Imagine, if you will, a group of Christian archaeologists plowing their way through thousands of deeds and property records of towns and cities in North Africa. These deeds, surveys, title changes and tax records all dated from A.D. 100 to 400, and often stated the uses being made of each building. Some of these documents tell the name of the family that lived in each house, the occupation of those employed, and their religion. Some of these records also tell what other activities the building was used for besides living quarters. ("Baking located here"; "Pots made here," etc.)
We are still in that chasm.
Your own church may be as orthodox as sunshine in July, but chances are that 50% to 90% of its practices are hand-me-downs from Mr. Constantine. Small wonder that noted Temple University historian Franklin Littell calls Constantine, "that great whale that broke the net."
Early Christian stonework and carvings have now presented us with yet another surprise. At some point in your cultural upbringing, you may have groaned your way through a museum full of old Christian art. You saw painting after painting of fat baby Jesuses with sallow-faced Marys, and sickly, tragic-looking Jesuses with the trademark halo and the hands held just so-all of which were codified and required by rigid convention.
What makes these works even more depressing is that you and I have been told that no matter how far back we go, Christian art always looked about like this. Well, that's just not so-and now we have the research to prove it.
*The old Roman school of archeology dated almost all of the dreary, miserable-looking stonework, carving, and other artifacts quite early. But a more enlightened and unprejudiced dating has now been able to divide these findings into four groups:
Generally speaking, here is what emerges. In groups one and two, you see depicted happy crowds of people following a joyful, charismatic, and itinerant Lord. In the post-Constantinian era, you see a sober, grave, unhappy, austere Christ sitting on a throne, garbed in the robes of a Caesar with bolts of lightning breaking around Him.
Two points: First, men tend to depict in art what they see in their minds. A radical and terrible change in the minds of Christians as to what Christ was like and what a Christian should look like had taken place in less than seventy years. Second, powerful men seeking total power had to depict a ruling Savior to justify their own rule. A poor, itinerant model would not do. One of the most telling proofs of the enormous change that occurred at that point in time is found in those artworks depicting the Lord's Supper.
*Incredibly, early Christian art that has to do with the Lord's Supper never depicts the night before the crucifixion, but rather shows the Lord feeding the five thousand! The early artists saw the Lord's Supper as a time of joy, with the Lord providing for five thousand of His people. Later you find depicted a dismal Christ in the upper room staring morbidly at a cup, with the dozen around him sober-faced and sad.
Which do you think reflects the first-century mind? And which do you think depicts our present attitude toward the Lord's Supper? In conclusion,
*most of our heritage of "Christian practices" in today's Protestant church is not legitimate...
It's time to face the facts:You and I have been sold a bill of goods.
Posted with permission from Gene Edwards