My last six posts have included excerpts from historical documents (without commentary or embellishment from me) related to the history of Christianity. For the benefit of those who may not have read those posts, a brief summary of them for the purposes of this post are in order:
1. Worship Among Early Christians - An eyewitness account of a Christian worship service during the first half of the Second Century AD/CE. In that account, we find Christians meeting on Sunday and reading the "memoirs of the apostles" and the writings of the prophets (as they didn't have access to what we now refer to as the New Testament). It is also interesting to note that a simple communion service is observed, and that members with the financial resources to do so made voluntary contributions that were used to help those members who were in need.
2. Martin Luther's Preface to the Book of Revelation - The founder of the Protestant Reformation in Sixteenth Century Europe gives his opinion that the last book of our New Testament doesn't belong in the canon of Scripture!
3. From Book 3 of Eusebius' Church History - The man who was largely responsible for pulling together the New Testament in the Fourth Century states that II Peter, II & III John, Jude, James, Hebrews and Revelation had not been universally accepted by the Christians of the first three centuries of the Church. In other words, Christians had not been able to agree on which books should be included in the canon for three hundred years!
4. First Century Christianity - This Late First Century manuscript gives us the earliest take on a Christian Statement of Beliefs that we know of (once again, prior to any compilation of a New Testament). This simple statement stands in stark contrast to the elaborate Statements of Beliefs put out by today's churches. It begins with a focus on Christ's two great commandments as the foundational principles on which all else follows. Christians are enjoined not to engage in sinful behaviors, and it provides brief treatises on baptism and the Eucharist.
5. Ignatius of Antioch on Christians Keeping the Jewish Law - In excerpts from the bishop's letters to the Philadelphians and Magnesians, we read that Christians of the Late First Century and Early Second Century were not expected to follow Jewish traditions or religious practices.
6. 70 A.D. - A First Century Jewish historian (Flavius Josephus) gives a graphic account of the destruction of the Temple by the Romans.
Now, WHY DID LONNIE CITE ALL OF THESE PRIMARY SOURCES RELATED TO THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY?
Because they present some very inconvenient truths for Fundamentalist/Literalist Christians - especially for Armstrongites!
In his booklet, Where Is The True Church?, Herbert Armstrong wrote: "So it was, that before A.D. 50 (the Church had been founded in A.D. 31) a fierce controversy arose as to whether the gospel to be proclaimed was the gospel OF Christ, or a gospel ABOUT Christ. Soon the curtain was wrung down on historic records of the Church. It evidenced the fact that a vigorous cooperative and systematic effort was made to destroy historic records of church happenings of the next hundred years. It was the LOST CENTURY in church history. When the curtain of history is raised about A.D. 150, it reveals a church calling itself 'Christian,' but one totally different from the Church Jesus founded through his apostles in A.D. 31."
As you can see from the primary documents I cited (and there are others besides them), there was no "lost century" in terms of the history of Christianity. Yet, the folks who are familiar with Armstrongism will recognize this as a central tenet of his theology (and of those who have followed him). The problem is that, in attempting to explain the emergence of a Christian Church that has abandoned the Sabbath and embraced Sunday, Armstrong and his minions have had to avoid/ignore a whole lot of REAL history!
Yes, Jesus and his disciples kept the Sabbath and observed the Holy Days - THEY WERE JEWS! Yes, the very first Christians were Jewish and observed Jewish traditions and met with other Jews. In fact, we are told in Scripture (see the book of Acts) that this insular attitude of early Christians prevented them from fulfilling the commission which Christ had given to his apostles and church (see Matthew 28:19-20). Indeed, when we continue to read in Acts, we see that Christ had to give Peter a special vision in order to convince him that he should carry the gospel to the Gentiles! Moreover, we know that Christ later raised up Paul as an apostle to the Gentiles, because the twelve simply were not getting it done! Jewish Christians continued to observe the religious traditions which they had been in the habit of observing for their entire lives - until the destruction of the temple in 70 AD/CE made that impossible (remember, there was only ONE place that was a legitimate feast site according to Scripture - see Deuteronomy 16).
Gentiles, however, had no such traditions. Gentiles were never a part of the Old Covenant. They had NEVER observed the Sabbath or the Holy Days. Moreover, the great council of Jerusalem decided that Gentile Christians would not be forced to adopt those features of the Old Covenant - with the exception of a few tenets which everyone agreed should be universal in applicability (see Acts 15). The above history, in combination with Scripture, leads one to the inescapable conclusion that MOST Christians were observing Sunday and didn't have access to any New Testament by the close of the First Century!
The notion that God had handed the Church a completed New Testament and commanded them to observe the tenets of the Old Covenant is made absurd by this history! There simply wasn't any great Roman Catholic or Satanic conspiracy to do away with God's Sabbath during a hundred year period shrouded in mystery!
And Mr. Armstrong was not alone in concocting this false narrative about Church History. There was Herman Hoeh's A True History of the True Church. The United Church of God has its The Church Jesus Built. There is David Pack's Where is the True Church? - and Its Incredible History! We have Gerald Flurry's The True History of God's True Church. There is the Church of God International's documentary, The Chronicles of the New Testament Church. For Armstrongites, this is an essential part of the narrative that makes them superior to the rest of Christianity. They have to tell the story about the rise of a counterfeit Christianity. Never mind that history debunks their false narrative and consigns their efforts to the bin of historical fiction!
I know it feels really good to be so sure and settled about what you believe; but, if your narrative is built on a foundation of sand, how settled can it really be? Rather than read a church booklet on church history, why not do a little digging of your own?
by Lonnie Hendricks
