Thursday, July 2, 2015

History does repeat itself...



Traditionalists confess their fidelity (while dragging their feet, kicking and screaming inside) against speculative innovations while professing themselves to be those uniquely faithful to the ancient traditions.

This current situation reminds me of those Jewish Christians (usually associated with James) who demanded the Gentiles become Jews (submit to circumcision) if they ever hoped to join the faithful Jewish community of Jesus followers. There's no way like the old established way. There's no way, but the old way. The Torah is eternal in the heavens. It must be followed or at least the oral tradition that grew up around it.

Except a minority of dreamers decided otherwise. They saw that change was necessary even when seen as contrary to the tradition and Torah that the new faith might advance among new groups. 

The situation was competitive with the nascent faith or so the synagogue hoped, but they really didn't have a chance. The new house churches in Antioch openly received these strange polytheistic Gentiles without spilling their blood in the old covenantal ritual. The synagogue and the Jewish Christians were appalled at these abominations. Such acceptance meant mixing of established kinds. God must judge such faithlessness. We must crush it out before we are judged ourselves.

However the opposite happened as the decades marched on. The surviving Ebionites became extinct, and only the product of loving innovation flourished with faith communities of Gentiles all over the Roman Empire.