What happens when new ideas enter Christianity?

By John Hamer, Director of Outreach & Innovative Mission
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Toward the end of the 2nd century, in the city of Carthage, a Christian thinker became concerned that ideas from Greek philosophy were entering Christianity and affecting it negatively. His name was Tertullian, the first Christian to write eloquently in Latin, and famous for the quip, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”  What does the home of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle have to do with the city where Jesus taught and was crucified?  It is a very memorable and emotion-laden line.  

But Tertullian wrote it with an amazing degree of unintended irony because he himself was a classically trained scholar.  His entire worldview, conceptual framework, and vocabulary were founded on his Greek philosophical inheritance.  For example, Tertullian is credited with being among the first Christians to use technical Greek philosophical ideas like “hypostasis” and “ousia” through their Latin counterpart terms “persona” and “substantia” to understand God theologically. 

In short, Tertullian’s question, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” is answered, “Quite a lot, actually.” Last week on Beyond the Walls, we explored the theme “What Is This New Teaching?” This is taken from a scene in Acts 17 set in Athens.  The Apostle Paul is visiting the city and is invited to share his ideas on the famous Areopagus (or “Hill of Ares,” the Greek god of war).  The Areopagus was the location where a principal council of the Athenian democracy met.  And although most of the crowd who listened to Paul left unpersuaded, we are told that at least two Athenians were converted and became Christians: a woman named Damaris and a man named Dionysius, who was a member of the Areopagus council.

Centuries later a Christian philosopher was inspired by this story and wrote a number of influential treatises under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite.  Building on the ideas of Plato and his successors, these texts expanded on the analogy of God and light, speaking eloquently of divine illumination.  These texts directly inspired the medieval custom of using stained glass windows in churches as teaching tools — an art form that continues to this day.

With our greater historical perspective today, we are able to assess our many religious inheritances: ideas developed by the ancient Israelites and Judeans alongside ancient Greek and Hellenistic thought.  But Christianity also inherited ideas from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and more.  And as the living tradition has continued to evolve and grow, along the way it learned from new peoples who were added to the faith, including Latin, Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, and other peoples in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and in modern times, new inheritances from peoples all around the world from Indigenous Americans and Pacific Islanders, to Africans, East and South Asians.  In Community of Christ, we recognize this with the informal motto that we seek “Truth wherever it is found.”

As we encounter teachings that are new to us, let us recognize the diversity and depth of the traditions that are part of our Christian inheritance.  May we ever be open to new insights and to recognizing the value of truth wherever it is found.

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