The Turning Point - Chesterton

Paul stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you." (Acts 17:22-23)

In rereading this simple account of Paul's message from Mars Hill to the Athenian philosophers I am reminded of how things basically remain much the same -- through the last two thousand years of human history, very little has changed.

The Areopagus was a high court of Athenian justice - the greatest scholars and philosophers of Athens formed this august group - they would have prided themselves on their modern, broad-minded approach to religion - they were sophisticated and non-committed
and non-judgmental in their evaluations - quick to wisely nod their heads and agree that all "religions" were acceptable - all roads would lead to the same place - certainly there was no room for bigoted, narrow-minded, exclusive religious views.


That was an easy conclusion for them, because no religion of their day demanded full commitment. No religion of the ancient world claimed to be the "only way." They were not really 'religions,' anyway. They did not attempt to explain or reach God - they only tried to talk about their lives and cultures in sort of  'spiritual' or 'super-natural' ways.'

No religion of the Roman and Greek world took itself very seriously. Except for the Jews, of course.

Certainly Paul was fully aware of the great Pantheon in Rome - the temple to honor all gods - built by Herod Agrippa in 27 BC.

Religious thought was a sort of melting pot of all myths and legends of the classical world. Except for the Jews, of course.

When the early church began to expand, all they were asked to do was to incorporate their new religion into the smorgasbord of existing philosophies. That's all -- just add their ideas into the mix -- don't make claims - don't stand out - don't be peculiar - just be 'one of the guys!'

Certainly don't talk about sin and death and resurrection and eternal life - don't claim your leader/founder actually rose from the dead? And promises his followers the same --

But here's what happened -



From The Everlasting Man, by G. K. Chesterton

....a pantheon had been set up two thousand years ago by the shores of the Mediterranean; and Christians were invited to set up the image of Jesus side by side with the images of Jupiter, of Mithras, of Osiris, of Arys...

It was the refusal of the Christians that was the turning-point of history.

If Christians had accepted, they and the whole world would have certainly, in a grotesque but exact metaphor, gone to pot.

They would have all been boiled down into one lukewarm liquid in that great pot of cosmopolitan corruption in which all the other myths and legends were already melting.

It was an  awful and an appalling escape.

Nobody understands the nature of the Church, or the ringing tone of the creed descending from antiquity, who does not realize that the whole world once very nearly died of broadmindedness and the brotherhood of all religions.


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The more things change, the more they remain the same. Haven't we made a complete circle? Here we are again -- will we be as faithful as our forefathers? They died cruel deaths for their commitment to their unique faith....



P.S. The famous Pantheon in Rome later, in 609 AD, became a
Christian church, as it is to this day.