Tag: hospitality

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On Ward Christian Soldier????

RJ Walters

Today Christian families are often also military families but at the beginnings of our religion that was definitely not the case. Up until about the time Constantine made Christianity a State religion (about 350 CE) to be a Christian meant you refused military service. Of course Augustine in the fifth century disavowed this belief and put forth the first rationalization of a “just war”. After that this belief, like so many others, was all but thrown out the window by many future church leaders. Here is a story by Diana Butler Bass from her book  A People’s History of Christianity: The … Continue reading On Ward Christian Soldier????

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Christians Doing Risky Things….

RJ Walters

No this post is not about anything in today’s world. There are some Christians who are on evangelism missions abroad who are doing risky things but for the most part Christians are pretty well settled down in their safe lives much like everyone else in this country.  But that definitely was not the case for many in the early church. Here are some words about early Christians doing very risky things to show that they were followers of Jesus and were intent on following his examples.  This quote is from  A People’s History of Christianity: The Other Side of the … Continue reading Christians Doing Risky Things….

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Hospitality….

RJ Walters

Hospitality was a very important thing to the early Christians. They put it above beliefs in their understanding of Jesus. I will use a quote from Diane Butler Bass’ book Christianity After Religionto illustrate this point: Not offering hospitality was a much greater failure than not believing that Jesus was truly God and truly human. Early Christians judged ethical failings as the most serious breach of community, even as they accepted a significant amount of theological diversity in their midst.  Hospitality to these early followers meant following Jesus’ command to love one another. But just what did they mean by … Continue reading Hospitality….