WI: early Christians respect time table of Pagans?

If there had been one short paragraph in a letter from Saint Paul or one teaching of an early church leader, something to the effect,

some may embrace the gospel right away, others may take a long time to come around and this should be respected,

may have changed everything.
 
If there had been one short paragraph in a letter from Saint Paul or one teaching of an early church leader, something to the effect,

some may embrace the gospel right away, others may take a long time to come around and this should be respected,

may have changed everything.

Maybe at first, but not in the long run. It would be ignored or interpreted in a different way. The exact wording you used could be interpreted by someone like St Augustine as talking about heretics and not about "heathens"; we might see the Cathars, Gnostics, etc be treated better; but not Jews and later the Muslims. Pogroms, witch hunts, passion plays, the Inquisition, and the Crusades weren't about religion, it was about politics, land, gold, and scape goats who were different to use for blame for the economy and other social ills and to distract the populace from the evils of the nobility and rulers.
 
Why would it? The Bible says to feed the hungry. Repeatedly. Didn't stop hunger. Bible says to give up all your personal possessions and follow Christ. Didn't redistribute wealth in the Christian world.

Words can't create a will to follow and/or enforce. Would that they could.
 
years ago, at least one Baptist church had the saying,

don't bruise the fruit,

meaning, don't antagonize and drive away the very people you're endeavoring to witness to.
 
Maybe at first, but not in the long run. It would be ignored or interpreted in a different way. The exact wording you used could be interpreted by someone like St Augustine as talking about heretics and not about "heathens"; we might see the Cathars, Gnostics, etc be treated better; but not Jews and later the Muslims. Pogroms, witch hunts, passion plays, the Inquisition, and the Crusades weren't about religion, it was about politics, land, gold, and scape goats who were different to use for blame for the economy and other social ills and to distract the populace from the evils of the nobility and rulers.


I don't necessarily agree with this assertion at least in regards to the crusades. I know dialectical materialism and class struggle is a popular view of history and generally an accurate one, it does not account fully for genuine religious motives in a society as it holds that religion is only a construct of control of capital. I disagree with this, and it is clear in my opinion that the crusades were started by the Pope as a way to mend the schism (1054) and "rescue" the Byzantines from the rising Saljuk threat, which at the time as well has beat the Fatimids in their war over Syria. Those who support the economic determinism theory on the crusades has to reach pretty far to get an acceptable reason, I prefer the one most evident in primary sources.
 
And Oh, I quite agree that all kinds of things are done in the name of religion, or for political and every other reason especially economic under the cover of religion, I still think if Paul had emphasized how to witness in some of his letters, it may have made a difference.

He talks about the importance of witnessing and sharing the faith many times, but I don't recall him talking about that it often takes a good while and that it's on God's time schedule, not our own.
 
Last edited:
I don't necessarily agree with this assertion at least in regards to the crusades. I know dialectical materialism and class struggle is a popular view of history and generally an accurate one, it does not account fully for genuine religious motives in a society as it holds that religion is only a construct of control of capital. I disagree with this, and it is clear in my opinion that the crusades were started by the Pope as a way to mend the schism (1054) and "rescue" the Byzantines from the rising Saljuk threat, which at the time as well has beat the Fatimids in their war over Syria. Those who support the economic determinism theory on the crusades has to reach pretty far to get an acceptable reason, I prefer the one most evident in primary sources.

Yes, for many it was religious feverism; however the fact that the Crusades in particular were used as a reason to kill Jews in Europe and to conquer Constantinople itself to set up the "Latin Empire" (not exactly "mending" fences). So I agree that it's a complicated interwoven set of different reasons.
 
Yes, for many it was religious feverism; however the fact that the Crusades in particular were used as a reason to kill Jews in Europe and to conquer Constantinople itself to set up the "Latin Empire" (not exactly "mending" fences). So I agree that it's a complicated interwoven set of different reasons.


That was a later period, I am speaking of the initial reason for crusade and the first crusade which did achieve the goal of defeating the Saljuks and prolonging the life of Byzantium.
 
I once heard a Baptist minister say on the radio,

'It's not our job to decide someone else's eternal destiny.'

If that view had been more common, things may have been different.

Among the early Christians, the only school of thought I remember hearing about is Arianism but I don't really know what people who subscribed to this believed in. And there were a number of schools of thought. If there was a feeling that we didn't need to immediately settle the differences, that probably would have been a good thing.
 
I once heard a Baptist minister say on the radio,

'It's not our job to decide someone else's eternal destiny.'

If that view had been more common, things may have been different.

Among the early Christians, the only school of thought I remember hearing about is Arianism but I don't really know what people who subscribed to this believed in. And there were a number of schools of thought. If there was a feeling that we didn't need to immediately settle the differences, that probably would have been a good thing.


Arianism was Unitarian, it was not different except it said Jesus was not God and or part of a trinity of God. Arrianism would go through similar evolution as mainstream Christianity.
 
Thanks for the summary of Arianism. Now, the interesting thing, Christians with their emphasis in the Trinity and God in three Persons can be viewed as somewhat building a bridge between monotheistic persons and polytheistic ones, even though this may not be the intent at all.
 
A modern Christian might explain the Trinity with this analogy:

The Sun in the sky can be viewed as representing God the Father, the sunlight you see here on Earth as representing God the Son, and the warmth you feel as representing the Holy Spirit.

I do not know whether this view would resonate with earlier Christians.
 
Top