas like body-soul dualism, the immortality of the soul, and afterlife judgment spread from Greek thought into Jewish and Christian theology.
• Common confusion—martyrdom vs. survival: Some Jews revolted militarily and were crushed; others accepted martyrdom for faith; still others compromised to survive—each group had different theological justifications.
• Non-negotiable markers debate: Jews debated which practices were essential (circumcision, dietary laws, no idol worship) and whether non-Jews could join, a question that split early Christianity from Judaism.

📜 Historical turning points

🏛️ The Hellenistic Period (333 BCE onward)

• What happened: Alexander the Great conquered the region from Greece to India.
• "Hellenistic" means "Greek speaking."
• Jews confronted Greek philosophical ideas and cultural perspectives while some books of the Bible were still being written.

⚔️ The Maccabean Revolt (167–164 BCE)

A bloody conflict over Jewish identity between Jews who wanted to maintain separate laws and customs versus those who sought integration with Greek culture through assimilation.

• Result: basically a victory for the separatists, though serious compromises were made.
• This conflict showed that cultural pressure could escalate to violence over identity questions.

🏺 Roman occupation and the end of the Temple

Date	Event	Significance
63 BCE	Roman Empire takes direct rule	Judaism was a "permitted religion" but Roman armies were brutal toward any instability
70 CE	Destruction of Jerusalem and temple	All four Christian Gospels written after this; Jews lost their intellectual and spiritual center
135 CE	Jews banished from Jerusalem	Unlike the Babylonian Exile (a few decades), this loss was largely permanent

✝️ The rise of Christianity

• About 7–5 BCE: Birth of Jesus of Nazareth (several years before the year AD 1).
• About 30 CE: Death of Jesus by crucifixion.
• 50s CE: Paul's earliest preserved letters to churches accepting Jesus as Lord.
• 315 CE: Christianity becomes the favored religion of the Roman Empire after centuries of persecution.
• 325 CE: Christian leaders meet at Nicaea to establish uniformity in message and governance.

💀 Competing views of the afterlife

🪦 Ancient Israelite view: Sheol

The underworld (Sheol) as a place where the dead barely exist as shades—they enjoy no real pleasures but are not tormented either.

• Death can result from sin, but once dead, sinners are tormented no more than the righteous.
• This is a minimal, non-judgmental afterlife.

📜 Reputation as afterlife

• Some Jews rejected a conscious afterlife but believed one's reputation would live on after death if one lived a good life.
• This is "reward after life" without requiring belief in God or conscious existence.
• Example quotation theme: "A virtuous name will never be annihilated… a good name, for days without number."

🧠 Platonic soul judgment

Plato advanced the notion that upon death the soul separates from the body and is judged by its inner virtue or vice, and rewarded or punished accordingly.

• This basic notion continued in much of Judaism and Christianity.
• Why it mattered for theodicy: Even if justice is lacking in this life, eternity is perfectly just—this life is "only a tiny speck in eternity."
• Example quotation theme: The just go to "the Isles of the Blessed… beyond the reach of evils"; the unjust go to "Tartarus."

🧟 Resurrection of the body

• Many Jews rejected Plato's negative view of the body: "Me without a body is not really me."
• Especially for martyrs who gave up their lives for God, God's reward would be giving them their lives back in physical bodies.
• Example quotation: "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, others to reproach and everlasting disgrace."

✨ Paul's glorified body solution

• Early Christians were caught between two conflicting views:
  • Jewish origins valued resurrection of the body (starting with Jesus).
  • Gentile (non-Jewish) converts found bodies "coming back to life like zombies" ridiculous and undesirable.
• Paul's compromise: The resurrected body would be a glorified body—tangible but without aches, pain, lusts, and corruptibility.
• Christians believe Jesus was already resurrected and all Christians will be resurrected when Jesus returns in the future.
• Example quotation: "It is sown corruptible; it is raised incorruptible… sown a natural body; raised a spiritual body."
• Don't confuse: A zombie is the same body raised without a soul; Paul believes the soul will rise again in an incorruptible body.

🌀 Other views (not adopted by Judaism/Christianity)

• Epicureanism: Upon death one ceases to exist—neither happy nor sad. Make the most of this life; avoid worrying about death.
• Reincarnation (Hinduism/Buddhism): The same soul cycles through many births and deaths in different bodies; ultimate goal is to break the cycle and enter spiritual union with the universe.

⚖️ Martyrdom and survival strategies

🛡️ What is a martyr?

Those who chose to die rather than compromise their values.

• This became an issue under Antiochus Epiphanes and led to the Maccabean Revolt.
• Romans demanded political submission and worship of emperors as gods.
• The blurred line: Refusal to worship the emperor looked like political insubordination to Romans; emperor worship looked like religious persecution to Jews and Christians.

🗡️ Military revolt (failed strategy)

• Some Jewish communities were large enough to form armies and revolt against Roman rule.
• They believed God and the angels would help them defeat the Roman army.
• Result: "They were wrong. The Romans killed them and now they are dead."

🕊️ Willing martyrdom (survival through witness)

• Jews who survived tried to avoid confrontation but when necessary were willing to die rather than abandon what distinguished them as Jews.
• Other Jews looked up to them and became stronger in their commitment.
• Christian approach: Christians were not numerous enough for military challenge. They believed martyrs would have special reward in the afterlife and be resurrected when Jesus returns.
• "Every horrible and painful death became a marketing campaign for the new movement that promised liberation from earthly power and fear of death."

🤐 Compromise for survival

• A significant number of Jews and Christians were willing to do or say whatever it took to save their lives, especially if it was just a one-time test.
• Their stories were not remembered.
• There was debate about whether they should be allowed to rejoin their communities after the persecution passed.

🔑 Non-negotiable identity markers

🛑 The three essential markers

Three key items were widely accepted as essential markers of Jewish identity that could not be compromised:

Marker	Why it was controversial
No worshiping Greek/Roman gods or kings	Many public events and festivals (e.g., Olympics) included prayer and sacrifice to gods
Males must be circumcised	Greeks viewed the body as a work of art; circumcision was mutilation of the beautiful human form
No pork	This one biblical law became symbolic of all the others

• Other elements were important to some Jews but not others: authority of the high priest, the Hebrew language.
• Some Jews in Greek-speaking centers started to think of Moses as a philosopher like Plato.

🌍 Language debate: Greek or Hebrew?

• The question: What are the implications of adopting the language of a dominant culture versus holding onto your traditional language?
• This was not just practical but symbolic of cultural assimilation.

🚪 Can non-Jews join God's people?

• Ethnic exclusivity view: Many understood God's people Israel as biological descendants of Jacob, so placed little interest in other ethnic groups joining.
• Universal inclusion view: Others concluded that if there is only one God, that God should be worshiped by all nations—all nations should eventually join the Jews.

✝️ The Christian split on membership

• Christianity started as a Jewish movement (Jesus and disciples were Jewish).
• As the message spread, many non-Jews wanted to join.
• Debate: Some early followers thought non-Jews had to become Jewish and keep Jewish laws (circumcision, dietary laws, sabbath).
• Paul's dominant view: God's people are all those unified in faith in Jesus as Lord. Ethnicity and observance of Jewish laws were not essential.
• Non-negotiable for Christians: Renouncing belief in Jesus as Lord or worshiping the Roman emperor as Lord was unacceptable.

🌍 Apocalyptic expectations: God's plan for the world

🔥 Why radical recreation seemed necessary

Several factors combined in the second century BCE to form a strong conviction that the world as we know it is not the world God wants:

1. Theological logic:

   • God is the sovereign creator of all that is.
   • The world as God created it was very good.
   • The world today is thoroughly messed up.
   • Conclusion: The state of the world today is not tolerable in God's view.

2. Biblical precedent for radical recreation:

   • God originally created the world out of chaos (a formless void) and made it "very good."
   • Implication: The current state is chaos, so God will end this world and create a new heavens and a new earth.
   • The flood analogy: The earth was filled with wickedness, so God killed everyone except Noah's family in an ark. Similarly, God will destroy the earth again, and only a small sect of truly righteous people will be saved.

3. Radical justice expectations:

   • Thinkers like Ezekiel took a radical view of God's justice: every individual gets exactly what is deserved.
   • The more one expects God to reward God's people, the more one is disappointed when things don't work out.
   • This leads to a cycle of frustration and more radical hopes.

🏛️ Political sovereignty vs. spiritual identity

• Although Judaism as it survived developed an identity that did not depend on political sovereignty, many people along the way acted on the belief that God's people should be politically independent.
• This tension between spiritual identity and political power remained unresolved and fueled apocalyptic hopes.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Many Jews in the second century BCE developed the expectation that God would intervene to destroy the current corrupt world and establish a radically different age of justice, often through a supernatural Messiah and a kingdom of God.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Why radical hope emerged: the combination of belief in God as sovereign creator, the world originally being "very good," and the current world being "thoroughly messed up" led to the conviction that God would not tolerate the present state and would recreate the world.
• Biblical precedents: God's original creation from chaos and the flood story supported the idea that God could and would radically destroy and remake the world, saving only a small righteous remnant.
• Eschatology vs apocalypse confusion: eschatology is theological discourse about the afterlife and the end of the world; apocalypse is a literary genre that uncovers hidden things about angels, demons, heaven, hell, and historical patterns—not simply "the end of the world."
• Messiah originally meant: the anointed human king, a descendant of David; over time, as hopes were frustrated, the expectation became more radical and supernatural, though the Messiah always remained human.
• Kingdom of God shift: originally meant a literal earthly political kingdom where Jews would rule; later reinterpreted by early Christians as something present in hearts and communities, both "already and not yet."

🔥 Why Jews expected God to remake the world

🔥 The logical chain of conviction

Three ideas combined to form a powerful conclusion:

• God is the sovereign creator of all that exists.
• The world as God created it was very good.
• The world as observed today is thoroughly messed up.
• Conclusion: The current state of the world is not tolerable in God's view.

This reasoning was especially strong in the second century BCE due to factors already discussed in the source (not detailed in this excerpt).

📖 Biblical precedents for radical recreation

The excerpt identifies two key biblical stories that supported the idea God would destroy and remake the world:

Precedent	What happened	Implication for the future
Original creation	God created the world out of chaos (a formless void) and made it "very good"	The current chaos means God will end this world and create a new heavens and a new earth
The flood	God killed everyone except Noah's family because the earth was filled with wickedness	God will destroy the earth again, saving only a small sect of truly righteous people

⚖️ Theodicy and the cycle of frustration

• Thinkers like Ezekiel took a radical view of God's justice: every individual gets exactly what is deserved.
• The more one expects God to reward God's people, the more disappointed one becomes when things don't work out.
• This creates a cycle: frustration → more radical hopes → more disappointment → even more radical expectations.
• Don't confuse: this is not about abstract justice theory; it's about concrete disappointment driving escalating expectations of divine intervention.

🗡️ Political sovereignty and apocalyptic literature

• Although Judaism as it survived developed an identity independent of political sovereignty, many people along the way believed God's people should be politically independent and even rule the earth.
• These efforts did not succeed in the end, but they produced "some cool literature" (the excerpt's phrase).
• Example: groups that revolted against empires failed politically but left behind apocalyptic texts describing their hopes.

📚 Key terms: Eschatology and Apocalypse

📚 Eschatology defined

Eschatology: theological discourse about the afterlife and the end of the world.

• Etymology: Greek eschatoi (last things) + logoi (words, discourse).
• Classical definition: discourse about four last things—death, judgment, heaven, and hell.
• Modern usage: our ultimate hope as Christians; where we hope the world is going and what God will do for it.
• Important insight: what we say about the goal or end of the world reveals how we view the present world and life.

🌍 Spectrum of eschatological views

The excerpt describes a spectrum from negative to positive extremes:

Extreme	View of the world	Implication
Negative	World is so thoroughly corrupt that God can only destroy it completely and start over	Focus on escaping this life into an afterlife; radical reward (heaven) and punishment (hell)
Positive	World is so good that the only thing remaining is for everyone to realize God's presence as some already do	Already living in spiritual bliss

Many degrees and combinations exist in between.

📜 Apocalypse as literary genre

Apocalypse: a literary genre that uncovers hidden things about invisible agents (angels, demons), places (heaven, hell), and historical patterns (day of judgment, end of the world).

• Etymology: "uncovering of hidden things" or "revelation."
• Common confusion: apocalypse does NOT mean "the end of the world" or "catastrophic end"—that is a misuse of the term.
• Apocalypse is a kind of literature, like sonnet or murder mystery.
• Famous examples: parts of Daniel, the Apocalypse of John (Book of Revelation) in the New Testament.
• Popular usage: "apocalyptic" describes anything reminiscent of the Book of Revelation.
• Many apocalypses exist outside the Bible.

👑 Messiahs and the anointed one

👑 Original meaning of Messiah

Messiah: from Hebrew mashiach (anointed one); in Greek, christos (Christ is a title, not a name).

• Anointing with oil is an ancient ritual marking a significant change in legal status.
• Examples of anointing: slave becoming free, priest being ordained, king being crowned.
• Most relevant: the king would be anointed when he became king (or king designate).
• During the monarchic period, the anointed one was the king of Israel, the descendant of David.

🔄 Evolution after the monarchy ended

When the monarchic period ended in 587 BCE (Babylonian Exile), God's promise that David's descendants would rule forever seemed false. Responses included:

• Some tried to restore the monarchy.
• Some said the promise was conditional all along.
• Some tried to transfer the promise in some way.
• Most relevant here: many held onto hope that God would someday restore the monarchy of the son of David.

⚡ From practical to supernatural expectation

• At first, the hope was for a relatively practical, ordinary human king.
• As the cycle of hope and frustration continued, the expectation became more radical.
• Many Jews came to expect a supernatural king who would usher in a new era of Jewish sovereignty and perfect justice.
• This eschatological king is usually meant when the word is capitalized: "the Messiah."
• Important: although the idea became supernatural, the Messiah always remains human.
• Don't confuse: eschatological scenarios where God or an angel acts directly (without a major human agent) are not appropriately called Messianic.

🏷️ Synonymous titles

The excerpt notes that these titles are essentially synonymous and applied to Jesus of Nazareth:

• Son of David
• (Adopted) Son of God
• King of the Jews (or King of Kings)
• Anointed One
• Messiah
• Christ

🏰 Kingdom of God

🏰 Original literal meaning

Kingdom of God (or God's people): originally meant very literally as an earthly, political kingdom.

• Many Jews expected God and God's people to be their own kingdom.
• Some thought God's people should be free of foreign rule and perhaps themselves be the rulers of the world.
• They looked at great empires (Persians, Medes, Seleucid Greeks, Romans) and thought their power was inversely proportionate to their virtue.
• Reasoning: Why would God allow that? Shouldn't the righteous be in charge? Surely God is getting around to defeating the current empire and setting up the Jews in their place.

🔄 Shift in early Christianity

• This literal political expectation was true before Jesus and well into the early days of his followers.
• Many early Christians expected Jesus to come back soon, overthrow the Romans, and establish a political kingdom.
• As that did not happen, Christians began to reflect on Jesus' teachings about the Kingdom of God as something that can exist in their hearts or in small communities sharing a common life in the body of Christ.
• Some argue followers of Jesus came to understand the kingdom not as an alternative kingdom, but a critique of the very idea of domination in all aspects of life.

⏳ Already and not yet

• Today most Christians say the kingdom of God is both already and not yet.
• Already: with us in the faith Jesus has given us.
• Not yet: remains unfulfilled until Jesus returns and makes manifest his victory over sin and death.
• Realized eschatology: the idea that the fundamental change (if not end exactly) in the world has already taken place.

🐉 Daniel 7: A key apocalyptic text

🐉 Context and setting

• The Book of Daniel is probably the last book of the Hebrew Bible to be completed, around 164 BCE (this chapter is in Aramaic).
• Set in the sixth century BCE during the Babylonian Exile.
• Although most Jews recognize Cyrus the Persian's decree in 538 as ending the Exile, Daniel suggests the Exile didn't really end in the sense of properly restoring the kingdom of God.
• Daniel 7 uses the apocalypse genre to describe the revelation of the real pattern of history.
• It was tremendously influential on early Christianity.

🦁 The four beasts and kingdoms

The vision describes four great beasts representing four kingdoms:

Beast	Description	Kingdom represented
First	Like a lion with eagle's wings; wings plucked, raised to stand on two feet like a human, given a human mind	Babylonian
Second	Like a bear raised on one side, three tusks in mouth, ordered to "devour much flesh"	Persian
Third	Like a leopard with four wings and four heads; given dominion	Median
Fourth	Terrifying, horrible, extraordinary strength; great iron teeth; devoured, crushed, trampled; had ten horns	Greek

• Each beast could represent the guardian angel of the kingdom or the kingdom itself (every kingdom was assumed to have its own guardian angel, not necessarily good).

🔔 The little horn

• From the fourth beast, a little horn sprang out, tearing away three previous horns.
• This horn had eyes like human eyes and a mouth that spoke arrogantly.
• The original audience would have recognized this as Antiochus Epiphanes (ruled 175–164 BCE), who did not get along well with religious Jews.
• The horn made war against the holy ones and was victorious for "a time, two times, and half a time" (cryptically meaning three and a half years, the harshest period of conflict under Antiochus).

👴 The Ancient of Days and the Son of Man

The vision then shifts to a heavenly court scene:

• The Ancient of Days (God) takes his throne; clothing white as snow, hair like pure wool, throne of flames of fire.
• A river of fire surged forth; thousands ministering to him, myriads standing before him.
• The court convened, books opened.
• The fourth beast was slain, body destroyed and thrown into burning fire.
• Other beasts had dominion taken away but were granted prolonged life.
• "One like a son of man" came with the clouds of heaven, presented before the Ancient of Days.
• He received dominion, splendor, and kingship; all nations will serve him; his dominion is everlasting.

🧩 Interpretation of "son of man"

"One like a son of man" (later shortened to "son of man"): originally this human-like figure contrasted with the beast-monsters; it was also an angel, specifically Michael, the guardian angel of Israel.

• Michael's dominion over the other angels translates in earthly terms to Israel's dominion over the other nations.
• This phrase was richly interpreted and came to mean much more than its original meaning.
• Confusing reversal: "Son of God" was originally a title of the human king (adopted son relationship to God), while "Son of Man" originally meant human but in Daniel starts to mean the opposite—an angel or cosmic being sent from heaven.
• Christians will say Jesus is both: a divine being sent from heaven as ruler of the kingdom of God (Son of Man) and a human descendant of King David (Son of God).

🕊️ The holy ones and the kingdom

• The Most High: God.
• Holy ones of the Most High: primarily the angels; can also refer to God's holy humans (priests in particular or God's people in general).
• Verse 18: "But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingship, to possess it forever and ever."
• Verse 27: "Then the kingship and dominion and majesty of all the kingdoms under the heavens shall be given to the people of the holy ones of the Most High, whose kingship shall be an everlasting kingship, whom all dominions shall serve and obey."
• Note: the phrase "kingdom of God" does not technically appear in this chapter, but the kingdom of the holy ones of God develops into the idea of the kingdom of God.

🔐 Cryptic imagery and influence

• Apocalypses love cryptic imagery so the audience feels smart when they decode it.
• Example: "a time, two times, and half a time" = three and a half years.
• The idea that God was about to create God's own kingdom in contrast to the wicked empires of the day was tremendously influential.
• Some Jews used this to justify revolting against the Seleucids and Romans.
• The Jews who followed Jesus adapted the idea to an internal reality in addition to a prediction of the future.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Historical scholarship reconstructs Jesus of Nazareth as a charismatic healer, ethical teacher, and prophet of God's kingdom whose followers gradually came to believe he was the Messiah and Lord, developing faith retrospectively after his death.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Historical Jesus scholarship: aims to reconstruct objective facts about the human Jesus, separate from faith claims, by reading past bias in sources written long after his death by believers.
• What Jesus did: remembered as a charismatic healer and miracle worker, an ethical teacher with high standards for God's law, and a prophet preparing Jews for the Kingdom of God.
• Faith as process: followers did not immediately recognize Jesus' significance; faith developed gradually through retrospect after Jesus was gone, not as instant acceptance of propositions.
• Common confusion—Jesus vs. Christ: "Jesus" names the historical human being; "Christ" (Messiah) is the faith claim about him; scholars distinguish the person from the belief system that developed.
• Three key titles: Jesus came to be seen as fulfilling scripture, as Messiah (though he did not defeat Rome as expected), and as "Lord" (a term ranging from respectful authority to divinity, eventually leading to the Trinity doctrine).

📚 Historical Jesus scholarship

🔍 What it means to study the historical Jesus

The historical Jesus: reconstructing the facts of the life of Jesus of Nazareth (and his followers) as objectively as possible, as one might write a historical study of Julius Caesar or Thomas Jefferson.

• Modern (19th–20th century) biblical scholars wanted to be objective—to excavate historical facts hidden in the text the way an archaeologist excavates artifacts.
• Critical historians read past bias or correct for bias to arrive at truth that reasonable people can agree upon regardless of faith, opinion, or personal feelings.
• Example: "Jesus is God" is a faith claim; "Jesus' followers came to believe that he was God" is a provable historical fact.

📖 The sources and their limits

• We do not have accounts of Jesus by people who did not believe he was the Messiah.
• We do not have any documents Jesus wrote himself.
• The earliest letters (Paul's, written in the 50s CE) come from someone who never met Jesus and does not tell us much about him as a person.
• The earliest Gospel was written shortly after 70 CE; all four Gospels took another 30 years to be written.
• Don't confuse: a Gospel is not the same thing as a biography; Gospel writers were not trying to record historical facts but to tell a story that would lead listeners to believe Jesus is the Messiah and Lord.

🧩 Distinguishing the person from the faith claim

• The name of the human being is "Jesus."
• The faith claim about him is "Christ."
• Christians use the terms interchangeably, but non-Christians and Christian scholars trying to be objective distinguish the historical person from the system of beliefs that developed about him.
• One could say Jesus became Christ in the hearts and minds of his followers (regardless of whether one believes he was Christ all along before they realized it).

🤝 Why historical Jesus research is constructive

🛡️ Not a threat to faith

• At first, the historical Jesus approach seemed to imply that only what is provable historically is true.
• However, the Catholic tradition insists that faith and reason go hand-in-hand: faith can go beyond reason, but reason cannot contradict true faith (though it can clarify or correct it).
• Things (such as legends or stories) can be true in ways deeper than historical accuracy.

🌱 Faith as a developmental process

• The payoff: historical Jesus scholarship helps us understand not only Jesus more accurately but also faith as a process of development in a community of followers.
• By all accounts, faith did not immediately strike everyone who saw Jesus; even his closest friends took a while to figure it out and continued to make mistakes.
• To a large degree, Christian faith came with retrospect, after Jesus was gone.
• Rather than faith being a set of propositions to accept (with promise of heaven) or reject (with threats of hell), faith becomes participation in the process by which the first followers of Jesus discovered faith.

🩺 What Jesus did: three core roles

🙌 Charismatic healer

• Jesus raised attention not just with words but with miracles and actions.
• Charismatic healers were somewhat common at the time (and in many cultures).
• Scientists say the power of the mind and persuasion can allow miraculous transformation; Gospel writers say it shows Jesus had the power of God known previously in agents like Moses and Elijah.
• Example from Mark 6:53–56: people brought the sick on mats to wherever Jesus was; they begged to touch only the tassel on his cloak, and as many as touched it were healed.

📜 Ethical teacher

• In Jesus' day, religious Jews argued over the proper interpretation of the law God gave through Moses on Mount Sinai.
• Jesus was very annoyed with people who thought following arcane legal procedures made them holier than others.
• He suggested one could never run out of room for improvement or be holier than God, but he also emphasized the possibility of reconciliation with God despite inevitable shortcomings.
• The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1–48) is a classic of ethical teaching, including the Beatitudes ("Blessed are the poor in spirit…") and radical reinterpretations of the law (e.g., "You have heard… but I say to you…").
• Don't confuse: Jesus did not abolish the law; he said, "I have come not to abolish but to fulfill" and "until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter… will pass from the law."

🌾 Prophet of the Kingdom of God

• Jesus often taught about the soon-coming Kingdom of God (or Heaven).
• His ethical teachings were tied to the expectation that a higher standard would be required for inclusion in the new kingdom.
• Example from Mark 4:26–32: parables comparing the kingdom to a man scattering seed (it grows on its own) and to a mustard seed (smallest seed that becomes the largest plant).

🏆 Three key titles of Jesus

📖 Fulfillment of the scriptures

• Many passages in the Bible were understood as predictions of future events; Jesus was seen as fulfilling those predictions.
• More importantly, Jesus came to be seen as fulfilling the larger promises of justice, a kingdom of God, and a son of David who would rule as king.
• Example: Matthew 26:56 says, "But all this has come to pass that the writings of the prophets may be fulfilled."

👑 Messiah

• If Jesus fulfills the promise that a son of David would always rule as king, that would make Jesus the Messiah.
• There was disagreement about what that meant exactly; Jews who expected the Messiah expected him to defeat the Romans, which Jesus did not do.
• It seems the historical Jesus was not viewed by many as the Messiah during his lifetime.
• According to Mark, Jesus kept the fact that he was the Messiah a secret (Mark 8:27–30: Peter says "You are the Messiah," and Jesus warns them not to tell anyone).
• Mark suggests Jesus let the secret out shortly before he was killed (Mark 14:60–62: Jesus answers the high priest, "I am; and 'you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven'").
• Note: Jesus claimed both roles—Messiah and Son of Man (quoting Daniel 7).

🙏 Lord

• The third and trickiest title is "Lord."
• Although attested very early, the meaning is ambiguous.
• In Aramaic and Greek (like Spanish señor), the word can be used for any respected authority, from a crew chief to God.
• Example from Romans 10:9–13: "If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." The lordship of Jesus is essentially identical to what is said of Lord God in the Old Testament, yet "God" appears as a separate being who acts upon Jesus.

🔺 The Trinity: a later development

🤯 Three persons in one God

• Eventually Christians will say there are three persons in one God: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• Such that Jesus is God and also God is God, and also God's spirit is God.
• God gets along with God and talks to God and raises God from the dead; God sends God's God to God's people in God.
• This is the Trinity; it is not supposed to make sense but to blow your mind (the theological term is "mystery").

📝 Not in the New Testament

• The New Testament never articulates the teaching of the Trinity.
• It seems several authors must have had something like it in mind, but it took a while to straighten out the whole thing—for example, how Jesus can be God and sit at the right hand of God and be raised by God.

🖼️ Historical appearance vs. faith portrayals

🧬 Scientific reconstruction

• The excerpt mentions an image of Jesus based on scientific data on how a Galilean at the time would have appeared.
• Portrayals of Jesus with a halo, blue eyes, and white skin are based on faith and cultural assumptions, not historical evidence.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Early Christians explained Jesus' death as a necessary event that either transferred humanity's sin-debt through vicarious suffering or enabled him to defeat death itself and share that victory with all believers.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The shock of crucifixion: Jesus' gruesome execution by Rome contradicted expectations that the Messiah would defeat the Romans, forcing his followers to find meaning in his death.
• Two major explanations: (1) Jesus transferred others' sins to himself through suffering, and (2) Jesus had to die in order to battle and defeat death through resurrection.
• The sin-debt metaphor: Sin was understood as a debt owed to God, payable only through suffering, blood, or death—Jesus paid that debt for others.
• Common confusion: The difference between escaping death (a one-time event) vs. defeating death (a shared victory for everyone on Jesus' team).
• Scriptural fulfillment: Followers interpreted passages like Isaiah 53 (the "suffering servant") as prophecies explaining Jesus' death and its redemptive purpose.

⚖️ Historical context and the crisis of the crucifixion

⚖️ The execution and its shock

• Jesus of Nazareth gained followers and preached a message that challenged the status quo.
• Jewish and/or Roman authorities were uncomfortable with revolutionary movements.
• He was publicly executed by crucifixion—a slow, gruesome method where the victim suffocates under their own weight.
• The problem: The Messiah was supposed to battle the Romans and win; death seemed to prove Jesus was not the Messiah.

🔍 How followers resolved the confusion

• For those closest to Jesus, death could not be the end of "something radically new."
• Sources report that confusion was resolved by:
  • Eye-witness testimony of the empty tomb.
  • Sightings of the resurrected Jesus.
• Scholars suggest followers came to find meaning in his death as "necessary but not permanent."
• Don't confuse: accepting resurrection on faith vs. scholarly accounts of how meaning was constructed.

💰 Explanation 1: Transfer of sins through vicarious suffering

💰 The economic metaphor of sin

Sin as debt: When one does wrong, one "owes" God—like owing a quarter to a swear jar after using impolite language.

• The debt cannot be paid with money, only with suffering, blood, or death.
• Everyone has a "balance sheet in the sky"; the more we sin, the more suffering we owe.

🐑 Animal sacrifice and substitution

• One idea: the blood of an animal could substitute for the blood of the sinner.
• Sacrificing an animal to God could "pay off the balance sheet."
• For some New Testament writers, Jesus was the perfect sacrifice replacing ordinary animal sacrifice.
• Example: John calls Jesus the "Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world"—an ordinary sheep might take away some sins, but the son of God is far more effective.

🤝 Paying other people's debts

Vicarious suffering: suffering on behalf of others (a concept already present in Judaism).

• The dominant idea: the total balance sheet had to amount to zero, but one could pay other people's debts.
• Jesus had no sin-debts but paid the ultimate suffering-price.
• With those extra credits, he could pay off the debts of his friends and followers.

📖 The suffering servant in Isaiah 53

• Followers believed Jesus "fulfilled the scriptures," so they turned to scripture for clues.
• In Isaiah (combined with Psalms), they found the "suffering servant"—a figure who did not deserve to suffer but voluntarily suffered on behalf of others.
• Original context: The suffering servant was a metaphor for the Israelites exiled in Babylon, who appeared defeated but were actually advancing God's plan.
• Christian reinterpretation: Jesus' followers saw this passage as the key to understanding his death and the greater good that would come from it.
• Key themes from Isaiah 53:
  • "He was pierced for our sins, crushed for our iniquity."
  • "The LORD laid upon him the guilt of us all."
  • "Like a lamb led to slaughter… he did not open his mouth."
  • "He surrendered himself to death… bore the sins of many."

🧩 Factual events vs. theological truth

• Some details (e.g., "they divide my garments… cast lots" from Psalm 22) raise questions:
  • Did Romans actually do this, reminding followers of the Psalms?
  • Or did followers provide this detail to communicate the greater truth that Jesus fulfills the Psalm?
• The excerpt's answer: It could be both, but the deeper truth about the victory of life over death is far more important than the historicity of a detail.
• Gospel writers were not compiling historical facts unless they found theological significance.

⚔️ Explanation 2: Defeating death through resurrection

⚔️ The difference between escaping and defeating death

• Escaping death: a one-time event (just Jesus gets out).
• Defeating death: a shared victory—everyone on Jesus' team can participate in the resurrection.
• Jesus had to die in order to battle death, defeat it, and rise from the dead.

📜 The backstory: Adam's contract with Death

The basic outline from early Christian thought:

1. God's original plan: The first human, Adam, could have lived forever had he not sinned; God intended eternal life from the beginning.
2. The threat: God commanded Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge—"on the day you eat of it you shall surely die."
3. The interpretation: Adam ate the fruit but lived to 930 years; one interpretation is "on the day you eat of it you shall surely become mortal."
4. The contract: Adam signed a contract with Death—all his descendants would sin and die; Death had a mandate over all sinners (everyone).

⚡ Satan's mistake and Jesus' victory

• Jesus' sinlessness: Jesus is human but does not sin; Satan tries to catch him but fails.
• Satan's error: Satan loves to make people sin and encouraged people to torture Jesus to death—normally within his mandate because everyone is a sinner.
• The problem: Satan forgot to check the books before encouraging Jesus' death.
• The confrontation: Jesus goes to the underworld and tells Death, "You have no right to keep me here."
  • Death: "I have a contract with the first human giving me power over all his children because they sin."
  • Jesus: "Not me. You screwed up."
  • Death violated the mandate; the whole deal is off.
• The absolute victory: Jesus rips up Adam's contract; his victory over Death is absolute, and all on his team share it.

🚪 The Harrowing of Hell

From the Gospel of Nicodemus, a primary source describing what Jesus did between death and resurrection:

Event	What happened
Satan's warning	Satan tells Hades (Death) that Jesus is coming; Hades fears Jesus' power after hearing he raised Lazarus.
The loud voice	"Lift up your gates… and the King of Glory shall come in" (Psalm 24:7).
Gates smashed	The gates of brass break, bars of iron crush, all the dead are loosed from chains.
Jesus enters	The King of Glory enters as a man; all dark places of Hades are illuminated.
Satan bound	Jesus seizes Satan, hands him to angels: "Bind his hands, feet, neck, and mouth."
Hades rebukes Satan	Hades to Satan: "Through what necessity did you contrive that the King of Glory should be crucified, so that he should come here and strip us naked?"
Adam and the dead rescued	Jesus takes Adam by the hand and raises him up; all who died "through the tree" are raised "through the tree of the cross."

• Example from the text: Hades says, "I devoured a certain dead man called Lazarus, and soon afterwards one of the living drew him up forcibly from my entrails with only a word."
• Don't confuse: This version emphasizes all the dead were rescued and Satan is left bound; other Christians did not accept that death and sin are currently powerless (we still experience both).

🔮 Symbolic vs. absolute victory

• Some versions suggest Jesus had a symbolic victory in his own resurrection.
• The absolute victory will happen in the future when Jesus returns.
• This distinction matters because we still experience death and sin "the same way we did before Jesus."

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Early Christians expected Jesus to return soon in unmistakable glory to defeat false empires, judge all people, and establish God's complete kingdom, though beliefs about timing, criteria for judgment, and what happens between death and return have varied significantly.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The core expectation: Jesus will return in visible glory to do what the Messiah was supposed to do—defeat evil powers, judge all nations, and fully establish God's kingdom.
• Timing shifted over time: the first Christians expected Jesus to return within their lifetimes; when that didn't happen, Christians developed teachings about the "intermediate state" between death and Jesus' return.
• Judgment criteria vary across passages: some emphasize charitable treatment of the needy (Matthew 25), others emphasize belief in Jesus as Lord, enduring suffering, or predestination.
• Common confusion—Rapture vs. traditional teaching: the "Rapture" (sudden disappearance of believers before catastrophes) is popular in American Evangelicalism but is not taught in Catholic tradition and does not appear in the Bible by that name.
• Practical implications: what you believe about Jesus' return affects how you live—whether you care for the earth, how you spend your time, and what you prioritize (right belief vs. right action).

🌟 The second coming in glory

🌟 Why "glory" matters

• During his earthly life, Jesus did not display the glory expected of the Son of Man from Daniel 7.
• He did not live or die a glorious life by worldly standards.
• The second coming was expected to differ primarily in that Jesus' glory would be unmistakable to everyone, not just his followers.

"For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father's glory, and then he will repay everyone according to his conduct." (Matthew 16:27)

🏛️ Defeating false empire and false glory

• Early Christians saw the Roman Empire as the opposite of God's kingdom—it appeared glorious (architecture, wealth, military power) but was actually corrupt.
• Christians claimed to see past appearances: Jesus deserves true power and glory; Rome is false.
• When Jesus returns, everyone will see what Christians already see.
• The book of Revelation uses symbolic imagery (the beast from the sea with ten horns and seven heads) to critique Rome's false power and worship.
• Catholic interpretation: Revelation is not a literal play-by-play prediction of future events; its insight is the critique of false glory, false power, false empire, and false worship.

Example: Revelation 13 describes a beast that the whole world follows and worships, representing the seductive but ultimately corrupt power of empire; Christians are called to faithful endurance rather than giving in to that power.

⚖️ Judgment of the living and the dead

⚖️ Who will be judged

• Consistent with Daniel 7, the Son of Man is expected to judge all nations.
• Some passages suggest judgment of the living; others indicate the dead will be resurrected so they can be judged.

"I saw the dead, the great and the lowly, standing before the throne, and scrolls were opened... The dead were judged according to their deeds." (Revelation 20:12–13)

📋 What criteria for judgment?

The excerpt shows multiple criteria across different passages:

Passage	Criterion emphasized	What it says
Matthew 25:31–46	Charitable treatment of the needy	Feeding the hungry, welcoming strangers, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned—"whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me"
Other passages	Belief that Jesus is Lord	Emphasize correct belief as most important
Other passages	Enduring suffering for Christ	Emphasize faithful endurance through persecution
Other passages	Predestination	Suggest God already knew from the beginning who would be saved or condemned

Don't confuse: the excerpt does not resolve which criterion is "correct"; it acknowledges that different New Testament passages emphasize different aspects of judgment.

🔥 Outcomes of judgment

• The righteous inherit eternal life and the kingdom prepared from the foundation of the world.
• The condemned go to eternal punishment or "the pool of fire" (Revelation's "second death").
• Death and Hades themselves are thrown into the pool of fire.

🕰️ The intermediate state and resurrection of the body

🕰️ The problem that emerged

• Earliest Christians expected Jesus to return before they died.
• As followers began dying of old age, the question arose: would they miss out on Jesus' glory and God's kingdom?
• Paul assured them that those who died believing in Christ would be resurrected with their bodies when Jesus returns.

🧩 What happens between death and Jesus' return?

This period is called the intermediate state. Over centuries, the teaching that "most stuck" developed as follows:

1. At death: the soul separates from the body; the body is buried.
2. Immediately after death: the soul goes before God.
   • If righteous → the soul can be with God immediately (heaven).
   • If wicked → the soul is tormented immediately (hell); torment could mean absence of God.
3. Catholic addition—purgatory: souls that are "basically okay but have some stain of sin" need cleansing before being ready for God's presence.
   • This purgation can be unpleasant if many sins need to be washed or burned away.
   • It is not as bad as hell and is not permanent.
   • Protestants reject this idea as not stated in scripture.
4. When Jesus returns: all souls return to their bodies and resurrect; the combined body + soul is judged again.
   • The outcome is the same, but the pleasure of union with God (or the suffering of hell) is more complete when experienced in both body and soul.

🧟 Balancing Jewish and Greek ideas

• Paul balanced the Jewish idea of bodily resurrection with the aristocratic Greek aversion to "zombies" by teaching that the resurrected body would be incorruptible (not a decaying corpse).

🚀 The Rapture and end-times scenarios

🚀 What the Rapture belief teaches

• Some Christians (especially in Evangelical circles) believe the end of the world will be a long scenario beginning with the sudden rapture of all true believers.
• Believers disappear to be with God; everyone else suffers horrible catastrophes as God and Satan battle, destroying the earth.
• This viewpoint has spread through American popular culture (e.g., "Left Behind" books and movies).
• The word "rapture" does not appear in the Bible.

❌ Catholic critique of Rapture theology

The Catholic tradition does not teach the Rapture. Catholic theologians emphasize:

• No promise of immunity from suffering: the New Testament does not promise Christians will avoid suffering; rather, Christians can expect extra suffering if they remain true to Christ's challenge. The promise is meaning in suffering and a greater good in the long run.
• Jesus does not want earth's destruction: we should not assume Jesus wants nothing more from the earth and its ecosystem than its destruction.
• Jesus does not need human help to battle evil: Jesus can battle evil forces without expecting humans to start nuclear wars to bring about the end.
• No targeting of Jewish people: Christians should not target Jewish people for death or forced conversion as a means to bring about the end of the world.
• Live ready but also plan ahead: Jesus calls us to be ready to give an accounting at any moment, but also to be prepared for the future if that moment does not come in our lifetimes. "We have not wasted our time if that moment does not come in our lifetimes."

🌍 Practical implications of end-times beliefs

The excerpt opens by noting that beliefs about Jesus' return have serious implications for how we live:

• If you believe Jesus will return soon and destroy the earth → recycling aluminum cans may seem pointless.
• If you believe Jesus will demand an accounting of your actions → you should hope your life's work (e.g., teaching theology) is a good answer and that you do it well.
• If you expect the main issue is believing the right things → you should follow the right denomination.
• Even for non-believers, expectations of the Second Coming are a significant part of American society and culture (references to Judgment Day, the Rapture, the End of the World, "the apocalypse").

Don't confuse: living in "constant readiness" (as the first Christians did) with assuming Jesus will definitely return within your lifetime—the excerpt suggests the first Christians were "right to live their lives in a constant state of readiness" even though they were "wrong" about the immediate timing.

🔄 Realized vs. future eschatology

🔄 The shift in emphasis over time

• First Christians: thought the main significance of Jesus would come in the future; the first coming was "just a warning of the coming judgment."
• Over time: Christians found more and more significance in what Jesus had already done to make the Kingdom of God present (realized eschatology), even though complete fulfillment remains for the future.

Don't confuse: realized eschatology (the kingdom is already here in some sense) with the idea that there is no future fulfillment—the excerpt says "in some senses the complete fulfillment remains for the future."

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The early Jesus movement resembled other Jewish sects like the Essenes and Qumran community in practicing communal property, social equality, and sexual restraint, but uniquely rejected the requirement that Gentile followers observe the Law of Moses.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Communal property: The Essenes, Qumran sect, and early Jesus movement all practiced sharing possessions, motivated by charity and rejection of earthly wealth—not government control.
• Social equality: These groups rejected social hierarchies and special privilege for leaders, though the Jesus movement tolerated slavery more than the Essenes did.
• Sexual restraint: All three groups valued celibacy or strict limits on sexuality, viewing marriage and sex as distractions from spiritual life and preparation for the end times.
• Key difference on Jewish law: Unlike the Essenes and Qumran sect, the Jesus movement (through Paul and Acts) decided that Gentile followers did not need to observe the Law of Moses, only core prohibitions.
• Common confusion: Communal property in these sects was voluntary membership in a religious community, not government-enforced communism.

🕍 The early Jesus movement as a Jewish sect

🕍 What kind of group it was

Jewish sect: A minority group within Judaism that rejected the legitimacy of mainstream Judaism and its leaders.

• The early Jesus movement is better understood as a Jewish sect than as "Christianity," which implies an organized religion that came later.
• Other Jewish sects from the same period, especially the Essenes and the Qumran community (Dead Sea Scrolls), lived in strikingly similar ways.
• The Jewish historian Josephus, writing at the end of the first century CE for a Roman audience, described the Essenes in detail.

📜 The Qumran sect and the Dead Sea Scrolls

Qumran: An ancient settlement in the harsh desert near the Dead Sea, discovered starting in 1948 along with eleven caves containing scrolls from over two thousand years ago.

• The Qumran sect seems to match the Essenes described by Josephus, though not perfectly; they likely had different branches.
• They kept very strict purity laws and lived in the desert to avoid contact with impure people.
• Three categories of Dead Sea Scrolls:
  1. Oldest biblical copies: Confirm scribes copied texts carefully, but also reveal subtle differences that better reflect the originals.
  2. Popular books left out of the Bible: Fill the gap between Old and New Testaments; were treated the same as books that later became part of the Bible, showing the concept of a fixed canon developed later.
  3. Sect-specific books: Tell us about this minority group, which is remarkably similar to the Jesus movement.
• There was probably no direct connection between Qumran and Jesus himself, but possibly with John the Baptist; at minimum they are comparable phenomena.

💰 Attitudes toward property

💰 The ideal of communal property

Communal property: An ideal where members share all possessions, motivated by charity, contempt for wealth, and rejection of earthly concerns.

• The Essenes, Qumran sect, and Jesus movement all held this ideal, though it may not have been fully practiced by all.
• Don't confuse with communism: This was voluntary membership in a religious organization, not government control of the means of production.
• Example: In a society with great wealth disparity, convincing one rich person to live simply could provide economic security to ten desperately poor people—this appeal is believed to have contributed to the spread of the Jesus movement.

🏛️ The Essenes according to Josephus

• "These men are despisers of riches, and so very communicative as raises our admiration."
• It was a law that those who joined must make their property common to the whole order.
• "Everyone's possessions are intermingled with everyone's possessions; and so there is, as it were, one patrimony among all the brethren."
• Traveling members were welcome by other communities wherever they went, so they had no need to carry anything.

📖 The Qumran Community Rule

• The Qumran sect had a long initiation procedure:
  • After one year: The initiate handed over property, but it was kept separate in case things didn't work out.
  • After the second year: If the initiate passed review, property was permanently mixed together and the member could participate in pure meals and "admixture of property."

✝️ The Jesus movement

• The Jesus movement held a similar ideal, but joining was not difficult and membership was not limited to those Jewish by birth.
• "All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one's need." (Acts 2:44–46)
• "There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need." (Acts 4:32–35)
• "Share all things with your brother and do not say that anything is your own." (Didache 4:8)

⚖️ Attitudes toward social power

⚖️ The principle of egalitarianism

Egalitarianism: The principle of social equality; in various contexts it can refer to equality across economic status, race, sex, or all of the above.

• Several Jewish sects rejected all forms of social inequality, even in their own ranks.
• Certain roles were associated with leadership and responsibility, but these leaders were not to be marked by special privilege, wealth, or status.

🔗 Slavery and equality

• The Essenes and Qumran sect: Rejected slavery.
• The early Jesus movement: Not quite so progressive—Paul encouraged a Christian refugee slave to return to his master and obediently serve him; the Didache encouraged Christian slave owners to treat their slaves well if they were Christian.
• Why the tolerance of slavery?: May have been driven by the expectation that the current world order would end soon anyway, or desire not to annoy Roman authorities more than they already were.
• Paul's principle of equality: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)

👩 Women in the early Jesus movement

• Women were well represented as matrons, deaconesses, missionaries, and martyrs—remarkable compared to the standards of the day.
• Evidence from negative statements: Paul's prohibitions reveal that women were taking leadership roles whether he liked it or not.
  • "I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man" (1 Timothy 2:12) implies it had been happening.
  • Paul's instruction that female prophets should not lead church services implies such had been the practice.
• The Jesus movement may have permitted women in more roles because they were small and desperate.
• Later change: The situation changes when Christianity becomes structured into a large official institution.

🚫 Attitudes toward sexuality

🚫 The monastic ideal

Monasticism: The pursuit of spiritual ideals and separation from matters of the flesh and the world; implies separation from ordinary life, with monks generally living in seclusion and practicing solitary prayer.

• Monasticism was very popular in early Christianity and had forerunners in Judaism.
• Of all physical desires, monks most reject sex, marriage, and family.
• Even among those who did not pursue complete monastic separation, sexuality and marriage were typically viewed as distractions at best.

🔀 Variations within the view of sexuality

View	Description
Complete abstinence required	The only way to be saved
Abstinence as ideal	Not a requirement, but best
Sex only for procreation	Necessary for continuation of species, but only during fertile times, not for enjoyment

• Why reject planning for future generations?: For those who believed the order of nature would change very soon, planning for future generations was a waste of time.

🏛️ The Essenes according to Josephus

• "These Essenes reject pleasures as an evil, but esteem continence and the conquest over our passions, to be virtue."
• They neglect marriage but select other persons' children while they are pliable and fit for learning, forming them according to their own manners.
• A second order of Essenes: Permitted marriage but with strict conditions—three years' probation to ensure fertility, and no sex during pregnancy, "as a demonstration that they do not marry out of regard to pleasure, but for the sake of posterity."

📖 The Qumran Community Rule

• Multiple rule books were found at Qumran:
  • Damascus Document: More permissive, permits marriage within certain limits.
  • Community Rule: Stricter, assumes only men are welcome.
• The logic: Focused on the requirement of constant purity; they thought of themselves as living with angels and preparing for war led by angels; sex was seen as defiling and repulsive to angels.

✝️ The Jesus movement

• Even before full organized monasticism, early followers of Jesus expressed the ideal that marriage should be avoided, or those already married should avoid sex.
• Paul's advice: Sexuality within marriage is at least better than uncontrolled lust outside of marriage.
  • "It is a good thing for a man not to touch a woman, but because of cases of immorality every man should have his own wife, and every woman her own husband." (1 Corinthians 7:1-2)
  • "I wish everyone to be as I am [celibate], but each has a particular gift from God… it is a good thing for [the unmarried and widows] to remain as they are, as I do, but if they cannot exercise self-control they should marry, for it is better to marry than to be on fire." (1 Corinthians 7:7-9)
• Special status for male virgins: "These are they who were not defiled with women; they are virgins and these are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes." (Revelation 14:4)

📜 Attitudes toward Gentiles and Jewish law

📜 Jesus and Jewish law

• The historical Jesus was a Jew who followed Jewish law and interpreted how it should be lived in everyday life.
• He was more strict in some areas and less strict in others, but well within the range of debate among Jews at the time.
• Evidence of original focus on Jews: "Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus, 'Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.'" (Matthew 10:5–6)

🌍 The spread to Gentiles

• Soon enough this changed—the Jesus movement spread much faster among Gentiles than it did among Jews.
• The Essenes and Qumran sects seemed to have allowed Gentiles to convert, but did not promote it actively as the Jesus movement did.

⚖️ The debate over Jewish law for Gentiles

• The question: Whether Gentiles who became followers of Jesus had to observe Jewish laws, such as circumcision.
• Competing considerations:
  • It may have been most important to believe that Jesus is Lord, son of God, who died and rose from the dead.
  • The laws which Jesus himself practiced and interpreted could still be important parts of how followers should live.
  • On the other hand, those laws were not an easy sell, and circumcision in particular can be rather uncomfortable, especially for adults.
• The outcome: Christianity rejected the Law of Moses as binding on Gentile followers of Jesus (Jewish followers seem to have continued to practice the laws).

📖 Two sources on the debate

Paul's letter to the Galatians: Argues that the laws were only temporarily binding, like training wheels on a bicycle, until faith in Jesus came.

• "A person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ… Before faith came, we were held in custody under law, confined for the faith that was to be revealed. Consequently, the law was our disciplinarian for Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a disciplinarian." (Galatians 3:2, 23-25)
• Later application: In the 16th century, Martin Luther applied Paul's arguments about Jewish law to Catholic sacraments, arguing that faith, not works, is required.

Acts of the Apostles: Presents the laws as an unnecessary burden; the Holy Spirit made known the change.

• First, Gentiles can be baptized: "While Peter was still speaking these things, the holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the word. The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter were astounded that the gift of the holy Spirit should have been poured out on the Gentiles also… Then Peter responded, 'Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people, who have received the holy Spirit even as we have?'" (Acts 10:44-47)
• Second, only core laws required: "It is the decision of the holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities, namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage." (Acts 15:28-29)
• Key claim: Not that the historical Jesus taught these things, but that the Spirit continues to operate among the followers of Jesus and guides major decisions and reforms.

🔍 Don't confuse: Historical Jesus vs. ongoing Spirit

• The argument is not that Jesus himself changed the law during his lifetime.
• Rather, the claim is that the Holy Spirit continued to guide the community after Jesus's death, leading to major reforms like accepting Gentiles without requiring full observance of Jewish law.
• Scholars believe the debate was nastier than the sources suggest.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

When Christianity shifted from a persecuted underground movement to the official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, it gained power and numbers but also adopted imperial concepts of authority and faced new pressures to standardize beliefs across a diverse movement.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The power shift: Christianity went from subversive minority opposing imperial power to becoming the imperial power itself—some see this as triumph, others as Christianity's worst moment.
• From diversity to standardization: As an underground movement, Christianity was characterized by diversity across independent local churches; becoming the official religion created pressure to define orthodoxy and suppress heresy.
• Defining Jesus's nature: The Council of Nicaea (325) resolved debates about Christology by affirming Jesus as fully divine and fully human, eternally begotten (not created), leading to the doctrine of the Trinity.
• Common confusion: "Orthodoxy" originally meant "straight beliefs" (conformity), while "heresy" meant "choice" or "opinion"—having a personal opinion was considered bad, not a sign of intellectual freedom.
• Geographic and linguistic split: Constantine's move of the capital to Constantinople divided the Empire into Greek-speaking East and Latin-speaking West, a division that shaped Christianity and culminated in the 1054 Great Schism.

⚔️ The transformation of Christianity's relationship with power

⚔️ From persecution to official religion

• Before Constantine (up to 315 CE): The Jesus movement had a tense relationship with Roman authority—at best tolerated, often persecuted.
• Christians refused to worship the emperor as a god.
• Parts of their message threatened ruling powers that relied on oppressing the weak.
• The movement was small and sometimes literally underground.
• After Constantine (fourth century): Christianity became tolerated, then the official religion of the Roman Empire.

🔄 Two interpretations of this shift

The excerpt presents two opposing views without resolving them:

View	Interpretation
Triumph perspective	This was Christianity's defining moment—the Church triumphed, measured by followers and power
Corruption perspective	This was Christianity's worst moment—it went from subversive voice against imperial power to becoming the imperial power itself

• One could argue Christendom (Christian domination) improved on pagan Roman domination.
• One could also argue Christianity adopted the very concepts of power it had previously challenged.

📚 Orthodoxy and heresy: the pressure to standardize

📚 Christianity as diverse underground movement

• As an underground minority, Christianity was largely a vague movement connecting many independent local churches.
• Diversity was the norm: The Christian community in one city might interpret scriptures very differently from another community.
• Different communities might even have different books they considered scripture (fit for public proclamation).
• The Roman Empire provided infrastructure for churches to visit and correspond by letters, but this did not eliminate diversity.
• Some figures were more influential than others, and there were movements within early Christianity, but relatively speaking, the underground movement was characterized by diversity.

🎯 The new imperative to standardize

• As Christianity became the official religion, there was a perceived need to standardize the religion across the Empire.
• This created a new imperative to define orthodoxy and suppress heresy.

📖 What the terms meant

Orthodoxy (ὀρθόδοξος): "straight beliefs"—conforming to the teachings of Jesus and the chain of authority he commissioned.

Heresy (αἵρεσις): originally meant "choice," "opinion," or "school of thought."

• Don't confuse: In this period, having a personal opinion was considered a bad thing, not a virtue.
• Conforming to official teaching was good; independent thinking was suspect.
• Example: A community that interpreted scripture differently from the standardized version would be labeled heretical, even if their interpretation had been acceptable before standardization.

🔍 Modern meanings vs. historical meaning

The excerpt notes that "orthodoxy" has different meanings in different contexts today:

• Capitalized Orthodox Christianity: Eastern Christians (Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, etc.) not in full communion with Rome and not Protestant.
• In Judaism: Orthodoxy is the strictest of three major movements (besides Conservative and Reform).
• Lowercase "orthodox": Some use it to mean strict adherence to official teaching.

👥 Key figures who shaped Christendom

👑 Constantine (Roman general and emperor)

• What he did: Converted to Christianity and initiated the Christianization of the Roman Empire.
• Debate about his motives: Scholars debate whether his conversion was rooted in deep spiritual experience, political calculation to capitalize on the growing Christian movement, or both.
• Major actions:
  • In 313, Constantine united the Roman Empire and authorized Christianity.
  • Commissioned the copying of the Bible—for the first time forcing the question of exactly what books in what versions are part of the Bible.
  • Called the bishops of the Empire to the Council of Nicaea (325) to arrive at agreement about the nature of Jesus in relationship to God the Father.
  • Moved his capital to Byzantium, later named Constantinople after him.
• Impact of the capital move: This effectively divided the Roman Empire into East (capital Constantinople, speaking Greek) and West (capital Rome, speaking Latin). Christendom largely followed this divide, and in 1054 the Great Schism irreparably divided Eastern Orthodox from Roman Catholic Christianity.

✍️ Augustine of Hippo (354–430)

• Why he matters: Within western Christianity, the most influential thinker.
• Born in 354, converted to Christianity in 387.
• Wrote many works that strongly influenced all western Christians, both Catholic and later Protestant.
• Key contributions: The study of concepts such as original sin, grace, free will, just war theory, and many more center on Augustine.
• Major work: The City of God (22-book series) responded to the fall of Rome by defining Christendom as fundamentally a spiritual "city" that transcended Rome or any other human city.
• Died in 430, leaving a cathedral and library in Hippo (the city where he served as bishop).
• Don't confuse: The excerpt notes that if this course were taught in Greece, different major figures would be emphasized—the focus on Augustine reflects Christianity as it developed in western Europe.

🎓 Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)

• Born in the Italian town of Aquino in 1225, died in 1274.
• Historical context: In this period Christianity was confronted with masters of logic and philosophy from the Islamic world, which was pressing into Europe through Spain and Turkey. These Islamic thinkers also spread the ideas of Aristotle and other Greek philosophers.
• The challenge: It was no longer acceptable to argue "We're right because God said so."
• His contribution: Thomas used logical argument to prove that Christian faith was rational and consistent with the fundamental insights of non-Christian rational observers of the natural world, such as Aristotle.
• Long-term influence: In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the clash of faith and reason would be addressed in terms laid out by Aquinas.

🔮 Were they ahead of their times or did they create the times?

The excerpt offers two perspectives without choosing:

• One could say Augustine and Aquinas were ahead of their times.
• One could also say they created through their own influence the major trends that developed over subsequent centuries.
• Example: In the fifteenth century, some Protestant Reformers thought of themselves as working out what Augustine had already anticipated.

✝️ Christology: defining the nature of Jesus

✝️ The central question

Christology: discourse about the nature of Christ.

• Christianity is defined by belief in Christ—namely, that Jesus of Nazareth is Christ.
• What was not uniformly defined as of the time of Constantine was exactly what was to be believed about Christ.
• Core questions: What exactly was the relationship between Jesus and God? Is Jesus God or human? How literally can we take the images of Father and Son?

🤔 Competing positions on Jesus's divine/human nature

The following positions were all discussed around the time of the Council of Nicaea:

Position	Description	Accepted?
Partial God, partial human	Jesus was partially God and partially human	❌ No
Adopted/elevated human	Jesus was a human being who was adopted by God or elevated to divine status	❌ No
Docetism	Jesus was God pretending to be a human being	❌ No
Two persons	Jesus was a divine person and a human person occupying the same space	❌ No
Fully divine and fully human	Jesus was fully divine and fully human in one person	✅ Yes

• Only the last went on to be accepted in Christianity as it survived.

⏰ When did Jesus come into being?

A related question was whether there was ever a time before Jesus existed. Several options were considered:

Position	Description	Accepted?
Born in Palestine	Christ came into existence when Jesus was born around 1 CE—a great teacher but not a being that existed prior to physical birth	❌ No
Arianism	Jesus was begotten by God as the firstborn son even before the world was created; there was a time when the Father existed and the Son did not; Father and Son are close in nature, but only God the Father is eternal	❌ No
Eternally begotten	Jesus is eternally begotten by God as the firstborn son; the metaphor of father and son should not be taken so literally as to mean the Son is derivative or subordinate; there never was a time when the Father existed and the Son did not	✅ Yes

• Only the last went on to be accepted in Christianity as it survived.

🧩 Mysteries: when logic short-circuits

• The bishops at Nicaea recognized that concepts such as "fully divine and fully human" and "eternally begotten" are difficult to grasp in human terms.
• This did not bother them: They did not expect the nature of God to be fully graspable by humans, since humans are generally stupid in comparison with God.
• These irresolvable logical short-circuits were called "mysteries" and were designed to blow your mind more than to make sense.

🕊️ The Trinity: three persons, one God

• Once one accepts that God the Father and God the Son are two persons in one eternal being, it is not hard to extend the same logic to the Holy Spirit.

The Trinity: the belief that God is truly one God and three persons in one God.

• For Jews and Muslims: This is impossible and compromises the oneness of God.
• Christian position: Even if it is not possible for humans to fully grasp, it is possible for God.
• Implication: God is relational not only with us (God's creatures) but within God's own nature.
• God cannot be thought of as having a disagreement such that two persons would vote against the third person.
• However, it does suggest that the order of the cosmos, the way of God which we strive to imitate, is more collaborative than individualistic.

📜 The Nicene Creed: official statement of belief

📜 Purpose and acceptance

• The creed (statement of belief) was largely formulated by the Council of Nicaea.
• It articulates the three persons of God, the eternality of God the Son, and the full humanity of Jesus.
• Almost all Christians today accept this statement of belief according to some interpretation.

📜 Key affirmations in the Creed

The Creed affirms belief in:

God the Father:

• One God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.

God the Son (Jesus Christ):

• One Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages.
• God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.
• Begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.
• Through him all things were made.
• For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven.
• By the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.
• Crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered death and was buried.
• Rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.
• Ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
• Will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead; his kingdom will have no end.

God the Holy Spirit:

• The Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.
• Proceeds from the Father and the Son.
• With the Father and the Son is adored and glorified.
• Has spoken through the prophets.

The Church and sacraments:

• One, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.
• One Baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
• The resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

🗺️ Important places in fourth-century Christianity

🗺️ Major Christian centers to know

Place	Significance
Byzantium / Constantinople / Istanbul	Capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, named after Constantine in the fourth century; conquered by Muslim Ottoman Turks in 1453
Nicaea and Chalcedon	Sites of major ecumenical councils (meetings of bishops to clarify teachings)
Rome	Lost political significance after sacked by Visigoths in 410 but continued to be the spiritual center of Western Christianity
Carthage and Hippo	Most remembered as home of Augustine
Antioch	Most associated with the plain-sense interpretation of scripture
Alexandria	Most associated with allegorical interpretation of scripture

🗺️ Geographic context

• The excerpt references a map of the Roman Empire around 300 CE, highlighting Rome and Nicaea.
• The geographic spread reflects the infrastructure that allowed Christianity to spread and the division between East and West that would shape the religion's future.

📅 Timeline of key dates

📅 Major events from Constantine to the Crusades

Year	Event
313	Constantine unites the Roman Empire and authorizes Christianity
325	Constantine convenes Council of Nicaea
410	Rome sacked by Visigoths
622	Rise of Islam
1054	Schism between western, Latin-speaking Christians centered in Rome and eastern, Greek-speaking Christians centered in Constantinople
1095	First Crusade by Western Christians to reclaim Christian rule in Jerusalem from Islamic rulers

• These dates frame the period of Christendom from Constantine through the medieval period.
• The 1054 Schism represents the culmination of the East-West division that began with Constantine's move of the capital.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

During the Christendom period (Constantine to Reformation), being a Christian meant being a citizen of the Church—a hierarchical institution that mediated Christ's salvation through appointed agents, not through individual personal relationships.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core identity shift: In Christendom, being a Christian meant citizenship in the Church as an institution, not primarily holding beliefs or having a personal relationship with Jesus.
• Hierarchical mediation: The Church organized itself like the Roman Empire—salvation from Christ reached people through a chain of appointed representatives (deacons, priests, bishops, etc.), not directly.
• Monopoly on salvation: Only duly appointed Church officials could perform sacraments like the Eucharist; the Church was the necessary channel through which Christ saved souls.
• Common confusion: Three modern ideas do not apply before the 16th century: Protestant individualism ("personal relationship with Jesus"), the 20th-century Catholic "people of God" equality, and democratic legitimacy from the governed.
• Augustine's big tent: Against the Donatists' "Church of saints only," Augustine argued for a universal (catholic) Church that includes sinners, because Christ compensates for human shortcomings.

🏛️ Church as hierarchical citizenship

🏛️ Roman Empire analogy

• Christianity organized itself around the only power structure it knew: the Roman Empire's political hierarchy.
• How it worked:
  • Emperor at top, citizens at bottom, with ranks in between.
  • Citizens were governed by local authorities who acted on behalf of higher officials, all the way up to the emperor.
  • Disobeying a local representative was as bad as disobeying the emperor directly.
• Applied to Christ:
  • Christ, like the emperor, was considered divine and inaccessible to most people (except through statues/coins for the emperor).
  • Having a "personal relationship" with Christ was no more plausible or desirable than with the emperor.
  • A place in a chain of representation was as much as one could hope for.

⛓️ Medieval hierarchy and patronage

• The word "hierarchy" originally meant "rule of priests"; today it means a pyramid chain of command.
• Catholic hierarchy: laity (including monks/nuns) → deacon → priest → bishop → archbishop → cardinal → pope.
• Patronage system:
  • One's place in society depended on connections, not merit alone.
  • You needed a patron or advocate to bring your case to someone more powerful.
  • Example: If your grandmother is holier, her prayer to Jesus might be better heard; she will "go to bat for you" even though you are a sinner.
  • Patron saints existed for different professions, places, and life situations.
  • Mary, the Mother of God, was seen as especially compassionate—a good starting point for asking for mercy.

🚫 Ideas that do NOT apply before the 16th century

Modern idea	When it arose	Why it doesn't fit the medieval period
Individualism / personal relationship with Jesus	Protestant Reformation (16th century)	In Christendom, citizenship in the Church was a collective relationship and necessary to be a Christian; belonging to a Church was not optional or merely helpful.
Church as "people of God" (all baptized equal)	20th-century Catholic theology	Medieval view: hierarchy (priests, bishops, pope) were the real Church acting on behalf of Christ, not equal with laity. Holy Spirit worked top-down through bishops, not bottom-up through the collective faithful.
Democracy (legitimacy from consent of governed)	Modernity	Middle Ages: only conceivable way of governing was through hierarchy; majority will of commoners was not the highest authority.

🔑 Church as mediator of salvation

🔑 Christ's commissioned agents

Christ commissioned agents to act on Christ's behalf to save souls.

• Just as the Roman emperor protected citizens through many agents (generals, armies, governors), Christ saves Christians through the Church.
• Chain of apostolic succession:
  • Christ called many followers but commissioned a few leaders.
  • These leaders commissioned successors.
  • Even today, bishops claim to have been made bishop by someone who was made bishop by someone… all the way back to Christ.
• Why the Church is necessary: Christ is the ultimate supplier of salvation, but in practice it could only be obtained through official channels.

🍞 Example: the Eucharist

• Christ gathered his disciples and instructed them to break bread, which becomes his body.
• Eating this body meant participating in the Church (the body of Christ) and in the resurrection.
• One needs to eat the bread of life to have eternal life.
• Institutionalization:
  • In the earliest Jesus movement, perhaps any gathering could perform this ritual.
  • As the Church became structured, only someone duly appointed could take the place of Christ in this ritual, no matter how long the chain of appointment.
• Monopoly on salvation: The Church had a monopoly on salvation in a very real sense.

🔄 What changed later

• Martin Luther rejected this monopoly in the 16th century.
• The Catholic Church did not accept all of Luther's points but did reform itself in response to some.
• Important: The above understanding of the Church as mediator is true of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages but not today.

📚 Magisterium vs. the faithful

📚 What is the Magisterium?

The Magisterium is the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, namely the bishops in their role of clarifying and teaching proper beliefs and practices.

• 21st-century Catholic theology: All the faithful are the Church; leaders are part of the Church.
• Medieval tendency: The Magisterium (Vatican, Pope) was viewed as being the real Church, acting on behalf of Christ, in contrast to the followers.
• Common usage today: Many non-theologians still refer to what "the Church" does or teaches when they mean what the Magisterium does or teaches.

📝 Capitalization note

• "Church" is always capitalized when part of an organization's name (e.g., Roman Catholic Church, Presbyterian Church in America).
• Theologians capitalize "Church" when referring to the one abstract ideal of the body of Christ.
• Lowercase "church" refers to any old church or churches (e.g., "the church around the corner," "many Catholic churches in San Antonio").

⚖️ Donatists vs. Augustine: who belongs in the Church?

⚔️ The Donatist position: Church of saints only

• Historical context: Early scandal—bishops who compromised during persecution (e.g., renounced Christ or worshiped the emperor to avoid martyrdom).
• Donatist argument:
  • Someone who sinned in such a way permanently lost the Holy Spirit.
  • That person could never again exercise leadership of the Church.
  • The Church had no room for sinners.
  • They preferred a small Church with no tolerance for shortcomings.
  • Easy to be excluded if one sins.

🌍 Augustine's position: universal Church of sinners

• Augustine rejected the Donatists' high standards in favor of a larger Church that could include and work through sinners.
• Core reasoning:
  • All human beings are fundamentally sinners.
  • Even the greatest humans never quite live up to Christ's level of perfection.
  • Christ is perfect, and the Church is perfect in a general sense, even though individual humans within the Church are not perfect.
• How it works:
  • Since the Church is the body of Christ, Christ makes it possible for the Church to offer perfect worship to God.
  • Christ uses the Church to carry out Christ's work, but Christ also fills in for the shortcomings of individuals within the Church.
• Example: If a sacrament (Baptism, Eucharist) is presided over by a priest who was secretly unfit, the sacrament is still valid for the recipient.
• Augustine's view of corruption:
  • He did not condone corruption.
  • But he insisted that the good the Church does on behalf of Christ is not undone by a few bad bishops.
  • Christ's love for the Church is such that Christ will never allow the Church to go completely off course; Christ compensates for small mistakes.

🏕️ "Big tent" vs. exclusivity

Donatists	Augustine
Small Church	Large Church
Church of saints only	Universal Church (catholic) including sinners
Easy to be excluded if one sins	Includes everyone who makes some effort to follow Christ, even if shortcomings are more pronounced than successes
No tolerance for shortcomings	Christ compensates for human frailty

• Origin of "catholic": The Greek word for universal is katholikos (καθολικός), "catholic."
• Originally, the catholic Church was the general, universal church of all the baptized, sinners or not.
• Today, "Catholic" (capitalized) usually refers to the Roman Catholic Church (vs. Eastern Orthodox or Protestant).
• Don't confuse: Simply being a sinner does not make a baptized person any less Catholic (though excommunication exists for serious, unrepentant rejection of core teachings).

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Christianity rejected complete separation from Judaism but developed an unhealthy relationship that only recently began to improve, navigating between defining itself as distinct from Judaism while maintaining that it fulfills rather than replaces the Jewish scriptures.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Early Jesus movement was fully Jewish: Jesus, his disciples, and Paul were all Jewish; the movement initially identified as a form of Judaism, not a separate religion.
• Three rejected approaches: Marcionism (complete separation), Gnosticism (spiritual superiority rejecting the material creator), and supersessionism/deicide (Christianity replaces Judaism; Jews killed God).
• Common confusion: distinguishing "rejected by mainstream Christianity" from "keeps reappearing"—all three rejected theologies continue to pop up in popular Christian thought despite official condemnation.
• The navigation challenge: Christianity needed to distinguish itself from Judaism without either claiming total irrelevance (Marcion) or claiming total replacement (supersessionism).
• Modern shift: only in the past 50 years have major denominations made significant progress toward a healthy relationship with Judaism, rejecting supersessionism and deicide accusations.

🕍 The early Jesus movement and its Jewish roots

✡️ Jesus and his followers were Jewish

• Jesus followed and interpreted Jewish law; all his first disciples were Jewish.
• They considered Jesus the fulfillment of Jewish scriptures but continued identifying as Jews, keeping the law, and attending the Temple until it was destroyed in 70 CE.
• Paul did not "convert" from Judaism to Christianity; the term "convert" applied only to pagans joining the movement.
• Example: The movement's members went to the Temple and followed Jewish practices while also believing in Jesus.

🌍 Why the split happened

Several factors gradually separated the Jesus movement from the rest of Judaism:

Factor	How it worked
Spread among non-Jews	Over time, especially after the Roman-Judean war (66–74 CE), new followers did not think of themselves as becoming Jews; Jews became "the other"
Persuasion problem	If Jesus fulfilled Jewish scriptures, why didn't Jewish scripture experts recognize it? If he was king of the Jews, why didn't Jewish leadership recognize it?
Political motivation	Rome tolerated ancient religions but not new cults, so the movement had reason to claim to be part of the ancient Jewish religion rather than a new one
Rhetorical strategy	New Testament authors (who were Jews) said nasty things about "the Jews" (meaning the leadership), fueling later discrimination against all Jews

🔀 Blurred boundaries for centuries

• Many individuals thought it was possible to be both Jewish and Christian, attending both Jewish and Christian worship.
• Bishops argued one could not be both, but the fact they had to keep arguing for centuries implies people were doing otherwise.
• Don't confuse: official teaching versus popular practice—the boundaries were not as clear in lived experience as leaders wanted them to be.

❌ Three rejected theologies

🚫 Marcionism: complete separation

Marcionism: the view that Judaism and Christianity are completely different religions serving different gods with non-overlapping scriptures.

What Marcion taught (second century bishop):

• The God of Jewish scriptures was incompatible with the God of the gospels and epistles.
• Former was earthly/physical/legalistic; latter was heavenly/spiritual/based on love.
• He rejected all Jewish scriptures and edited Luke and Paul's letters to remove "Judaizing" elements.

Christianity's response:

• Passionate rejection: insisted God the Son and God the Father are one and the same; Jesus fulfills Jewish scriptures; embraced all Jewish scriptures (Catholic Old Testament is longer than the Jewish Bible today); insisted on full equality of "old" and "new" scriptures.
• Marcion was perhaps the first heretic so passionately rejected.

But it keeps reappearing:

• Despite fervent rejection, these ideas pop up in popular Christianity.
• Example: Christians still sometimes suggest the Old Testament is inferior to the New, or that the God of the Old Testament is different from the God of the New—both contrary to official teaching.

🌌 Gnosticism: spiritual elitism

Gnosticism: the extreme opposition between flesh and spirit, teaching that a lower creator god made the material world while a higher spiritual God sent Christ to rescue the elite few with secret knowledge.

Core Gnostic beliefs:

• Within divinity there are ranks: the lowest rank is the creator who made earth, human bodies, and the visible heaven; this creator rewards earthly behavior with earthly pleasures.
• The higher God is purely spiritual; elite humans reject the lower fleshy God, world, laws, and religion.
• Elite humans have special knowledge (gnosis = knowledge in Greek) of the invisible spiritual realm, allowing them to escape the visible realm and reach the highest spiritual heaven.
• Christ was not the son of the creator but sent by the higher God on a rescue mission to share secret knowledge with the elect few.

Christianity's response:

• Christ is the Son of the creator God and the instrument of creation ("through him all things were made").
• The one true God created all things visible and invisible; all that God made is very good.
• The human body is the image of God; God became human flesh, proving the goodness of the human body.

Gnostic-like errors that still appear:

• Thinking the Old Testament/Judaism is earthly and the New Testament/Christianity is spiritual (and therefore superior).
• Thinking Jesus rescues us from Judaism or opposes the Old Testament.
• Saying "I hate my body."
• Don't confuse: legitimate spiritual discipline (like early monasticism suppressing fleshy desires for spiritual growth) with Gnostic rejection of the material world as evil.

🔄 Supersessionism and deicide: replacement theology

Supersessionism: the idea that Christianity replaces Judaism as God's people; the covenant God had with the Jewish people has been cancelled.

What supersessionism teaches:

• Judaism is old, obsolete, no longer relevant, completely replaced by Christianity.
• God abrogated (cancelled) the covenant with the Jewish people; they now have no God and God has no care for them except for them to convert.
• If Christians define themselves as the opposite of Judaism, then attacking Judaism elevates Jesus and Christianity.

Deicide: the accusation that all Jews in every time and place are responsible for killing Jesus (God murder) and rejecting God.

How deicide connects to supersessionism:

• God broke the covenant with the Jewish people because they killed God's Son.
• The only way to repent is to convert to Christianity.

Current Catholic teaching (rejected supersessionism in 1965 at Vatican II):

• God does not break God's promises; God can offer something better through Christ without ending the possibility of the Jewish people continuing under the existing covenant.
• This is not relativism (any religion is as good as any other), but one can believe one's own way is best without denying goodness in other ways.
• Jesus died to take away the sin of the world, not because the Jews or Romans killed him; Jesus accepted his death willingly.
• Individual Jews and Romans who participated did not act on behalf of all Jews everywhere.
• Human sin does not break God's covenants; God's covenant with the Jewish people accounts for sin and punishment, so sinning and being punished fulfills rather than destroys the covenant.
• Human sin can make God "angry," but unlike God's mercy, God's wrath does not extend to descendants indefinitely; nothing could force God to revoke God's promises.

📜 Historical example: Melito of Sardis

🎭 Context of Melito's writings

• Late second-century bishop writing Easter homily around the time of Jewish Passover.
• In Sardis, the Jewish community was far more established and powerful than the small, persecuted Christian movement.
• Melito was trying to distinguish his followers from the local synagogue, which likely shared members with his congregation.
• He was under attack from other Christians for being "too Jewish," leading him to dramatically differentiate himself.

📖 Melito's supersessionist poetry

Melito used the metaphor of a model and the final work:

The model metaphor:

• A pattern (model) is made from wax, clay, or wood to show what the final work will be.
• The model is "destined to be destroyed" once the real thing appears.
• "That which once was valuable, is now without value because that which is truly valuable has appeared."

Applied to Judaism and Christianity:

• The Jewish people were the model for the church; the law was a parabolic sketch.
• The gospel became the explanation and fulfillment of the law; the church became the storehouse of truth.
• "The people had value before the church came on the scene, and the law was wonderful before the gospel was brought to light."
• "The people lost their significance when the church came on the scene... those things which once had value are today without value."

⚔️ Melito's deicide accusation

Melito accused the Jews of murdering Jesus:

• "This one was murdered. And where was he murdered? In the very center of Jerusalem!"
• "Because he had healed their lame, and had cleansed their lepers... For this reason he suffered."
• Quoted Psalm 34:12: "They paid me back evil for good."
• "Why, O Israel did you do this strange injustice? You dishonored the one who had honored you... You killed the one who made you to live."
• Concluded: "You dashed the Lord to the ground; you, too, were dashed to the ground, and lie quite dead."

Important context:

• Melito's beautiful poetry contrasts with the nasty content.
• He was writing in a specific local situation where he felt threatened and needed to distinguish his community.
• This does not excuse the content but helps explain how such rhetoric developed.

🤝 The navigation challenge

⚖️ Between extremes

Christianity navigated a path between two positions:

Position	What it means	Problem
Marcion's complete separation	Judaism is completely different and irrelevant to Christianity	Denies that Jesus fulfills Jewish scriptures; rejects the creator God
Full identification	No distinction between Judaism and Christianity	Cannot explain why most Jews did not recognize Jesus; cannot establish separate identity

The path chosen:

• Christianity asserted itself as related to the Israelites and Judaism.
• Christianity asserted itself as the "true Israel," in contrast to the "fleshy, misguided Jews who departed from being God's people."

Unfortunate consequence:

• Presents Christians as model followers of God and Judaism as model rejecters of God, despite every opportunity.
• This framing made attacking Judaism seem like elevating Jesus and Christianity.

🔄 Defining self versus other

• It is normal for a community to define itself and its borders by making clear what it is not.
• There is always "us" and "them."
• The way Christendom defined "us" in contrast to the Jewish "them" is more complex than it first appears.
• Modern understanding: establishing a sense of self need not be at the expense of the other; both communities remain grounded in firmly distinct identities, but we have learned to do this without denigrating the other.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

During Christendom, religious life was practiced through a hierarchy where bishops governed politically, common people relied on saints and the Eucharist, and monasticism and mysticism offered alternative spiritual paths that balanced the institutional Church's practical concerns with contemplative devotion.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Hierarchy of practice: bishops became political leaders managing society, while common people had little formal education or active Church involvement, relying on reverence for saints and Eucharistic celebration.
• Monasticism's three threads: all forms share solitary living (variously conceived), celibacy, and poverty (variously conceived), though roles expanded from radical isolation to social service.
• Evolution of monastic roles: monasteries shifted from desert escape to walled communities providing education, healthcare, hospitality, manuscript copying, and refuge for those in need.
• Common confusion: monasticism means "living alone" as a community apart from society, not necessarily individual monks living apart from each other; also, poverty evolved from harsh asceticism to meeting basic needs without personal property.
• Mysticism's characteristics: the exceptionally vivid intuition of union with ultimate reality, experienced as more real than ordinary objects, with five defining traits including love (often erotic), ineffability, consciousness, fleetingness, and passivity.

⛪ The institutional hierarchy of Christian practice

👑 Bishops as political leaders

• When Christianity became institutionalized, bishops' lives became "very political."
• Bishops often handled general societal needs when no effective civil authority existed.
• Their job description expanded beyond spiritual leadership to practical governance.
• Don't confuse: bishops were never required to be poor; they often came from wealthy families and used impressive dress as a leadership strategy, hinting at God's glory through architecture, art, and vestments.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Common people's limited involvement

• The lowest commoners could expect no formal education or active Church involvement.
• When Christianity became the default religion rather than something actively promoted through persuasion, teaching the faith was sometimes neglected.
• Two pillars for common practice:
  • Reverence for saints as patrons and role models
  • Celebration of the Eucharist

🏛️ Monasticism: living apart

🏜️ What monasticism means

Monasticism means "living alone."

• Typically the community of monks lives apart from the rest of society, not individual monks living apart from other monks (though that also occurs).
• The word "hermit" comes from the Greek word for desert.
• Early Christians, especially in Egypt, would go off into the desert; Anthony is an example of a "desert father" who pursued closeness to God through distance from society.
• Example: some Christians found caves or even lived on top of pillars to separate from the earth and reach to heaven.
• Irony: some heroes of isolation developed cult followings as people went out to admire them or catch the overflow of their spirituality.

🧱 Evolution from isolation to service

• Over centuries, many monasteries took on roles within society, replacing the primary role of escape from society.
• Even when not exactly remote, monasteries tended to be on the outskirts of town.
• They held onto the original principle of isolation by being walled communities and requiring monks to pray together seven times per day, which seriously restricted activities in the outside world.
• Distinction: use "monasticism" for communities significantly isolated from normal society with a closed home base; missionary outreach primarily immersed in general society is something different.

🚫 The three common threads

🚫 Celibacy

Celibacy refers to the unmarried state, conceived of as the same as abstinence from sexual intercourse.

• Perhaps the clearest and least flexible form of isolation from worldly desires and concerns is separation from the opposite sex.
• Early motivations: the high value on abstinence may have been fueled by the belief that women or sex are inherently defiling, or that physical desire, sensuality, and lust are the opposite of spirituality.
• Later rationale: even as sexuality found a respectable role within Christianity, there was still value placed on removal from the concerns of taking care of a family and devoting one's work fully to God or the Church.
• In Catholicism today: the priesthood remains celibate even if not monastic.
• Three major arguments for priestly celibacy:
  • (a) continuity with the early Christian ideal of spirituality through overcoming physical sensuality
  • (b) increased portability, flexibility, and full-time devotion of unmarried people to serving the Church's needs
  • (c) economic implications—preventing children from claiming inheritance from priests when the Church wanted to hold onto that property

💰 Poverty

Asceticism is the practice of denying the needs of the body in order to discipline oneself to be free of bodily desires, seen as distractions from spiritual pursuits.

• Early monasticism: leaned toward asceticism—monks would regularly deprive themselves of food, sleep, and comfortable clothing or bedding.
• Evolution: over time, as monks took on more duties besides prayer and contemplation, it was recognized that monks do need their basic bodily needs met to be productive in their responsibilities.
• Continuing ideal: monks were not to have personal property or indulgent comforts beyond basic necessities.
• Example: perhaps the head of a monastery (abbot) did need to worry about finances, but for most monks liberation from the problems that come with managing money was at the core of monastic life.
• Ongoing tension: historically there has been conflict between monks and others who think the Church should be poor, and those who think it is okay for the Church to hint at God's glory through architecture, art, and well-dressed leaders; both approaches have existed and can exist in the tradition.

🛠️ Monastic roles in society

📚 Hard work as spirituality

• Fairly early on the ideal of spirituality through hard work developed.
• Increasingly monasteries took on roles of service to society.

🍷 Production and commerce

• Besides food for their own meals, monasteries often exported goods.
• Some famous liquors and wines were originally the product of monastic communities, perhaps capitalizing on the long-term stability of monastic communities (it takes decades to make some liquor).

✍️ Manuscript copying and scholarship

• Monks were responsible for hand copying scriptures, biblical and otherwise.
• Some monks went beyond copying writings and produced commentaries and texts of their own.

🎓 Education

• At the very least, monasteries would educate their own members, often from an extremely early age.
• In the days before universities, monasteries were the centers of learning.
• Eventually, parents would send their children to monasteries for education on a temporary basis.
• To this day: the religious communities that most survived are the ones devoted to education, since there is no better way to recruit new members.

🏥 Healthcare

• Many monasteries served as hospitals.
• Along with education, healthcare continues to be a major social service to which many religious communities are dedicated.

🏨 Hospitality and refuge

• Monasteries took on the roles of hospitality, particularly for pilgrims; to this day you can stay in monasteries when traveling in Israel.
• Monasteries could be a place of refuge for any person in need, not necessarily conditional on joining the order.
• Example: political refugees, prostitutes fleeing abuse, orphans, widows, single mothers—pretty much anyone could seek asylum in a monastery.

🌍 Modern religious orders

• Starting especially in the 16th century, we see more non-monastic religious orders (such as the Jesuits and Marianists) that abandon the monastic ideals of isolation in order to go to the people to provide services, rather than waiting for them to come to the monasteries.
• In other ways, modern religious orders continue the roles formerly held by monasteries.

👩 Women in monasticism

🏛️ Autonomy within limits

• While the institutional episcopacy (bishops) was exclusively male, there were many monasteries for women.
• Most monasteries were under the jurisdiction of a male bishop who could give orders and collect profits.
• At least on a day-to-day basis: these women were independent and autonomous; women were led by other women and took on many non-traditional roles.

📖 Education and leadership

• Because of monasteries women had at least one choice other than wife and mother.
• In some monasteries, women could go beyond literacy to advanced studies.
• Four women have been named Doctors of the Church, joining the rank of thirty-two men.
• Example: Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) persuaded Pope Gregory XI to reform the clergy and end the Avignon papacy, the Church scandal of the day.

⚖️ Trade-offs

• Certainly a modern feminist would point out that joining a monastery had strings attached, including abandoning marriage, sex, and children.
• A vow of obedience limits liberation even if the vow is to obey a woman.
• Nevertheless, monasteries provided women with options and autonomy not otherwise available.

🌟 Mysticism: union with ultimate reality

🔮 What mysticism is

Mysticism can be defined as "the exceptionally vivid intuition of one's union with ultimate reality."

• For the mystics: mystical union is more real than any ordinary object.
• It is not the absence of sensory perception, but the overwhelming of the senses.
• It contrasts with the mundane in degree of sensation, and in that others around the mystic do not experience what the mystic experiences.
• Don't confuse: outsiders and skeptics may tend to think of mysticism as other than reality or escape from reality, but for the mystic it is more real than any ordinary object.

🌸 The five characteristics of mystical experience

Characteristic	Description	Key details
Love, often erotic	Sexual sensuality comes bursting through in mystical writings	Mild forms include referring to Christ as groom or lover, described with actions of embracing or kissing; not uncommon for language of penetration and climax to be used, and the mystic sometimes experiences orgasm
Ineffable	Cannot be captured in words	The mystic is frustrated trying to capture the experience in words, and yet often feels compelled to talk about the experience
Conscious	Normal intellectual and rational faculties throughout	Contrasts with dream visions; the mystic experiences heightened clarity and intellectual understanding, even if the understanding cannot be captured in words
Fleeting	Intense but does not last long	The mystic is left exhausted but wanting more; mystics may develop the ability to repeat the experience but not maintain it; mystics who cannot repeat the experience suffer withdrawal, which is the origin of the phrase "The Dark Night of the Soul"
Passivity	Never feel in control	Although mystics develop the ability to open themselves to mystical experience, they never feel in control; the experience cannot be earned, immediately triggered, or planned; the experience washes over the mystic

🙏 Religious vs. other mysticism

• In religious mysticism the ultimate reality with which one feels united is generally God.
• The same basic characteristics can apply to experiences of union with the universe, nature, humanity, or aliens.

📜 Gertrude the Great's experience

• Gertrude the Great was born in 1256 and grew up in a monastery from the age of five or six.
• When she was 25 years old she had her first mystical experience.
• Her account illustrates the five characteristics:
  • Love/erotic: "You were the most handsome and amiable young man of sixteen years"; she received a "delicate child" within her bosom with "tenderest affection"; she received her "bridegroom" and "spouse"
  • Ineffable: "I am calling something a color which cannot be compared to anything visible"
  • Conscious: "I knew that I was physically standing in my place in choir"; "You enlightened and opened my mind by such illuminations"
  • Fleeting: the experience happened during "the joyful hour after compline [night prayers]"; she was "instantly" placed beside Christ
  • Passivity: "You, who are the true light... chose to enlighten my darkness"; "You knew the sincere fervor with which I desired you, and my weakness as well"
• Vision details: she saw a hedge full of thorns between herself and Christ representing her crimes; Christ took her hand and placed her beside him; she saw Christ's radiant wounds; she was transformed "into the color of this divine infant"; her soul would "receive the indwelling of my divinity as the air receives the light of the sun's rays"

👩‍🎨 Women mystics

• In the Middle Ages the practice and documentation of mysticism reached a high point in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
• Even though women in the Middle Ages were formally excluded from positions of church leadership, many of the mystics from this period were women.
• Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) is one famous mystic and the first credited female composer of music.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The Renaissance created the intellectual, technological, and political conditions—especially perspective, universities, the printing press, and weakened papal authority—that allowed Martin Luther's ideas to spread widely and spark the Reformation, whereas similar ideas in earlier centuries had not taken hold.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Why Luther succeeded when earlier reformers did not: history had to be ready for the change; the Renaissance provided the necessary context through new ways of thinking, technology, and political shifts.
• What "perspective" means in the Renaissance: encountering other cultures (especially Islam) led Europeans to see their own traditions differently, recognize multiple viewpoints, and study texts in original languages and cultural contexts.
• How ideas spread differently: universities allowed open dialogue among equals, and the printing press enabled cheap, rapid distribution of Luther's 95 theses across Europe.
• The indulgences controversy: St. Peter's Basilica was funded by selling indulgences (promises to "loosen" sins in the afterlife), which Luther challenged in 1517, setting off the Reformation.
• Common confusion: the Reformation was not just about one man or one issue—political interests (princes wanting independence from Rome), economic factors (confiscating church property, stopping taxes to Rome), and theological debates all intertwined.

🎨 The Renaissance context

🌍 What "Renaissance" means

Renaissance: rebirth of the classical period—reviving the art, literature, philosophy, political thought, and intellectual climate of ancient Greece and Rome.

• Renaissance thinkers (starting around 1300 in Italy) did not want to live in the past, but to carry forward the classical spirit in new ways.
• They called the period between classical antiquity and their own time the "Middle Ages," viewing it as standing in the middle.
• Example: Michelangelo's "David" (1504) and Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" (1498) show depth, movement, realism, and human focus characteristic of Renaissance art.

🔍 The single word that characterizes the Renaissance: perspective

• In art: dimensionality, realism, and movement.
• In intellectual circles: realizing that not every culture is the same, and one's own way of thinking is not the only way.
• In biblical studies: recognizing that Hebrew literature has idioms and cultural context that must be understood, not just translated literally.
• Before the Renaissance, few in the Middle Ages saw value in reading the Old Testament in Hebrew.

🕌 How Christian Europe gained perspective

• The Crusades (around 1000 onward) sent many European males to the Middle East to take Jerusalem from Muslim rule.
• On the way, they encountered other European Christians, Middle-Eastern Christians, and Muslims.
• Christian Europe also encountered Islam through conflict in Spain and through Italian merchants and travelers.
• Islamic art, literature, architecture, philosophy, and science were particularly advanced.
• The encounter did not lead Europe to imitate Islam, but to think more about and glorify its own heritage from Greece and Rome.
• Why encountering others matters: it gives perspective—study abroad and learning other languages and cultures have the same effect.

🏛️ New institutions and technology

🎓 Universities and the flow of ideas

• Before the 12th century, one would be lucky to have one tutor, who was not to be questioned or doubted.
• Universities began as groups of teachers and students gathered together, working for common interests and exchanging ideas.
• For the first time, it was common for students to learn from different teachers, perhaps in direct dialogue.
• Scholars could engage with each other as equals.
• Fewer and fewer subjects were out of bounds for open conversation.
• Example: it was not strange for a Bible professor at a university (Martin Luther) to post 95 provocative statements for discussion—such points had already been discussed elsewhere.

🖨️ The printing press

• The printing press allowed Luther's ideas to spread cheaply to large numbers of people in many places.
• Hand copying documents on leather was extremely expensive and difficult, but printing many copies on paper (newly brought from China) was easy.
• Comparison: the invention of the printing press ranks with the invention of writing itself and the Internet in terms of the flow of ideas.
• What was new was how quickly Luther's ideas flowed beyond his immediate circle and gained a wide audience.

⛪ Papal weakness and political opportunity

👑 The papacy was slow to respond to new religious and political reality

• Perhaps at one point the bishop of Rome (pope) filled a power vacuum and offered stability to Western Europe through the Holy Roman Empire.
• As the king of France and German-speaking princes became more powerful, the papacy faced opposition and generally handled bad situations badly.
• Political science perspective: the emphasis would be on the princes (especially Frederick) who protected Martin Luther and stood up to Rome.
• Surely some princes sincerely embraced Luther's ideas, but there was also money and politics at stake.

💰 Why princes found Luther's message easy to hear

• Luther's first treatise encouraged the princes to stop paying taxes to Rome.
• Breaking with Rome would mean princes could confiscate church property.
• Some messages are very easy to hear.

💸 The indulgences controversy

🏗️ How St. Peter's Basilica was funded

• The papacy promoted Renaissance art and architecture, commissioning masterpieces like Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling and St. Peter's Basilica.
• Today major public works might be funded through taxes or government bonds.
• Construction of St. Peter's Basilica (begun 1506, still the largest church in the world) was funded through the sale of indulgences.
• The controversy: how expensive these projects were, and how the money was raised.

🎫 What indulgences were

Indulgences: exploited the idea that Christ gives the apostles (and their successors the bishops) power to "loosen" sins in the afterlife (see Matthew 16:19 and John 20:23).

• Although the forgiveness of sins was a sacrament separate from the sale of indulgences, many were persuaded that they could achieve heaven more quickly and easily if they invested in indulgences.
• In addition to the inherent abusiveness of the practice, some local "salesmen" in Luther's region were particularly unscrupulous.
• One "salesman" (Johann Tetzel) exploited concern for deceased loved ones with the pitch: "As soon as the gold in the casket rings, the rescued soul to heaven springs."
• Analogy: indulgences have been called "Get out of purgatory free" cards (like the Monopoly game card), with "free" understood as without time or suffering, not as without cost.

🔥 What set off Martin Luther

• It would be wrong to reduce the Reformation to one man or one issue, but the sale of indulgences is the issue that set off Martin Luther and his 95 theses in 1517.
• His 95 theses challenged the authority of the Church to sell indulgences.
• Those who contested Luther did not defend the crass way of turning salvation into a tradeable commodity.
• The debate quickly shifted to the deeper question of sources of authority.

👥 Key figures

✝️ Martin Luther (1483–1546)

• Born in a remote part of the Holy Roman Empire (today Germany).
• His father pushed him to study to be an attorney, but he kept a vow to become an Augustinian monk if he survived a storm.
• The writings of Augustine and Paul were particularly influential on him.
• As a monk he became obsessed to the point of depression about his salvation, worrying he was not doing enough to earn it.
• He eventually resolved this by concluding he did not have to do anything to earn his salvation.
• A superior assigned him to teach scripture at the University of Wittenberg, hoping he might snap out of his depression.
• Consistent with the Renaissance, he studied scripture in the original Hebrew and Greek, and relied on reason to understand it.

🇮🇹 Luther's 1510 visit to Rome

• In 1510 Luther visited Rome and witnessed disturbing things.
• While he was obsessing over his worthiness before God, the clergy in Rome (especially the highest officials) seemed concerned only with worldly power and glory.
• He encountered incompetence, frivolity, and luxury which offended his rural fear of God.
• What may have been more new: a biblical scholar encountered people who claimed the authority to declare the meaning of scripture, even though they did not answer his rational arguments, or even know Hebrew and Greek.

📜 Luther's career and conflict

• In 1517 Luther posted 95 theses challenging the authority of the Church to sell indulgences.
• People disagree whether he intended to start a revolution, or only a conversation.
• According to plan or not, the theses were printed and spread across Europe.
• The scandal, and his refusal to recant, put him in direct conflict with Rome.
• He benefitted from the protection of Frederick (the prince of his own region) and several others.
• With local protection he was able to write extensively, and his works were best sellers.
• He struggled with division among those within the movement associated with him.
• He died of natural causes at age 62 in 1546.
• Don't confuse: not all Protestants identify as Lutheran; Lutherans today, along with Anglicans, are rather close to Catholicism in liturgy and practice—others would go on to reform more radically.

📖 John Calvin (1509–1564)

• Went further than Luther and laid out the theological positions identified as Reformed or Calvinist.
• Presbyterians also developed from Calvin, and Puritans used his teachings to separate from Anglicanism.
• Most associated with the doctrine of predestination: God has long ago determined who will be saved (go to heaven) and who will not (go to hell); we cannot know whether we are saved, and we certainly cannot affect our salvation in any way.
• This position is the opposite of Catholic teaching, well beyond Luther.
• Although Calvin completely separated morality from salvation, he and his followers emphasized a particularly strict standard of morality.
• Luther wrote in German; Calvin wrote in French and thrived in Geneva, Switzerland.
• Luther was a persuasive speaker and writer, but Calvin excelled at intricate intellectual arguments.
• Luther thought any honest man could interpret scripture for himself once translated into German, without need of clergy.
• Calvin recognized the difficulty of interpreting the Bible in any language, and wrote extensive commentaries on the Bible.
• However, in the spirit of Luther, Calvin claimed only reason (not apostolic succession or ordained office) as the authority behind his interpretation of scripture.

👑 King Henry VIII of England (1491–1547, reigned 1509–1547)

• Had no theological qualms with Rome, except that the Church of England should be loyal to no human higher than the king of England.
• The theme of national independence of churches runs deep, but the specific occasion for the separation was a dispute over whether Henry needed the permission of the pope to divorce and remarry.
• Organizational independence has led the Church of England (Anglican Church) to make some different decisions over the centuries, but theologically and liturgically it can be difficult to tell the difference between Anglicans and Roman Catholics.
• Perhaps the most obvious differences: Anglican priests can be women and can be married.
• In lands England colonized (particularly North America and Africa), the churches extending from the Anglican Church are called Episcopalian (literally "of the bishops").
• Major denominations to separate from the Church of England: Puritans (influenced by John Calvin, mostly went to North America) and Methodists (founded by John Wesley, 1703–1791).

⚖️ The Catholic response: Council of Trent

🔄 Luther wanted reform, not division

• Martin Luther wanted the Church to reform, not divide.
• Luther's rhetoric and theological claims made the division irreversible.
• Those who remained in communion with the bishop of Rome did reform at the Council of Trent (1545–1563).

📋 What Trent addressed

• Theologically, the council did nothing to bridge the gap with Luther.
• But it did address corruption and lack of organization.
• Part of the problem: local bishops and priests were poorly trained and often distorted the tradition simply out of ignorance.
• Some things as fundamental as what books go in the Bible had never been officially clarified until Trent.
• Some teachings that Luther protested against were not actual Catholic teaching (at least not across Christendom), so those teachings needed to be clarified.
• On points where the bishops were resolute that Luther was not right, they needed to articulate clearly what they thought was right.

🎓 Reforms at Trent

• Trent reaffirmed the role of the bishops in teaching the faith, but shifted this from a right to a responsibility.
• Bishops were called to directly serve and build the faith of the baptized in their dioceses (districts).
• Priests were held to a higher standard of education.
• Trent also addressed abuses in local churches imposing obligations that interfered with the economic life of the people, particularly so many holy days and feast days (on which work was prohibited) that the crops could not be farmed.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Luther argued that an individual Christian with reason, conscience, and the Bible has more authority than any church institution, pioneering the idea that personal interpretation of scripture trumps inherited office or tradition.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Luther's core rejection: he denied that bishops have inherent authority passed down from the apostles; any rational Christian can interpret scripture.
• "Scripture alone" (sola scriptura): Luther rejected tradition as an equal authority alongside scripture, believing individuals could read the Bible and understand it for themselves.
• Catholic view of tradition: tradition is inseparable from scripture; it includes the Holy Spirit passed through bishops, documents, community, and the process that produced the Bible itself.
• Common confusion: Luther did not mean any individual's interpretation is equally valid, but he set in motion the idea that no office grants automatic interpretive authority.
• Historical-critical method: modern biblical scholarship seeks the original author's intent in historical context, using philology and archaeology, making interpretation increasingly specialized.

🔑 Luther's radical claim about authority

🔑 Individual vs. institution

• Luther was "an individual arguing against an institution," not bishop vs. bishop.
• His profound point: one person with reason, conscience, and Bible has more authority than the pope, president, teacher, or commanding officer—anyone.
• This premise later flowed into ideas like conscientious objection, "just following orders is no excuse," and radical democracy.
• Luther himself may not have imagined or wanted all these implications.

📖 Why Luther rejected bishops' authority

• Everyone agreed on scripture and reason; the question was whether there was another authority alongside scripture.
• The Catholic Church said tradition is also a factor, especially the authority bishops received from Jesus through the apostles.
• That authority could not contradict scripture or reason, but gave bishops special power to interpret scripture and decide matters not clearly settled by scripture.
• Luther simply rejected the idea that bishops have more inherent authority than any rational Christian.

Example: Luther as a Bible scholar believed he knew more about salvation than the institution of the Catholic Church; he would accept rational arguments based on scripture but not respect office as inherent authority.

📜 Scripture alone (sola scriptura)

📜 What "scripture alone" means

Luther spread the motto "scripture alone" (in Latin, sola scriptura), implicitly rejecting tradition as an authority alongside scripture.

• This does not mean rejecting all tradition—just that tradition is not on the same level of authority as scripture.
• Example: celebrating Jesus's birth on December 25 is not in scripture, but most Protestants keep this tradition with the view that it doesn't really matter.
• Other Protestants (e.g., Jehovah's Witnesses) go much further and do not celebrate Christmas.

📖 Luther's translation project

• Luther believed that if individual Christians read the Bible for themselves, they would understand it and arrive at the truth.
• All he had to do was translate it into the common language (German) so everyone could read it without needing a priest or bishop to tell them what it means.
• Luther was not the first (preceded by John Wycliffe in England and Jan Hus in Prague, both killed as heretics in 1380 and 1415).
• Thanks to the printing press and Prince Frederick's protection, Luther's translation was not easily repressed.

🤔 Unintended consequences

• Luther believed rational Christians would read the Bible and agree with him, unless the devil actively intervened.
• He soon found many people read his own translation and found meanings Luther thought wrong—"the devil was keeping quite busy."
• Luther did not intend to say any individual's understanding is as good as any other's, or that interpretation was unnecessary, or that reason and education couldn't make one interpreter more authoritative—but he did get that ball rolling.

⛪ Catholic view: Scripture and Tradition

⛪ Tradition is inseparable from scripture

• The Council of Trent (responding to Luther) reaffirmed that scripture and tradition are both authorities, never officially teaching that tradition is more important than scripture (though some erred that way).
• In 1965, the Second Vatican Council made clear: tradition is not a separate authority apart from scripture, and certainly not more important; they are inseparable.
• Scripture establishes the authority of tradition, and tradition established scripture—the production of the Bible itself happened over hundreds of years through many imperfect humans guided by God.

🎁 What tradition includes

The word tradition means that which is handed down.

Tradition includes (but is not limited to):

• The gifts of the Holy Spirit passed down through the bishops (non-bishops can also receive the Holy Spirit directly or through other sacraments).
• Documents and books produced by great, inspired minds over the centuries.
• Faith handed down from your mother and grandmother, along with other traditions.
• The Christian faith as a whole handed down from the apostles, and the community they and others built over the centuries.

From a Catholic perspective: if a Martian read the Bible with no other knowledge of Christian history, that Martian would not have a sufficient understanding of Christ and the Christian faith.

🛡️ Why trust tradition?

The excerpt acknowledges tradition can be wrong (e.g., slavery, subordination of women were passed down for centuries).

Arguments for tradition as authority:

Argument	Explanation
Holy Spirit in the long-haul	The Holy Spirit works through the Church over time without guaranteeing perfection of any one individual.
Filtering over time	As ideas are passed down, the best ideas endure and bad ideas are filtered out. Example: if a mother taught three things, two good and one bad, she keeps the two good ones, removes the bad, and adds one from her own experience.
Emergence	The sum of many imperfect parts is more perfect than the most perfect among the parts. Classic story: a contest to guess a bull's weight—the average of all guesses was almost exactly right, closer than any single guess. The Catholic tradition as a community is more perfect as a whole than any one member.
Community correction	If you read the Bible alone in your basement, you may come up with crazy ideas. In a study group of well-meaning Christians, they naturally reinforce good insights and discourage crazy ideas—not because they are smarter, just that good ideas resonate with the faithful more than bad ideas.

🌱 Tradition is always growing

• Tradition is always growing and should always remain open to growth.
• From a Catholic perspective, neither the Bible nor "the way things have always been" should be idolized such that they cannot be questioned.
• That is the role of theology: to question.

Don't confuse: tradition as a good starting point vs. tradition as infallible or unchangeable.

🔬 Modern biblical interpretation

🔬 Why interpretation became high-stakes

• Jesus and the apostles were themselves interpreters of scripture; interpretation was nothing new with Luther, but he raised the stakes.
• If the Bible is the supreme authority for faith, then the person who decides what the Bible means has supreme authority.
• Luther thought every individual should have that authority for himself, but in the real world people do not simply read the Bible for themselves—they are influenced by interpreters who tell them what it means.
• Bible scholarship became very important, very fast; sola scriptura fueled the process.

🎯 The historical-critical method

The historical-critical method seeks to understand the intent of the original author in the author's own historical context.

• This means avoiding consideration of later interpretations and personal interpretations of what it means "to me."
• Example: in the eighth century BC, the prophet Isaiah said a young woman (or virgin) will conceive and bear a son called Immanuel. Christians later think of Jesus, but historical-critical interpreters point out it doesn't say Jesus, and the author had a meaning in mind other than what would happen eight centuries later.

Key methods:

• Philology: detailed study of vocabulary and grammar of ancient languages to understand what they originally meant, eliminating wrong or misleading translations.
• Archaeology: digging up texts, buildings, and everyday objects of people who lived at the time to better understand how they lived and what authors may have been referring to.

🎓 Modern interpretation as objective science

• Premodern biblical interpretation was relatively playful and creative; modern interpretation is characterized by the effort to be objective.
• If there is no "pope" besides the biblical interpreter, the interpreter's authority goes only as far as the ability to persuade others the interpretation is correct.
• Modern interpreters tried to work like scientists, using purely rational methods to identify truths that could be shared by all rational observers.
• Interpreters tried to be neutral, suppressing or ignoring how personal experiences shaped their views.
• If Bible interpreters are like scientists studying biblical data, then nationality, skin color, or social location should play no role.
• Starting in the 1970s this perspective would be challenged; postmodern interpretation embraces the context and experience of the interpreter.

📚 Growing complexity and elitism

• Over the centuries, biblical scholarship grew more and more complicated and challenged more common beliefs about the Bible.
• In a sense, biblical scholarship became as elite and irrelevant as the politician bishops from whom Luther wrestled control of the Bible.

🚫 Fundamentalism as a reaction

🚫 Rejecting the need for interpretation

• One reaction (particularly in the United States) was to reject the need for interpretation.
• The fundamentalist movement began at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey early in the 20th century.
• In 1979, the term "fundamentalist" took on a negative connotation after being applied to Islamic fundamentalists in Iran who seized the American embassy.
• Today, not many self-identify as fundamentalists, but the basic approach is going strong.

📖 Fundamentalist approach

Fundamentalists sought to return to the Bible as the foundation of Christian faith.

Core claims:

• Reject archaeology, philology, and complicated scholarship: the Bible alone is sufficient.
• Everything in it is absolutely true.
• Nothing outside the Bible is necessary or affects the absolute truth of the simple sense of scripture as understood by any ordinary person.
• The Bible interprets itself: there is no need for interpretation beyond accepting the truth of the literal meaning of the text.

Don't confuse: Luther said "the Bible interprets itself," meaning one can discern the meaning of one passage by considering other passages in the broader context (which could mean detailed study of how a word is used elsewhere). Fundamentalists applied this to mean no need for interpretation beyond accepting the literal meaning.

🔬 Fundamentalism vs. science

• Many mild fundamentalists seek to reconcile the absolute truth of the Bible with science.
• For some, if science challenges the truth of the Bible, then science is wrong.
• Examples:
  • If science says earth's formation took billions of years and the Bible says six days → it took six days and science is wrong.
  • If the Bible says there was a talking snake → there was a talking snake.
  • If the Bible says the entire earth was flooded and only surviving species fit into one boat → that fact is more true than anything scientists can say.

⛪ Catholic view vs. fundamentalism

• This is not the Catholic view.
• The Catholic view: the Bible is the word of God expressed in the words of men.
• God's self-revelation is available through the Bible, but we have to use historical-critical interpretation to understand the expressions of divine inspiration in the contexts of the authors.
• The Bible is without flaw as a guide to salvation, but not as a history book or science book.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The central debate between Catholicism and Protestant reformers concerns whether salvation comes through faith and works together (Catholicism), faith alone (Luther), or neither but only God's predetermined choice (Calvin).

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The core disagreement: Catholicism says both faith and works are essential; Luther says faith alone saves us; Calvin says God predetermines salvation regardless of human action.
• What "works" means: not just good deeds but also devotions and sacraments—actions humans can do as opposed to what Jesus already did.
• Grace as the foundation: all agree grace is God's freely given, unmerited gift; they differ on whether humans can open themselves to it (Catholicism), accept or reject it (Luther), or have no choice (Calvin).
• Common confusion: "works" vs "faith"—works don't earn salvation in Catholicism either; they open us to grace and express true faith, which cannot exist without action.
• Modern challenge: 21st-century Americans often believe good deeds alone (regardless of faith in Christ) can lead to salvation, a view not addressed in the 16th century.

🔑 Luther's breakthrough and the problem

😰 Luther's struggle

• As a young monk, Martin Luther worried constantly about his worthiness before God.
• He was aware of universal human imperfection (sinful nature), not because he was particularly terrible but because no human is perfect.
• No matter how much he confessed, received sacramental forgiveness, or prayed, he felt he was not doing enough.

💡 Luther's solution: faith alone

• Luther realized he did not have to do anything for salvation—indeed, he could not save himself no matter how virtuous or pious.
• Only Jesus can save him; Jesus knows we are sinners and does not expect sinlessness.
• Jesus only expects faith; if we have faith, Jesus does the rest.

Salvation: the soul being with God for eternity in the afterlife (heaven), as opposed to permanent and complete separation from God (hell).

• We do not earn salvation; Jesus earned it for believers by dying on the cross.
• Luther was not opposed to works but opposed thinking of them as essential for salvation, because that could lead to the heresy that we earn our own salvation.

⚖️ Three positions on salvation

🏛️ Catholicism: faith and works

• Catholicism fundamentally agrees that Jesus saves us, not ourselves, and that faith is essential.
• Works are essential, even though they can never be more significant than what Christ did.
• Works do not earn salvation, but they open us to receiving grace, which leads to faith, which leads to salvation.
• It is impossible to have true faith that does not express itself in works, because our faith is in a God who calls us to action.
• Therefore works are essential not because we save ourselves, but because works lead to faith and faith leads to works.

✝️ Luther: faith alone

• Luther was not opposed to doing good deeds; he wanted everyone clear that those deeds were not earning salvation.
• No number of good deeds can surpass what Christ has done for us.
• Salvation occurs when we hear the Gospel and believe; faith and faith alone is our acceptance of the salvation provided by Christ.
• Any deeds we do out of gratitude for God's grace are thoroughly secondary, like saying "thank you" is an appropriate minimal response to a huge gift.
• Some Christians today believe salvation is simple and binary: either you accept Jesus or you do not; if you do, you can be absolutely certain of eternal life no matter what else you do.

🔒 Calvin: neither faith nor works

• John Calvin was not opposed to faith or works; he was strongly in favor of both.
• However, he did not believe a human could do anything to influence our fate in the afterlife.
• Faith is itself a gift from God, and we do not have any choice in accepting or rejecting it.
• Works should be done because God commands them, but that has nothing to do with salvation; no amount of good deeds will change God's mind.
• Long before we were even born, God has already determined who is going to heaven and who is going to hell.
• Most of us are going to hell, but we shouldn't complain because we never had a right to heaven in the first place.
• Example: Just because Oprah gave some people a car doesn't mean I can be mad because I did not get a car.

📊 Comparison: the "entrance exam" metaphor

Position	What kind of entrance exam does heaven have?
Catholicism	On the whole, did you live a faithful life characterized by acts of piety, good deeds, and repentance for your bad deeds?
Luther	Did you choose to accept Christ's gift of salvation?
Calvin	You're not on the list. You never were. You never could have been. You never will be. Go away.
American culture today	Were you a good person, regardless of what if any faith you may have had?

🎁 Key terms explained

🙏 What is "faith"?

For the 16th-century discussion, faith meant belief that Jesus is Lord (understood to mean God) who died and rose from the dead for the forgiveness of sins.

Luther did not challenge the importance of faith. Over the centuries, additional disputes arose:

• Detail required: In how much detail must the faith be accurate to be saved? (e.g., right belief about Jesus but wrong about the Trinity or Mary—can you still go to heaven?)
• Binary or degree: Is faith have-it-or-don't, or can you have more or less? Do souls fall into two categories (saved/damned) or many?
  • Catholicism tends to say there are degrees: the most faithful may experience God immediately after death; the marginally good may be worthy only after cleansing (purgatory).
• Exclusivity: Is faith in Jesus the only legitimate kind? Before the 20th century, the answer was simply "yes"—Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Native Americans had no chance of salvation.
  • Calvin in particular saw salvation as an exceptional gift only a few could receive; non-recipients had no right to complain.
• Origin: Where exactly does faith come from?

🛠️ What are "works"?

In this discussion, "works" means anything that an ordinary human can do, as opposed to what Jesus already did.

• When most Americans think of "works," they first think of good deeds, ethical action, or moral behavior—that is true but only part of the debate.
• The other part includes pious deeds in general, and particularly the sacraments.
• Luther was not opposed to doing works but opposed thinking about works as necessary for salvation.
• He continued to think of good deeds as a proper response of a Christian grateful for God's gifts.
• Others went further than Luther with a negative view of works in the sense of devotions and sacraments.
• Today many Protestants see devotions beyond practices explicitly commanded in scripture as distracting at best and idolatrous at worst.

🌧️ What is "grace"?

Among theologians, grace refers to God's freely given, unmerited gifts, particularly the gift of God's transforming presence.

• The definition and concept are common to all Christians; Luther differs only in the heavy emphasis he places on this concept.
• One can often spot a Lutheran theologian by the frequency with which the word "grace" is used.
• Not "elegant movement" (like ballet); not "gratuitous" in the negative sense of unwarranted.
• Related to "gratuity" (a tip freely given), though if expected or earned that differs from the theological definition.
• In modern Italian and Spanish, "gratis" means free as in "free beer."
• Emphasis: grace is something God gives us for no reason other than because God is cool that way—not because it's our birthday, not because we are cool, not because it is expected, not because God expects something in return.
• We cannot earn grace, we cannot expect grace, we can only be grateful when God gives it to us (indeed "grateful" can simply mean full of grace).

🔀 Different views on grace

🌍 Does God offer grace to all or only some?

• Catholicism: God offers it to all, but some accept it more than others.
• Calvin: God gives it to some and not others for no discernible reason (not because some deserve it more).

🤲 What effect does grace have on humans?

• Catholicism: We can choose whether to accept it; if we do, we come to faith and works.
• Luther: We can choose whether to accept it; if we do, we come to faith.
• Calvin: We have no choice in the matter; if God gives it to us we have it, which means we have salvation.

🧩 How these views connect to salvation

From these different views of grace come different views of whether salvation comes from:

• Faith and works (Catholicism)
• Faith alone (Luther)
• Neither (Calvin)

All three positions are supported by at least several passages of scripture. This is less a matter of biblical interpretation and more a matter of argument based on reason.

🏛️ The Catholic position in detail

🪣 Opening ourselves to grace

• Catholicism recognizes that what Christ does for us and what God does in offering grace are far more awesome than any little thing we could ever do.
• Nevertheless, grace is not the whole story of salvation.
• First, we can do things to open ourselves to accepting God's grace.

The rain metaphor:

• God's grace is like rain pouring down on us.
• We can open an umbrella and divert it away, or grab a bucket to gather as much as we can.
• Sin is like an umbrella; devotional actions are like a bucket.
• The rain falls on saint and sinner alike, but the saint at prayer receives more grace than the gangster in Vegas.
• Sacraments in particular put us in a position to receive God's grace.
• It is not that we are demanding anything of God.

⚖️ God's demands for ethical action

• Second, even though God's grace is freely given, God also makes demands on us for ethical action.
• The point is not that we can earn heaven the way a Boy Scout earns a merit badge by checking off boxes.
• The point is that it is inconceivable that one would have true faith and never practice that faith.
• At least today, the argument is not so much that faith and works are two separate ingredients of equal importance—it would be acknowledged that faith is more important if only it were possible to separate them.

🔒 Calvin's predestination

🧠 The logic of predestination

• Calvin's idea of predestination can be very difficult for people raised Catholic to understand, especially those given the theologically incorrect impression that we could earn our way into heaven.
• Calvin was a man of intense reason and knowledge of scripture.
• He is not the first or last (especially among philosophers) to follow the logic that if God is all-knowing and immutable, then humans have no true free will.

🤔 Catholic responses

• One response: God knows we will sin the way a parent knows a child learning to walk will fall—it is not that a parent plans to push the child or wants the child to fall, it is just a reasonable expectation.
  • However, the analogy is limited because God is more all-knowing than a parent.
• Another solution: leave it as a mystery, or conclude that God's ability to be all-knowing, immutable, and just is not constrained by our ability to understand God's all-knowingness, immutability, and justice.

🌍 The modern challenge: works alone?

🆕 A 21st-century perspective

• In the 16th century there were no theologians arguing that salvation can come through works alone; probably no one even entertained the possibility.
• However, the theologians of the next generation need to at least consider this perspective and respond intelligently.

🕊️ The Gandhi example

• In 21st-century America, most people would not hesitate to imagine that Mahatma Gandhi could be and probably is in heaven if there is such a place.
• Many today would reject the idea that lack of faith in Christ could even be a factor compared to such good works that inspired so many more good works.
• Many would also accept that it follows that faith is completely unnecessary, or helpful only in as much as it leads to works.
• Though common today, this is a rather new idea that was certainly not addressed in the 16th century and has not been adequately addressed today.

⚠️ The theological challenge

• One might argue that theologians build from faith and therefore are not responsible for engaging with disbelief or rejection of faith—that seems dangerous.
• Only in the past 50 years has Catholicism started to build a healthy relationship with Judaism; we still do not have a healthy relationship with secularism (the separation of religion from the public sphere) or atheism (the rejection of the existence of God).
• Theologians cannot treat non-believers the same way we treated Jews in the past.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

The Reformation fundamentally shifted Christian practice by elevating individual conscience above institutional authority, leading to denominationalism in worship and far-reaching political implications for religious and personal liberty.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Core shift: Protestant practice emphasizes individual conscience and personal relationship with God over institutional mediation, contrasting with Catholic emphasis on community and collective relationship with God.
• Denominationalism: The principle that each individual is accountable to their own conscience naturally led to the proliferation of separate denominations and independent churches, especially in America.
• Sacraments reduced: Luther limited sacraments to two commanded by Christ in scripture (Baptism and Eucharist), rejecting the Catholic seven as lacking scriptural mandate.
• Common confusion: Anabaptists vs. other Protestants—Anabaptists reject infant baptism entirely (requiring personal choice), while Lutherans and most others retain infant baptism despite emphasizing individual faith.
• Beyond theology: The principle that individual conscience trumps all other authority extended from religion into political philosophy, shaping American individualism, civil disobedience, and conscientious objection.

🏛️ General patterns of Protestant practice

🏛️ Simplicity and directness

• Except for Anglicans, Protestant liturgies and worship spaces are generally more simple and direct than Catholic counterparts.
• Protestant communities place more emphasis on individual and group Bible study.
• They have fewer and simpler devotional practices compared to Catholicism.

🌿 No single Protestant practice

The most striking feature of protestant religious practice is that there is no such thing as protestant religious practice.

• Protestant churches are characterized by denominationalism: many small movements that fall under western Christianity separated from Rome.
• This is not accidental—it flows directly from the principle that each individual is accountable to his or her own conscience.
• Luther's conscience justified separation from Rome, but the same principle could be extended to demand that every individual form their own Christianity if existing denominations seemed inadequate.

🌊 The Anabaptist movement

🌊 Rejection of infant baptism

Anabaptists: unlike Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, and Catholics, they reject infant baptism.

• The word "Anabaptist" means "re-baptizer"—outsiders see them as baptizing a second time.
• From the Anabaptist perspective, what was done to the infant never counted as baptism in the first place.

👤 Personal choice required

Traditional (pre-Anabaptist) view:

• Nicaea determined one baptism per person, as soon as possible after birth.
• If the child dies, they have the benefit of being a Christian in the afterlife.
• Baptism is more a commitment of parents, godparents, and community to welcome and develop the child in faith—not a choice of the person being baptized.

Anabaptist view:

• Baptism is only legitimate when the person being baptized chooses to be baptized.
• In particular, the person must choose to accept and have a personal relationship with Jesus.
• This focus on individual conscience and personal choice is largely a logical extension of Lutheran ideals, though Lutherans themselves continue infant baptism.

Today: Mennonites, Amish, Quakers, and Baptists follow the Anabaptist tradition.

🕯️ Devotions and sacraments

🕯️ Catholic devotions demoted or rejected

The Council of Trent defended the importance of works and kept many local customs and devotional practices, standardizing seven sacraments. Most Protestants opposed some devotional practices entirely and kept others as legitimate customs but not essential to salvation.

Devotions that Protestants would demote or reject (commonly found in Catholicism):

• Reverence for heroes of piety, including saints, deceased relatives, and Mary in particular
• The rosary (a series of prayers with emphasis on Mary)
• Vows like "Dear God if you save my family from the plague I will build a beautiful church in your honor"
• Elaborate statues and religious art
• Devotions not described in scripture, such as the scapular (worn like a necklace over heart and back)
• Shrines, pilgrimages, holy objects (relics of saints or the cross), and holy sites believed to be associated with miraculous healing

📚 Literacy vs. simple faith

• Many of these devotions thrive in Catholicism because they are meaningful to the poor and illiterate.
• For centuries, illiteracy and poverty were unavoidable for most Christians.
• Catholicism held onto the idea that the poor and illiterate can have a strong and simple faith (even appearing superstitious to outsiders).
• Luther sought to raise the standard of literacy and theological sophistication.

⛪ The seven sacraments: Catholic vs. Protestant

Luther's standard: He limited the definition of "sacrament" to two specifically commanded by Christ in scripture—Baptism and Eucharist.

Sacrament	Catholic view	Protestant/Lutheran view
Baptism	Mandated by New Testament; infant baptism valid	All agree baptism is mandated; Lutherans keep infant baptism; Anabaptists say only adult baptism (with conscious choice) is legitimate
Confirmation	Sacrament linked to baptism, focuses on gifts of Holy Spirit, marked by anointing with oil	Lutherans and most Protestants observe it as a custom but not a sacrament; Anabaptists reject it entirely
Eucharist	Sacrament; bread becomes Jesus' body	Luther had no problem with it (commanded at Last Supper); debate over whether bread becomes body really, symbolically, or in some other way
Reconciliation	Sacrament; confessing sins before a priest and requesting forgiveness from Christ	Luther continued this practice himself but did not count it as a sacrament established by scripture
Matrimony	Sacrament (last of seven to be recognized)	Luther accepted the practice but did not recognize it as a sacrament instituted by Christ; only link is Jesus went to a wedding; Paul's discussion discourages it but permits it as lesser of lust-based evils
Holy Orders	Sacrament marking special rights and responsibilities of priesthood	Luther rejected on multiple levels; taught priesthood of all believers—no formal separation of status after baptism; Lutherans have pastors/ministers/reverends worthy of respect for talent and training, but it is a vocation and job, not a sacramental status
Anointing of the Sick	Sacrament marking transition from this life to next life	Luther had no problem praying with people in last moments, but this did not meet his standard for a sacrament directly commanded by Christ

Don't confuse: Luther's rejection of Holy Orders as a sacrament does not mean Lutherans have no leaders—they have pastors and ministers, but these are roles based on talent and training, not a separate sacramental status.

🧭 The individual conscience

🧭 Theological foundation: priesthood of all believers

Priesthood of all believers: everyone is equal and no person stands between any other person and God.

• On a theological level, Luther rejected the need for priest, church, or pope to mediate between the Christian and God.
• Lutherans still have professional leaders of congregations, but they are facilitators for individuals to come together and work on their own personal relationship with God.
• If everyone and no one is a priest, there is no role for a celibate priesthood.

Catholic vs. Protestant emphasis:

• Catholicism came to think about the Church more as communion than mediation, but continued to emphasize a collective perspective—any one person is part of a community that collectively lives in relationship with God and others.
• Protestant theology emphasizes "individual" and "personal" as hallmarks.

⚖️ Conscience trumps all authority

Luther's implication: the individual conscience trumps all other authority.

Luther's stance at the Diet of Worms (1521):

• He stood accused of heresy and faced excommunication.
• He did not argue his view was more popular or more consistent with tradition.
• He stood on his own two feet and insisted he could only live by his own conscience, guided by reason and scripture.

Luther's attributed quotation:

"Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason (for I do not trust either in the pope or in councils alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, since it is neither safe nor right to go against conscience. May God help me. Amen."

• Even if he was the only one to think that way, compromise against his own conscience was impossible, and death would be a better alternative.

⛪ Implications for church structure

The principle in practice:

• What if the church I go to does not teach what my conscience says?
• Should I compromise? Take the good with the bad? Work for gradual change?
• All those things continue to exist among Protestants, but the principle of absolute authority of individual conscience dictates: it is better to start your own church than be part of a church that in any way goes against your conscience.

Result:

• Different denominations exploded across Europe.
• Some denominations followed conscience to positions that clashed with European society, so they came or were sent to North America to pursue absolute religious freedom.
• In North America, this principle continued to create more and more denominations when an individual thought he was more right than any existing denomination.

🇺🇸 American denominationalism

• We use the word "denomination" for a faith system or community that spans more than one geographic area.
• Many American Protestants belong to a stand-alone church not affiliated with any larger denomination, or do not identify with a church at all.
• Although each individual is bound by his own conscience, many Protestant communities find practical advantages of forming unions for things like education of ministers and social services (charity and missionary work).

Example: Small independent churches are common in the United States.

🗽 Political implications of individual conscience

🗽 Religious liberty constrained in Europe

• Luther supported German-speaking princes pursuing liberty from Rome, but not the peasants pursuing liberty from the princes.
• King Henry VIII made the Church of England independent from Rome but sought unity within the Church of England.
• For those whose consciences led them away from the Church of England, the New World provided seemingly unlimited opportunities to follow one's own conscience as far west as necessary.

Example: The early colonies are full of religion-based political drama; the biggest example is the westward journey of the Mormons until they found a place they could be left alone in Utah.

🗽 Religious and political liberty intertwined

• In the New World, religious liberty and political liberty went hand in hand, and often went beyond religion.
• The principle of individual conscience has as many political implications as religious.

Key principle:

If your government goes against your conscience, you are duty-bound to disobey or leave (which was easy 200 years ago).

• The American west was often associated with rugged individualism, self-reliance, and fierce independence.
• Throughout the country, we take it for granted that "conscientious objection" is an excuse for not serving in the military.
• Individuals have a right to civil disobedience if the majority passes a law that violates the conscience of the individual.

🇺🇸 American individualism

Compared to most of the world, America in general stands out in being characterized by individualism: the focus on the rights and responsibilities of the individual over the collective common good.

What remains for debate: Is that a good thing?

Different perspectives:

• Some would say individualism consists of greed, selfishness, and lack of compassion.
• Some would say a society of individuals pursuing their own interests in a free market is more prosperous all around than a society in which individuals lack that freedom or motivation.
• Some would say disregard for the common good undermines human dignity.
• Some would say a society of free individuals is the only true alternative to tyranny.

Don't confuse: The excerpt does not resolve this debate—it presents individualism as a historical outcome of Reformation principles, with ongoing debate about whether it is beneficial or harmful.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Between 1500 and 2000, Christian theology shifted from debating how faith should be understood to questioning whether faith is relevant at all in the face of modernity, secularism, and competing authorities.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The fundamental shift: In 1500, faith's importance was unquestioned; by 2000, the central question became "Who cares?" and "What does faith mean to me/us?"
• Church authority declined: The papacy and institutional churches went from unquestioned political and religious authority to largely symbolic leadership with limited direct power.
• Reason challenged faith: The Enlightenment introduced rationalism—the absolute authority of reason over all other sources of truth, including scripture and tradition.
• Common confusion: Secularism vs. oppression—secularism means separation of religion from government (not necessarily elimination), though in Europe it often connotes freedom from religion rather than freedom of religion.
• New moral scales: Industrialization and globalization raised questions about international structures of injustice, not just individual sin.

⛪ The transformation of church authority

⛪ From absolute power to symbolic leadership

• Around 1500, the papacy was the supreme authority in European religion and politics.
• By 2000, the pope became "a celebrity who inspires with words but wields negligible political power."
• The territory directly ruled by the pope shrank from most of Europe to Vatican City (110 acres—smaller than a university campus).
• Example: The English monarchy and Roman papacy both experienced "uncanny similarities" in going from unquestioned absolute authority to largely symbolic roles.

🔄 Two Vatican Councils: opposite directions

Council	Era	Direction	Key characteristics
Vatican I	1869–1870	Strengthening authority	Defined papal infallibility; more hierarchical; unity through obedience
Vatican II	1962–1965	Embracing modernity	Free conversation among bishops; "updating" and "opening a window"; accepted input from laity and non-Catholics

Papal infallibility: The teaching that the pope may invoke the Holy Spirit's authority to define doctrine on faith and morals, making such doctrine free from error in substance (though perhaps not expression).

• Why Vatican I asserted more authority: Precisely because the papacy was becoming weak politically and intellectually, the response was to strengthen it dramatically.
• Vatican II's revolution: Not just what it said, but how it conducted itself—open conversation, embracing free thinking and liberal thought.
• Ongoing controversy: Should the Church continue in Vatican II's direction, accept only specific reforms, or reverse the reforms entirely?

🎸 John Paul II: the celebrity pope

• Served 1978–2005 (second-longest papacy in history).
• Unprecedented public presence: Traveled far more than other popes; led huge masses in stadiums; focused on energizing youth.
• "No other pope is more easily compared to a rock star."
• Shift in papal role: From chief administrator of church institutions to "a spiritual celebrity who rules by persuasion rather than authority."
• Don't confuse: More Catholics felt personally connected to him as a person, but previous generations felt more committed to obeying the office of the papacy.

🇺🇸 American churches and social questions

• Smaller American churches "may have never been powerful political institutions" but also struggled to find their role.
• Key questions they faced:
  • Should Christians challenge slavery, defend it, or stay out of it?
  • Should oppressed people wait for justice in the afterlife or stand up for justice in this life?
  • Should Christian teaching be enforced through civil law?
  • Should faith be a factor in elections, and which faith issue is most important?
• Example contrast: Martin Luther King Jr. (Southern Baptist minister) saw Christianity as strength in resisting injustice; Malcolm X saw Christianity as part of a system of oppression and turned to Islam instead.
• The recurring modern question: "Is faith more part of the solution or more part of the problem?"

💡 The Enlightenment and the challenge of reason

💡 What the Enlightenment changed

• Before: Theology was "the undisputed core of what it means to be educated"; theological discourse was intellectual discourse.
• After: Theology became "disputed"—more voices competed for intellectual authority, sometimes directly challenging faith.
• The oldest American universities (Harvard, Princeton) were originally seminaries for training ministers; this shows how central theology once was.

🧠 Rationalism: reason as absolute authority

Rationalism: The absolute authority of reason (preferably that which can be scientifically studied) over all other authorities in pursuit of truth.

• Not just "use of reason": Rationalism means reason has absolute authority.
• The Enlightenment approach: If the Bible contradicts reason, the Bible is wrong; if religion contradicts reason, religion is wrong—not "let's explore more deeply," but simply "wrong."
• Key Enlightenment figures: Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume (philosophers); Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson (politics).
• Contrast with earlier thinkers: Catholicism and Luther were "very committed to reason and its compatibility with faith and scripture," but the Enlightenment "dismissed the compulsion to reconcile faith and reason, in favor of the supremacy of reason."

🔄 The reversal of order

• Classical theology: Fides quaerens intellectum ("faith seeking understanding")—faith presumed first, intellect brought secondarily.
• Enlightenment: The order reversed to intellectus quaerens fidem ("intellect questioning faith")—reason comes first and judges faith.

🏭 Economic and political upheavals

🏭 Industrialization and globalization

• Industrial revolution (second half of 19th century into 20th): Large-scale production, factories replacing craftsmen, iron/steel replacing wood tools.
• Urbanization: More people living in densely populated areas.
• Globalization: Companies and production chains span several countries; car brands no longer tied to one nation.
• New moral scale: "Injustice takes the form of international structures that systematically keep entire populations in persistent, multi-generation cycles of poverty and indignity."
• Don't confuse: Morality is no longer just "choosing the heavenly and spiritual over the worldly and fleshy" but addressing large-scale structural injustice.

⚒️ Communism: religion as oppression

• Karl Marx's solution: Workers should revolt and take control of the means of production.
• Marx's view of religion: "Not part of the solution to exploitation of workers, but part of the system of oppression that keeps the exploited fearful and docile in this life, in hope of a better afterlife."
• Communist governments: Often demanded absolute devotion to the state and prohibited devotion to religion.
• Violence against religion: Burning/confiscation of church property, systematic murder of priests, rape of nuns—especially when the church was associated with the old order.

🏴 Nationalism and fascism

• Nationalism challenged international understandings of "Church."
• Catholics accused of being loyal to a foreign pope rather than their own nations.
• Protestants and Jews faced the question: "Am I a Jewish American or an American Jew?"
• Fascism: Tolerated religion more than communism, but "that tolerance did not last if religion challenged the absolute authority of the leader."
• The Holocaust dilemma: Easy to wish churches had done more to speak out, but "institutions and individuals stood to lose" much by inserting themselves into politics during WWII.

🌍 Secularism: separation or elimination?

Secularism: Separation of religion from civil matters such as government.

• In the United States: Secular government and media, but most citizens remain religious "in their own way on their own time."
• In Europe: "Freedom of religion has more often meant freedom from religion"—secularism often connotes "the elimination of the relevance of religion from society, not the separation of particular faiths from the common forum."
• Don't confuse: Secularism does not mean oppression of religion, just separating it from the common sphere so no one religion's truth is assumed of all citizens.

⚔️ From persecution to Christendom to post-Christendom

• Before Constantine: Christianity was separated from government and "often directly at odds with it"—early Christians lived under threat of violent persecution by the state.
• After Constantine: Institutionalized Christianity was the state or a dominant authority; "Christianity was now on the other end of the sword, the more comfortable end."
• Today: "It would be difficult to point to a country and call it ruled by Christianity"—Christendom is now past.
• Key insight: "The first three centuries of Christianity demonstrate that domination is not necessary for the Christian faith, the task of faith seeking understanding, or finding relevance to society through example, teaching, and persuasion (but not force)."

🤔 The relevance question

🤔 What does faith mean to modern life?

The excerpt lists the new questions that emerged by 2000:

• What, if anything, does faith mean to me/us?
• What does faith have to say to family, politics, science, economics, and culture?
• How is faith relevant in the face of tyranny, war, exploitation of workers, globalization, environmental destruction, scientific discovery, and systematic oppression of women?
• How is faith relevant in the face of the new iPhone, the latest celebrity couple, the new blockbuster movie?
• Do I/we need faith at all?
• How do I/we balance the voice of faith with other voices?

📖 Pope John XXIII's vision at Vatican II

Key excerpt from his opening address:

• "The sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously."
• "The Church should never depart from the sacred patrimony of truth received from the Fathers."
• But also: "She must ever look into the present, to the new conditions and new forms of life introduced into the modern world."
• Crucial distinction: "The substance of the ancient doctrine of the deposit of faith is one thing, and the way in which it is presented is another."
• The authentic doctrine should be studied and expounded "through the methods of research and the literary forms of modern thought."

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

In modern times, reason turned against faith—challenging scripture, making science seem to replace religion, and forcing Christians to decide whether faith and reason can coexist or whether one must win when they conflict.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• The reversal: Classically, faith came first and reason served it ("faith seeking understanding"), but the Enlightenment reversed the order to "reason questioning faith."
• The core conflict: When reason contradicts faith or scripture, who wins—and how do you resolve the contradiction?
• Three approaches to scripture vs. reason: Fundamentalism (scripture always wins), Catholicism (both are true; reinterpret the one misunderstood), and rationalism (reason wins; scripture is human literature).
• Common confusion: Science disproving religion vs. science being irrelevant to religion—Catholicism rejects both extremes and insists faith and reason must inform each other.
• Why it matters: The relationship between faith and reason shapes how Christians respond to Darwin, secularism, relativism, and new spiritualities like the New Age movement.

🔄 The historical shift in faith and reason

🔄 Classical theology: faith seeking understanding

Theology is classically defined as fides quaerens intellectum, "faith seeking understanding," or perhaps more literally, "faith questioning the intellect."

• Faith was presumed first; the intellect was brought in secondarily to clarify and deepen faith.
• Reason was always central to Christian faith, but it served faith.
• Example: Luther assumed that reason is fundamentally compatible with scripture—he expected all rational beings to read scripture and agree on the same basic truth.

⚡ The Enlightenment reversal: reason questioning faith

• In the Enlightenment, the order was reversed.
• One can think of it as intellectus quaerens fidem, "intellect questioning faith."
• What changed: Reason turned against faith.
  • Luther thought scripture was internally consistent and that reason would confirm it.
  • But as people applied reason to scripture, they found that reason conflicted with faith and scripture itself.
  • People found that scripture contradicts itself—the same logic Luther used against the pope and councils now applied to the Bible.

🧩 The central question

• When reason contradicts faith, who wins?
• How does one go about resolving the contradiction?
• This question defines the modern debate about faith and reason.

🛤️ Three positions on faith vs. reason in biblical interpretation

🛤️ Overview of the spectrum

The excerpt presents three positions, forming a spectrum from faith-dominant to reason-dominant:

Position	Authority when conflict arises	View of scripture	View of reason
Fundamentalism	Scripture wins	Sole authority; literal sense	"Human reason" is wrong if it contradicts scripture
Catholicism	Both are true; reinterpret	Word of God in words of men; inerrant for salvation, not science	Must inform faith; faith without reason is superstition
Rationalism	Reason wins	Human achievement; revelatory about ourselves	Scripture is wrong if it contradicts reason

📖 Fundamentalism: scripture always wins

Fundamentalism gives the simple sense of scripture the sole authority and rejects "human reason" at least when it points in a different direction than scripture.

• If reason contradicts scripture, then reason is wrong.
• Many go to great lengths to prove the Bible "true" or rational in the most literal sense possible.
• They avoid admitting that the Bible contradicts itself, reason, or science.
• Example: Some are not quite so extreme but always look for a way to defend the Bible's literal accuracy.

⚖️ Catholicism: both are true; reinterpret the misunderstood one

Catholicism teaches that faith and reason can never contradict. There is one ultimate truth in the universe (God) and all paths to truth point in the same direction.

• Core conviction: If the paths appear to cross or contradict, then one is not being understood properly.
  • Perhaps faith needs to be clarified.
  • Perhaps reason needs to be re-examined.
  • But the conviction remains that there must be some solution.
• Scripture is the word of God expressed in the words of men.
  • While God is one absolute truth, the human attempts to articulate God's self-revelation can contradict each other, can be conditioned by the writer's historical context, and can even be wrong in the details.
  • The Bible is without flaw (inerrant) for what it is, a guide to salvation, but not without flaw as a history book or science book.
• If reason contradicts scripture, then scripture must have been trying to tell us something else, which is rational.
• John Paul II's formulation:
  • Faith without reason is superstition.
  • Reason without faith leads to relativism (the belief that there is no absolute truth).
  • Holding both together can be tricky.

🔬 Rationalism: reason wins; scripture is human

• Further along the scale in the direction of reason over faith.
• View of scripture: Primarily a human achievement that is revelatory in the sense that it reveals something about ourselves, or inspired the way poets today can be called inspired.
  • It may even be the word of God in the sense of being words about God (not from God).
• Reason has led many to believe that the Bible is fundamentally a human achievement.
  • Note: So far we have not called it a bad thing to be a human achievement.
  • Many Enlightenment humanists thought that calling the Bible the greatest human achievement was quite a compliment.
• Later reaction: Others would say that if the Bible is not the word of God then it must be a lie—a big, wicked lie.
• If reason contradicts scripture, then scripture is wrong.

🔬 Science and religion: conflict or complement?

🔬 The challenge: does science disprove or replace religion?

• For many, science either disproves religion or makes it irrelevant (or replaces it with its own metaphysical mystery).
• The point is not whether this doctrine or that holds up to reason.
• The point is that science offers a reliable and sufficient explanation of the world, far more reliable and sufficient than religion could ever manage.
• Science has the further advantage of objectivity.
  • Scientists may argue, but they are less likely to kill each other over their hypotheses than religious people are to kill each other over their beliefs.

⚛️ Catholic response: not opposed to science

Catholicism is not opposed to science.

• Catholic universities and other institutions can be counted as leaders in scientific discovery.
• Galileo case: Some might argue otherwise from the case of Galileo Galilei, who ran into conflict with Church officials surrounding the idea that the earth orbits around the sun.
  • However, the conflict was as much in how Galileo conducted himself as it was the idea itself.
  • Then and now, there are diva scientists who convince themselves they are correct and resent the scientific process of peer review of evidence and argumentation.
  • Perhaps too slowly for Galileo, the Church did review the evidence and eventually conclude that the earth does orbit around the sun.

🐒 Darwin and evolution: three reactions

What Darwin established:

• The differentiation of species occurs over time by natural selection.
• This contradicts the idea that God created every species that now exists at one time long ago when the heavens and earth were created.
• Darwin's model of evolution implies that human beings are basically animals, just more advanced monkeys, not the image of God and the sole possessors of souls.

Three general positions:

Position	View	Implication
Darwin disproves religion	Darwin's birthday ("Darwin Day") is celebrated by many atheists as the main festival of the triumph of reason over faith	Science wins; faith loses
Darwin is an agent of the Devil	Evolution is "just a theory"; the biblical image that the world was created in six days less than six thousand years ago is every bit as legitimate scientifically	Faith wins; science loses; "intelligent design" should be taught in schools
Darwin is absolutely correct, and his correctness only makes faith stronger	Natural selection does not mean that there is no creator, only that God works through natural processes	Both are true; God works through natural processes

✝️ Catholic position on Darwin

• Darwin is absolutely correct, and his correctness only makes faith stronger by leading us closer to understanding truth.
• Natural selection does not mean that there is no creator, only that God works through natural processes.
• Other than some awkward cautiousness, Catholicism never opposed Darwin.
• The only major note Catholicism would add: Human beings are special.
  • At some point in the evolution of human beings we went from being animals to being capable of having a relationship with God—we caught some of the divine spark which can be thought of as a soul.

🚫 Don't confuse: disproving vs. making irrelevant

• Unsubtle conflict: The idea that one disproves the other.
• Subtle conflict: The idea that religion and science are totally different spheres of knowledge pertaining to totally different areas of truth which have nothing to do with each other.
• Catholicism rejects both extremes.

🌍 Secularism, relativism, and the separation of spheres

🌍 Secularism: separating faith from life

Secularism can also occur within a person's life. Religion is for Sunday morning; science is for Monday through Friday; drunken debauchery is for Saturday. Or, more minimally, religion is for weddings and funerals, not the rest of life.

• We have already encountered secularism as a political theory of separation of religion from government.
• Secularism within a person's life: Religion and science are totally different spheres which have nothing to do with each other.
• Example: Harvard zoologist Stephen Jay Gould maintained that religion and science are not in conflict because they have nothing to do with each other.
  • Science should constrain itself to facts, not faith.
  • Religion should constrain itself to beliefs that cannot be scientifically supported or refuted.
• Catholicism would not accept this way of isolating two essential and complementary ways of pursuing truth.

⚠️ Catholic caution against separation

• Catholicism cautions against this kind of separation of faith life and non-faith life, in favor of an integrated, well-rounded life.
• It is not that Catholicism wants us all to quit our science or other jobs and dedicate ourselves only to religion.
• It is that Catholicism wants our faith to inform our science and our science to inform our faith.
• Scientific progress without faith messages such as the sanctity of human life is bad all around.

🔀 Relativism: no absolute truths?

Relativism would say that there are no absolute truths. What might be true for me may not be true for you. Everything is relative. No religion is better than another, no idea is truer than another, everything is individual perspective.

• Catholic teaching tends to use the word "relativism" pejoratively as a rejection of the absolute truth of God.
• However, relativism and absolutism define a scale on which most fall somewhere between the extremes.

🌏 Inculturation and pluralism: nuanced positions

• Catholicism does (for the most part) accept inculturation.

  Inculturation would say that the absolute truths such as the love of Christ can be expressed differently in different cultures in language and images that make sense to different people.

  • Example: Mary and Jesus, inculturated in Thailand (the excerpt references an image).
• Catholicism also generally accepts pluralism.

  Pluralism: the idea that different religious traditions can co-exist with mutual respect (even as individuals remain grounded in the principled belief that their own tradition is the best).

🌟 The New Age Movement and spirituality without religion

🌟 How science changed in the 20th century

• For centuries, science was focused on objectivity and empiricism.
  • Everything should be measured, quantified, and the simplest explanation of the available data should be accepted.
• However, the more we learned about science the more it became clear that science is far from simple, it is mind-blowing.
• Quantum mechanics, for example, challenged basic human perception that something cannot be in two places at once, or be both of two opposite things.
• The Enlightenment rejected the "mystery" or superstition of religion in favor of science, but science developed a component of wonder and mystery on its own.
  • For some, this led them back to faith.
  • For others, it met the basic need for contemplation of the transcendent, and replaced the traditional mysteries such as "fully God and fully human."

🔮 What is the New Age Movement?

• The New Age Movement is very mixed, but generally focuses on spirituality that is based on new science rather than old religious traditions.
• It draws from religions (especially eastern), but does not consider itself constrained by rigid teaching.
• It is often associated with:
  • Crystals.
  • The idea that reality is an illusion of the mind.
  • That we can take control of our lives by tapping into or channeling invisible forces that are larger than us, but not necessarily personal gods.
• The term "New Age" is generally applied to the form that rejects the need for religion in order to be spiritual, but there is much gray area for people who include both but lean one way or the other.

⚖️ Catholic response

• It need hardly be emphasized that Catholicism and other established religions do not feel that the Bible and traditions handed down for millennia can be easily replaced by crystals.
• However, there are many people and cases in which it is difficult or impossible to draw a clear line between Catholic spirituality and New Age spirituality.

🙏 "Spiritual but not religious"

• There are also variations that would not call themselves New Age but would follow the basic pattern of rejecting religion as a part of spirituality.
• It does not seem uncommon to hear people in America say, "I'm spiritual but I'm not religious."

📚 Key terms for the 20th-century discussion

📚 Positions on God and religion

Atheism – the assertion that there is no god, generally including any kind of invisible spiritual realm or afterlife (literally, lack of gods)

Agnosticism – the assertion that an individual or humans do not or cannot have knowledge about god(s), the truth of religious doctrine, or religion (literally, lack of knowledge)

Deism – the idea that God created the laws of the universe but then left it alone to play itself out. God does not pay attention to human affairs let alone intervene. The image of God is as a clock maker who designs a clock to run on its own.

• Example: The excerpt references an image combining Michelangelo's painting of God creating Adam with images of the cosmos from the Hubble telescope, conveying the Deist idea that God created the universe in a broad sense (perhaps knowable through science), but God did not fashion humans directly.

Pantheism – the belief that everything is God and God is everything. Some Christian teachings can sound like this (Aquinas), but Christianity generally rejects pantheism in favor of a clear distinction between creator and creation.

📚 Positions on Christian identity

Cultural Christian – recognition of Christianity as part of one's culture, particularly historically and in the broader society, without actually believing the supernatural truths traditionally taught by the faith.

Post-Christian – recognition of Christianity as having a formative influence on a society's or individual's development, but also rejecting Christianity as a true or acceptable community or belief system with which to identify.

• The excerpt associates this term with feminist theologian Mary Daly who ultimately concluded that her views about the dignity of women were incompatible with those of the Catholic Church, such that she could no longer identify as Catholic or Christian, even though she felt very much formed by the Catholic tradition in other ways.
• Example: The excerpt mentions explaining this term to a French colleague who responded, "But of course this is everyone."

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Christian faith remains relevant to the poor and oppressed by proclaiming good news that includes justice, dignity, and liberation in this life, not just salvation in the next, though Christians differ on how to balance evangelization with service and whether faith should primarily serve the poor or all people equally.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Modern changes in scale: industrialization, globalization, and modern warfare dramatically increased the scale of both economic injustice and potential destruction, requiring new responses from faith communities.
• Two views of evangelization: some see spreading faith as the ultimate goal (even using service as a means), while others view service to human dignity as an end in itself, with faith as the reason for service rather than the thing being imposed.
• Worker dignity theology: Catholic teaching contributed the idea that work exists for the worker (not vice versa), that dignity flows from God to people to their work, and that profit alone is insufficient—the economy must serve the common good.
• Liberation theology's controversial claim: the good news is primarily for the poor, and others are saved to the extent they have solidarity with the poor, challenging traditional views that faith alone or faith for all equally is what saves.
• Common confusion: "evangelization" today often connotes conservative Bible-focused Christianity, but all Christians in principle agree the church's function is to evangelize (proclaim good news)—they differ on what the good news is and how to proclaim it.

🌍 Modern context and new challenges

🏭 Scale of injustice changed

• Industrialization and globalization: a corporation neglecting human dignity could cause far more damage than a medieval lord.
• Scale of war: global alliances allowed conflicts to engulf most of the world (two world wars, Cold War); long-range weapons made killing easier and more impersonal.
• Nuclear threat: stockpiling of nuclear weapons meant bad decisions could end human life on the entire planet.

📢 Awareness and competition

• Modern times saw changes in awareness of injustice, including all forms of inequality.
• Faith communities playing catch-up: movements, political parties, and entire governments outpaced most churches as forces trying to improve people's lives.
• People of faith could have decided to work for justice in the secular domain and limit faith to private beliefs and rituals, or work only in local faith communities while ignoring political and economic structures at the root of injustice.

🤝 Vatican II response

• Vatican II asserted that faith and justice should work together.
• Citizens of all nations and all faiths must work together for universal recognition of human dignity.

📣 Evangelization: what and how to proclaim

📖 Biblical foundation

Evangelization comes from the Greek evangelídzō (εὐαγγελíζω), meaning to proclaim good news.

• Jesus understood himself as fulfilling Isaiah 61:1: "The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me; he has sent me to proclaim good news [literally: to evangelize] to the poor, to embrace the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, release to the prisoners…"
• Jesus began the work of proclaiming good news to the poor and passed that responsibility to his followers.

🔀 What is the good news?

Christians differ on exactly what the good news is:

View	What the good news includes	Emphasis
Traditional narrow view	Salvation in the next life	No emphasis on this life
Vatican II broader view	Peace, justice, love, and dignity in this life	The kingdom of God is grounded in this world; Christ's followers should imitate the justice and love they expect to be perfected by Christ

🎯 Manner of proclamation: means vs. end

If conversion is the ultimate objective:

• If faith in Christ is the most basic or only requirement for salvation, then spreading faith by any means necessary is justified.
• Conversion by force or manipulation is "doing the person a favor."
• Charitable approaches can have conversion as the main objective: offering food as incentive to hear about faith, meeting basic needs as foundation for meeting spiritual needs, or modeling good behavior hoping beneficiaries will be drawn to the faith.
• All these have spreading faith as the ultimate objective.

If service is an end in itself:

• Service to those in need is an end in itself, not a means toward imposing one's faith on others.
• All human beings have dignity as creatures of God, regardless of faith.
• Faith is neither the prerequisite of being treated as creatures of God, nor the ultimate goal of treating people as creatures of God.
• The good news to be proclaimed is life, liberty, and love, not religion.
• Faith is the reason to love and source of love for those proclaiming; it is not the thing being proclaimed.

Vatican II position:

• Opened the door for the second view, although the first view is still firmly established.
• Catholic charities and relief services do not discriminate on the basis of religion or mandate any religious "strings" attached to receiving aid.

⚠️ Don't confuse: "Evangelical" connotation vs. universal function

• In the United States today, "Evangelical" (capitalized) connotes a conservative Christian committed to (more or less literal) inerrancy of the Bible, a personal relationship with Jesus, and responsibility to spread these views to others.
• This connotation leads some Christians to avoid the term.
• But all Christians in principle agree that the function of a church community or individual Christian is to evangelize.

👷 Justice for workers

🏗️ New forms of economic injustice

• Christian faith compelled many to work for abolition of slavery.
• Industrialization brought a new kind of economic injustice on a new scale, and also brought competition for the role of proclaiming justice.
• Forms of injustice (from heinous to subtle):
  • Sweatshops, dangerous working conditions regularly leading to maiming and death, employers controlling all aspects of workers' lives (still common today, mostly moved overseas).
  • Discrimination, harassment, pay disparity (continue even where laws exist against them).
  • Work can be dehumanizing whether the factory owner hires a militia to fire upon workers or the demands of work stand in the way of health and happiness.

🏛️ Catholic Church's three contributions

First: Conciliatory approach

• Worker movements and labor unions developed largely on secular foundations.
• Whereas worker movements originated from an "us vs. them" relationship with factory owners, the Catholic Church in principle included (or could have included) all sides.
• Church documents such as Rerum Novarum ("New Things," 1891) proceeded with a more conciliatory approach, describing the mutual responsibilities of employer and employee, rather than single-sided lists of demands.

Second: Practical support

• In the United States, many tyrannized workers happened to be Catholic immigrants.
• Priests and nuns took seriously the obligation to care for workers in the pews.
• Priests and nuns occasionally led meetings, allowed parish halls to be used for meetings, or provided safe haven when organizing workers were violently attacked.
• Most importantly: the strike (refusal to work until conditions are satisfied) lasted only as long as workers could survive without income—church communities often provided food and other basic services to workers on strike.

Third: Theological theory of work and dignity

Workers have dignity and work is part of that dignity.

• Plenty of political and economic theories talk about forces such as supply and demand.
• Catholic theologians asked about the nature and purpose of work: Is it a necessary evil? A duty before God? A grace offered by a godlike corporation?
• Key conclusions:
  • Unemployment, underemployment, or bad employment can be psychologically damaging, placing pressures on family and society.
  • Fundamentally, work exists for the worker, not the worker for the work.
  • Dignity comes from God to human beings to the work.
  • Work is good, particularly when it gives expression to the diverse gifts God gives people for the betterment of society.
  • The economy is good insofar as it provides means to deliver necessities and joys of life to all people, but can be evil when it sucks life and happiness from many and delivers it to a few.
  • Profit can be good, but it is not a sufficient good.
  • Short-sighted greed for the self or shareholders at the expense of the common good is a sin.
  • Economic sin is not only for employers, but also for consumers who fund economic injustice with their purchases or remain silent on issues of the rights and dignity of workers around the world.

Example: An organization that prioritizes shareholder profit while ignoring worker safety is committing economic sin; consumers who knowingly buy from such organizations share in that sin.

🌎 Latin American Liberation Theology

📜 Biblical foundation for liberation

• Theologians in Central and South America in the second half of the 20th century went further with the question of how Christian faith is relevant to the poor, particularly those systematically oppressed by inescapable cycles of poverty and structures of injustice.
• They found Jewish scriptures proclaiming a God who:
  • Liberates slaves by the nation-load
  • Makes laws protecting orphans and widows
  • Anoints people to declare liberty
  • Sends prophets to call people to justice
• The New Testament keeps repeating how the poor are blessed and will receive the kingdom of God, while the rich will have great difficulty.

🎯 Core claim: good news primarily for the poor

For liberation theologians, the good news did not just include the poor or have perks for the poor, it was primarily for the poor.

• Liberation from poverty is central to the Christian message.
• Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez teaches: poverty is death; the Old Testament makes clear "you are not to kill;" the New Testament makes clear the plan of God is the victory of life over death.

⚖️ Controversial theological position

The controversial claim:

• Christ saves the poor primarily.
• Others can be saved to the extent to which they have solidarity with the poor.
• Even if one does not take literally Jesus' commandment to become poor as a prerequisite to following Jesus (Mark 10:21), one should at least be aware of poverty, be comfortable being with the poor, and do what one can for the poor.

Why controversial:

• For some, this implies that Christ's salvation is directed at many but not all, or that Christ's salvation is mediated, or that something besides faith is necessary for salvation.

💀 Violent opposition and relevance

• On March 24, 1980, Archbishop Óscar Romero was assassinated while saying mass.
• Later that year, four churchwomen were tortured, raped, and murdered by government forces.
• In 1989, U.S.-trained Salvadoran soldiers came to the campus of the University of Central America to execute all the theologians they could find; six priests, along with their housekeeper and her daughter, were shot in the head at point-blank range.

Why the violence:

• Those theologians proved that faith can still be relevant.
• The United States provided military and financial support to any government that was not communist in proportion to its opposition to communism.
• In El Salvador in the 1980s, there was only one issue: the propertied elite were fighting against communist guerilla fighters.
• Advocacy for liberation for the poor sounded too much like communism, or at least sympathy for communism.

Don't confuse: Most of the people who died in the "Cold" War were not theologians.

👩 Women's Liberation

🔄 Extension of liberation theology

• The term "liberation theology" started in Central America but quickly extended to asking how faith can be liberating to any oppressed group.
• There are many theologies of liberation, but the most significant in America is feminist theology.
• Women's liberation began outside theological circles, and only later did people of faith seek to put their feminist and Christian values in dialogue.

📅 Historical development in America

19th–20th century political movement:

• Started in the 19th century working to extend to women the right to vote (ratified 1920).
• In the 1960s, political efforts focused on illegalizing blatant discrimination against women in the workplace:
  • Equal Pay Act of 1963
  • Title IX prohibiting blatant discrimination in federally funded universities
  • Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution (never passed)

Today's diversity:

• The women's movement is characterized by diversity.
• Rather than a monolithic movement focusing on one key issue or legislation, there is recognition that different women confront different injustices.
• Legislation will not solve concerns such as:
  • The portrayal of women and women's bodies in the media
  • Openness to women's contributions even when they are different from those of men
  • The ways women treat each other

⛪ Challenges in church structures and theology

Structural challenges:

• The idea of the equality of women challenged traditional church structures defining communal leadership in general and ordination in particular as the domain of men.

Theological problems:

• There were (sometimes subtle) problems in the ways historically male theologians represented women and presented ideals for what it means to be a good woman.
• For example, it was not always clear that women even have souls.
• Scripture was written and traditionally interpreted from a male perspective.

Degrading messages in scripture:

• In the book of Revelation, those with Christ in heaven are all men who have not defiled themselves with women, while the only roles for women are virgin and whore.
• Moses teaches that a young girl who is raped must marry the rapist.
• Paul teaches that because of woman we all die, so women must be subordinated to men.
• Sirach says the birth of a daughter is a loss.

Interpretation:

• For the most part, the degrading messages were an accidental consequence of the patriarchal cultural contexts of the authors, not the core message.
• If women had been included all along, we might have avoided these problems.
• There is a tremendous amount of work to do for people who respect women to rearticulate the faith in expressions that maintain the dignity of both halves of humanity, the image of God.

🕊️ Recent changes under Pope Francis

• In the past few years, Pope Francis has taken steps to formally recognize some of the contributions that non-priests (including all women and most men) were already making to the Church.
• In 2021, he opened some roles to women on a permanent basis (previously happening on a temporary basis):
  • Liturgical worship: lector and acolyte
  • Teaching the faith: catechist

Significance:

• The significance is not so much in doing things differently, but in thinking about the Church differently.
• Whereas some, especially between Constantine and Vatican II, had thought of the Church primarily as the bishops and priests (then secondarily ordinary followers and assistants), Francis is visioning the Church as primarily the communion of all the baptized.
• With Constantine, thinking of the Church as communion shifted toward thinking of the Church as mediator.
• With Vatican II and Francis, we are seeing a reverse of that shift in emphasis.

🧭 Overview

🧠 One-sentence thesis

Christian practice in the 20th and 21st centuries centers on determining which moral teachings are individual choices, which are institutional responsibilities, and which are universal natural laws that should be imposed on all people regardless of faith.

📌 Key points (3–5)

• Three levels of moral scope: individual conscience choices, collective institutional practices, and universal moral laws that should apply to all humans regardless of faith.
• Natural law concept: absolute moral truths woven into creation by the creator, knowable by all people through conscience, not requiring special religious revelation.
• Sanctity of life debates: Catholic theology views life as beginning at conception, with implications for birth control, abortion, stem cell research, euthanasia, capital punishment, and just war.
• Common confusion: whether protecting unborn life is an individual moral responsibility (personal choice) or a social responsibility (universal law requiring political enforcement).
• The relevance gap: even Catholics with strong respect for bishops' teaching authority feel less bound to agree with individual teachings, especially on birth control.

🎯 Three levels of moral action

🧘 Individual conscience choices

• Least controversial level: moral choices persons make on their own behalf, affecting only themselves and their relationship with God.
• Although Catholicism favors communalism, individual conscience is ultimately responsible for moral choice.
• The Catholic Church teaches and advises, but the individual must make the choice—not having a choice or blindly obeying is not the same as making a moral choice.
• Example: Personal decisions about prayer, fasting, or other spiritual practices that affect no one else.

🏛️ Collective institutional practices

• Middle level: moral action for a collective institution, binding only on that institution and its voluntary participants.
• Catholic Church and affiliated schools/hospitals must make moral choices for their own members.
• Includes patients and students who are not Catholic but are voluntary participants.
• Example: A Catholic institution can elect not to integrate women and men in dormitories, can expel students for non-marital sex, can deny access to birth control for students and employees.
• Key distinction: This does not mean people outside the institution should be held to these moral choices.

⚖️ Universal moral law for all humans

• Most serious and controversial level: moral law that should be imposed on all human beings regardless of faith and should not be a choice.
• Not the responsibility of individuals to choose or faith communities to practice, but society's responsibility to oppose intrinsic, absolute evil.
• Connected to social justice issues: the right to safe working conditions applies to all people of any or no faith.
• Controversial claims today: prohibitions against abortion, stem cell research, and same-sex unions are presented as universal law, not teachings of a certain faith.

🌍 Natural law: universal moral truths

📖 Definition and theological basis

Natural law: absolute moral laws that apply universally to all people in all times and places; they are not relative cultural constructs and are not revealed to one particular religion.

• When the creator created the universe, the pattern and core characteristics of the creator were woven into the creation.
• Just as God created laws like gravity and conservation of momentum, God also created laws like "don't kill."
• We all have consciences that intuit that murder is bad without having to be told.
• Example: "Don't murder" doesn't require special reminder—all cultures adhere to this ideal, unlike culturally constructed laws like "drive on the right side of the street" or revealed laws like "don't eat pork."

🤔 Controversy about natural law

• Who decides what is morally absolute? If natural law is evident in what all societies agree upon automatically, problems arise.
• Many or all societies historically have endorsed slavery and subordination of women—does that make them the will of God or the only way things can ever be?
• The most common example is "murder," but if one defines murder as unjustified killing, it is circular to argue that all societies understand unjustified killing as unjustified.
• Typical standard: If something can be established as necessary for the survival of any society, it can be considered natural law.
• The discussion touches on core problems of epistemology (discourse about how we know truth).

🍼 Sanctity of life at its beginning

🔬 When life begins in Catholic theology

• Life begins at conception, but the sanctity of life begins even before conception, with the sanctity of sex.
• Going back to the Essenes before Christianity, sex is only acceptable as a means to creating life (procreative).
• The other justification is unitive: sex brings married people together into fuller union.
• Lacking these goods, sex loses its sanctity.

💊 Birth control and the relevance gap

• Masturbation is a sin because it is neither unitive nor procreative.
• Artificial birth control is a sin because it interferes in the procreative potential of sex, particularly where the sanctity of sex intersects with the sanctity of life.
• The relevance gap: Birth control is the most common example cited for the gap between the hierarchy and laity within the Catholic Church.
• Even Catholics with strong respect for the teaching authority of bishops feel less bound than ever to agree with individual teachings.
• Don't confuse: "The Church" as the Catholic magisterium (opposed to artificial birth control) vs. "the Church" as the community of all the faithful (dominant perspective is quite different).

🧬 Abortion and stem cell research

• As soon as sex leads to conception, new life exists with all the rights of any other person, even if the sex was not unitive (e.g., rape).
• Many people of faith who accept the significance of conception would still make theological or practical arguments for the life of the mother taking precedent over the embryo.
• Current U.S. Catholic bishops' teaching: It is not justified to terminate a pregnancy to save the life of the mother; doctors should try to save both without prioritizing one over the other.
• Stem cell research: Treating a human embryo as a life complete with all sanctity, dignity, and rights leads to opposition.
• The current teaching is that taking the lives of embryos to save the lives of adults cannot be justified, even if countless lives could be saved and entire diseases eradicated.

🗳️ Individual vs. social responsibility

Core theological question rarely asked with theological sophistication: Is protecting unborn life an individual moral responsibility or a social responsibility?

View	Implicit assumption	Implications
Individual responsibility	"Against abortion? Don't have one!" or "Keep your laws/beliefs out of my body"	Teaching about sanctity of life cannot be imposed on citizens, like belief in the Eucharist
Social responsibility	"It's a child, not a choice"	Protection of the unborn is natural law; responsibility is to promote laws and political candidates that enforce natural law for all citizens regardless of faith

• If social responsibility, the responsibility of a person of faith is not merely to avoid having an abortion, avoid providing an abortion, or persuade others not to have an abortion—it is to promote laws and political candidates that will enforce natural law for all citizens.

🗳️ Voting dilemmas

• No one candidate supports all the social justice issues that faith dictates should be extended to all persons.
• Teachings about sanctity of unborn life, capital punishment, just war, and labor rights may all fit together in a voter's conception of human dignity, but voting usually requires picking one social justice issue as more important than another.
• When church leaders have influence and money to contribute to political issues, they must choose which issues to emphasize most vocally.
• Some controversy is not about the beliefs taught by the bishops, but the choices to spend billions of dollars on one issue and neglect another.

🏥 Sanctity of life at its end

💉 Euthanasia and artificial life support

• Euthanasia simply means "good death," as opposed to a slow horrible painful death.
• Physician-assisted suicide is illegal in the United States but legal elsewhere in the world.
• Catholic theologians aim to support preserving life but not drawing out a painful death.
• In practice it can be difficult to be certain whether there is any hope of recovery or sustainability of life, or if artificial life support is just extending pain.

🏥 Limited medical resources and triage

• What to do when medical resources are limited or prohibitively expensive?
• During the 2020-2021 COVID-19 pandemic, demand for life-saving ventilators exceeded supply.
• Should the government intervene to make life-saving equipment available equitably, or should the market be free to decide if the wealthy and powerful should have greater access?
• At what point should a ventilator be taken away from someone still alive but with no hope of recovery so that it can save someone else's life?

Triage: the French word for "sorting," used in battlefield hospitals during World War I to prioritize limited medical resources; those with life-threatening but treatable injuries were prioritized over those with no hope of survival or no danger of death.

• Today the word triage is used literally or figuratively for selective allocation of limited resources.

⚔️ Capital punishment and just war

• The dignity of life extends to state-sponsored killing generally, including capital punishment and just war theory.
• Catholic teaching opposes all capital punishment as it exists in the United States.
• Just war theory goes back to pre-Christian Rome and has developed in Christian thought.
• The bishops of the United States did oppose the Second Gulf War, although not in an efficacious way.

🔮 The 21st century and beyond

🚨 New defining issues

• Familiar issues from the 20th century continue, but new issues are already defining questions of faith in the 21st century.
• Sexual abuse cover-up scandal most significantly came to the center of attention in the 21st century.
• In response to calls for same-sex unions and marriage, theologians are scrambling to articulate the relationship between the sacrament of matrimony and the civil laws defining the rights and responsibilities of marriage.

🔄 Ongoing change and tradition

• There are many questions left unanswered, but that is the way it has always been.
• Certain elements of the tradition are timeless, but some elements can change in response to the needs of a changing world.
• Some theological ideas simply sound different in the twenty-first century than they did in the seventeenth century.
• The changing context of the world allows theologians to see old ideas in fresh ways and to address new theological problems that the Essenes and Early Christians could not have even imagined.

🤝 Who decides the future?

• The current snapshot of teaching about theological questions (catechesis) will change, as it has always changed.
• In a certain sense these decisions will be made by the bishops, or perhaps some professional theologians.
• In a more fundamental sense, the decision will be made by the tradition, and it is up to all the faithful to decide how the tradition will be handed down.
• Simply leaving the Church and not handing down the tradition at all is more practical a possibility than ever.
• For those who choose to be part of the solution, progress will come through actively asking theological questions: receiving faith, questioning, understanding, and ultimately teaching that understanding of the faith to future generations.