Igniting Holy Fire: Lessons from the Ancient Church

Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

I begin with the obvious: Christianity is declining in the Global West. It has all but collapsed throughout much of Western Europe. In the U.S., while the decline is not as acute, the percentage of people who identify as Christian is nonetheless diminishing. 

Western Repaganization

Our world is not simply becoming less Christian, though. It is being repaganized, and this trend is even affecting the beliefs of people who profess faith in Christ. According to Pew Research, 

Most American adults self-identify as Christians. But many Christians also hold what are sometimes characterized as “New Age” beliefs—including belief in reincarnation, astrology, psychics and the presence of spiritual energy in physical objects like mountains or trees. Many Americans who are religiously unaffiliated also have these beliefs.

Overall, roughly six-in-ten American adults accept at least one of these New Age beliefs. Specifically, four-in-ten believe in psychics and that spiritual energy can be found in physical objects, while somewhat smaller shares express belief in reincarnation (33%) and astrology (29%).

But New Age beliefs are not necessarily replacing belief in traditional forms of religious beliefs or practices. While eight-in-ten Christians say they believe in God as described in the Bible, six-in-ten believe in one or more of the four New Age beliefs analyzed here, ranging from 47% of evangelical Protestants to roughly seven-in-ten Catholics and Protestants in the historically black tradition.

These statistics are unsurprising. We Americans love nothing more than our autonomy. We want to be makers of our own worlds. We are taught we can do anything, be anything, and believe anything as long as it makes us happy—whatever “happy” may mean. This ethos is no less prevalent in the churches than outside of them. The Episcopal Church has even developed an app whereby you can build your own belief system. 

The Making of Saints

For some time, church growth was predicated on the notion of making the church feel welcoming and comfortable. Contemporary music, good coffee, a casual atmosphere, a great children’s program, and the absence of “religious” rituals brought people in the door. Once they were in, so this line of thinking went, they could hear the message of the Gospel, get to know other Christians, join a small group, and thereby grow in the knowledge and love of God. The problem was, while the crowds were large, large numbers didn’t necessarily translate into individual personal growth in Christ. The Willow Creek Reveal study, for example, indicated a disconnect between attendance and transformation. As it turns out, making church as comfortable and easy as possible isn’t the best way forward. Rather, it makes the church simply one more consumeristic commodity. 

It is hard to learn the sacrificial life of faith in a church that is designed to meet your needs. I’ve heard it said of evangelism, “What you win them through is what you win them to.” Put differently, a person’s initial church experience will set his or her expectations for the ongoing life of the church. Yet the point of the church—the entire reason for its existence—is to create saints, and this necessarily involves the notion that we aren’t saints when we start out. We are sinners. We want the wrong things. We see the world in the wrong way. We labor under the noetic effects of sin, and we have to be changed if we ever want to live the life to which God calls us. John Wesley knew this. Methodism came into being to “reform the nation and, in particular, the Church; to spread scriptural holiness over the land” (“Large” Minutes). Methodists were people who wished to flee the wrath to come. 

Entering the Early Church 

With my doctoral students I recently read through The Apostolic Tradition, a work attributed to the third-century Roman theologian and presbyter Hippolytus. The Apostolic Tradition is a work of Christian liturgy, and it expresses a rigorous vision of Christian faith. Joining the church was serious business, and it was treated as such. Before a person was allowed to join with the worshiping community, he or she would have to answer certain questions. Why had this seeker sought admission? Were witnesses available who could give an account of his or her life? The married were instructed to be faithful. The unmarried were instructed to practice abstinence or marry. Someone with a demon was prohibited from hearing Christian teaching until he or she had been purified. 

An inquiry into the newcomer’s profession also took place. Some professions meant that one could not join the church. For example, “If any is a pimp or procurer of prostitutes he should desist or he should be rejected.” Painters and sculptors were instructed not to make idols. If they persisted in making idols, they were rejected from the community. Actors were prohibited from joining, probably because theater tended to portray Greco-Roman mythology. “If somebody teaches children, it is better that he desist; if he have no other trade let him be allowed.” Again, this probably had to do with Greco-Roman religion: students would learn to read using Homer and Hesiod. Charioteers were required to desist from racing. Anyone who went to the races was rejected. Such races likely involved ceremonial acts to the gods. Gladiators and those involved in the gladiatorial business were also required to desist from such activity, not only because of any religious ceremonies that might be involved in such competitions, but because of the inherent violence involved. Non-Christian priests and guardians of idols were prohibited for obvious reasons. The instructions for soldiers are interesting: “A soldier in command must be told not to kill people even if he is ordered to do so. Nor should he take an oath, or offer the sacrifice, or wear the wreath.” Put more simply, you probably couldn’t be a soldier in the church Hippolytus describes. “Anyone who has the power of the sword, or who is a civil magistrate wearing purple, should desist, or he should be rejected.” The list continues: “A prostitute or a wastrel or one who has been castrated may be admitted to hear the word once they have given up such activity.” The reference to a castrated person may relate to men who were the passive partner in male homosexual activity. Sorcerers, says Hippolytus, should not even come for inquiry. Other people involved in magical/ religious practices had to desist before being admitted. The promiscuous were rejected. If a man had a concubine, the two were required to marry before admission.

Yikes. 

In fairness, Hippolytus seems particularly rigorous in his vision of Christian initiation. Hippolytus opposed Pope Zephyrinus because he felt that Zephyrinus did not sufficiently enforce the rites of penance on pagan converts. He also felt that Zephyrinus was too lax in opposing Sabellianism (Modalism). The Apostolic Tradition may represent a reaction against a form of Christianity seen to be insufficiently rigorous and doctrinally unclear. Still, the preservation of this work probably means that it was used in churches beyond simply Hippolytus’s own congregation. Further, we should note that even in the less exacting version of church life that Hippolytus seemed to oppose, there were standards of penance for converts, even if not always strictly enforced. Put differently, it was simply taken for granted that entry into the church meant leaving one way of life for another. 

Prior to baptism was the catechumenate, a period of training in which one learned how to be a Christian. For Hippolytus, the standard length of time to complete the catechumenate was three years. That said, “if a man is keen and perseveres well in the matter, the length of time should not be considered but his way of life alone should be considered.” Not everyone had to wait three years, then. Those who lived exceptionally virtuous lives could move through more quickly. 

After the catechumenate, there would be an examination of the candidate to see if he or she could be admitted to baptism: “When those who are to receive baptism are chosen their lives should be examined; whether they lived uprightly as catechumens, whether they honored the widows, whether they visited the sick, whether they were thorough in performing good works; and if those who brought them bear witness that they have acted thus, so they should hear the Gospel.” 

No Demons Allowed

If they were found acceptable in the examination, then it was time for exorcism—and not just one exorcism. Baptismal candidates were set apart, and then “a hand is laid on them daily whilst they are exorcized.” Again, “When the day draws near the bishop should exorcize each of them so that he may be sure that they are pure.” If there was any concern that the person may still be under the influence of malevolent spirits, that person was not admitted to baptism. “Indeed, an alien being should not remain in him.” Still again, the day before the baptism, the bishop would lay a hand on each of them and exorcize them saying, “May every alien spirit flee away from them and not return.” 

Those who were baptized were naked, with no jewelry. (Incidentally I do not recommend returning to this practice.) They were prohibited from taking anything with them into the water. Then there was more exorcism: 

When they are to receive the oil of exorcism the bishop shall give thanks over the oil in a vessel. And he shall exorcize another. A deacon shall take the oil of exorcism and stand beside the presbyter, and another the same with the oil of thanksgiving. He should stand to the right, and the presbyter who exorcizes at the left.”

And he takes them one by one asking them about their faith. He says, “I renounce you, Satan, and all your service and all your works and all your filth.”

And when he has made this profession he is anointed with the exorcized oil, praying that he be cleansed from every alien spirit.

At that point, the baptism would take place. 

Learning from the Ancient Church

I don’t advocate returning wholesale to the practices of third-century Christianity. In fact, we could not do so if we tried. It simply wouldn’t work. As we learn from the past, we want to pass on fire, not ashes. There is, however, a great deal we can learn from these early Christians. The post-Christian West, so given over to new age, occult, and neopagan practices, still has nothing on the Greco-Roman world in the first few centuries after Christ. Though we Western Christians may feel increasingly like strangers in a strange land, there was no question in the early church that they were outsiders, both misunderstood and despised. Life as a Christian was not just uncomfortable. As in much of the world today, it could be dangerous. And of course, human nature has not changed. We are still given over to self-will. We still labor under the weight of sin and the power of death. 

So what are the takeaways here? 

First, Christianity tends to thrive when it stands in obvious tension with the surrounding culture. The early centuries of Christianity were a period of rapid growth. By the time Constantine converted, around a century after Hippolytus wrote, millions of Christians lived in the Roman Empire. Christians were still very much a minority, but their rate of growth had been extraordinary. This growth took place, moreover, in an environment that was not in the least friendly or sympathetic to Christians. There were periods of intense persecution. Martyrdom was common. Christians were thought to be disloyal to the Roman Empire because they would not make sacrifices to the Emperor, and those who did were considered apostate. The Christians knew there was only one God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—and the worship of anyone or anything else was idolatrous. They knew what was at stake in their profession of faith. The Apostolic Tradition shows a community committed to a distinctive life within a wider context that was rife with idolatry and moral lassitude. 

I suspect that one reason that Christianity has declined so rapidly in the West is that there has been so little that sets us apart from our non-Christian neighbors. We have accommodated so fully to the spirit of the age that it has been hard to see how Christian faith makes life any different. Why come to church to receive what you can get elsewhere? 

Second, if The Apostolic Tradition is any indicator of wider practices among Christians in the Roman Empire, we can surmise that becoming a Christian was a rigorous and high-commitment process. The goal was not primarily to get people into the church, but to see radical transformation within the lives of the baptized. Those who were not serious about living transformed lives were dismissed from the catechumenate. Of course, since being a Christian could cost you your life, it’s likely that most of those who sought admission were deeply committed to their salvation. 

We can learn from the high-commitment ethos of The Apostolic Tradition. The church offers something no one and nothing else can: a life transformed by the love of Christ and the power of the Spirit, and eternal life with God in the age to come. Yet as Christ taught us, “The gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matt 7:14). To follow Christ is no cakewalk. There is constant resistance. Sin and death look for any open window to make themselves at home. The Christian life requires daily discipline, moral examination, repentance, and perseverance. It requires that we take on and maintain a new identity as daughters and sons of God, and this in a world that constantly tries to form us into a likeness of itself. It may seem counterintuitive, but part of the answer to our decline in the West may be to form more deeply-rooted, high-commitment communities, rather than communities in which the first priority is to make people feel comfortable. The central symbol of our faith, after all, is the cross. 

Third, the early Christians understood that acts of worship or devotion, no matter how small, have spiritual significance. Apart from Christians and Jews, the Greco-Roman world was generally polytheistic. It was simply assumed that converts to Christianity (excepting Jews) had worshiped idols. They had made sacrifices to false gods, and insofar as these gods existed at all, they were in fact demons. If you invited these spirits into your life, they would be happy to accept the invitation. If you wanted to enter the community of the baptized, you couldn’t bring your demons in with you. Demons are stubborn and subtle creatures, however, so multiple exorcisms ensued to make sure they were expunged. 

In our context of repaganization, we might take a cue from Christians who lived amid pervasive idolatry. Many Western Christians today do not believe in demons, and some would suggest that one religious practice is as good as another. This is a particularly modernist perspective, however, and it is inconsistent with the witness of the church universal. Throughout the world and across time, the church has been clear: Jesus is Lord, idolatry is sin, and demons are real. There are myriad ways in which we can open up our lives to the work of the demonic, and those coming into the church should be cleansed of the spiritual forces of wickedness. 

That old time religion—that really, really old time religion—has something to teach us. The decline of Western Christianity is a tragic development, but we must face the facts. It has happened. It is continuing to happen, and we must change course. The promise of moral and spiritual progress has failed. We must look back to move forward, retaining not simply the form but the spirit of our fathers and mothers in the faith, passing on not ashes but holy fire.

David F. Watson is Lead Editor of Firebrand. He serves as Academic Dean and Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio