 Back to the future Missionary journeys of Apostle Paul are a gateway for modern evangelism By Parker T. Williamson The Layman Online Wednesday, August 2, 2000 ATHENS – Adjusting my watch for seven time zones was expected, but what I didn’t anticipate was a multi-century adjustment. Captain Vangeles Ranagedtakes, Master of the MTS Arcadia, might himself have been surprised to discover that despite his formidable navigational skills he had piloted his craft in two directions. One immersed us in antiquity. The other launched us into the future. Traveling with Prison Fellowship, I was privileged to visit ports once claimed for the Gospel by the Apostle Paul. Interpreting this first-century replay was Charles Colson, Prison Fellowship’s founder.
Towering above the city, sheer rock walls thrust Athena’s temple into the heavens, her white marble columns penetrating a brilliant, blue sky. Gods and goddesses are everywhere: on the Parthenon’s frieze, among Caryatids upholding the tomb of Erechtheus, on the spot where Poseidon’s trident fell in a futile attempt to name the city for himself. No matter where one searches across this Acropolis, no spot is deity-free. In their passion, jealousy, trickery, intrigue, power plays, struggles for influence, for sex, for territory, these gods whose images are strewn among the bits and pieces of an ancient age appear exceedingly mortal. They were human beings writ large, vivid projections of the Greek imagination. Celebrating diversity The origin of these deities explains their diversity. Why did the Greeks pay homage to so many? Because if people create gods in their own image, there will be as many gods as there are people to imagine them. There is no end to what the mind can conceive for those whose namesake is Narcissus. Paul noted that multiplicity when he entered the marketplace whose remnants we could easily see from the Acropolis. Although we observed only fragments of what he saw, the diversification of deities on this ancient site was impossible to ignore. Paul met that diversity head-on. “I perceive,” he told his audience, “that in many ways you are very religious.” That was not meant as a compliment, for the Apostle did not enter that agora to celebrate diversity. He came, instead, to tell Athenians the truth. The Book of Acts reports that he rejected as false the popular Greek notion that “Deity is … a representation by the art and imagination of man.” Déjà vu ReImagining Standing amid the ruins of this ancient agora I read Paul’s words, struck by the sound of their modernity. The essence of his clash with Athenian culture is precisely what fractures today’s institutionalized religion. From “Voices of Sophia” to the ReImagining God movement and the “new age,” many who call themselves “people of faith” are worshipping deities of their own making. And leaders of establishment churches take the Athenian line every time they declare that this kind of diversity warrants celebration. Paul knew what many of our religious leaders have either forgotten or never learned. No religion of our own making can get off the ground. Transcendence comes not from below, but from above. Human imagination and divine revelation are worlds apart. Paul argued that whenever humans usurp the Creator’s role, the result is chaos rather than creation. Here in Athens, only weeks before leaders of the Presbyterian Church (USA) would gather in General Assembly, I realized that the line between ancient and modern is razor thin. Paul’s clash with diversity is precisely our own.
One look at its topography tells us why Corinth prospered, for it commanded a tiny sliver of land between two important seas. Today a canal traverses this terrain, saving ships hundreds of miles of often treacherous sailing around the Peloponnese. In Paul’s day the canal did not exist, but Corinth met the challenge in another way. Ships were hauled over rolling logs from one sea to the other. Living at one of the world’s great crossroads, Corinthian entrepreneurs amassed wealth from trade, transportation, and hospitality. The city became a center of multi-culturalism. In the Corinthian Agora, one could hear proponents of nearly every thought known to the human race, and it was here, on a rock-hewn platform called the Bema, that Paul made the case for Christ. Standing in front of the Bema, one looks up to face a 2,000-foot rock outcropping that dominates the landscape, just as it did in ancient times. On its summit stood the temple of Aphrodite, goddess of love, staffed by 1,000 prostitutes who plied their trade on the mountain and in the streets below. What a context for the hymn that Paul shared with Corinthian Christians: “Though I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” But when the apostle spoke of love, his words clashed sharply with this city’s fusion of religion and sex. Little wonder that those who had made unabridged sexuality an article of faith wanted this preacher run out of town. Déjà vu sexuality Once again I stood on ancient ground, remembering Paul’s words and recognizing their relevance to what many moderns call “religion.” There is no difference between Corinth’s cultic prostitution and today’s enthronement of sex as sacrament. A declaration released in January by a group of US religious leaders (and signed by several leaders of the Presbyterian Covenant Network) declares, “Sexuality is God’s life-giving and life-fulfilling gift … All persons have the right and the responsibility to lead sexual lives that express love, justice, mutuality, commitment, consent, and pleasure.” The document declares that it matters not with whom one has sex, just so both parties agree. First-century Corinth couldn’t have said it better. Modernity parrots Aphrodite and her cult of the imperial self.
Crossing the Agaean by night we disembarked at Kusadasi for a visit to Ephesus, that magnificent port city to which Paul devoted almost three years of evangelistic labor. Viewing this beautifully preserved site, one understands why the Apostle would choose it as a beachhead for the gospel. Ephesus was the economic and cultural gem of Asia Minor. Stretching from hilltop to harbor, the great marble Arcadian way reveals sophisticated engineering projects, like aqueducts from the mountains and underground water and sewage systems in the city, meticulously laid out houses with lavish mosaic floors, a hillside theater that seated thousands, a three-story library that towered over the market place, public toilets, baths, and even a nearby brothel … Ephesus had it all. Claiming this city for the gospel would make waves throughout the Mediterranean world. But Ephesus already had Artemis and plenty of incentive to keep the goddess enthroned. Silversmiths sold trinkets that bore her likeness. Religion and the marketplace had forged a lucrative partnership. Artemis welcomed other faiths, of course, for in Ephesus tolerance reigned. The Greeks found pleasure in new twists to old ideas. Besides, if Artemis sells, why not Posiden, or Athena, or Zeus? In the world of the marketplace, one good god encourages another. But when Ephesus learned that Paul’s gospel demanded a choice, its welcome mat wore thin. “I am the way, the truth and the life,” said Jesus. “No one comes to the Father but by me.” So including Jesus meant excluding Artemis, and exclusion, for the Ephesians, was unthinkable. When the economic implications of Paul’s message sank in a riot erupted. Ten thousand locals gathered in the theater, shouting at the top of their lungs, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” Déjà vu inclusiveness I stood in that theater, listening for echoes of its ancient uproar. They ricocheted across the Aegean, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic, sounds of an inclusive religion that will tolerate anyone’s truth, so long as it does not claim to be everyone’s Truth. Today’s religious establishment touts “inclusiveness” as cutting edge. In fact, it is a very old idea, as old as that brothel in Ephesus where everybody was welcome. What triggers hostility from leaders of our establishment church is not the inclusion of paganism – we make plenty of room for that – but the “intolerant” conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord of all. Those who acclaimed Artemis in Paul’s day urge us to find “unity in our diversity” today. Accept “Christ” as a concept that you define in your own terms, and you’re in the fold. Paul understood that the gospel is inclusive. But he also knew that inclusiveness is not the gospel. That distinction sparked the riot in Ephesus. No less today than 20 centuries ago, we Christians face an irreconcilable impasse. It will not be bridged by the big-tent notions of ecclesiastical politicians. The gospel is to be believed, or it is to be rejected. There is no middle ground. It is no wonder that Paul was hooted out of Athens, driven from Corinth, harassed in Ephesus, jailed in Philipi, and beaten in Cyprus. Given his refusal to accommodate his culture, the Hellenistic reaction was predictable. And because the gospel is no less offensive to today’s institutionally religious, Christians should expect a similar response. To date, the punishment meted by our culture is derision, and sometimes – with the complicity of established church officials – disenfranchisement. But the apostle’s experience sounds a clear and present warning that as those who resist the gospel find their way into politics, the fate of the faithful can become more severe. The power of God While Paul’s experience portends pain yet to come, he also reminds us that defeat should never enter our vocabulary. Churches were, in fact, established in the Aegean, some of the strongest in the very cities that rejected him. Proclaimed from these crossroad communities, the gospel spread throughout the civilized world, and our faith bears witness to its reach. Today, Athena’s temple lies in ruins. Artemis inhabits a pile of stone. Delphi’s double talk appeals only to tourists, and Zeus has been toppled from Olympus’ throne. Christian Orthodox sanctuaries cover the land, each encompassing a dome that displays Jesus Christ, ruler of heaven and earth. The Apostle knew that this would be the outcome in a contest of cultures that claimed his life but won his world. He assures us of nothing less. “I am not ashamed of the gospel,” he reminds us, “It is the power of God for salvation.” |
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