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Andy Stanley - Has Christianity Done More Harm than Good A Conversation x John Dickson · Andy Stanley Sermons

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So would you please welcome our special guest, doctor John Dixon. I've been
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so looking forward to this. We've already talked so much about all these things.
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But real quick, my introduction to John came through his book Bullies and
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Saints. The subtitle is an honest look at the good and evil of Christian
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History. So I started listening to it cause I listened to books first,
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and then about a third of the way I just went ahead and bought it.
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So authors loved me. I bought it everything twice and then I started
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talking about this book. And oftentimes, you know, people in our churches
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will say, Andy, what's a good Christian history book to read? But
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there's so many, you know, And anyway, so I started recommending this
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book, and I thought, I would love for our churches to meet you
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and get and hear the content of this of this book. And then of
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course you lived in Australia, but now you live in the United States,
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and so thank you so much, thank you for doing this. And real
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quick, the best way to jump into this is why did you write this
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book? Because it's a look at the dark side of Christianity, but as
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dark as it has been historically, and even in some cases. Currently you're
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still a Christian, so you didn't you know, it didn't drive you away?
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But why what drove you to write the book? Well, being a
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historian by academic training, I already knew that lots of bodies buried in the
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graveyard of church history. But increasingly I found that people who aren't connected with
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church think that Christianity has only damaged the world, or that its main influence
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is negative. And this really came home to me in a large public debate
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in Sydney back in two thousand and eight, and the debate motion was we'd
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be better off without religion. That was the assumption it was, and Christianity
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was the main focus. There were three academics arguing for the motion We'd be
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better off without it, and three yegates, and about twelve hundred people were
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in the auditorium. But it was broadcast nationally through our national broadcaster, so
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the stakes were high. And they did an entrance poll asking the audience what
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they thought about that motion before the debate, and then they did an exit
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poll after the debate, and I'm sorry to say we overwhelmingly lost both.
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This group of twelve hundred Australians thought overwhelmingly that we would be better off without
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Christianity. And I came away from that evening in two thousand and eight realizing
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something that I hadn't quite put my finger on before then, and that is
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our wider secular culture has changed. It used to complain that Christianity was too
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moral to narrow, to narrow, you know, it would you know,
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I'd have to be a good person if I became a Christian and I don't
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want to be one of those. But it's way more common now, way
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more common now for people to think, actually, no, Christianity is bad.
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It's bigoted, it's hateful, it's only damaged the world. So that
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set me on a kind of ten year odyssey to research what are the worst
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bits of church history? In other words, what are the best arguments that
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we'd be better off without Christianity? And so I wanted to sink into the
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debts. But along the way, of course, we discover the beautiful things
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Christianity has given us, and oftentimes they're in parallel. It's just that the
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negative gets the press right. It does, and for obvious reasons, and
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people have been hurt by the Church, and so if they've been hurt by
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the Church. For them, the Crusades or the Inquisitions are the symbol of
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what Christianity does when it has power. In the book, you write,
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I've never felt this inner conflict when you just described more acutely than when I
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stood on the site of one of the greatest atrocities in religious history. Tell
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us a little bit about that. Where were you. I was outside the
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Aloxa Mosque in Jerusalem, and I was standing right here, and I was
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filming the Alaska And it sits on the temple mound where Solomon's temple used to
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said and Herod's temple was destroyed, and now there's a mask there. Yeah,
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and it's one of the holiest places in Islam now and it's in Jerusalem.
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And I was filming a documentary about the history of Christianity. And the
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reason we were filming a scene right here is that this happened to be the
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site of the first victory the European Crusaders won against the Muslims of Jerusalem July
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fifteen, ten ninety nine. And we have loads of records about what the
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crusaders were thinking, and they were very much doing this for Jesus as in
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their heads they loved Jesus and they thought they had to go on attack these
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Muslims for Jesus. And from the primary sources we have the letters back home
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and so on, we know that they filled this whole colonnade, which you
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could fit fifteen football fields in the maybe thirty seven acres or something. Yeah,
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they filled it with blood and not just fighters, women and children.
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And these followers of Jesus then held a church service in the Great Church of
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the Holy Sepulcher, about five hundred meters away, the place that celebrates the
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death and resurrection of Jesus. They held a church service praising Jesus for this
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victory over the unbelievers. Now, I note a good argument can be made
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that the crusade itself was just trying to fight back against the expansion of Arab
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communities, and I understand that argument. But what they did that day broke
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every rule of just war in killing women and children en mass minimum five thousand,
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perhaps twenty. And while you were shooting, you did a documentary.
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There, there was a you had a guide that that sort of is what
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highlighted this tension for you. Yes, there she is so Astra is her
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name, and she was just lovely. She showed us around, she made
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sure no one annoyed us while we were filming the scenes. But I had
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to say these lines about crusaders coming in here and killing men, women and
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children. I had to say these lines over and over because I'm not a
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you know, one take wonder like you are to Take nine and eleven.
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Yeah, and so I had to say it like five or six times.
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But after a rat two or three times, I'm telling this story. She's
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slightly off camera, so I'm looking to but she's just there and I could
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tell she was crying. Tears had welled up in her eyes, and I
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still had to tell this story to camera. And after we were packing up,
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I took her aside and I said, I'm so sorry, and she
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was, no, it's fine, it's fine, but I could tell it
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wasn't fine. But at the same time, you because this is sort of
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where this merges of some of our thinking, it's not your fault. You
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weren't there, and you probably told yourself what I would tell myself. Oh,
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if I had lived in that time, I would have never participated in
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anything like that. She wasn't there. She wasn't directly hurt, and yet
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there is a connection, an emotional connection. Yeah, in some ways it's
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illogical for me to say sorry to her, right, but it felt right
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at the time. Because the more I've studied church history, the dominant thought
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is not how crazy were those crusaders. The thought is I wonder what my
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blind spot is. I wonder what two hundred years from now people will say
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about John Dixon and the way he lived. So I feel in affinity with
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those crusaders. I'm a messed up Christian too, And I suppose in your
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pastoral ministry you've met many people who say family has been damaged by past church
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behavior. Your instinct is going to be I'm sorry, right, even though
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you didn't do it exactly. That's what it felt like. I feel that
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about a lot of church history. I'm so sorry. And you know,
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it's interesting because I occasionally I'll look at the camera and say to people,
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Hey, if this has been your experience with the church, I want to
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apologize. And the feedback from people who've been hurt by the church or non
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Christians is positive, But then I'll get negative feedback. If we could just
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do some counseling real quick. I get negative feedback from Christians who are like,
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how dare you apologize for me? And you're apologizing for Jesus. I'm
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like, wait, and there's the there's this tension. So with all that,
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why, I mean, why air the church's dirty laundry? I mean
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you, I mean it's not just the crusades you go through and talk about.
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You bring it all the way up to modern atrocities that have been,
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you know, performed or have happened in the name of Jesus. So why
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I think I realized years ago in my Christian journey that Christians do not believe
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we are good through and through. That's the kind of secular myth. You
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know, we're just a blank slate and you can basically be really good.
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Christians know that we're flawed, all of us. And the teaching of Jesus
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urges us to think of this, because Jesus called us sinners. And there's
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that one place in the Sermon on the Mount, that famous collection of Jesus
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teaching, where he says, Oh, if you being evil no to give
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good gifts to your children, how much more would your heavenly father give good
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gifts? And I'm sure people were going, did he just call us evil
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if he doesn't even know my story? Yes? Yeah, So I'm sorry
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if this is news to you. But Jesus didn't think you were good through
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and through. And so the thing is, Christians ought to be the best
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at admitting fault. It should be our instinct when we mess up, right,
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and when our group messes up, we should be the first to say
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we are fallen. And I'm so sorry, You're right. I pulled this
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quote out. It was the Master of the Church himself who said, I
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should worry more about my own sins than the sins of others. But our
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reputation is we worry far more about the sins of others than our own.
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Wish you know. But essentially Jesus said, well, there's plenty for you
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Andy to worry about without worrying about John's sins. To your point, I
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love the way he said it. It should be intuitive to us to acknowledge
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who we are and who we aren't first, and so again, highlighting or
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writing about the sins of the church should not be or we're not bragging.
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We're sorry, We're sorry. And in a sense, the Sermon on the
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Mount, which is chapters five to seven of Matthew's Gospel. If you've never
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read it, is the greatest hits of Jesus. You know. It's love
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your enemies, to good to those who hate you, turn the other cheek,
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judge not less to be judged, extra mile, extra mile our Father
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in Heaven. Like it's all there, but the opening line of the Sermon
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on the Mount gets me every time. The opening line of the most sublime
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teaching ever is blessed of the poor in spirit. Their's is the kingdom of
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Heaven. It's not those who think they have credit with God. It's those
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who know they are poor, bankrupt out of credit with God. So this
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on the lines that, however lofty, is the ethic Jesus calls us to.
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We are actually all poor before God. One of the things that I
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so loved about the book, and when we first talked, I said,
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this is what I really would love you to kind of double down on,
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is with all the church history, with all the negative that is interspersed throughout
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Christian history church history, you make the point that Christianity has a built in
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self correcting I guess a mechanism is the words you a self correcting mechanism that's
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tied specifically to the teaching of Jesus that regardless of how things go, it
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always comes back. Talk a little bit about that, because I think for
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many of us as Christians, we aren't as aware of that as we should
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be, and for people who are outside the faith who only want to look
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at the negative when they look at the whole story, there's definitely a self
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correcting I love this part of the book. Well, it is really clear
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to me that in every century where Christians went astray, some Christian pops up
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and says, this is not how we're meant to be, and they persuade
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people and they turned back. Yep, And so people quote the bad stuff.
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But if they kept quoting, they'd get like just a few years later,
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and they'd find some Christian who brought them all back. There were riots
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in the early fifth century where Christians killed people for Jesus, but actually we
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have Christian writings condemning those Christians and saying this is not the way of Jesus.
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We have Charlemagne in the eighth century slaughtering people if they didn't become Christians.
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You have forest conversion, force conversion, but then one of his key
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advisers wrote two letters to the most powerful man in the world, said we
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cannot do this. This is not the way of Jesus, and actually changed
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Charlemagne's policy. Even in the Crusades, there were crazy people like Francis of
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Assisi who turned up at the crusade, the front line of the crusade,
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and said, I'm going to go and preach to those Muslims. This is
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how God wants to bring them. He doesn't want to kill them, he
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wants to convert them. So off he went for a week and no one
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heard from him for a week. Very dangerous to go and preach the gospel
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in that context. Anyway, he was beaten up and let go, so
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it didn't go really well. But the thing is people left the battlefield with
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him, right, So I'm thinking, what is this self corrective mechanism?
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I think it comes straight back to the teaching of Jesus, and in particular
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that bit in the Sermon on the Mount where he says to his disciples,
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not to the Pharisees, you've got a great big log in your eye,
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and you can't see clearly the sin of others. If you've got a great
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big log in your eye. I want you to walk us through that text.
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I think we have that text. Yeah, because this is this is
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again most of us know this. We could quote some of this. And
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yet within the context of this conversation, I think is so personalty, so
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powerful. Well, remember he's not talking to the Pharisees, and you know
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he's talking to us. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye?
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Now, as soon as I read that, I'm thinking he grew up
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a carpenter. He must have got lots of specks of swordust in his eye.
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I know, like he's got in the flesh and everything, but I'm
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sure the swordust still got in his eyes. And when he got a speck
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in his eye, when you get something in your eye, it feels like
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a log, doesn't it? Tiny but a log? And this is what
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he says. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but
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do not notice the log in your own eye? Oh, how can you
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say to your neighbor, let me take the speck out of your eye while
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the log is in your own eye, you hypocrite. First take the log
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out of your own eye. Then you'll see clearly to take the speck out
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of your neighbour's eye. And his point is the wrongdoing of the believer ought
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to feel like a log, whereas the wrongdoing in someone else's life should look
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like a speck. We should be more concerned about our own wrongdoing than others.
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And I think this idea pulls Christians back to Jesus through every century.
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Where Christians are doing bad things, someone says, hang on, this is
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not what Jesus said. We're probably all going to hell. Yeah, let's
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get this log out of our own. And the through line isn't The through
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line is always the specific teaching of Jesus, and historically this is amazing.
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Historically it's usually from the Sermon on the Mount or one of the parables,
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But the thing that brings us back to the center is actually the teaching of
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Jesus, which makes sense out of why he said, I mean and great
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commission. Go into the world and teach them everything I have commanded you.
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He's pretty near amanded you, and I'll be with you in the world,
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So we can talk the rest of the time about that. But moving on,
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you argue, and this is one of the things I love to talk
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about So maybe this is why I'm kind of nerding out on this. But
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you talk about the fact that Jesus offered the world a new view of humanity.
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That there was the Greek view of humanity very similar the Roman view of
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humanity that pretty much characterized what we would consider the world at the time.
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And yet Jesus doesn't come along and say, let's let's take the Greek view
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up a notch or let's edit. He introduces a completely different view of humanity.
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Talk a little bit about that, because that, again is this explains
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some of the confusion in terms of why we think we're such good people and
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think noble thoughts. The ancient view, whether in Greece or Roman everywhere else,
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frankly, was that your value is dependent on your capacity, your usefulness
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to society. There's no such thing as equality amongst human beings because some people
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are looking and smart up than other people. Thanks just makes perfect sense.
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So that was the ancient Greek in Roman view, and Jesus promoted the view
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that really comes out of Genesis, one that everyone is made in the image
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of God and therefore is loved by God regardless of capacities. It doesn't matter
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if someone's not as smart as someone else, doesn't matter, if someone's not
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as strong as someone else. Everyone is equal because everyone bears the image of
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God and is loved by God. We now assume this even if we're secularists.
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We might not go with the God bit, but we go with the
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equality bit. But if you were transported back into the first century and met
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a Greek or a Roman and tried to spin this idea that you assumed that
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everyone's equal, they'd go, what, you're crazy. Tools aren't equal,
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right, I mean they just looked at the whole world and thought that it's
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absurd. Yeah, animals aren't equal when you purchase them in the market.
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Like, nothing is equal. And you know, I try and get classes
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that I teach at Wheat and elsewhere to try and make an argument for human
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equality that doesn't rely on any Christian assumptions, and they have a good go,
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but they can't pull it off. Now, one of the illustrations that
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you talk about in the book that I'd love for you to walk us through
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is what I've mentioned a couple of times years ago in a sermon because it's
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such a fascinating it's the story, it's the illustration of this letter that a
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Roman soldier writes to his wife, and it just illustrates the I don't know
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the extraordinary insensitivity by our standards to in the evaluation of human life that we
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can't even imagine it. Tell us this, yeah, this is a handwritten
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note from a Roman soldiers, and this is actually this is actually sure of
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the yeah, and at some level it's sweet. It's like, oh,
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don't worry, darling, you know I'll send my pace soon. I love
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you. And then he says, oh, and if you give birth and
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it's a girl discarded, very casual. Read some of those tags for us
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here it is, yeah, Hilarian writes to Alice's wife, know that I
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am still in Alexandria, and do not worry if the Army Holy sets out.
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I'm staying in Alexandria. I ask you and entreat you take care of
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the child that they already have, and if I receive my pay soon,
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I will send it up to you. Above all, if you bear a
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child and it is a male, let it be. If it is a
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female, cast it out. You have told Aphrodisias, do not forget me,
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But how can I forget you? Thus, I am asking you not
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to worry. That's it a lovely letter in the middle of it, a
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casual own get rid of the girl baby, because he would not have thought
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that was wrong. His friends would not have thought that was wrong. If
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you want to get rid of an infant, it's fine. This was It's
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called exposure, and it was everywhere in the ancient world because they did not
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think that thing was equal. The Christians came along and they said, you're
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nuts. There is one God, he loves everyone. That infant is as
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valuable as the Emperor because it bears the image of God. And actually,
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the Christians went round scooping up these babies that have been left on rubbish dumps
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and raised them and cared for them, and Greeks and Romans looked on at
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them as completely crazy for doing that. I actually thought it was a mark
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against the Christians, because lots of them were made up of the leftovers of
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society. But the Christians actually thought it was the truth that everyone is equal.
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And so again, as we talk about sometimes what is so self evident
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to us right as a nation, the Declaration of Independence, it's self evident
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that all are created equal. Yeah, well, that's a leftover of Christian
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a Christian in value that's not self evident. So it's not even self evident
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currently in some parts of the world. It was certainly not self evident in
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ancient times. No, And I mean this July fourth week is a great
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week to reflect on this because when Thomas Jefferson penned those amazing lines, I
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mean, they're your lines. I can hardly quote them, but you know
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we can. You're good. Yeah, yeah, self evident that everyone's created
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equal and has been endowed by the Creator with rights. Right, Yeah,
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Hilarium would say that's hilarious, Like, no one would think that. But
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Thomas Jefferson, though not like an expressing Christian, assumed it, thought it
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was self evident. But it's just because he's swimming in the ocean of Christianity.
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And this is very difficult for modern people to understand. We'll keep moving.
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So one of the sections in the book too that you you talk about
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the Christians in the first three centuries before christian he was legal or recognized,
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or actually it was opposed and persecuted. In those first three centuries, you
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characterized them as good losers because from a human perspective, the Church was losing,
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losing, losing, and the Christians were losing, losing, but they
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were good losers. Talk a little bit about that. Yes, what I
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mean is that I sort of tell the story of persecution, and Christians weren't
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persecuted every year for those first three hundred years, but there were five or
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six pretty brutal persecutions, and the Christians had to work out how do you
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cope with this? And they kept on remembering the sayings of Jesus. He
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said, when people speak evil against you, rejoice, So they're thinking,
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okay, when they slander us and say evil against us, rejoice, Rejoice.
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He said, turn the other cheek. Jesus said, love your enemies,
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do good to those who hate you. And they tried to put this
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into practice. And that's what I mean by being a good loser. They
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actually took the teaching of Jesus seriously and literally they did, and what supercharged
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it was. They knew that Jesus, though crucified by the Romans, had
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been raised to life by God. So they thought they were the death and
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resurrection people. So they felt free to lose. Well, not because they
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were like a slave class, which is what Frederic Nietzsche the famous atheist philosopher
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in the nineteenth century said, oh, those early Christians, they were such
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leftovers in society. They were like a beaten down. There were losing.
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They used to losing. But when you read the sources it's the opposite.
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They thought they had won. They thought the whole thing, the Gospel was
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winning. Christ is at the right hand of God. So you can beat
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me up, you can burn down my church, you can take my scriptures.
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The gospel still going forward. Christ is still on the throne. I've
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won, and because of that I can lose. There's talk a little bit
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a Diocletian this was the toward This is sort of the last great persecution.
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In fact, some people say it was the only empire wide persecution of Christians.
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And by this time he was smart enough to realize, we can't just
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keep getting rid of the bishops and the leaders this Christian movement. They have
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literature. We got to get rid of the literature. So it was a
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full court press. There was no Bible the way we think of Bible,
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but there were collections of documents. Somebody has some of the Gospels, somebody
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has some of the letters of Paul, and these are being copied and distributed.
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So he's like, you know what, we're not just going to get
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rid of the Christians, We're going to get rid of their literature. Talk
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a little bit about that, and then you've got an extraordinary illustration of how
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this worked out. Historians call this the Great Persecution because between three h three
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and three twelve, the Empire really turned against the Christians. They thought the
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Christians were to blame for Rome not being as prosperous as it used to be
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because the Christians wouldn't worship the Greek and Roman gods. They thought the gods
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were turning against Rome, and so they started to pressure the Christians. There
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were public lecture series in the Imperial Court against the Christians, so Christians could
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tell things were about to get bad. And on February twenty third, three
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oh three, I remember this day because it's my wedding anniversary. Hey don't
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or is it? You think that's kind of geeky? And I told her,
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I said, I can remember when the temple was destroyed in Jerusalem because
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it was on my wedding anniversary August six, so's okay. Yes. He
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issued four decrees and part of it was burn scriptures take buildings. Everyone had
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to offer a sacrifice to the pagan gods. It literally had to go down
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to the courthouse worship a pagan god and get your name ticked off a list,
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and if you didn't, you were killed. And the Christians. We
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have writings during this period where Christians would say things like, are you only
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doing this because you're scared of debating us? Because if you were really confident
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in your beliefs, you'd meet us on the debate stage and we'll win.
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They were so confident, so when they were actually killed and arrested and taken
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to court, some of the evidence we have of Christians losing well is extraordinary.
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But it's not because they were losers. It's because they knew they were
28:15
witness. Yeah, they'd already won. They'd already won. I think we'd
28:19
prepped. This Roman transcript that we have this is an actual Roman transcript stenographer
28:26
taking down the court record of an interview with Christians in Karta in North Africa,
28:32
a Roman town, and Felix, who's like the prefect of the town.
28:37
The Roman prefect interviews these lowly church ministers. They're called subdeacons, so
28:45
they're not even deacons yet and Macuclius and Catalinas, and he says, bring
28:51
me out your scriptures, and they bring him one. They saw they squint,
29:00
and so he says, why have you given only one codex book?
29:03
Okay, one book? And then it goes on. Catlinus and Macutliers said,
29:07
remember this is a Roman transcript. We have no more as we are
29:11
subdeacons. But the readers have the codices, that is, the public readers
29:15
of the scripture. Felix said, show me the readers, you know.
29:22
Catlinus and mccutlius said, we don't know where they live. Now. This
29:26
is a town of less than twenty thousand people, so the Christians knew what
29:30
They didn't want their buddies to get in trouble. Felix said, if you
29:34
don't know where they live, tell their names and I'll find them. They
29:41
replied, we are not traitors here. We are have us killed. Felix
29:47
said, let them be taken into custody. And this is the last we
29:49
hear of these two brave Christians who were almost certainly executed on the spot.
29:55
And we're willing to risk their lives to protect other Christians. And we're willing
29:59
to risk their lives to preserve these texts. And this is one of the
30:02
things we take for granted at every time we pick up a Bible. That
30:04
again, the Bible wasn't you know, assembled until Christianity, well until it
30:10
was legal for the bishops to come out and work to actually assemble what we
30:14
call the Bible. And these men and women were protecting these ancient texts and
30:18
they weren't even I mean, they hadn't even decided what's worth protecting. But
30:22
if it if again, the Gospels were recognized in terms of when they were
30:26
written and what they said about Christ, the Letters of of Paul, and
30:29
they risk their lives to ensure the next generation had these texts. It's amazing.
30:36
They thought these were the words of eternal life, and so they were
30:40
going down with them and although I to protect them, yeah, it's amazing.
30:44
So then very soon after Dicletian, Constantine the Great surfaces, sort of
30:52
defeats his two largest enemies and wakes up one day and he's the emperor of
30:56
the Empire. His mom's a Christian. He has some sort of conversion experience,
31:00
and things begin to change, and they've changed for good and bad.
31:03
Now that Christians can come out of hiding. The first scripture of the Bible
31:06
we think about it begins to be assembled. But now Christians have power,
31:10
and with power comes responsibility, but sometimes irresponsibility. So talk a little bit
31:15
about that transition. There are lots of myths about Constantine. Some people like
31:21
to sort of date the downfall of Christianity from Constantine. I think it's too
31:25
simple. Because Constantine freed the Christians from persecution. He didn't privilege them.
31:33
He gave them the same rights as Jewish synagogues and pagan temples. But that
31:37
meant Christians could supercharge all the wonderful things they were doing, preaching the gospel,
31:45
establishing healthcare, feeding the poor, and freeing slaves, which they've been
31:51
trying to do for centuries pretty inconsistently but still some great success. Now with
31:56
Constantine, they were free to do it, and they did. And the
32:00
changes in legislation that Constantine gave the church actually made the church able to be
32:05
the church. However, it also meant bishops were invited to dinner with the
32:12
emperor. You just think what psychological change this was. A few years ago,
32:17
they'd been running away from Roman soldiers on pain of death, and now
32:22
they're dining with them. It must have been disorienting, and some Christians were
32:29
seduced by power, that's for sure. But I don't think it's as simple
32:32
as Constantine gives the church power and then it's terrible. No. Constantine freed
32:37
the Christians to be the Christians, but in allowing them to hold power,
32:40
some Christians used it really well for the good of others, and other Christians
32:47
they used it in a tribal way to make sure my block, my group
32:54
won. Socially, both things happen as a result of Constantine had two really
33:00
good examples of specific bishops. Let's talk about that, because they both had
33:06
influence pretty much the same time period, but their response to his freedom and
33:08
his power it diverged, just as we see today. Yeah. Indeed,
33:14
so Basil of Caesarian Ambrose of Milan. So Basil is from Central Turkey and
33:20
Ambrose obviously from Milan, and they're both bishops at the same time, so
33:23
they're kind of they're the pastors of pastors, and they are the pastoral leaders
33:30
of hundreds of thousands of Christians, really influential people. And the interesting thing
33:35
is both of them are from the elite class of Roman society. Basil went
33:40
to the greatest academic school, the Academy of Athens. He went to school
33:47
with a future emperor. He was wealthy from a great family, but he
33:53
used his influence too, among other things, establish what we think is the
34:00
first public hospital in world history. There was no such thing as public health
34:06
care, and he thought, let's take the best Greek medicine, because the
34:09
Greeks had made some strides in medicine, and let's buy facilities and employ nurses
34:15
and doctors, which is exactly what he did. This became a hit because
34:22
they went round collecting people who were sick and lepers and caring for them.
34:27
They'd worked out they couldn't quite do the same miracles as Jesus, though they
34:30
prayed for compassion, but they could try and mend the way that Jesus men
34:36
died, and he used his power for good. Ambrose he's a mixed character.
34:45
He was a Roman governor, he was a senator as well, and
34:49
then the people of Milam begged him to become their bishop, so he took
34:53
a step down and became bishop. He was a pious Christian, devout Christian,
34:58
but he was also he took that mentality of governor into being a bishop,
35:04
to the point where he started to boss the emperor around. We're nowt
35:07
toward the end of the fourth century, and the emperors are Christians, and
35:10
Theodosius the first was a devout Christian. And there was this one occasion,
35:15
This just gives you an example of Ambrose. There's this one occasion where the
35:17
Christians of a town called Calinicum in Syria burnt down a synagogue, a Jewish
35:24
synagogue. Anti Semitism was growing, and Theodosius quite rightly said, those Christians
35:32
the Emperor, the empress said, those Christians have to rebuild the synagogue.
35:38
Ambrose heard, jumped in, rebuked. The emperor publicly wrote a letter that
35:43
we still have saying how dare you tell the Christians to rebuild that temple to
35:49
impiety? And Theodosius the emperor backed down. Many scholars think Ambrose is the
35:55
turning point, not Constantine, two generations earlier at Ambrose, where now bishops
36:01
think of themselves as mayors of a town, as governors. And for me,
36:07
these two characters tell you the problem isn't power. The problem is what
36:13
you do with power, whether you use it for the sake of the other
36:17
or whether you use it for my team. There's a and again this is
36:22
again the negatives get the press, the positives not so much. But there's
36:28
always again, there was always somebody calling the church back to what really,
36:32
what would Jesus do? What did Jesus do? What did Jesus teach?
36:37
The other interesting thing is it's not just a bunch of men either. There
36:39
were some extraordinarily powerful, wealthy women who, once they became believers, just
36:45
adopted the teaching and the methodology of Jesus. You talk about when I'd never
36:49
heard of in the book, Can you tell us a little bit about the
36:51
story. Well, I mean, there's a whole lecture in women in early
36:53
Christianity and the influence they had. But one of them is Fabiola, and
36:59
she's around the same time as Ambrose and Basil. Now, this woman,
37:06
this woman with Fabiola, was from one of the founding seven families of Rome,
37:10
like the you know, I don't know, like the Jackie O Nassas.
37:15
Does that make sense? Like maybe not? Okay, I'll shut up,
37:17
I won't try. I won't try and make American references. But she's
37:22
from one of the elite seven families that founded Rome, and so she is
37:24
probably the wealthiest woman in Rome. She has a conversion experience out of quite
37:30
a her husband was quite abusive, and she was able to leave her husband.
37:36
She becomes a Christian, and she, in reading the Gospels thinks,
37:42
I have to use my gifts for the sake of others. And we are
37:46
told in sources written at the same time as she was alive, she sold
37:51
all of her properties, a vast property portfolio, and gave all the money
37:57
to establish charities throughout Italy and the second hospital in world history based on the
38:04
model of Basil the Great, but this is the first in the West.
38:08
If you think of Turkey as the Eastern Church. She establishes it in Rome,
38:14
and as a result of her work, literally hundreds of hospitals over the
38:19
next couple hundred years spring up all over Western Europe. And we have this
38:23
wonderful woman to thank for it. And then when she dies, to talk
38:28
about her funeral procession, she was so well known for what she had done.
38:31
Yeah, and not just because she was this elite woman. What was
38:35
more striking is she wouldn't wear elite clothes. She would herself go out and
38:38
find beggars and people who were dying and assist them, which no Roman woman
38:44
would do. No Roman woman would touch a lower class person. She touched
38:49
people who were sick and dying, and they so loved her that when she
38:52
died, we're told that Rome came out to her funeral and that it was
38:58
the largest public event in Roman history since the great triumph of General Pompey early
39:05
in Roman history, where you know, the general came in having won the
39:08
great battle. But it was not because of a battle. It was because
39:14
for compassion of the generosity. So sort of bringing this home to us,
39:20
what I want to I want to read a quote from the book again where
39:22
you answered the question essentially based on what the you know, first three centuries
39:28
of Christianity did, what should we do? Because the church has power,
39:32
I mean in our nation church, the Church is very powerful and in terms
39:36
of influence and wealth and and so again, power can corrupt or power can
39:40
be used for good. So in the book you write this, you said,
39:44
what made Christians good, even cheerful losers, was the thought that they
39:47
had already won. We talked about that, and then this their role,
39:51
the way they viewed their role in society. Their role was simply to remain
39:54
true to the way of Christ seeking to transform the world. So they were
40:00
ambitious. I mean, they pushed hard, they argued hard, transformed the
40:02
world through these four things. Prayer, service, persuasion, and suffering.
40:08
Prayer service, persuasion and suffering. Talk a little bit about that, and
40:14
then you've got a great example of somebody who did just that. Because on
40:16
the surface, and I get this, we get this, this seems so
40:21
passive. It's like, no, if we're gonna make a difference, if
40:22
Christians are gonna do whatever they're gonna do, you can't just pray your way
40:25
there. You can't just serve your way there. You can't appropriately just be
40:30
persuasive with words and compassion. You're never gonna get anything done that way.
40:35
But the reason we're sitting here is because that's exactly what they did. Absolutely.
40:40
I mean sure, if Jesus did not rise again and God has not
40:46
pulled out his spirit, then prayer, persuasion, service, and suffering,
40:52
oh not enough. But if Christ is on the throne and he's pulled out
40:58
his spirit, then prayer, persuasion, service, and suffering more than enough.
41:04
They're the only tools Christ gave his people to change the world, and
41:07
those early Christians took hold of them and exercised them in the power of God's
41:14
spirit, knowing that Christ had already won. And yeah, they they overturned
41:17
the world with those four things. Now, in the course of time they
41:22
then added things like legislation, armies, Yeah, armies, that would be
41:27
good, torture, yeah, forest, conversion. But the four the real
41:32
four tools are those four and it's not passive because God is in those four
41:38
tools. That's powerful. And even in that period, you know where the
41:44
Church started to have LODs of power, there were many who just said,
41:49
no, I'm just staying with those four tools, thanks very much. And
41:52
yeah, one of my favorite examples is this guy we know as Bishop Eligius,
41:59
who was a pastor of pastors for northern France in the six hundreds AD.
42:05
But he didn't start out a bishop. He started out the chief jewelry
42:08
maker of Europe and super wealthy. He made all the crowns, gold crowns
42:15
for the kings of Europe. But he had a conversion experience and we're told
42:19
in the very close reports we have close in time to his life that he'd
42:24
be reading the Gospels and Augustine and good Christian literature while he's making crowns right,
42:31
and he decided to use his vast wealth to go and help people in
42:37
need. And what he became famous for was going out dressed in his finest
42:42
robes with gold belts, gold sashes, gold head where I mean obscene wealth
42:47
at one level. But he would go to every town he heard there was
42:51
a slave sale. He would buy every slave, regardless of culture, religion,
42:58
sex, buy every one of them and free them all. There were
43:01
no obligations, and he would give them money. If they were from way
43:05
up in Saxony, he'd give them money to get there. God bless you.
43:10
And as a result, we are told that thousands of people flocked to
43:15
Christianity. He even convinced the elites to get rid of their slaves. So
43:22
in the middle of the six hundreds there is a full blown abolutionist movement from
43:27
this guy who simply prayed, persuaded, served and suffered for it. And
43:35
none of us have ever heard of him, and think of what he did,
43:37
and I think he'd be fine with that having heard of him. So
43:44
we have just a few minutes left, so unfortunately we're going to skip over
43:47
some of this stuff. You should read the book or listen to the book.
43:50
It's fabulous. But here's where I'd like to land. You have this
43:54
incredible metaphor that there's a sense in which Christianity is a beautiful piece of music.
44:00
And the problem isn't the music. The problem is the way sometimes it's
44:04
been performed. So talk a little bit about that and then share with them
44:08
how you because in one of your documentaries, one of your films, you
44:12
actually illustrated this in the most interesting way. Yeah. So I imagine the
44:21
Gospel of Jesus, his teaching of love your enemies and the way he himself
44:27
gave his life for enemies for us as the beautiful tune. And many music
44:32
scholars think one of the most sublime tunes ever recorded, ever written is Johann
44:39
Sebastian Bach's Cello Sweets, and particularly the prelude to the cello Sweets, because
44:45
it's mathematically sublime and it deliberately messes with your head and then gives you,
44:51
you know, incredible release. It's one of them. But I imagine the
44:54
Gospel of Jesus like that tune. Now, if you heard me play the
45:00
cello sweets. You might wonder whether Bach could write a tune because I don't
45:06
play cello, right, but you know, to distinguish between the beautiful composition
45:10
and the terrible performance. And as I survey Christian history and as I speak
45:17
with people who think Christianity has only damaged the world, I say, Christians
45:22
haven't performed the tune, but the tune is still beautiful. And in the
45:27
documentary, yeah, I went and had two lessons on the cello and tried
45:32
to play the cello sweets, and we have a recording of that, right,
45:37
So, but it's actually only two lessons, and so we're going to
45:42
play This is doctor John Dixon's rendition of cello sweets. So just listen to
45:47
this. Yeah, yeah, but but every cellist in the audience died.
46:15
But now we're going to play how it's supposed to. Second, that's not
46:23
bad, it's not amazing. The thing I guess I want to say,
46:45
if if I can, is if you have been hurt by the Church about
46:52
an individual Christian, it's because Christians haven't played the melody. It's not because
47:00
the melody isn't beautiful. And I reckon if you have been hurt by the
47:05
church. Every genuine Christian in this building and watching on would want to say
47:10
to you straight, look you in the eye and say we are sorry.
47:15
We are sorry that we haven't loved like Christ loved us. And we beg
47:21
you despite our poor performance, to see if you can hear the malady again.
47:32
Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, Bless those
47:37
who mistreat you. A melody. Jesus took all the way to his cross
47:43
for us. And we're at that last bit of the prelude here right now.
47:51
It's designed to take you away from the root note the g We could
47:58
call it the gospel came to me, but it is the g note bark
48:04
has taken you away so that you long to get back home, and it
48:10
keeps hinting that you're coming back, and then taking you away until this very
48:16
last movement. And for me, this is the story of the church,
48:23
sometimes coming near, sometimes moving away, tension resolution, tension resolution. But
48:37
here we come back back to the gospel. As you pray for us,
49:10
let me pray, our Father, we praise you for the Gospel, for
49:19
Jesus himself, who taught us love but then gave his life for us in
49:27
love, Father, we are sorry. We who believe are sorry that we
49:35
have not lived in love. Oh Lord, help us to see the log
49:40
in our own eye and take it out and come back to this beautiful gospel.
49:50
Lord, we are weak, and we ask for the power of your
49:52
spirit that we might live as you have called us to live. And we
49:59
pray for everyone listening to us today who does not quite believe and who has
50:06
been hurt by the church. Be merciful and help them. Father hear this
50:12
beautiful melody, the life teaching the death and resurrection of Jesus, in whose
50:21
name we pray. Thank you, Thank you, Fello