Mythbusters : 2 Myths Dissected
MYTH: Christianity is a Western Religion
Early Christianity
FACT: Christianity began as an Eastern religion… Middle Eastern that is. The initial followers of Jesus and the first people to believe in him were all Jewish people living in Palestine. In fact, one of the early debates of the church was over the place of Gentiles (that is, non-Jews) in the church. The book of Acts in the Bible records this for us.
As it was accepted that the salvation of Christ was for all people, Christianity spread remarkably rapidly. Within a couple of hundred years of Christ’s death and resurrection, churches existed as far west as Spain and as far east as India, as well as south to Ethiopia and the rest of Northern Africa.
Middle Ages Christianity
It is fair to describe Christianity as confined to Europe during the Middle Ages. The rise and expansion of Islam through the second half of the first millenium ‘boxed in’ Christianity from the south and the east.
Modern Christianity
Since the 18th century and the modern missionary movement, Christianity has touched every country in the world. While there is, of course, much more to be done, Christianity is now, more than ever, a global religion. In fact the faith is thriving much more away from the West!
On any given Sunday morning there are more people in Anglican churches in Nigeria than in England. In China, despite the expulsion of foreign missionaries by Mao Zedong in 1949 and active persecution, the church there has grown to dozens of millions of people.
Heavenly Christianity
Because Jesus is Lord of all, he calls all people into his kingdom, not just Westerners. We rejoice in this picture of heaven:
“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb,” Revelation 9:7 (ESV)
MYTH: Christians are against Sex
“Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight; be intoxicated always in her love.” Proverbs 5:18-19 (ESV)
Does this sound like the literature of a religion that is against sex? And I haven’t even quoted from Song of Songs – a whole book of the Bible that can perhaps best be described as erotic poetry.
God created man and woman – Adam and Eve – for sexual relationship. Sex was created as a good gift, not just for procreation but to bind two people together in marriage. “And the two will become one flesh.”
However, when humans rejected God’s rule over us, we rejected his good intention for sex.
God is against forms of sexual expression for which humans were not created. This includes sex outside of the marriage relationship, sex before marriage, homosexual sex and rape.
It is true that some Christian traditions have promoted a view of sex that has led to a lot of guilt – where even appropriate sexual activity within marriage is seen as only a necessary evil required for procreation.
But if we look at what the Bible actually teaches:
1 Timothy 4:1-3 warns us that it is a demonic teaching that forbids marriage.
1 Corinthians 7:1-5 insists that abstinence within marriage is permitted only by agreement, only for a limited time, and only for the purpose of prayer.
The expectation for the Christian person is that marriage will be thoroughly sexual. Indeed, it is because Christian people have such a high view of sex – as a good gift of God for our benefit in marriage – that we reject alternative forms of sexual expression.
[Stephen Bell]
<< Books Aplenty! | Return to the Index | Martin Luther VS The Easter Bunny >>