Authentic Church

A radically old model of being church for twenty first century Britain

Michael Beckett

• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781398424340
• eBook ISBN: 9781398437289
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: History of Christianity

If you had a blank sheet of paper and were going to describe what church should look like, what would you include? Why has the make-up, of what we generally understand to be church, diverged so significantly from the kinds of people that Jesus hung out with? For very few of them would easily fit into most churches today. This book is an attempt to consider this and whether or not the Anglican parish system still has anything to offer by way of a way forwards as the numbers of those attending church in this country still continue to decline. This book attempts to describe our experience as members of St Paul's Church here in Cambridge, as the theology that underlies it emerged in our midst on our journey together and as it is summarised so succinctly by Luke in Acts chapter 2 verse 42.

Chapter 1

They devoted themselves…

Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees… (Acts 15:5)

Immediately after Peter’s sermon on that first Pentecost, recorded for us in the second chapter of the book of Acts, we read these words:

“They devoted themselves to the Apostle’s teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” (Acts 2:42)

In this book, I want to explore four aspects of this verse which I believe are necessary and constitutive of what it means to be ‘in Christ’ (Christian), a member of the body of Christ, and of what it means to be one of those who, in this early record of the church’s history, were known as followers of ‘the way’.

It seems to me that the words of this verse are particularly significant and pertinent for the universal church at the beginning of another millennium and in the light of its less than favourable history – the abuse of power, persecution, resistance to change and cover-up – for surely, these words can enable the Church to reorient itself in their light.

Before we can attend to what it was that was the object of ‘their’ devotion however, we need to ask: who were these people who ‘devoted themselves’? To answer this we need to recognise that in the book of Acts we are given a parallel presentation of the missions of Peter and of Paul. We need also to recognise that these missions were, at times, divergent and that there was considerable conflict between them. The Apostle Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles, preaching a Gospel of freedom and liberty, was in direct opposition to Peter, who preached a more conservative Gospel with its emphasis on the centrality of Jerusalem, the priesthood and a zeal for the law.

In his letter to the Corinthians at the beginning of his apostolic life and his letter to the Romans written towards the end of his life, Paul contrasts the attitudes and actions of the weak and the strong in this nascent faith. Those who styled themselves as ‘strong’ he regards as ‘weak’, thus reversing their labels, whilst those labelled ‘weak’, by the self-styled strong, he regards as strong (Rom.14/1 Cor.8).

Those concerned then about prescriptions and restrictions, special days, circumcision, foods that should or should not be eaten, as well as what was and was not permissible on the Sabbath, would in our day be those who might describe themselves as ‘conservative’ or ‘traditionalists’, and resistant, for example, to the ordination of women. According to the Apostle Paul, they, are ‘weak’ in the faith, and worthy of special sensitivity, therefore, by those to whom he was writing, who were unconcerned with such traditions and prescription, and who in our day might be labelled as ‘liberal’, but whom Paul regarded as ‘strong’ in the faith.

It is therefore somewhat ironic that this same Apostle has in our day become associated with a more conservative, limiting, restrictive interpretation of the faith, when in his own day, he was regarded as a radical heretic, and the one who threatened the ancient and traditional interpretation of their Scriptures. So, in his letter to the Galatians, when he is possibly at his most argumentative, Paul makes this explosive contrast. His more restrictive, traditional Jewish brethren (with whom Peter has associated himself), he calls the descendants of Hagar the slave-woman, with whom Abraham conceived a child, whilst the true descendants and heirs of the Covenant promise made to Sarah and Abraham were the Gentiles, who have been delivered from the burdensome yoke and prescriptions of the law. As he declares: “It is for freedom that Christ has set you free!”

In the book of Acts, we read of the relationship between those first male Jews who had journeyed to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast of Pentecost, having responded to Peter’s sermon that day in the Temple. We also hear about the Gentile Roman Centurion, who invites Peter to his house and who also experiences the convicting and assuring work of the Holy Spirit, as well as the Gentile Ethiopian Eunuch, who, though barred from Temple worship, nevertheless had journeyed to Jerusalem to worship and who experienced the assurance of the Holy Spirit that he too is a child of God. This is the extremely sensitive material of historical record, which remains to this day political and religious dynamite.

Lines were drawn then and there between the more liberal interpretation of the new things that God had done in Jesus Christ, with its greater freedom regarding the law and for example the status of women, represented by Paul. For according to Paul, not only was there a reversal of the historic interpretation as regards Jew and Gentile, slave and free, but also as regards men and women. According to Paul, all were equal, equally free, one in Christ Jesus and without status distinction within the body of Christ.

Thus Paul can quite easily and freely as well as provocatively include Junia, a woman in the apostolic group (Rom.16:7) and it is certainly worthy of note that until relatively recently, she was unsurprisingly given the male name Junias by male translators!

The more Jewish and traditional interpretation, with a greater regard for the law, Temple ritual and patriarchy, was represented by Peter and James. The one with a vision of all those in Christ being new creations and temples of the Holy Spirit, the other with Jewish priorities centred on the re-establishment of a purified Temple in Jerusalem. The one Gentile, centred upon the missionary work, preaching and teaching of Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, the other Jewish, represented by Peter and James, who became the elders and primary pillars of the Jewish believers in Jerusalem and with influence amongst Jews dispersed around the Roman Empire.

The Apostles of both ‘sides’ anticipated the imminent return of Christ, but both would be disappointed, because just as His people had rejected him during His incarnation, the majority in Israel still refused to recognise Jesus as Yahweh, the Lord of their Scriptures and would further reject the Apostolic plea to turn to their Christ. This would inevitably lead to a need for each branch of what would become the new religion called ‘Christianity’ to reinterpret its understanding of the revelation that their Apostles had received from the risen Jesus Christ.

Especially so after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, which heralded the end of the sacrificial system as well as the priesthood, and as the tenth Jubilee ended, sounded the death knell to the hopes for this nascent sect which would become ‘Christianity’ of Jesus’ return, as well as those of the Jewish people for the coming of their Christ. The focus for the Jewish people and their religion, which we know today as Judaism, would be their Scriptures alone.

For this nascent sect, which had struggled, through Peter and James to remain faithful to its parent religion, challenged as they were by Paul’s radical opening up of the promise to their forefathers by the inclusion of the Gentiles, it would mean a final and irrevocable split from Judaism, a split which has tragically echoed down the centuries. For nascent ‘Christianity’ split within itself right from the start, and the focus for these Jewish believers would become the coming of Christ through the Eucharist and the breaking of bread, as expressed by John in his Gospel, whilst for the Gentile followers of Jesus, their focus became their fellowship as the Church (which they understood to be Christ’s body here on Earth) to whom and through whom He ‘came’. This is something we will return to in a later chapter.

Both sets of believers placed their emphasis upon their Apostle’s teaching, yet expressed it in different ways, which lead to conflict between them. They had different attitudes towards the fellowship, collective meals, the celebration of the Eucharist, and the Law. For the conservative Jewish contingent, such laws, rules and actions were the very definition of righteousness, in contrast to those Gentile followers of Paul, who had far more liberal attitudes and for whom Jesus’ summary of the Law and the ‘rule’ of love would be central.

For the conservative branch, warnings concerning the dire consequences of falling short, (which were entirely in keeping with the thundering of Ancient Israel’s prophets) would be how their Apostles expressed themselves towards those who sought to walk in the way, whilst for Gentile followers of Jesus, who listened to and heard the letters of their Apostle Paul, it would be his assurances that nothing could separate them from the love of God in Christ Jesus, that would give them security in their journey of faith. These are two very different ways to write and hear Scripture which we need to be aware of.

The New Testament itself bears witness to the disagreement between these two groupings and the divergent ways in which they read what they regarded as Scripture at that time, namely the Hebrew Scriptures, in at least three ways.

First, there is the narrative record of the book of Acts, which resulted in a compromise arrangement between the two groups, concerning what was felt to be appropriate table fellowship at the Jerusalem Council, outlined in Acts chapter 15. This issue may seem trifling to us, but it was rooted in the way each group regarded the authority of the Law.

The second was the massive disagreement between the Apostles Paul and Peter, alluded to in Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Once again the issue is table fellowship, Peter having withdrawn from accompanying Gentile Christians when they ate, once a group of conservative law-abiding Jewish Christians arrived from Jerusalem. Paul does not spare Peter’s blushes, regarding his action as anti-Gospel and “anathema”.

The third way in which the New Testament bears eloquent witness to this divide is in its very structure. For there are nine letters to the Gentile churches, mostly regarded to have been from the hand of the Apostle Paul (that is, Romans to Thessalonians) and there are nine letters or pieces of writing, (from Hebrews to Revelation) which are obviously more Jewish in content and directed towards Jewish believers.

For Paul, THE sacrament of the alternative Empire of Jesus is the church, the body of Christ on Earth and it is to the churches and of the church that he writes. This fellowship, to whom he writes, is an inclusive egalitarian mix of people who are no longer in the flesh solely, but are now indwelt by the Holy spirit, temples of the Holy Spirit, no less, over whom the yoke of Moses has no power. And whilst there may have been a season of disobedience for the Gentiles, now, as a result of Israel’s unwillingness to receive their Christ, the Gentiles have been brought into the Abrahamic covenant as promised.

God chose to work through Abram (meaning simply ‘father’), whose name was changed to Abraham (the Father of the Nations) and the Apostle Paul now sees this fulfilled in the person of Christ, as a blessing to all peoples, with the further result that the anticipated Parousia or return of Christ, so evident in his earliest letters to the church in Thessalonica, has morphed into an anticipation of the presence of Christ in and through the fellowship which is Christ’s body on Earth.

The nine pieces of writing directed towards those who are Jewish, on the other hand, and in which there is virtually no mention of the church, are variously introduced thus: “To the Hebrews” (earliest manuscripts ) (Heb. 1:1) “To the twelve tribes scattered among the nations” (James 1:1) “To God’s elect” (1 Peter 1:1/2, 2 Peter 3:1) “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God” (1 Peter 2:9). Indeed it is not entirely clear whether these are written exclusively to Jewish Christians or simply to Jews living away from Jerusalem.

In these we find special reference to the Temple, the re-establishment of God’s reign on Earth centred in Jerusalem, the ingathering of the righteous remnant of God’s elect people, Ancient Israel, hence the emphasis upon the Law of Moses and the establishment of God’s reign on Earth through this royal priestly line in the order of Melchizedek, who is both High Priest and sacrifice.

The Apostle John reveals in the book of Revelation that this establishment of God’s reign will be through the New Jerusalem descending from heaven and not through the re-establishment of an earthly Jerusalem, with the destruction of which, these Jews finally have to accept that the presence of the Lord will be experienced with his people through the Eucharist. This seems to be the primary purpose of the Gospel of John.

In his sermon on that Pentecost Sunday, Peter claims that it was to Jesus that ancient Israel’s King David spoke when he called him Lord, that is, ‘Yahweh’ of their Hebrew Scriptures, the promised Christ, the Holy one and that the King that David was promised would sit on his throne forever (Acts 2:25-31). Three thousand men responded positively to Peter’s words that day, but the vast majority did not. To those who did not respond with warmth, Peter’s words were anathema.

Thus, the Hebrew ‘Christians’ were not only at odds with their Hebrew brethren in Jerusalem and throughout the Roman Empire, but also with their Gentile brethren, who had become followers in the way, as Luke termed them in his written record, penned much later of course. It is important that we bear in mind that only later would they be referred to as ‘Christians’, a term of abuse used against them, and especially so by Jews, who were gradually distancing themselves from this nascent sect within their midst.

As a result, the Hebrew ‘Christians’ sought to reassure their law-abiding and Temple-attending Jewish brethren, (centred in Jerusalem as were they), who remained unconvinced of the merits of this so called ‘Christ’, of their allegiance to all things associated with their religion. This meant walking the tightrope of disassociation with their fellow Gentile followers in the way – a difficult line for them to walk and conflict was inevitable.

Now this may all have seemed a somewhat unnecessary digression, but I believe it to have been important for a number of reasons. First, for some readers, every word of the Bible is to be viewed as the absolute, literal, inerrant, and equally authoritative word of God. For such readers, the idea that God’s self-revelation might have been adaptive to the culture and times in which it was revealed and that it might even be wrong or that different portions contradict each other, is impossible to accept. But even the limited evidence of the different interpretations and value placed on particular portions of the Hebrew Scriptures, and in particular the Law, as well as the obvious disagreement between two Apostles, who would then go on to contribute portions from their very different (opposing) perspectives, to what we now call the New Testament, seems to me to make this abundantly clear.

Furthermore, the idea that Jesus might abrogate some, if not much of what we read in the Hebrew Scriptures, is likewise anathema to some, but this is precisely what we shall discover when we turn to the chapter on the Apostle’s teaching. For Jesus rereads those Hebrew Scriptures and requires us to do the same. That was difficult for Peter’s audience on the day of Pentecost and continues to be difficult to this day. The God who progressively reveals himself to ancient Israel, accommodates himself to their needs and their circumstances time and time again, whether that be in terms of meat eating, polygamy, city building, King making or a number of laws concerning the treatment of slaves, to give but a few examples.

Now whilst this may seem difficult enough to some readers, the idea that that progression continues through the New Testament is even more challenging. As we have seen, the early Church, as well as the Messianic sect within the Judaism of the day, had to come to terms over a period of 40 years, from Jesus’ death to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, (a time during which much of what we now read as the New Testament was written), with the reality that the expected return of their Christ was being indefinitely delayed and this, in the face of the direct revelation of Jesus himself to both groups, namely the Apostle Paul, the beneficiary of direct revelation (Gal. 1:12), who states that Christ will return soon (1Thess. 4:15-18) and the Apostle John, who by direct revelation (Rev. 1:1) confirms that Jesus is coming soon (Rev. 22:7).

Both Apostles apparently simply got this revelation wrong. Jesus did not come back soon or in their lifetimes. We have to acknowledge this and think about what our view of authority of the Bible is and how it is to be understood, or bury our heads in the sand and pretend either that it isn’t there or that we do not read ‘a canon within a canon’ i.e. selectively, which of course we all do and with good warrant, for as we shall see, that is precisely what Jesus did! Some parts of Scripture are clearly far more important than others.

God’s self-revelation is cumulative, progressive and does conflict. We cannot and must not hold our rational capacities to ransom to the inerrancy of every word of the Bible. And furthermore, we must also recognise that what has seemed to be the meaning of the authoritative word of Scripture throughout most of the church’s history has, it turns out, also been wrong. An example of this is the way in which slavery was regarded until the nineteenth century, as having been instituted by God and supported by the authority of the Bible.

That interpretation was obviously wrong by modern standards. And I could develop other more controversial interpretative conflicts which seem to me to exist, but there is no need here, for surely the point is made: we need to appreciate that words or texts in the Bible cannot simply be lifted off the page and applied with authority, without that being confirmed by the Spirit within us, as well as by our own experience and the wisdom of others, who over the years have also sought to interpret its meaning.

Last, we need to recognise that the Bible was often born out of conflict; that those who seek to interpret it will often be at odds with one another and that that is not the end of the world for the Church, as we shall see in our chapter on ‘The Fellowship’. If two great Apostles could be so at odds with one another, then it is more than likely that we shall be so also. But that does not mean that one wing is right and the other wrong, but rather that one wing is temperamentally conservative and the other temperamentally liberal and it would be nice to think that we would attempt to agree to disagree, amicably, rather than fall out so drastically, like Peter and Paul.

All that said, and with it in our minds, we can now turn to consider the role of the Messianic sect within Judaism, or the churches of Gentiles, as sacraments of the alternative Empire that Jesus proclaimed and incarnated. For the rest of this book and for the sake of ease, I will refer to this two-branch, nascent religion, at odds with both the religion that birthed it and the Empire within which it gradually established itself, as ‘the church’. And that church is neither the alternative Empire itself, nor capable of being manifested in any form that is constituted by violence, oppression or injustice, whether that be the Empire of Rome or any other less obvious form it may take in our day and age, despite the fact that this is precisely what we have witnessed in church history, not only in the Holy Roman Empire, with state and church wedded as one, but also in the form of several Protestant States after the Reformation. I believe the Church and the state can never be one, for they are two separate if related institutions created by God with different purposes.

It was no surprise that one of the charges against Jesus at his mock trial was that of insurrection, for Jesus proclaimed an alternative heavenly Kingdom. At the same time, Jesus remained, as did the early Church, a part of the religion of his day, a faithful attendee at the feasts in the Temple i...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• About the Author
• Dedication
• Copyright Information ©
• Acknowledgement
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Conclusion