Empires and Mangers: church history

Showing posts with label church history. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 9, 2025

When The Church Is At Its Best/Worst (Part Two: At Its Worst)

I have been using ChatGPT recently to help me do some research on church history. It's a handy tool. Previously, I typed in this question:

Throughout global church history, what has characterized the Christian church when it was most effectively acting as "salt of the earth" and "a city on a hill"?

Today, I typed in this question:

Throughout global church history, what has characterized the Christian church when it was least effectively acting as "salt of the earth" and "a city on a hill"?

ChatGPT responded this way - and I have to tell you, I think it's a pretty good overview.

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"Throughout global church history, there have been several periods when the Christian church has struggled to effectively act as "salt of the earth" and "a city on a hill"—terms from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount that denote the church’s calling to be a moral preservative in society and a beacon of light and hope. In these moments, the church has often failed to live up to its ideals and mission, typically due to factors such as complicity with power structures, corruption, and a failure to prioritize justice, mercy, and truth. Here are some key periods and characteristics of the church when it least effectively embodied its calling:

When The Church Is At Its Best/Worst (Part One: At Its Best)

I have been using ChatGPT recently to help me do some research on church history. It's a handy tool. Today, I typed in this question:

Throughout global church history, what has characterized the Christian church when it was most effectively acting as "salt of the earth" and "a city on a hill"?

ChatGPT responded this way - and I have to tell you, from the bits that I know about church history, I think it's a pretty decent overview. It's skewed toward examples in the West, but it's insightful for how the church is present everywhere.

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Throughout global church history, the periods when the Christian church has most effectively acted as "salt of the earth" and "a city on a hill"—terms from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:13-16)—are marked by several key characteristics that reflect both the transformative power of the gospel and the church's moral and social engagement. Here are some key periods and traits that exemplify this influence:

"Embodied Alternatives" In A Broken World

“Simon Price has pointed out how hit or miss the apologists’ range of subjects was [in the first few centuries of the early church]. He gives a long list of topics that apologists failed to treat properly:

“There is little on the Bible, little on Christology, nothing about the Holy Spirit or the emerging doctrine of the Trinity; little on the Redemption (only Judgment); nothing about the Church, its ministry, sacraments, and other practices.”

Michael Green, assessing the apologetic writings for their evangelistic success, has concluded that there is “no example of an outsider being converted to Christianity by reading an Apologetic writing.” Apologists wrote to convince their readers of the innocence of the Christian communities’ behavior. In fact, behavior figured largely in the apologists’ writings… because of their Christian conviction that the way people live expresses what they really believe.

Church In The Time Of The Virus: The Church's History During Plagues (Episode 7)

When churches suspended their weekly brick and mortar meetings, I decided to take some time to address online what it looks like for the church to be the church in times like this. Thus, The Church In The Time Of The Virus. I began posting this on my church's Facebook page several weeks ago; since then, I have had some thoughtful conversations sparked by some of the issues I addressed. Because of that - and because I like wrestling with important ideas - each post is going to follow this format: