St. Patrick’s Day: Not Just About Green Beer

C. Ben Mitchell | March 16, 2012 | The Bible + Culture

A stained glass image of Saint Patrick inside the Cathedral of Christ the Light, Oakland, CA.

One night in fifth-century Wales, everyone in Calpurnius’ house was in bed asleep—everyone except Patrick, who sat on the edge of his bed. His head was swirling with the dream that had stirred him from a sound slumber. In the dream, a man he had known in Ireland handed Patrick a letter. Accepting it, Patrick read the title, “The Voice of the Irish,” and simultaneously heard voices crying out, “Holy boy, we beg you to come and walk among us once more.” Moved to tears, Patrick was unable to read further. Upon awakening, he realized he had received a mandate from the Lord: He was to return to Ireland, where he had once been enslaved, and bring Christianity to the people.

Little is known about this man now called Saint Patrick. He was born near the end of the fourth century in Wales and grew up in a wealthy, nominally Christian family. But when he was sixteen, raiders pillaged his town and took him captive to Ireland. There, Patrick became a slave to a Druid high priest named Milchu,who made Patrick a shepherd. During this period of isolation and brutality, Patrick came to know the Lord. He wrote of his experience:

“[T]here the Lord opened my mind to an awareness of my unbelief, in order that . . . I might . . . turn with all my heart to the Lord my God . . . And [the Lord] watched over me . . . and he protected me, and consoled me as a father would his son.”

After six years of enslavement, Patrick dreamed that God told him about a ship waiting to take him to freedom. He escaped that very night, traveling over 200 miles to reach the Irish coast, from where a ship, indeed, brought him back to his native Britain.

Patrick had changed. He was now twenty-two years old, fluent in Irish and toughened by trying experiences. At home, he felt restless and made plans to enter the ministry. He traveled to Auxerre, France, where he studied under Saint Germain for some fifteen years. Saint Germain believed in Patrick’s vision and helped him to his appointment as the second bishop to Ireland. It was a fortuitous appointment, for Patrick’s understanding of the Irish culture and language made him adept at winning converts, and he soon developed a following.

Still, the going was tough. Patrick was evangelizing people who warred for a living and whose native religion, Druidism, required human sacrifice. The Druid religious leaders were not at all tolerant of Christianity, and though Patrick converted many of them, others arrested and kidnapped him a number of times. The churches and schools he established were under constant threat of raids and enslavement, but they prospered nonetheless.

Through it all, Patrick remained steadfast: “[D]aily I expect to be murdered or betrayed or reduced to slavery if the occasion arises. But I fear nothing.” The persecution was real, but by God’s grace and after every reversal, Patrick escaped and returned to his evangelical mission.

Of the thousands taken captive by the Irish, the vast majority remained in captivity, living out their days in bitterness and travail. Others gained their freedom within Ireland but conformed to their captors’ culture. A handful managed to escape to their native lands but continued in a pagan lifestyle. And then there was Patrick, one of thousands, who, in the darkness of captivity, turned to God and set his heart on reaching Ireland for Christ. As Catholic journalist Anita McSorley writes,

“It doesn’t take a scholar to recognize how [Patrick] was able to do this. [He] was so certain that he had been specifically called by God to do exactly what he did . . . In this certainty, Patrick finds his strength . . . to overcome every obstacle . . .”

And that strength was sufficient. When he died, he had traversed the entire terrain of Ireland and preached the gospel with great effect, as he was happy to recall:

“So, [that is] how in Ireland, where they never had any knowledge of God but, always, until now, cherished idols and unclean things, they are lately become a people of the Lord, and are called children of God . . .”

How the Bible Shaped Manners

David Roach | February 28, 2012 | The Bible + Culture

In 1922, Emily Post became a household name when her book, Etiquette, In Society, In Business, In Politics, and At Home, soared to the top of America’s bestseller list. Over the years, the work remained popular as her descendants updated it to fit changing times and social customs. Yet notably, some of the work’s foundational principles have not changed. In fact, they parallel an ancient source, the Bible. Indeed, Scripture has shaped manners in the West—a reality evident from even a cursory reading of Emily Post. Consider the following excerpts and some corresponding wisdom from the biblical book of Proverbs:

“Nearly all the faults or mistakes in conversation are caused by not thinking or by lack of consideration … The burden of thinking before speaking is our own.” (Proverbs 21:23, “Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue keeps himself out of trouble.”)
“Conversation should not be about someone else, especially in a group, even a group of close friends.” (Proverbs 11:12, “Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense, but a man of understanding remains silent.”)
“There is a big difference between sharing the accomplishments of ourselves or our loved ones with close family members and extolling their virtues to anyone we happen to meet…even when bursting with pride, the good conversationalist does not go on and on about what a wonderful job he did, or how bright his son is.” (Proverbs 27:2, “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.”)
“There are seldom regrets for what you have left unsaid. ‘Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt.’ Don’t pretend to know more than you do. No person of real intelligence hesitates to say, ‘I don’t know.’ People who talk too easily are likely to talk too much and at times imprudently.” (Proverbs 18:2, “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.”)

Of course, Emily Post’s book of etiquette covers many details not addressed by the Bible—the placement of knives, forks, and spoons for a dinner party, the use of titles in formal correspondence, and the seating of relatives at a wedding. But many of the basic principles are the same in that they are matters of thoughtfulness, amiability, and stewardship of our influence—all of which are issues of divine concern.

The Christian Origins of Hospitals

C. Ben Mitchell | February 6, 2012 | The Bible + Culture

Contrary to Kevin Drum’s blog at Mother Jones hospitals, at least historically speaking, are not secular institutions. In fact, the modern hospital system owes its existence to people of faith.

Christians have been leaders in medicine and the building of hospitals because their founder, Jesus of Nazareth, healed the sick during his ministry on earth (see Matt. 9; 10:8; 25: 34-26). The early church not only endorsed medicine, but championed care for the sick.

Rabbinic sources often cite the second century BC apocryphal book Ecclesiasticus as a reminder that medicine owes its origins to God:

“Honor the physician . . . from God the physician gets wisdom . . . God brings forth medicines from the earth and let a prudent man not ignore them” (38:1).

Admittedly, the Greeks and Romans made great contributions to early medicine, but as Albert Jonsen, University of Washington historian of medicine, maintains:

“the second great sweep of medical history begins at the end of the fourth century, with the founding of the first Christian hospital at Caesarea in Cappadocia, and concludes at the end of the fourteenth century, with medicine well ensconced in the universities and in the public life of the emerging nations of Europe.”

This extraordinary, formative period in medicine was characterized by intimate involvement by the Church. Jonsen argues:

“During these centuries the Christian faith . . . permeated all aspects of life in the West. The very conception of medicine, as well as its practice, was deeply touched by the doctrine and discipline of the Church. This theological and ecclesiastical influence manifestly shaped the ethics of medicine, but it even indirectly affected its science since, as its missionaries evangelized the peoples of Western and Northern Europe, the Church found itself in a constant battle against the use of magic and superstition in the work of healing. It championed rational medicine, along with prayer, to counter superstition.”

St. Basil of Ceasarea (330-379), founder of the first hospital in 369.

As a means of caring for those who were ill, St. Basil of Caesarea founded the first hospital (c. 369). Christian hospitals grew apace, spreading throughout both the East and the West. By the mid-1500s there were 37,000 Benedictine monasteries alone that cared for the sick. It was not until four centuries after St. Basil’s hospital that Arab Muslims began to build hospitals.

Furthermore, as Charles Rosenberg shows in his volume, The Care of Strangers, The Rise of America’s Hospital System*, the modern hospital owes its origins to Judeo-Christian compassion. Evidence of the vast expansion of faith-based hospitals is seen in the legacy of their names: St. Vincent’s, St. Luke’s, Mt. Sinai, Presbyterian, Mercy, and Beth Israel. These were all charitable hospitals, some of which began as foundling hospitals to care for abandoned children.

Similarly, in Europe, great hospitals were built under the auspices of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Indeed, an ancient French term for hospital is hôtel-Dieu (“hostel of God”). In 1863, the Société Genevoise d’Utilité Publique called on Swiss Christian businessman Jean Henri Dunant to form a relief organization for caring for wartime wounded. Thus, the emblem of the Red Cross was codified in the Geneva Convention one year later. In Britain, Dame Cicely Saunders founded the hospice movement by establishing St. Christopher’s Hospice in the south of London in 1967.

So it seems natural that Christians might find it historically naïve to say they don’t have a stake in what goes on in hospitals and whether or not, especially in religious-operated hospitals, contraceptive distribution is mandated by the federal government. See Michelle Malkin’s commentary “First, They Came for the Catholics”

*In 1800, with a population of only 5.3 million, most Americans would only have heard of a hospital. Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Hospital was founded in 1751, New York Hospital in 1771, and Boston General did not open until 1821. But by just after the mid-century mark, hospitals were being established in large numbers, and most of them were religious. Charles E. Rosenberg, The Care of Strangers: The Rise of America’s Hospital System (New York: Basic Books, 1987), especially Chapter 4.

BibleMesh aims to help people understand the big picture as well as important facts of the Bible. The first BibleMesh resource is “The Biblical Story,” a course that presents Scripture as a cohesive narrative of God’s work in the world from Genesis to Revelation. It utilizes an interactive quizzing tool that helps people remember what they have learned. And finally, it includes a social networking platform which will allow pastors and church leaders to host their own online Bible studies and contribute their own resources. Forthcoming content will include courses in Biblical Greek and Hebrew.

Contraceptives and the Rape of the Soul

C. Ben Mitchell | February 3, 2012 | The Bible + Culture

“The rape of the soul.” That’s how Roger Williams (1603-1683)—at one-time Baptist minister and founder of Rhode Island—described government intrusions into an individual’s religious conscience. In fact, Williams was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony because he had left the established church of the colony, believing, instead, that the sanctity of the human conscience demanded a free church in a free state. Although he may be accused of overblown rhetoric, he was making a point he did not want to be misunderstood, viz., forcing a person through the power of the state to violate his or her own conscience was a monstrous harm.

Williams was by no means alone in his advocacy for liberty of conscience. Baptists in England and American were also vocal apologists for religious liberty and freedom of conscience for every person. According to one historian, “Baptists did not turn toward the idea of ‘a free conscience.’ They began in the seventeenth century screaming and agitating for liberty of conscience.” They valued religious freedom because they suffered the pain of persecution in the jail cells, stockades, and whipping posts of Europe.

Thomas Helwys (c 1575-1615), for instance, co-founded the first Baptist church on English soil in the early 17^th century in Spitalfields, London. In 1612, he published A Short Declaration of the Mystery of Iniquity arguing for liberty of conscience and forwarding a copy to King James I. In his inscription he wrote: “The king is a mortal man and not God, and therefore hath no power over the immortal souls of his subjects to make laws and ordinances for them and to set spiritual Lords over them.” Both Helwys and his wife, Joan, suffered for the cause and Helwys died in Newgate Prison at the age of 40.

Like Roger Williams, Obadiah Holmes (1607-1682) was also banished from Massachusetts because of his religious beliefs and settled in Newport, Rhode Island. In 1651, Holmes and two friends, John Clarke and John Crandall, traveled back to Massachusetts to visit an aged and blind friend. After receiving communion in the friend’s home, they were arrested for unlawful worship. They were convicted and sentenced to a fine or whipping.

Clarke and Crandall either paid their fines or let friends pay it for them. Holmes refused to pay his fine, nor would he allow anyone to pay it on his behalf. Thus, he remained in prison. Furthermore, the alternative to payment had to be exacted, namely, the guilty party was to be “well whipped.” On 6 September 1651, Obadiah Holmes, a Baptist glassworker, was beaten with thirty stripes. As his clothes were being stripped from him, Holmes declared, “I am now come to be baptized in afflictions by your hands, that so I may have further fellowship with my Lord. [I] am not ashamed of His sufferings, for by His stripes am I healed.” Following his beating, Holmes turned to the magistrates and said, “You have struck me with roses.” One commentator says he was whipped “unmercifully.” Governor Jenks observed that “for many days, if not some weeks, he could take no rest but upon his knees and elbows, not being able to suffer any part of his body to touch the bed whereupon he lay.” Speaking of his punishment later, Holmes said, “As the strokes fell upon me I had such a spiritual manifestation of God’s presence as the like thereof I never had nor felt, nor can fleshly tongue express; and the outward pain was so removed from me that indeed I am not able to declare it, yea, and in a manner felt it not, although it was grievous, as the spectators said, the man striking with all his strength (yea, spitting in his hand three times, as many affirmed) with a three-corded whip, giving me therewith thirty strokes.”

First century Christians faced a similar dilemma. In Acts 5, we learn that the Apostles were arrested for preaching the Gospel of the Lord Jesus. The authorities strictly ordered them “not to teach in this name . . .” (v. 28). Speaking for the Apostles, Peter replied, “We must obey God rather than men” (v. 29).

These vignettes demonstrate that religious liberty was a hard-won freedom. That’s why it’s almost impossible to imagine that the Obama administration has just handed down a decision that so clearly violates religious freedom. According to a story in the Los Angeles Times, “starting next year, health plans, including those offered by religious institutions, must pay for “all FDA-approved forms of contraception,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Employers who fail to provide this insurance will face heavy fines.”

Archbishop Timothy Dolan has called the mandate “un-American.”

Judging from the lessons of history, he’s right.

The Compassion of Early Christians

Matt Crawford | January 31, 2012 | The Bible + Culture

Eusebius of Caesarea (c. AD 263 – 339) was an early church historian. In AD 314, he was made bishop of Caesarea in Palestine.

The last few years have seen a fair share of books arguing that religion is the cause behind all that is wrong with the world. Although the Christian Church has undoubtedly had its hand in a number of morally dubious activities over the years, a more historical perspective suggests that this is only one side of the story.

Famine and war had recently afflicted the city of Caesarea, so when the plague hit in the early fourth-century, the populace was already weakened and unable to withstand this additional blow. The populace began fleeing the city, one of the larger ones of the Roman Empire, for safety in the countryside. However, in the midst of the fleeing inhabitants, at least one group was staying behind, the Christians. As bishop of the city and a historian of the early church, Eusebius, recorded in “The Church History” that during the plague,

All day long some of them [the Christians] tended to the dying and to their burial, countless numbers with no one to care for them. Others gathered together from all parts of the city a multitude of those withered from famine and distributed bread to them all.

Eusebius goes on to state that because of their compassion in the midst of the plague, the Christians’ “deeds were on everyone’s lips, and they glorified the God of the Christians. Such actions convinced them that they alone were pious and truly reverent to God.” A few decades after Eusebius, the last pagan emperor, Julian the Apostate, recognized that the Christian practice of compassion was one cause behind the transformation of the faith from a small movement on the edge of the empire, to cultural ascendancy. Writing to a pagan priest he said:

“when it came about that the poor were neglected and overlooked by the [pagan] priests, then I think the impious Galilaeans [i.e., Christians] observed this fact and devoted themselves to philanthropy.” *

“[They] support not only their poor, but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us.”

In fact, Julian proposed that pagan priests imitate the Christians’ charity in order to bring about a revival of paganism in the empire.

Julian’s program failed because, among other reasons, the polytheism of ancient Rome was unable to sustain the kind of self-sacrificial love and compassion that Eusebius observed in Caesarea. Cynics might dismiss Eusebius’ account as mere propaganda, since he had an obvious bias as the Christian bishop of the city. However, such dismissal is not as easy with the witness of Julian, for, although he was raised in a Christian setting and thus knew the Christian faith well, he was passionate about his pagan beliefs and sought to undermine the Christian Church. Therefore, he certainly had no reason to present the actions of the Christians in a favorable light.

Christians throughout the centuries have failed terribly at times to live up to their high calling, providing ample ammunition for those wishing to take cheap shots at the Church’s legitimacy. However, alongside such failures are stories that tell how the followers of Jesus Christ went well beyond their non-Christian counterparts – and often still do today – to show compassion to others in imitation of the One who did not consider His own interests, but the interests of others. This side of the story needs to be told as well.

* Julian, Fragment of a Letter to a Priest, 337, in The Works of the Emperor Julian, II, trans. Wilmer Cave Wright (New York: The MacMillan Co., 1913). Julian is not referring to the specific instance that Eusebius cites, but is referring to Christian charity more generally. Elsewhere, Julian stated regarding the Christians, “it is their benevolence to strangers, their care for the graves of the dead and the pretended holiness of their lives that have done most to increase atheism” (To Arsacius, High-Priest of Galatia, 69; in The Works of the Emperor Julian, III, trans. Wilmer Cave Wright [New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1923]). He went on to say that “I believe that we [i.e., the pagans] ought really and truly to practise every one of these virtues.” Julian’s program of moral reform forbade priests from going to licentious theaters and to sacred games at which women were present. He also encouraged priests to demonstrate hospitality by establishing hostels for travelers and distributing money to the poor. As a former Christian, Julian knew the Christian ethic well. Echoing the words of Jesus about the greatest commandment, Julian summarized the requirements for appointment to the pagan priesthood as love for (the pagan) gods and love for man (To Arsacius, 69-70; cf. Fragment of a Letter to a Priest, 336-37).

The Bible’s Linguistic Influence

David Roach | January 24, 2012 | The Bible + Culture

In its December 2011 issue, National Geographic celebrated the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, noting the massive impact it has had on the English language (among other things). Consider the following:

The Holy Bible - 1611 King James Version

Most of us might think we have forgotten its words, but the King James Bible has sewn itself into the fabric of the language. If a child is ever the apple of her parents’ eye or an idea seems as old as the hills, if we are at death’s door or at our wits’ end, if we have gone through a baptism of fire or are about to bite the dust, if it seems at times that the blind are leading the blind or we are casting pearls before swine, if you are either buttering someone up or casting the first stone, the King James Bible, whether we know it or not, is speaking through us. The haves and have-nots, heads on plates, thieves in the night, scum of the earth, best until last, sackcloth and ashes, streets paved in gold, and the skin of one’s teeth: All of them have been transmitted to us by the translators who did their magnificent work 400 years ago.

We could add to that list other common phrases that originated with early English Bible translator William Tyndale and made their way into the King James Bible. Among them: “Eat, drink, and be merry;” “powers that be;” “fight the good fight;” “my brother’s keeper;” “salt of the earth;” and “a man after his own heart.” Indeed, the King James Bible is the bestselling English book of all time, with its language sprinkled through works as diverse as the Gettysburg Address, Moby Dick, and the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. In all, the KJV has sold hundreds of millions of copies in its storied existence.

So its linguistic influence should come as little surprise. If ever you hear someone refer to the Bible as antiquated or irrelevant, remind them that without it, our language would be less colorful, expressive, and rich.