the death of a cult

What follows sounds to me like some radical cult trying to pervert the American Way.

Who are these people, really? And where did they go?

“They do not keep for themselves the goods entrusted to them.
They do not covet what belongs to others.
They show love to their neighbors.
They do no do to another what they would not wish to have done to themselves.
They speak gently to those who oppress them, and in that way they make them their friends.
It has become their passion to do good to their enemies.
They live in the awareness of their smallness.
Every one of them who has anything gives ungrudgingly to the one who has nothing.
If they see a traveling stranger, they bring him under their roof.
They rejoice over him as over a real brother, for they do not call one another brothers after the flesh, but then know they are brothers in the Spirit and in God.
If they hear that one of them is imprisoned or oppressed for the sake of Christ, they take care of all his needs. If possible they set him free.

If anyone among them is poor or comes into want while they themselves have nothing to spare, they fast two or three days for him. In this way they can supply any poor man with the food he needs.
This, O Emperor, is the rule of life of the Christians, and this is their manner of life.” (Aristides 137 AD)

“Those godless Galileans feed our poor in addition to their own!” (Emperor Julian the Apostate 331-363 AD)

“You who are God’s servants are living in a foreign country, for your own city-state is far away from this city-state. Knowing which is yours, why do you acquire fields, costly furnishings, buildings, and frail dwellings here? Anyone who acquires things for himself in this city cannot expect to find the way home to his own City. Do you not realize that all these things here do not belong to you, that they are under a power alien to your nature? . . . Acquire no more here than what is absolutely necessary.

Instead of fields, buy for yourselves people in distress in accordance with your means.” (Hermas, 140 AD)

“He called Abraham and commanded him to go out from the country where he was living. With this call (God) has roused us all, and now we have left the state. We have renounced all the things the world offers.” (Justin, martyred in 165 AD)

Pretty weird stuff, eh? It makes me really curious, though. So I set out several years ago to find these weirdos. Can’t seem to find anything that resembles this in America today.

Must be some cult that died centuries ago . . .

All the believers were together and had everything in common.
Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.

Acts 2:44-45

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.
With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all.
There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means Son of Encouragement), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.

Acts 4:31-37

What was it that died many centuries ago and that is next to impossible to find here in America?

“The question is not ‘are we political?’ but ‘how are we political?’ . . . not are we relevant? but are we peculiar?” (Shane Claiborne)

Are we a part of our culture, or do we stand against the cultural currents of the day?

Do we live as everyone else, or is there something unique about us that has an impact on those around us?

Do we live invisible lives or do heads turn because of our peculiar ways of making a difference?

What happened to this strange cult, this “manner of life”?

“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

(Gandhi 1869-1948 AD)

Most ordinary people who lose their faith are not overthrown by philosophical argument, they are disillusioned by the churchmen they meet. (C. S. Lewis 1898-1963 AD)

“If you will stop here and ask yourselves why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you, that it is neither through ignorance nor inability, but purely because you never intended it.” (William Law, Quoted by C. S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain)

What happened to this strange cult, this “manner of life”?

Maybe we never intended it . . .