Becoming A Blackbelt Christian

(This is the first message in the series Becoming a Blackbelt Christian. If you just want to listen to the tape skip to the end of the post. This introductory material is not on the tape however and I think it’s very interesting and important.)

Christianity is supposed to do something, if it isn’t doing anything it isn’t Christianity. A few months ago one of the email newsletters I subscribe to from Bob Buford mentioned a dinner he had with Jim Collins the author of the business book, Good To Great, (A book I like and have mentioned several times on this site.) During the course of their dinner Collins asked the following question:

Collins began with a parable that went something like this: “If I came to you today and said there was a man wandering around in the Middle East with fifty followers. In 300 years, his religion would be the formal religion of the Roman Empire. What did they do to connect the dots? Put aside that it had to happen because it was true. How did it happen?”

In our phone conversation this past
Saturday, Collins clarified what I had expected all along. He was
talking about Jesus Christ and the 300 year period between His
crucifixion and the time when Constantine made Christianity the established religion of the Roman
Empire. Collins said, “People say I am constructed for curiosity. No
one has ever solved this one for me. What were the social mechanisms
and organizational tools that allowed this statistically remote outcome
to happen? What took place in the 300 years between Christ and
Constantine?

I think that Mr. Collins was
looking for some kind of business type answer. What marketing or
managment or leadership strategy did the early Christians use which allowed them to achieve this
result? Which is kind of interesting because apparently even in the
marketing world they don’t believe that great marketing strategy is
enough to promote a product. Here’s an article, I’ve been meaning to post for a while, about the 9 word secret to great marketing, :

"Dear Marketing Top Gun,

"If
I were on my deathbed about to wheeze my last breath, and you asked me
to sum up in a single sentence the most important marketing secret I
could bequeath to you before I kick the bucket (or bedpan), here is
what I would whisper in your ear, hopefully without giving you anything
contagious.

"It’s a 9-word sentence I first read in the book Reality in
Advertising by copywriting genius Rosser Reeves. He said that he had
learned it from a legendary copywriter whom he didn’t name. This one
sentence made fortunes for Reeves’ clients, as well as my own, and for
scores of other marketers wise enough to apply it rigorously, as I hope
you will.

"Ready?

"Bend close now as I whisper. Oops, let me raise myself up a bit first. OK, here goes…

"A gifted product is mightier than a gifted Pen…"

(Hat tip to Church Marketing Sucks.)

So even the marketing guys realize that a product that does
something is much more important than a great sales pitch. Most
American Christians seem to think that Christianity is an argument, a
debate a sales pitch and they have become quite proficient at arguing
for the truth of Christianity. I would call this the marketing of
Christianity. But in the final analysis their
Christianity isn’t a very good product because it doesn’t do anything.

If it’s true shouldn’t it do what it says? If it doesn’t do what it
says doesn’t that mean it’s not true? If Jesus said ask and you
shall receive, shouldn’t you receive. If Jesus said, he that believeth
on me the works that I do shall he do also, shouldn’t that happen? Evangelical Christians answer this ‘objection to the sale’ with more arguments, and more refined sales pitches e.g. divine healing
passed away when the last apostle died. E.g. God answers all prayers
but sometimes he says yes, sometimes he says no, sometimes he says wait
awhile.

Which brings us back to Jim Collins question, how did Christianity
spread during its first 300 years. Was it just good marketing, amazing
apologetics on the part of Christian intellectuals, great leadership by
the Apostles?

Well, Jim Collins question has in fact been answered by
an expert on the history of the Roman Empire, Ramsay MacMullen. Ramsay MacMullen, is a world famous expert on Roman history.  Here’s his page at Yale Universtiy.  In his book, Christianizing The Roman Empire A.D. 100-400, MacMullen discusses
how Christianity was spread in the first three Centuries of its
history, and concludes that it wasn’t spread by great arguments.

MacMullen divides the
spread of Christianity in the Roman empire into 3 periods. The first period is from 100 A.D.  to  312/13 A.D.  I (This is just Greg’s take on Prof. MacMullen’s book.) would describe this as a period
of antagonisim towards Christianity. This is the period of Christian
persecution. The period of, "Christians to the Lions." Sometimes the
persecution was cold sometimes it was hot but throughout this period Christianity was not
welcomed in the Roman empire. If you became a
Christian during this era you were at least going to be shunned and
possibly even tortured to death. During this period it cost to be a
Christian. When it cost to be a Christian how were people conviced to
accept Christianity?

Here’s MacMullen’s take on it from an interview he
did on Mars Hill Journal
in 1998, (I’ve transcribed the relevant part. Once I find the tape I’ll
try and post the clip of this part of the interview.) Ahh here it is,
as an MP3 file about 1 mb in size, Ramsay_MacMullen.

MacMullen:
When today you wonder how was it that Christianity made converts,
brought people over to its side. The thing you think of first is the
preaching of Saint Paul; which is well attested a marvelous story
spreads over a  very wide domain. And you suppose that that example
would have dictated a long process along the same lines, but it aint
so. It doesn’t work out that way.

My guess is that after saint Paul’s death and in a long period of
persecution and hostility directed against the church open preaching
was a very difficult thing.  In contrast what worked best was
one on one talk about the proofs of the truth of Christianity and those
proofs would lie in exorcism above all. Keyed into the most common
concern of people, ordinary people the man in the street the man on the
farm when he thought about religion at all, that is, concern with good
things in this life, and principally and above all good health.

On this level to solve this sort of problem Christianity advertised
its own particular remarkable powers through the driving out of the
demons that cause ill health. Driving out of the demonic influences
that bring anything bad in life.  And the tales of miracles which
christians pass around when you come to look for stories of conversions
actual anecdotes and details make up the great bulk of the evidence.

Of preaching there is hardly a word hardly a word throughout all the
centuries that I look at in this book and in fact earlier too in the
second century on up to the eighth, ninth, tenth. Very very little mention of christians talking to the entirely unpersuaded and trying to bring them over by reasoning.
Instead what is talked about is the operation of wonderful things by
holy people as a consequence of which those who hear about these
wonders are brought over by self interest. They want the
benevolent power the christians promise. and as part of the bargain
they enlist in the church. just as pagans would have enlisted in the
service of any deity advertised to them and convincingly

Interviewer: Which ever deity had the best benefits package, in other words.

MacMullen: Yeah that’s right.

In Greg-ease people became Christians during this period in spite of
the fact that it came at great personal cost, because Christianity did
something! It was real! It wasn’t just an argument about what was true,
it was true, it proved itself by doing.

So Christianity is supposed to do something. But in order for
Christianity to do something we need Christians who do something.
That’s why I like the analogy to karate. Nobody would expect a white
belt karateca to take on a bad guy and defeat him. Neither can we
expect a white belt Christian to do much of anything. If you want a
Christianity that does something, like it used to do something, we need
to start building Blackblet Christians.

This is the Sunday, June 18th service, What Does A Blackbelt
Christian Look Like?, it was father’s day so it’s a relatively short
message, about 22 minutes.

Audio: MP3    Large File  (Good for burning a CD)    Small File (Good just for listening.)