The Christian Ethic Civilizes a Cruel and Divided World

black and white, sheep

Last month, I wrote an article for Catholic Stand that advocated for a level of civility in the American political process. I argued this, in my view, on fairly unimpeachable Catholic grounds.  Christ makes clear that judgment is God’s prerogative and that His followers are afforded very little space to denigrate others on God’s behalf.  The fact that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops launched an initiative supporting the same position seemed to further undergird this position.

That being said, based on the responses, it seemed that the article missed its mark.  I want to sincerely thank all of the readers who took the time to share with me their thoughts on the matter. I am attempting to approach the issue from a slightly different angle this month in a way that may more effectively address the views put forth by many.  Effectively, these views seemed to be that to cause change, judgment, or denigration in defense of our faith is permissible, given the current, dire situation.

Christianity remade the world

Much of the political debate, or polemicizing, surrounding the upcoming presidential election seems to be about casting society in tribal terms and demonizing the other side. As former Senator Danforth put it, “the essence of the breakdown of politics is the mentality that I’m right and you’re totally wrong and because I’m so sure of that I’m right and you’re totally wrong, I am justified in destroying you as a person.”

A potentially good, but not obvious, starting point for an examination of the Catholic response to that dynamic is historian Tom Holland’s 2019 book, Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World.  Holland, a longtime agnostic or atheist, returned to his faith through his professional study of the ancient world.  The more deeply he researched and wrote about the Greco-Roman era, the more foreign it became to him.  Inevitably, he came to the conclusion that his values were not those of Plato and Cicero, but of the Bible and Christianity.

The Greco-Roman world, far from being democratic or egalitarian in its values, as Greek democracy and the Roman republic would suggest, was a cruel, unequal place in which the common understanding of natural law stipulated that the rich and strong were to rule over the poor and weak and that force was required to maintain this order.  Based on the prevailing ethos of the ancient world, Holland persuasively makes the case that the Bible is much more the foundation for modern democracy and concepts of the equality of all people than are Plato or Virgil.

Given the dominant value set in the world that Holland and other historians describe, it is no wonder that St. Paul wrote that the message of Christ was “foolishness to the Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:23),  so diametrically opposed was it to the ethos of the time. So the question arises as to how the worshippers of an obscure Jewish teacher who was crucified by the state, fundamentally changed society.

Perhaps more importantly, we must ask: What are the implications for today?

The transformation

The simple and obvious answer to this question is that humanity began to understand the love of its Maker and its inherent dignity in that men and women are made in the image of God and called to eternal life in Him through Christ.  But what did the sharing of this truth look like on the ground eighteen hundred years ago?

In many ways, it meant turning upside down a system that was predicated upon the use of force and cruelty to maintain the prevailing social structure. It meant giving empowerment and dignity to people who lived in oppressed states.

Women in in the pre-Christian Greco-Roman world, who would be fundamental to the growth of the early Church, lived in a situation that was marginally better than it would be two thousand years later under the Taliban.  Even the greatest of Greek and Roman philosophers, such as Aristotle and Cicero, made quite clear their positions that women were an inferior form of man and that they should always be accompanied outside by a male relative and should be seen and treated as their wards.

Among Roman aristocrats, the practice of marrying eleven- and twelve-year-old girls was common and accepted. A woman only had rights within the household system that was controlled by her husband.

Furthermore, the household, or familias, was defined in terms that would be entirely unrecognizable in the modern world.  Effectively all rights rested in the head of the household, or paterfamilias, and the familias included slaves and clients.  Among the rights of the husband and father was the right to have intercourse with any male or female slave of his choosing.

More disturbing yet was the widespread practice of infanticide in the Greco-Roman world, whereby newborn girls were routinely killed.  Historians estimate that by the time of the early Church, the Mediterranean population was skewed as high as thirty percent in favor of males due to this practice.

Holland also makes clear that in terms of the politics of the age, the Greeks and Romans, far from embracing true democracy, were much more comfortable with an oligarchical system that was oppressive and excluded most of the governed from participating in governance.  Thus, the world of Greece and Rome stripped any sense of dignity from most of its inhabitants and espoused a code of might makes right.

Comparisons shed light

So what does the early Church and the many detestable social conventions in ancient Greece and Rome have to do the current political culture?  Quite a lot, as a matter of fact.

The early Church made very few concessions to the injustices and oppressive norms of Roman and Greek society.  Its teachings that all are one in Christ, that a husband and wife were to be equally faithful to one another, that taking child brides was improper, and that infanticide of newborn daughters was morally reprehensible, were entirely countercultural and revolutionary.

Effectively, by sharing the Gospel in word and action, the early Church became a place of dignity, liberation and freedom for many people.  In this way, it fundamentally changed what would become western society.  It compromised on no point with Roman cruelty or Greek repression and became the beacon that effected real and lasting change.

The early Church was certainly tempted by the surrounding culture, as St. Paul’s letters make abundantly clear.  It was tempted by the commonplace pleasures of the Greco-Roman world and by the desire to conform to norms of the day.  But in standing apart, the Church actually conformed the ancient world to itself, not the other way around. In so doing, it gave us concepts of dignity, inalienable rights and equality of justice as benchmarks for the legal codes and cultures of the West.

The Church and human dignity

In certain ways, it seems that the current culture has become as cruel and oppressive as were ancient Rome or Greece, with a few oligarchs controlling many aspects of life for the multitude through social media, wealth and the divisions that they allow and create.  Pope Francis and other Church leaders have argued that these dynamics have helped to foster an ethos of greed, intolerance and resentment that perpetuate the problem.

The Roman state adeptly used crucifixion as its preferred method for enforcing the social order of the day.  It was the favored form of punishment in that tortured and humiliated all at once.  In contemporary political culture, the equivalent seems to be to construct a cross of words that, according to former Senator Danforth, are also meant to degrade and kill.

The principal difference is that thanks to the Church, there is a common sense that something is wrong with this state of affairs and that change is needed based upon some notion of human dignity.

Papal themes

These issues are two of the principal themes of Pope Francis’ recently published encyclical Fratelli Tutti (Brothers All). His Holiness laments the development of “new forms of selfishness and loss of social sense” that are tearing apart nations, as well as the growing “hyperbole, extremism and polarization” in global politics that are fraying the bonds between individuals.

In response to these trends in culture and politics, Pope Francis calls for a commitment to “teaching the value of respect for others, a love capable of welcoming differences, and the priority of the dignity of every human being over his or her ideas, opinions, practices and even sins.”  By no means does this necessitate agreeing with the position or actions that another person takes, but rather that he or she is entitled to the same dignity that Christianity states is the due of all people by virtue of their being.

His Holiness writes that he was inspired to develop his most recent encyclical by the examples of St. Francis and Martin Luther King, among others.  Both men were unwavering in their devotion to God as best they could live it.  Neither would compromise with the ills of the culture of their respective day that they sought to change, but neither would the two men compromise in their methods either.  As best they could, they each lived the Christian ideal and brought about tremendous change.

Rebirth of an ancient ethic

The early Christians were not much different.  They sought to change their world and were uncompromising in how they did it.  They remained, as St. James said, “unstained by the world” (James 1:27) and would not resort to the violence, physical or verbal, that was visited upon them as a way of trying to change the dominant culture.  Their example of uncompromising love and witness to the truth was far more powerful than any punishment of the state or society. Their commitment to their beliefs, ultimately transformed a world that was much more malevolent in every conceivable way than the one of the early twenty first century.

The example of the early Church should be an inspiration for Catholics in the US today.  By providing an alternative to a dominant culture that degraded most of humanity and by refusing to resort to the methods of that culture, namely, the same violence and degradation that was visited upon it, the early Church ultimately transformed the Greco-Roman world and made it a much better place.

If the Church today can resist the temptation to pick up the weapons that the current political culture willingly offers it, and instead shows its commitment to live the Catholic ideal to the most profound level, then it, too, can change the world.  If it succumbs to that temptation, then it becomes the clanging cymbal of which St. Paul wrote (1 Corinthians 1:13). It is not an easy path to walk, certainly not in contemporary society, but it is one that can transform and heal that society and help make the world more the reflection of Christ’s perfect love.

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6 thoughts on “The Christian Ethic Civilizes a Cruel and Divided World”

  1. Pingback: Covid-19, Filling Empty Churches, And The Eucharist; My Conversion Story; And More Great Links! – christian-99.com

  2. Black and white sheep!

    Daily seen together, except in places like here. Racially mixed places are never conservative or “Catholic Stand” Catholic. They are voting Democratic. Can you tell me why that is?

  3. Pingback: SATVRDAY EDITION – Big Pulpit

  4. I find the argument from atheists that they can be nice people without religion, particularly the Christian faith, interesting, because my understanding was people weren’t very “nice” before Christianity. The morals that govern our increasing secular society were laid by the Christian faith, so any nice atheist is nice because he/she learned it from a culture with ties to the ancient Christian religion. He/she can toss out Christianity, but the “nice” morals this person lives by probably wouldn’t exist without Christianity having introduced it first.

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