Good Morning Friends,
Happy Saturday! Here are some thoughts about early church history, heretical teachings, and wonderings about how our ideas about God got to where they are today.
Light stuff. Encouraging stuff. Challenging stuff.
“More coffee”-kinda-stuff.
✌🏻
Glenn || PATREON / BUY ME A COFFEE
There's a church father named Irenaeus who lived in the second century (140 - 202) and I have a complicated relationship with him.
On one hand, he loved to call people heretics who thought differently or outside of the boundaries of "Orthodoxy" (or "proto-Orthodoxy - what became known as "Orthodox" theology before there really was an "Orthodox" theology). He really went after the "Gnostic Christians" and others whose ideas, he thought, were ...
Evil.
Blasphemous.
Heretical.
Ungodly.
Etc.
In fact, he wrote a book where he wrote down the names of all the people who lived during his time who happened to think differently about God than he did and basically created a heresy manual so that everyone would forever know the names of these heretics and what they taught.
I wonder where the What If Project would fall in his book?
HA!
But, on the other hand, he was one of the first significant teachers to emerge from the Celts, an ancient group of Christians who have shaped my thinking in some radical and profound ways ... much of which can be seen in some of the things that Irenaeus taught.
For instance.
In the time of Irenaeus there was a doctrine of a theology called "creatio ex nihilo" which basically refers to the idea that God created the universe - everything you see - out of nothing, that some divine being who we refer to as "God" snapped his fingers and created everything that exists.
I learned this in school, right? You may have learned it in church or Sunday school class. It's pretty basic theology, nothing tricky here - "In the beginning God created" ... everything that you see.
Light.
Dark.
Land.
Sea.
Animals.
Trees.
People.
Etc.
In other words, first there was nothing and then there was something because God made it out of ... NOTHING.
Irenaeus, however, was concerned about this theology and believed something radically different - he believed that the universe was created from the very substance of God. In other words, rather than God creating the world out of nothing, God created the world out of God's own self and so everything that you see ...
Light.
Dark.
Land.
Sea.
Etc
... is sacred and (therefore) matters ... and matters very, very much.
How we treat one another MATTERS. Why? Because we are made from the substance of God.
How we treat animals MATTERS. Why? Because they are made from the substance of God.
How we treat the earth MATTERS. Why? Because it is made from the substance of God.
YES.
All of us - you, me, the people you love, the people you can't stand, the people who live in monasteries, and the people who live in small prison cells because they committed the worst imaginable crimes ... we are all made up of Divine energy, the very "stuff" of God.
I like this Celtic idea and it's really laid a foundation for my own theology that has helped shape a lot of what I've come to think about things like salvation, the cross, hell, and even LGBTQ people ... right? When you start to see everything and everyone as "sacred" and holy" ... I don't know ... it does something to you.
Doesn't it?
AND.
It also rubs up against the powers that hold tightly to the doctrine of "creatio ex nihilo", which is what happened with Irenaeus.
I'm reading a book by John Philip Newell called "Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul" where he says that Irenaeus' idea of creation from the substance of God as opposed to creation from nothing rubbed up hard against not just the church people who thought differently than him, but against the Roman Empire.
The Roman Empire?
Yes.
Newell says that "when Christianity later became the religion of the empire in the 4th century, one of the first things expected of it (in return for political protection and prestige) was the doctrine of 'creatio ex nihilo."
In other words, since Christianity had become the religion of Rome, the Roman Empire wanted the Church to emphasize the idea of "creation out of nothing" and they didn't want to hear anything about the Celtic idea of "creation from the substance of God".
"We'll give you power and prestige, but make sure those crazy ideas never see the light of day."
Why?
Because "Empire", says Newell, "did not want to be told what matter was sacred, because then it could not do with impunity whatever it wished to matter. Then the body of the earth and the bodies of men and women were not just there to be used and exploited; they would have to be honored and cared for."
Wow.
Do do you see what happened? Do you see why "creation out of nothing" is emphasized so much even today? In our schools? In our churches? In our Bible studies?
Because the Roman Empire (where Christianity first gained its power and prestige) wanted to shut down the idea of everyone being created from the substance of God because then the Empire didn't have to recognize the divinity of humanity and pay human beings the honor, respect, and dignity that they deserve.
They wanted to ...
Keep ruling.
Keep declaring who is in and who is out.
Keep making the rich richer.
Keep making the poor poorer.
Keep crucifying.
Keep shedding blood.
And keep mowing over anyone and anything that got in the way of its own growth, success, and power.
When you see people as being made out of "nothing" as opposed to being made from "God" ... it's much easier to threaten, kill, and mow over someone who is "nothing" as opposed to someone who is (at their very core) "Divine".
Isn't it?
And so I wonder, what would happen if we stopped thinking that God created everything out of nothing and started meditating on and dwelling on the idea that God created everything out of God's own self?
What if we bucked the system?
Lots to chew on there.
Time for more coffee.