How an early church theologian can help us subvert white supremacy!
Having an opportunity to peek into the life of the early Church is always intriguing. Doing so is not for the purpose of discovering some pristine perfect community, which never existed, but it is helpful when considering the historical domestications of Church teachings around what is expected of Christian lives. While diversity existed in the early Church, there certainly are strong currents of overlaps that existed as well, like the fact that there are no examples of Christians participating in the military until about the late in the second century, and that even beyond that the official teaching was always nonviolence. That some shifts took place in the dominant ethical witness of the Church is impossible to argue against. While the churches embodiment of these teachings still would have been complex and dynamic in its pursuit and shortcomings of following Jesus, it is pretty clear that the Church teachers in the first few centuries sought to take Jesus seriously.
And it is precisely in the specificity of Jesus’ manifestation on earth that The Epistle to Diognetus, a late 2nd century Christian letter, points to God’s revelation and character. As the manifestation of God, Jesus was not what humanity imagined the Divine One to be like. In chapter 7, this letter briefly wrestles with the nature of Jesus’ manifestation, asking “Was it then, as one might conceive, for the purpose of exercising tyranny, or of inspiring fear and terror? By no means, but under the influence of clemency and meekness.” Going a step further, chapter 8 deconstructs any attempts at understanding God by way of taken for granted notions of divinity: “For, who of men at all understood before His coming what God is? Do you accept of the vain and silly doctrines of those who are deemed trustworthy philosophers?” Finally, he makes his point plain, God’s character is revealed in Jesus Christ:
But such declarations are simply the startling and erroneous utterances of deceivers; and no man has either seen Him, or made Him known, but He has revealed Himself. And He has manifested Himself through faith, to which alone it is given to behold God. For God, the Lord and Fashioner of all things… proved Himself not merely a friend of mankind, but also long-suffering [in His dealings with them]. Yeah, He was always of such a character, and still is, and will ever be, kind and good.[i]
