Needed: A New Way to Meet #1: History of Church Meetings – Why Do We Meet This Way?

Church buildings began to be built in 323 A.D. People have never seen anything like this. It is a whole new concept to Christians. Every generation is becoming more and more pagan in its faith. What you’ve got is a pagan religion developing with Christian terminology, and we’re on the verge now of what is called the medieval mind. I need to explain to you what the medieval mind is. It is a cross between paganism, an understanding of the Roman Empire, and the Christian faith, all mingled together with one more ingredient: superstition.

Do not underestimate what we’re talking about when we use the word superstition. Will Durant, who’s been called the dean of historians, said religions may come, and religions may go, but superstition remains forever. I bet there’s not a person in this room without some superstition; I don’t care how you would refuse to admit it. My father was extremely superstitious. I am totally free of all his superstitions. I do have a real problem: when we leave the house, I hate to go back. My daddy said it was bad luck. Once you start on a journey, don’t ever go back to the house. My wife will tell you to this hour; I have a hard time. I’ll do almost anything to keep from going back to the house, but of course, I’m not superstitious. I bet every one of you got something in you somewhere along the line.

Superstition gives the Christian faith its dark colors. The shadows. It’s extremely difficult for me to explain what I’ve just said, but take it literally. Shadows and dark things. That which is foreboding. That which is magic; that which is dark; that which is feared, now comes and takes its place in the Christian mind. The medieval Christian mind had this paganism, this concept of the Roman Empire, the Christian faith, a large part of that is mostly vocabulary, and the dark aspect of superstition.

Now, we need to surround that with one other thing, because we have to draw a line here between the clergy and the theologians and the ordinary people. I’ve just described to you the ordinary people. Let’s move over now to the clergy and the theologians. You who are listening to this on video will probably wish to burn me at the stake for this statement, but theology is not Christian. I’ll quote that, and somebody will corrode on the spot.

Let me explain where theology literally and historically originated. The Christian faith, always, theologians today – I’m talking about men who taught me in the seminary, and I’m not fussing with them – I can even see the need for theology. Still, they will interpolate and impose their viewpoint on the first-century writers’ theology.

Let me see if I can explain that from another angle. If I say there is no place for the present-day concept of the pastor in the New Testament, someone will immediately stand up and say, “But the word pastor is in the New Testament,” and then I add, “You cannot take present-day practice of the pastor and impose it on that word.” We take the concept of theology and impose it on Paul and John. Paul was a hot-blooded Jew writing passionate letters to Jewish people who were having all sorts of messy problems in something we would call church life. Then men of later centuries come together literally with scissors, I mean literally with scissors, cut up the verses, put them into topics, and then approach them with dialectical Aristotelianism. Now, I am using two words very deliberately and very correctly. Aristotelian dialectics.

Now, you could care less about this, I know. Nonetheless, there are growing up philosophers…we’re talking about the Greek mind, that which Paul gave such a fit in 1st and 2nd Corinthians, especially 2nd Corinthians; well, no, especially 1st Corinthians, I guess; both of them…he really ran that mind down, the mind of the abstract and, if you please, the mind of the mysterious. Many people don’t understand that philosophy was considered something secret, known only to a few. I don’t think you know that. I don’t think most theologians know that.

You have heard of the mystery religions of the East. Well, the West had mystery teachings too, including Aristotelian, Platonic, and Socratic philosophy. It was held for a few. Their libraries could only be entered by a few people. What was there was not to be known except by the elite, by the philosophical class. A lot of these guys are getting converted, and they are taking their Aristotelian dialectics and applying it to the New Testament with scissors and glue, coming up with topics that had never existed before.

Are you aware that when the church was having this big debate over a theological issue, Constantine called the Council of Nicaea in 325? Are you aware that when he arrived in that town, he came with an entire battery of pagan philosophers for the one purpose of helping the Christians formulate and write down in high philosophical terms, first of all, the differences, the cleavages between the two groups of Christians, and then to help draw up the Nicene Creed? Now, that’s not something you and I are supposed to know, because the Nicene Creed is held in great honor. So I honor it. It’s beautiful. It’s incredible. I don’t see how anybody could have written a document like that. I agree with it, and so do you; we all do. Nonetheless, pagans penned it.

The Christians were ill-equipped to write such things. The pagans could sit there, hear them argue, and put it down in clear words. Theology is beginning to be born. And so, in the 150 years that followed, we have the rise of men like Ambrose, Jerome, Origen, and Tertullian. Okay, Tertullian came earlier than that, but Augustine – and did I leave anyone out? Ignatius was too early for that. He was a madman. I think history says Ignatius was a madman…and Clement, too. Not a madman. I think there are a little earlier. Tertullian, Ignatius, and Clement are a little too early. Origen is kind of in between, and then you have Jerome, and you have Ambrose, and you have Augustine, who are great titanic minds, some of the most brilliant minds in human history, begin to write down our faith.

Now, my whole point in telling you all of that is that, surrounding the Christian faith, the aura of, here are my next two words, “set classicalism.” Now, what in the world do you mean by that, Gene? I mean by that that you did not change the teachings of Aristotle. Plato was sacred. Socrates was sacrosanct. Now, I don’t know if you understand what I’ve just said, but I’m talking about the root problem of the Dark Ages: that the classical philosophers set all truth, and it can’t be improved on. You might gain a few insights, but you can’t broaden it much.

Do you realize that Aristotle stopped science in its tracks? I don’t think you know that. Aristotle said you don’t need to experiment; you just need to think. This was called the Pythagorean School of Science. There was the Ionian School of Science, which we call “empirical” today: observation and experiment. After the Ionian School of Science was suppressed by the Aristotelian concept of science, the Pythagorean concept of science dominated until Francis and Roger Bacon; science based itself on philosophy. You sit there and think; you don’t experiment or observe. That was what brought on the Dark Ages. It took the revolution of Francis and Roger Bacon to break loose from that.