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A Gnostic Perspective on Jesus Christ

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A Gnostic Perspective on Jesus Christ <o _Q READINGS •o ^Q Christianity and Western Culture H=> _Q Fall 2007 Bethel University / CWC Readings Contents Introductory Materials CWC Words 3 Christians and Culture 4 Using the "Christians & Culture" Categories in CWC 5 Martin Luther King Jr., "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" 7 Unit One: The Ancient World and the Early Church Unit Timeline 12 Crito 13 Plato, "The Allegory of the Cave" 14 Aristotle • Parts of Animals 17 • Nicomachean Ethics 18 "The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas" 21 Tertullian, "Pagan philosophy—the parent of heresies" 26 Selections from 1 John 27 A Gnostic Perspective on Jesus Christ 28 Christian Creeds 30 "The Letter to Diognetus" 32 Augustine • Confessions 34 • on the "Problem of evil" 41 • The City of God 42 Christians & Culture: Debating Military Service • Tertullian, The Chaplet 49 • Augustine, "Letter to Count Boniface" 50 The Rule of St. Benedict 52 Unit Two: The Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and Luther Unit Timeline 55 "Gawain and the Green Knight" 56 Bede's Penitential 62 Hildegard of Bingen, "These are True Visions..." 64 Anselm, "The Ontological Argument" 68 Thomas Aquinas • "Thomas Responds to Anselm" 69 • "On divine, natural, and human law" 70 Renaissance Humanists on Free Will • Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man 75 • Erasmus, On Free Will 75 Erasmus, A Weapon for the Christian Warrior... 76 Michelangelo, "If my rough hammer..." 81 Martin Luther • "Preface to Paul's Letter to the Romans" 82 • Secular Authority 86 Christians & Culture: Debating the Peasants' War • "The Twelve Articles of the Swabian Peasants" 89 • Luther, "Admonition to Peace" 91 Unit Three: The Reformations and the Age of Reason Unit Timeline 93 The Reformers and the Anabaptists 94 "The Schleitheim Confession" 97 "The Martyrdom of Michael Sattler" 101 John Calvin, The Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life 105 The Westminster Shorter Catechism 109 "A Homily on Obedience" 111 Thomas Cranmer, "Last Words..." 115 Ignatius Loyola • Spiritual Exercises 117 • "Rules for Thinking with the Church" 118 Galileo, "Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina" 121 Blaise Pascal, Pensees 124 Baron d'Holbach, Good Sense 127 Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography 131 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan 138 John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government 141 Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence 144 CWC Words All academic disciplines have their own "jargon"—language which is used as a short-cut to express ideas which are used over and over again in that discipline. CWC is no exception. Here are some key terms you'll need to understand to be successful in CWC. Culture: Customs, beliefs, values, lifestyles, habits, institutions and symbols of society. (Notice that by "culture" we don't mean just things like theater or museums.) For example, elements of contemporary American culture include "rugged individualism," the right to own a gun, the ability to own your own car, Barbie dolls and MacDonald's. Western Culture: A broad mega-term we use to cover a set of diverse and evolving cultures which grew up in Europe (Italy, France, Germany, Spain, England etc.) and were later carried to parts of the world Europeans colonized (especially the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand.) We group these cultures/countries together under the umbrella of "Western Culture" because they share a common base in 1) the ideas, institutions and symbols of the ancient Greek and Roman world, and 2) the dominant and formative influence of medieval (Roman Catholic) Christianity. Western Culture is typically associated with the following (both negative and positive) ideas: democratic institutions and the ideal of liberty; an emphasis on logic, authority, and efficiency; individualism; Judeo-Christian morality; a perception that symmetry and order create beauty; and the exploitation of non-western nations. The "Big Three CWC Questions' As we examine the events, ideas, and people involved in the shaping of Western Culture, we use three basic questions which help us identify distinctive elements over the centuries: 1. What is the relationship between the Individual and God? 2. What is the relationship between the Individual and the Church? (and the nature of the Church)? 3. What is the relationship between Christians and the culture around them? Christians and Culture When the CWC faculty look at the relationship between Christians and the culture around them, they use a set of categories first proposed by H. Richard Niebuhr in 1951. He suggested that as Christians wrestle with their relationship to the culture around them, their attitudes tend to fall into five broad categories. We use a version of these categories in CWC because they give you a useful framework for learning, not because we think they're the whole truth. Spielvogel (the course textbook) also uses some of these categories, but in a less sophisticated way. 1. Christians absorb Cultural Values: This view stresses that human culture is essentially good, and that Christians should affirm and adopt the culture around them. Frequently Christian distinctives disappear into the dominant culture. Example: 19^120^ c Liberal Christianity. 2. Christians reject Cultural Values: This view emphasizes that the world (or human culture) is wicked and that Christians should have nothing to do with the world. For these sorts of Christians "This world is not my home, I'm just a-passing through." Example: 16th century Anabaptists. 3. Christians transform Cultural Values. This position holds that the original goodness of human culture has been thoroughly twisted by the Fall. However, because Christ has come to redeem the whole world (culture as well as individuals), Christians have the job of changing the fallen culture into a Christian culture. Most Christians who hold this view believe that this task will not be completed until Christ comes again to make all things new. Example: the reformer John Calvin. 4. Christians control Cultural Values: This view affirms that human culture is rooted in the goodness of God's creation, but that it is also distorted by the Fall, and therefore under evil dominion. However, because Christ has redeemed the whole world, it is possible to redeem fallen culture. These Christians believe that they have succeeded in transforming the fallen (pagan) culture into a culture dominated by Christian values. Examples: Byzantine society, Medieval Christendom and the Church of England. 5. Christians struggling with Cultural Values: This view affirms that human culture is rooted in the goodness of God's creation, but that it is also distorted by the Fall and, therefore, under evil's domination. Until Christ returns to redeem his creation, believers must live both as members of God's kingdom and in the human culture. Christians in this category believe that they can affirm what is best and biblical in the human culture while avoiding its evil elements. Example: the reformer Martin Luther and his "Two Kingdoms" view. Christians who fit in different categories are not necessarily antagonists. Nor is any particular category "right." People who have deeply and truly loved Christ have fit into all these categories. Nor do all Christians fit neatly into one or another. Real life is amazingly complex. Using the "Christians & Culture" Categories in CWC Q: What are "cultural values"? A: Cultural values are the ideas, customs, and views which most people in a particular place and time share. For example, some cultural values for 20th century Americans include individualism and appreciation for material success. Although individual medieval men and women might have appreciated these values, as a culture they shared appreciation for continuity and hierarchy (as seen in the great chain of being) and for contentment. Continuity, hierarchy, and contentment are medieval cultural values. Q: What does it mean to "absorb" cultural values? A: To say that a Christian "absorbs" cultural values means that that person willingly accepts a dominant cultural standard or value as the most appropriate Christian position. For example, the 2nd century apologist Justin Martyr is a good example of a Christian absorbing cultural values when he states that intellectual Reason (a highly regarded Greco-Roman cultural value) is so important that he concludes that anyone who is truly reasonable must be a Christian. Q: What does it mean to "reject" cultural values? A: To say that a Christian "rejects" cultural values doesn't necessarily mean that that person rejects everything about the culture. The early monastics (e.g., Anthony, Macrina the Younger) are examples of Christians who reject cultural values—but it doesn't have to be that extreme. Christians who reject cultural values are those who reject specific, dominant values of their time: for example, in the 16th century, Anabaptists like Michael Sattler rejected the medieval value of Christendom and refused to take up arms against invading Turkish armies. Q: What does it mean to "control" cultural values? A: Medieval and Byzantine Christians (and, in the 16th and 17th century, the Church of England) largely considered themselves to control the values of their culture. The term "Christendom" — a confident sense of the whole of Europe, or Byzantium, really being Christ's kingdom — is born in this moment. This kind of Christian is serious about holding his culture to Christian standards, but has difficulty imagining an alternative, non-Christian approach. Q: What does it mean to be balancing between cultural values -- that is to "Live in Two Kingdoms"? A: Christians we'd label as "Two Kingdoms" are those who are conscious that they simultaneously live both as citizens of the Church and as citizens in the world. Life for them is dominated by the necessity to make appropriate choices. They recognize that their first loyalty is to God, but they must also live responsibly among their fellow humans. The reformer Martin Luther articulates this view. He felt that sometimes the choices between the values of the heavenly kingdom and the values of the earthly kingdom don't leave a Christian any "workable" position.
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