Christian Freedom Subverted through Olympian Success

Today we continue our reflections on The Subversion of Christianity by Jacques Ellul (trans. Geoffrey Bromiley; Eerdmans, 1986).

   
By the 300s, the Church suffered permanent subversion through Olympian succes. It became quantitatively Olympian and lost its qualitatively Christian character. This had consequences.

Christian Witness Becomes Olympian Civilization

Today we continue our reflections on The Subversion of Christianity by Jacques Ellul (trans. Geoffrey Bromiley; Eerdmans, 1986). We also continue to learn from the experience of the early Church. Beginning in the 200s, and fully by the 300s, the Church suffered permanent subversion through Olympian success. It became quantitatively Olympian and lost its qualitatively Christian character.

Early Church: Freedom or Ritual and Morality?

Today we continue our reflections on The Subversion of Christianity by Jacques Ellul (trans. Geoffrey Bromiley; Eerdmans, 1986).

The world worships the six false gods of Olympianity: the gods of politics, war, technology, sex, money, and consumption. They are the conventional gods of power and base their control over us—and ours over others—on falsehood, indifference, and death.

    
In contrast, Jesus is the one true god of freedom, truth, freedom, and vitality. He frees us from the six Olympian gods to share his light, love, and life with others.

    
Beginning in the 200s, and fully by the 300s, the Church suffered permanently from subversion through success. It became quantitatively Olympian and lost its qualitatively Christian character.

Church: Quantitatively Olympian or Qualitatively Christian?

Today we continue our reflections on The Subversion of Christianity by Jacques Ellul (trans. Geoffrey Bromiley; Eerdmans, 1986). Today we also continue to reflect on the subversion of the Church through success; that is, on the corruption of the Church through its pursuit of growth in power, people, and property.

    
By the 300s, the Church began to suffer permanently from subversion through success. With it came an alliance with elites in other social groups and an overwhelming number of people. With it the Church became a mass institution rather than remaining the small, distinct, faithful witness that Jesus had called it to be.

Subversion through Success

Today we continue our reflections on The Subversion of Christianity by Jacques Ellul (trans. Geoffrey Bromiley; Eerdmans, 1986). We will reflect briefly on the subversion by success which Christianity suffered beginning in the AD 200s.

  
In the first two centuries after the ministry of Jesus, the faithful witness to him by his disciples was clearer and more consistent than it would remain. Persecution of his witnesses was also real, sometimes severe, but sporadic. This combined reality—faithful witness sometimes to death—inspired many Olympians to become Christians themselves.

Subversion through Olympian Ways of Thinking

In his book, The Subversion of Christianity (trans. Geoffrey Bromiley, Eerdmans, 1986), Jacques Ellul talks about how Jesus was wholly faithful to Abba while Christians and churches gradually became wholly devoted to the Olympian gods. Today we will reflect on how theology became subverted by wrong ways of thinking; or, how we have failed, yesterday and today, to love Jesus with our whole mind.

Christian Anarchism vs. Olympian Powers

The word anarchy comes from “an-” meaning “without” and “archos” meaning “ruler.” We may understand anarchy to mean non-power or freedom in contrast to power or control.

    
Jesus is the one unconventional god of freedom and therefore of truth, love, and vitality. In dreadful contrast, the gods of Olympianity—of politics, war, technology, sex, money, and consumption—are the six conventional gods of power and therefore of falsehood, indifference, and death.   

    
Early Christians lived as faithful witnesses to Jesus. Here and there, Jesus has persistently enabled other Christians to live as faithful witnesses to him from that time to our own.

Freedom from Religion and Morality!

Today we continue our reflections on The Subversion of Christianity by Jacques Ellul (trans. Geoffrey Bromiley; Eerdmans, 1986).

Jesus vs. religion

Jesus did not start a new religion. He freed us from all religions to live as faithful witnesses to the one true god. By doing so he fulfilled the entire Old Testament witness to that god.

Freedom from Pluto and Jupiter

In his book, The Subversion of Christianity, Jacques Ellul explores how Christians and churches abandoned their faithful witness to Jesus and became Olympian.

Olympianity: power; Jesus: freedom

First he notes that virtually all Christians and churches in our day devote themselves to the six conventional gods of Olympianity. Olympianity is the universal religion of power. Christians worship the six false Olympian gods of politics, war, technology, sex, money, and consumption because, through them, they expect to gain control and measure the importance of their lives in terms of that control. Churches worship these same gods to change society or at least remain relevant to a society which also worships them.

Olympian Churches, Prophetic Responses

“How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You lock the door to the Kingdom of heaven in people's faces, but you yourselves don't go in, nor do you allow in those who are trying to enter!

  
“How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You sail the seas and cross whole countries to win one convert; and when you succeed, you make him twice as deserving of going to hell as you yourselves are!” (Matthew 23:13-15, Good News Bible).

    
Jesus is teaching in the Temple in Jerusalem. By doing so he challenges the authority of the religious authorities. They want to get rid of him. Soon they will succeed. For now, though, he speaks unpleasant truths to them in the hearing of the people.

Our Worst Nightmare: Olympianity Victorious in the Church

In the mid-1980s, Jacques Ellul published a book entitled The Subversion of Christianity (translated into English by Geoffrey Bromiley). He did so because he wanted to know: “How has it come about that the development of Christianity and the church has given birth to a society, a civilization, a culture that are completely opposite to what we read in the Bible, to what is indisputably the text of the law, the prophets, Jesus, and Paul? There is not just contradiction on one point but on all points…There is not just deviation but radical and essential contradiction, or real subversion” (3).

Le Chambon: Where Goodness Happened

In an essay, “Where the Battle Rages: Confessing Christ in America Today” (published in Disruptive Grace), George Hunsinger, a professor of theology, reflects on a little church in a small village in the southeastern mountains of Gallia. He writes about how it might serve us as an example of prophetic witness to Jesus in difficult circumstances.

  
The story centers on the little Reformed Church in Le Chambon and its pastor Andre Trocme. “During the darkest days of World War II, in full view of the Vichy government and a nearby division of the Nazi SS, Le Chambon’s villagers, under the leadership of Andre Trocme, organized to do something beyond all telling, namely, to save thousands of Jewish children and adults from certain death” (109). Their story is told in a book by Philip Hallie, a professor of ethics, entitled Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed: The Story of the Village of Le Chambon and How Goodness Happened There.

Churches: Activist, Conversionist, Prophetic

In his book, Disruptive Grace: Studies in the Theology of Karl Barth, pp. 89-113), George Hunsinger, professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, included a 1987 essays entitled, “Where the Battle Rages: Confessing Christ in America Today.” In that essay, he speaks of churches activist and conversionist. For the sake of greater clarity of purpose, we will compare these alternatives with our prophetic mission groups.

 
Today Jesus is calling Christians here and there to serve him together as prophetic mission groups of two to twelve members. Our purpose, as a group, is to be what George refers to as a “confessing church.” Basically, that means ministering with one another in ways that allow us to live as prophetic witnesses to Jesus Christ both personally and as a group. Our mission as a group is to send members, two by two, to participate in local churches to invite them to live as faithful witnesses to Jesus Christ as well.

On Jesus Not Being a Means to an End

In his book Disruptive Grace, George Hunsinger, currently professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, criticizes Christians for regarding loyalty to Jesus as a means to an end. George reminds us that loyalty to Jesus is “the supreme end by which all other ends are judged and in which all worthy ends are included, though in practice there may be times when even worthy ends will need to be sacrificed for the sake of the supreme end” (96).

Death by a Thousand Smaller Compromises

In his book, Disruptive Grace (2000), George Hunsinger writes about the Church. It doesn’t face raging battles, as it might have in Martin Luther’s time (1483-1546); instead, it faces a last battle, as suggested by C. S. Lewis (1898-1963). The Church is not challenged yet robust; instead, when faced with the challenge of nuclear weapons, it collapsed. Today, in this third essay in a series on George’s book, we will reflect with him on why this collapse occurred.

Christians Say No to Nuclear Weapons--and War

Hiroshima 1945

In 1987, George Hunsinger, now professor of theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, wrote an essay entitled “Where the Battle Rages: Confessing Christ in America Today.” In it, he points out that, instead of facing raging battles, we Christians “have no choice but to fight a losing battle on diminishing terrain, a last battle to the bitter end from which there will be no escape” (Disruptive Grace, 90).

  
This essay contains a section entitled “Where the Battle Once Raged: a Survey of Political Carnage.” In that section, he surveyed the process by which the Church came to endorse the use of nuclear weapons.