The church has tried to be a godly voice in the midst of a world seduced by the sexual revolution. But often, the church has swung the pendulum too far to the opposite extreme, also over-sexualizing men and women, by imposing guidelines on not only friendship between the sexes, but even on acquaintanceship. For both the sake of appearances and the threat of lust and sexual impropriety, Christians are often counseled not to text, email, share a lunch, ride in a car, or even share an elevator unchaperoned with the opposite sex. Is this the way we should be seen treating brothers and sisters in the Lord? Is this how we show the love of Christ to the watching world? 

 
Last week Michael Kruger wrote a good little article on the peculiarity of early Christian worship and how believers managed to offend everybody. Rumors were flying about what kind of people Christians really were. I wanted to elaborate on one of Kruger’s points and compare that to how Christians worry over “appearances” today. Kruger said:

The other offensive aspect of Christian worship was their private meetings. For obvious reasons, Christians weren’t eager to put their worship practices on full public display. So, they tended to meet early in the mornings, or in the evenings, often when it was dark, away from the masses.

Of course, this was seen as highly suspicious. As already noted, Romans regarded religion as public. So, what were these Christians up to in their “secret” meetings? As is well known, this occasioned all sorts of speculation (and accusation) about whether Christians were engaging in licentious or even cannibalistic activities in these gatherings.

Christians were being persecuted for their faith, so they met in secret. Of course this would fuel rumors. Here is a Roman argument against Christianity in the early days of the church. Mark Felix narrates these accusations from Caecilius in his apologetic work, Octavius, published 150-210 A.D.:

And now as the world grows more wicked, your abominable shrines are sprouting up throughout the whole world. This entire impious confederacy should be rooted out and destroyed! You know one another by secret marks and insignia. You love one another almost before you know one another. Yours is a religion of lust. You promiscuously call one another brothers and sisters. You apparently do this so that your debaucheries will take on a flavor of incest. Your vain and senseless superstition revels in wickedness. I would apologize for passing on the reports I hear about you if I weren’t so certain they were true. (We Don’t Speak Great Things, We Live Them, 31)

The Romans heard of their love feasts with wine, brother/sister language, and holy kisses, and let their imaginations run wild:

Your banquets are also well known and are spoken about everywhere. On a solemn day, all of you assemble together as the feast, along with your children, sisters, and mothers. People of every sex and age are present. After much feasting, when the group is boisterous and when incestuous lust has grown hot with drunkenness, you throw a piece of meat just outside the reach of a dog that has been tied to the room’s lamp. In trying to reach the meat, the dog overturns the lamp and plunges the room into darkness. The incestuous lusts of those present are now unfettered, and nature takes its course in the dark. (32)

I guess the early church wasn’t so uptight about appearances. These rumors spread because of the brotherly and sisterly love they had for one another. But they didn’t decide to soften their language. They didn’t respond to these accusations by distancing themselves from one another. They lived according to their proper identity in Christ and their joint mission. And Octavius responded to these outlandish claims from Caecilius, affirming the modest and chaste lives of Christian men and women that weren’t “a matter of outward show” but of joyful obedience to the Lord (53).

Even today, Christians are under the microscope.

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