How far have we deviated from the early church?

Ronald J. Sider steps on toes again after his controversial ‘Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger’ has challenged modern evangelical Christianity for the last thirty years. Here is an excerpt from his recent book that questions why Christians are living just like the rest of the world:

The picture of the first Christians in Jerusalem presented in the early chapters of Acts is one of astonishing love and joyous fellowship. Dramatic economic sharing was the norm: “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need” (Acts 2:44-45 NRSV). From later sections of Acts, it becomes clear that families retained private property. Membership in the new fellowship did not mean one must place all property in a common purse. But the economic sharing was so extensive that observers were compelled to say that “there were no needy persons among them” (4:34). This astonishing economic sharing produced powerful evangelistic results! After saying that these Jerusalem Christians “shared everything they had,” Luke adds, “With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus” (4:32-33).

These early Christians certainly were not perfect. Acts 6 describes how the Hebrew leadership neglected widows from the Greek-speaking minority. So what did they do? They appointed seven deacons (their Greek names indicate they are all from the Greek-speaking minority!) to take charge of the care of all the widows. What was the result of this prompt correction of racial and economic discrimination? The last verse of the story says, “So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly” (Acts 6:7). Again, integrity and obedience in the body of Christ have powerful evangelistic results.

… We are the richest people in human history and know that tens of millions of brothers and sisters in Christ live in grinding poverty, and we give only a pittance, and almost all of that goes to our local congregation. Only a tiny fraction of what we do give ever reaches poor Christians in other places. Christ died to create one new multicultural body of believers, yet we display more racism than liberal Christians who doubt his deity.

Our evangelistic efforts are often crippled by our behavior. In both Acts 2 and 6, it is clear that the loving, obedient actions of the first Christians attracted people to Christ.

The same was true during the early centuries of the Christian faith. Numerous documents from those years demonstrate that Christians’ behavior was unusual. Writing in the middle of the second century, Justin Martyr said of Christians:

Those who once delighted in fornication now embrace chastity alone;… we who once took most pleasure in accumulating wealth and property now… share with everyone in need; we who hated and killed one another and would not associate with men of different tribes because of their different customs now, since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them and pray for our enemies. (Justin Martyr, ‘First Apology’, quoted in Peter C. Phan, ‘Social Thought’, vol. 20 of Message of the Fathers of the Church, ed. Thomas Halton [Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1984], 56.)

Writing in about AD 125, the Christian apologist Aristides described Christians with these words:

They walk in all humility and kindness, and falsehood is not found among them, and they love one another. They despise not the widow, and grieve not the orphan. He that hath, distributeth liberally to him that hath not. If they see a stranger, they bring him under their roof, and rejoice over him, as it were their own brother: for they call themselves brethren, not after the flesh, but after the spirit and God; but when one of their poor passes away from the world, and any of them see him, then he provides for his burial according to his ability; and if they hear that any of their number is imprisoned or oppressed for the name of their Messiah, all of them provide for his needs; and if it is possible that he may be delivered, they deliver him. And if there is among them a man that is poor and needy, and they have not an abundance of necessaries, they fast two or three days that they may supply the needy with their necessary food. (Aristides, quoted in Martin Hengel, ‘Property and Riches in the Early Church’ [Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974], 42-43.)

In both of these documents, the early Christians’ economic sharing and concern for the poor are especially striking. By AD 250, the church at Rome supported fifteen hundred needy persons. (Ibid., 42-44.) Outsiders were amazed by the love that they saw in the Christian community. Tertullian (AD 155-220) reported that even the enemies of Christianity considered the mutual love of Christians to be their “distinctive sign”: “Our care for the derelict and our active love have become our distinctive sign before the enemy… See, they say, how they love one another and how ready they are to die for each other.” (Tertullian, ‘Apology 39’, quoted in Phan, ‘Social Thought’, 21.)

Perhaps the most striking commentary on the countercultural character of Christian behavior comes from a grudging comment by a pagan emperor. During his short reign (AD 361-63), Julian the Apostate tried to roll back several decades of toleration and stamp out Christianity. But he was forced to admit to a fellow pagan that “the godless Galileans [Christians] feed not only their poor but ours also.” With chagrin, he acknowledged that his fellow pagans did not even help each other: “Those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them.” (Julian the Apostate, quoted in Stephen Neill, ‘A History of Christian Missions’ [New York: Penguin, 1964], 37-38.)

We have seen the stunning contrast between what Jesus and the early church said and did and what so many evangelicals do today. Hopefully that contrast will drive us to our knees, first to repent and then to ask God to help us understand the causes of this scandalous failure and the steps we can take to correct it.

(Ronald J. Sider, ‘The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience’ [Michigan: Baker Books, 2005], pp. 36-37,50-53.)