From Pagan to Christian: Part I – The God Fearers

During the years in which Christianity was born and began to grow, the Mediterranean basin represented a diverse, multicultural, and multilingual social environment subjected to a dominant political and military order (the Romans), and loosely united by an increasingly pervasive yet heterogenous cultural ethos that was an amalgram of Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Mesopotamian and even Jewish influences. Religion in the Empire featured a smorgasbord of choices, but often there were also threads of commonality connecting various traditions. Categories of religiousity included atheism, polytheism, pantheism, monotheism, animism and mysticism, as well as philosophers and proponents of religion who sought to identify truths representing the essential unity of all religions.

Not surprisingly, religious communities, including Jewish and Christian gatherings, found ways to address, if not accommodate the interest of varied seekers of religious truth and religious belonging. A hint of this phenomenon can be found in occasional references to "God fearers" associated with Jewish synagogues in

An inscription from a synagogue

of the period includes a list of Jewish

names followed by a list of Greek

 namesunder the heading, "God Fearers"



the book of Acts. These were non-Jews who were nevertheless attracted to the Jewish way of life and religion, and who were involved to some extent in the activities of the synagogue. These God-fearers appear to have been fertile ground for early Christian evangelism. The new faith may have represented an opportunity for a deeper grounding in a Jewish-like community, while permitting the retention of non-Jewish identity. Suggestions of this may be found in accounts of the Apostle Paul’s evangelical activities, which typically began with proclamation of the gospel at a local synagogue, at which non-Jewish listeners and eventual converts were apparently present. As it happens, recent worship services at WNMC have included scripture readings evidencing this phenomenon. Two of the passages describe Paul’s proselytizing at synagogues and refer to the presence of Greeks and, specifically, devout Greeks:

After Paul and Silas^* had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. ²And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three sabbath days argued with them from the scriptures, ³explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah^* to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, ‘This is the Messiah,^* Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you.’ ⁴Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. (Acts 17:1-5)

Every sabbath he would argue in the synagogue and try to convince Jews and Greeks. (Acts 18:4)

The involvement of sympathetic “non-members” in the activities of Jewish synagogues appears may have had its parallels in the subsequent Christian congregations. It is believed that the Roman Emperor Constantine, widely considered to be responsible for the eventual transformation of Christianity into a de facto state religion of the Roman Empire, did not become baptized as a Christian until near death. This is the same emperor who claimed to have had a vision of the Christian cross, who initiated the rehabilitation of

Constantine's vision before the

Battle of Milvian Bridge, A.D. 312

Christianity as a respectable, and eventually dominant religion in the Empire, and who was actively involved in the proceedings which led to the development of the Nicene Creed. There are likely a number of reasons why Constantine delayed his baptism, including the possibility that his role as Emperor required him to fulfill ritual functions in Roman religion. In a sense, Constantine may be characterized as a high-profile Christianized version of the God-fearer – an individual who was supportive of and sympathetic to Christianity and involved with community, but not a full member of it. This is notwithstanding that for many Mennonites, Emperor Constantine’s extension of religious tolerance within the Roman Empire to Christians

as one religious group among others is overshadowed by a feeling that his rule marked the beginning of a dark age of Christianity as a state ordered and corrupted church. Another example, perhaps slightly less troubling for Mennonites, may be found in the early life of Augustine of Hippo (eventually, St. Augustine). For a number of years he dabbled in the doctrines of a dualistic religious movement called Manicheanism, and sought spiritual truth in the writings of philosophers. However, his writing indicate that during this period he also attended Christian sermons with his philosopher friends, on his journey to his ultimate spiritual home in the Catholic Church. It appears that non-Christian Augustine and at least some of his non-Christian acquaintances found reason during this phase of their spiritual enquiry to attend at least some Christian services and consider what was on offer.

It is tempting to draw parallels between the accommodation of God fearers by Jewish synagogues, and similar accommodation by early Christian churches, with patterns of accommodation at Waterloo North Mennonite Church in a similarly cosmopolitan religious environment. WNMC has its formal category of adherents, defined in its constating documents as :



. . . a Person age of sixteen or over who regularly attends public worship services of the Church, respects the Church Constitution and submits to the authority therein, and may be involved in approved Church ministry, but who has not made formal application for Membership in the Church. (Section 8.01).

 

Notably, adherents may include persons who are not baptized.  Is this a twenty-first century equivalent of the God fearers of the Jewish synagogues? Communion services, historically restricted to those baptized as adults, have loosened up, with any baptized Christian welcome to participate and grapes offered to those who wish to participate but are not baptized. From time to time members of completely distinct religious traditions attend WNMC services, and even deliver sermons (I have in mind a sermon from a couple of years ago by a rabbi).  Leaving aside formal accommodations, conversations with individuals gathered with the congregation disclose a range of conviction, some of which would be decidedly non-orthodox as well as non-Christian. One would expect that the pre-Christian Augustine and his philosophizing friends would have been quite comfortable attending WNMC to “check out” the spiritual truths that the congregation has on offer.

Feel free to respond to the following questions by “comment” below:

• What does it mean that WNMC formally recognizes a distinction between “adherents” and “members”? Does that mean there are really three categories: “Christian”, “non-Christian” and adherents are somewhere in between? Or are “members” and “adherents” equally Christian, but “members” have an affiliation to a particular Mennonite congregation?

• What is the significance of baptism, given “adherents” do not need to be baptized?

• Does the phenomenon of the “God-fearers” affiliated with Jewish synagogues of the New Testament era provide any insight for the 21^st Century?