In Defending His Endorsement Of Trump, The Next Leader Of The Southern Baptist Convention Keeps Alive The SBC’s Past And Future Problems With Race.
November 3, 2020
By Jacob Lupfer
“Trump’s coterie of “faith advisers” is mostly made up of hucksters, charlatans, publicity hogs and grifters. They are a peripatetic parody of themselves, and not one member of the Trumpist clergy offers a religious message I would take seriously for a moment. They sold their birthright for a mess of pottage and ought to take the gospel of Jesus Christ out of their mouths until they repent of the damage they’ve done to his name.
Mohler is not one of that group, or quite on their level. But I hope he counts the cost of what he has done. Trump’s desecration of the presidency and perversion of public discourse make Bill Clinton look like, well, a Southern Baptist seminarian by comparison.”
Excerpts from ‘IRONY’:
Chapter 1: Oh! What A Tangled Web We Weave
The phenomena of European Christianity, foraying into the New World is one that witnessed moments of extreme religious and philosophical perversion. This perversion defied the spiritual message of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount…
…In this story, we will see periods within which these invaders displayed a deprave indifference for human life. And yet, the justification given for this endeavor was to provide the New World heathens with much needed knowledge of the Christian religion. The real question from the reader should be who is the real heathen in this scenario? Who really needed this knowledge? Journey through these pages for the real answer; it is ironic…
My wise friends often remind me that history is usually written by a conqueror whose main purpose is to impart into the reader, justification for his actions - often hewed to positively impart his version of an event - however distant it may be from reality on the ground. The history of the New World illuminates a profoundly important but sometimes misrepresented or neglected period when Christianity was used to justify the slaughter of indigenous people, whose only sin was that they inhabited the lands on which the Europeans were seeking precious metals and ownership. This reality is quite different from stories about European desire to bring knowledge of the message of Jesus Christ to the Heathens. The irony here is breath-taking.
Chapter 2: The Beginnings of the Christian Movement
“All major religious traditions carry basically the same message that is love, compassion and forgiveness. The important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.”
Dalai Lama
Many of us in the western world are followers of the Christian Religion, which came to us by way of England. Many read the bible, follow and believe the stories and attempt to embrace canon laws. It should be noted here however, that bible teaching is not only about our creator, but also about the laws we follow; they’re both intertwined. Though Jesus Christ is believed to be the son of God whose presence here was to teach about his father’s kingdom, he also said: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil” Matthew 5:17. Here we can clearly see that the law was also an important part of his teachings.
Because of the path taken by the Christian bible and attendant Christianity to a conquered people - before it got to us - the importance of its historic journey cannot be diminished. It is also important that we seek to understand its role in the pacification of the Negro slaves and the indigenous people of the New World. This history has to be viewed within the context of a conqueror, who was neither benevolent, nor one who harbored such inclinations toward his captives. This was a ruler for whom homicide was an important tool, easily employed to maintain strict control of his workforce.
Celtic and Roman Traditions
Ralph D Winter, in his writings “Foundations of the World Christian Movement: A larger Perspective,” wrote that though the full story of Celtic Christianity may be hard to know, “but, one thing we can perceive comes from the effect they had on the pagans they evangelized. We do know that the Celtic Christian monks certainly had a lot of Christian vitality.”
After reading, one will be led to the inescapable perception that Celtic Christians have played a vital role in Christian growth in that area and beyond. History tells us that Columba – the second son of an Irish chieftain and member of a Celtic order – started the first missionary training center around the year 500. Columba was quite discrete when setting up the center on the island of Iona – a few miles off the Scottish coast – because Scotland was mainly pagan. He later built another center on the side of Scotland below the point where it joins England. Though it is on a peninsula, this center appeared to be on an island when the tide was up and was called Lindisfarne. These two training centers sent their missionaries to England, Scotland and across the English Channel. This area was now occupied by pagan Angles, Saxons and Jutes.
In the late 500s, Columban - not well known as Columba – travelled to the continent. In Europe he travelled all over and as far down as Italy. At that time there were various kinds of Christian groups who mainly followed Augustine of Hippo and named their theology Catholic.
These groups were upset with him (and his teachings) in much the same way as the Jews were with the teachings of John the Baptist before. To help settle the matter, Columban wrote scholarly epistles to the pope.
The rapid growth of their membership (Celtic) and mission centers in the British Isles and on the continent inspired the pope to conclude that “his brand of Christianity ought to gain control over the area.” In the year 596 he sent Augustine of Canterbury to England ( not to be confused with Augustine of Hippo, whose disciples had argued theology with Pelagius 20 years earlier), and he timidly settled on the small peninsula Canterbury which juts out into the English channel south of England. He established the Roman Christian tradition by converting the king and queen of the area.
Today, the English church still has two archbishops; the Archbishop of Canterbury representing the Roman tradition and the Archbishop of York representing Celtic tradition. The Archbishop of Canterbury is – popularly – considered the top leader of the Anglican Church.
Though the scales tipped slightly in the favor of the Roman Tradition, in reality, the Archbishop of York is ‘technically” equal to the Archbishop of Canterbury – the latter being “the first among equals,” and as a result the Celtic tradition has remained vibrant.
Currently in England, the archbishop of Canterbury’s vestments is derived from Latin Roman secular magistrates and represents the Western traditional form of Christianity. Also, even to this day, the Archbishop of York by his vestments represents the Eastern form of Christianity which adheres to the Celtic tradition of York in Northern England where Celtic Tradition held the longest.
We can see the two forms of Christianity being practiced. The differences in Celtic and Roman theology could be seen in the haircut of the monks, in their tonsure and also, in their method of calculating the date for Easter celebration. The Celtic followed the pattern of the church in the East and celebrated Easter on the first day of spring according to the solstice, regardless of whether it fell on a Sunday, while Easter was celebrated on Sunday under Roman Tradition.
Here again, we can clearly see two forms of Christianity being practiced. One side (Canterbury) mostly spoke and displayed superficial acts of the devout missionary, while the other (York) worked harder to adhere to the mission and words of Jesus
It can be no surprise that Eastern orthodoxy and Western Catholicism eventually separated.
Pope Gregory, one of the most revered of all popes and the first pope of any significance, sent Augustine of Canterbury to be a missionary in England in 597. Gregory was known simply as the bishop of Rome, since the title “pope” was not yet invented. A product of the Benedictine monastic tradition, he was a very dynamic and godly man. For most of Roman Catholic history, most of the early popes - thought to be the best – came from the Benedictine tradition.
The monastic teaching about the virtues of humility and manual labor (to name a few), can be seen in the exhortations and actions of the current Vicar of Christ, Pope Francis. He is the hope of the papal class today, just as the best popes of that time came from the monastic tradition. And they also, were the hope for the people at that time.
This second Augustine, the missionary, was not in any sense as capable as Gregory the Great. He lacked the same sense of missionary calling that was the hallmark of the Celtic missionaries who travelled throughout England and the rest of the continent. Augustine had not been trained as a missionary. He was reluctant to go to England to undertake evangelizing the pagan Angles and Saxons. He feared them. He went primarily because of his obedience to Gregory. He did not have the same calling that Gregory had.
Fear is the antithesis to empowerment that comes from being a true follower of Jesus Christ.
Thus began, the beginning of Western/ Roman Christianity in England; its arrival preceded the birth of Celtic Christianity which had already been well established.
The Angles and Saxons responded best to the Roman Missionaries more than the Celtic Missionaries, because the Roman Missionaries lived among them. Following the withdrawal of The Roman Legions from England, the Angles and Saxons fought the Celts, took over the land and pushed the Celts over into present-day Cornwall and Wales.
Conquerors – generally – do not embrace the religion of the conquered. While Celtic Christianity stressed living a simple lifestyle and humility, Roman Christianity by contrast, enjoyed pomp, ceremony and the immensely prestigious (though now defunct) Roman Empire in the West. At that time however, the Roman Empire was still alive in the East.
Systemically, the Celtic monastic tradition was far superior to the Roman Christian tradition because it touched the converted ones down deep to their spiritual selves. It dealt with basic tenet of humility and a simple lifestyle. This tradition was interested in participants applying the Words of the scriptures. On the other hand, the Roman Christian tradition was shallow. One can find no substance when one looks beneath the surface. As noted in James 2:14, “What [doth it] profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works, can faith save him? ”
Note:
- Here we witness the Imperial Church of the 4th and 5th centuries evolving into an entirely different institution from the persecuted church of the prior three centuries. This latter church forgot and lost the spirit of Christ in its ambition to rule.
- Worship which at first was very simple became elaborate, stately, imposing ceremonies, having all the outward splendor that formerly belonged to heathen temples.
- But now the Military Spirit of Imperial Rome had entered the church. The church which at first appeared to have Conquered the Roman Empire had instead, been conquered by the Roman Empire and was thus, made over into the Empire’s image.
Emperor Theodosius (AD. 378-398), made Christianity the State Religion of the Roman Empire and church membership compulsory. This forced conversion filled the churches with unregenerate People.
Mission of the Church:
The Church was founded as a witness-bearing institution to the life of Jesus Christ; to hold him before the people. Jesus himself, not the church, is the transforming power in human life. The church was not founded as an authority to force the name and teaching of Jesus Christ on the world. The church however, was founded in the Roman Empire, and gradually developed a form of government like the political world in which it existed, becoming a vast autocratic organization, ruled from the top.[12]
https://www.amazon.com/IRONY-Theophilus-Nicholson/dp/1520964846