{"id":223,"date":"2017-08-13T20:39:16","date_gmt":"2017-08-14T00:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/chartingchurchleadership\/?p=223"},"modified":"2017-08-13T21:49:30","modified_gmt":"2017-08-14T01:49:30","slug":"stephen-martyred-nationalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/chartingchurchleadership\/2017\/08\/stephen-martyred-nationalists\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen the deacon was martyred by first-century nationalists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
When it comes to an ideological battle between nationalism and cosmopolitanism, the New Testament is entirely on the side of cosmopolitanism. Nationalists are the villains!<\/p>\n
Nowhere is the story more powerfully told than in the martyrdom of Stephen. Yet, if you learned to read Acts 6 and 7 the way I did, you probably think about this pivotal, bloody, highly political event in our faith history with a distracted yawn.\u00a0Stephen is appointed, does some stuff, goes to court, gives a long boring history lecture, dies. What of it?<\/p>\n
If we overlook Stephen\u2019s speech to the Sanhedrin, we\u2019re missing an interpretive key to the entire New Testament. We who are Gentiles also undermine the history of our own inclusion\u00a0(as \u201cGreeks\u201d of a sort) in the\u00a0church of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
Why were\u00a0the Hellenistic widows hungry?<\/strong><\/p>\n
<\/a>
Fresco of the anointing of the seven deacons, by Fra Angelico, from the Vatican\u2019s Niccoline Chapel [public domain]<\/figcaption><\/figure>We North Americans tend to get the first part of Stephen\u2019s story at least partly right: the first seven deacons all have distinctively Greek names (Acts 6:5-6<\/a>). We\u00a0acknowledge the wisdom of the apostles in delegating care for Greek-speaking widows and orphans to leaders of the Greek-speaking community.<\/p>\n**
**
We\u2019re\u00a0obsessed with the passage\u2019s implications for formal church governance (who appoints deacons, and what is their job description?), and we recognize the mandate for\u00a0administering benevolence to the poor. But we rarely ask the question: why were the Hellenistic widows going without food in the first place? We may\u00a0think of\u00a0the widows as a dissatisfied or disgruntled interest group, a pesky distraction from important matters, a logistical problem to be solved.<\/p>\n
**
But we\u2019d be better served to recognize the Hellenistic widows as a genuinely afflicted, vulnerable minority. We should recognize the widows\u2019 hunger as the first sign of the same persecution that killed Stephen in Acts 7 and dispersed the\u00a0believers\u00a0in Acts 8.<\/p>\n
**
**Accusers<\/strong><\/p>\n
As he feeds the widows, Stephen is confronted with a pack of murderous, power-hungry liars, identified as the Synagogue of the Freedmen (Acts 6:9-14<\/a>), Jews from around the Mediterranean, including Cilicia, Saul\u2019s original home in Asia Minor (present day Turkey). Given Saul\u2019s approving appearance with them at Stephen\u2019s stoning, it seems likely they take punctilious, Pharisaical view of the Old Testament law.<\/p>\n
The Freedmen were angered by the spiritual, economic, and political power of Stephen\u2019s ministry. So they recruited witnesses to accuse him of the capital offense of blasphemy against \u201cthis holy place,\u201d which may refer to the Temple and, as we shall see, to \u201cthe Holy Land\u201d itself. What were they so angry about? The Freedmen may have\u00a0experienced the persecution of Jews by Greek political power in Cilicia and other lands\u2014including perhaps the enslavement from which they had since been \u201cfreed.\u201d They may have perceived the Hellenistic Jews as corrupted collaborators with the pagan Greek culture that oppressed them outside Palestine. They may have considered their persecution of the Hellenistic Jews as a purification of the land of Israel. They certainly saw the Temple as an essential\u00a0physical element of true religion.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also possible that the Hellenistic widows were persecuted by the likes of these Freedmen because they were judged, as a group, to be prone to sexual immorality, especially adultery. The letter from James, leader of the Jerusalem church in the same time period, promises a \u201ccrown\u201d (Greek stephanos, Stephen\u2019s name) to those who endure \u201ctrials\u201d (James 1:12<\/a>), condemns the murder of an innocent (James 5:6<\/a>), and calls out the hypocrisy of opposing adultery while committing murder (James 2:11<\/a>).<\/p>\n
As we\u2019ll see below, when James holds up Rahab as a model of faith<\/a> (James 2:25<\/a>), he also deploys exactly the same kind of anti-nationalist, anti-ethnocentrist\u00a0rebuttal as Stephen does in his great speech.<\/p>\n
Stephen\u2019s response<\/strong><\/p>\n
Stephen\u2019s extended response in Acts 7 is a tour de force <\/em>of interpretive history. It\u2019s also\u00a0a literal tour of Biblical lands. As described in this insightful 1899 study of the speech<\/a>, Stephen isn\u2019t just recounting the Israelite history to accredit himself as a faithful Jew. He goes far beyond that, shaping his retelling to emphasize the vast geographic and multi-ethnic scope of God\u2019s interventions in history.<\/p>\n
Try reading the passage aloud, slowing down to put rhetorical emphasis on every place name and people group. It\u2019s instructive!<\/p>\n
\nStephen noted that Abraham was from Harran<\/strong> in Mesopotamia<\/strong>, the land of the Chaldeans<\/strong>; when he came to the land of\u00a0Canaan<\/strong>, \u201cGod gave him no inheritance there, not even enough ground to set his foot on.\u201d (Acts 7:4-5<\/a>).\u00a0At this point,\u00a0the Freedmen and other Hebrew nationalists in the Sanhedrin were\u00a0already angry, since Abraham\u2019s patrimony\u00a0was\u00a0so central to their narrative.<\/li>\nPagan Egypt<\/strong> plays a central role in Stephen\u2019s account, appearing first in verse 6 (\u201cFor four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own\u201d), then by name 18 times from verse 9 to verse 40. Moses is described as \u201ceducated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians<\/strong>.\u201d (Acts 7:22<\/a>) The focus seems likely to have been particularly enraging to the Freedmen from Alexandria <\/strong>(Acts 6:9<\/a>), whose nationalist narrative would\u00a0likely have denigrated Egyptian science, not upheld it as \u201cwisdom.\u201d They would likely have staked their faith on a belligerent contrast between the holy Temple of Jerusalem and the pagan Great Library of Alexandria, rather than giving the latter any credit.<\/li>\nIn Stephen\u2019s telling, Moses traversed the pagan land of Midian<\/strong>, then met God on Mount Sinai<\/strong>. Stephen used Scripture to underline that when God is present, holy ground is found in the middle of nowhere (Acts 7:30-33<\/a>).<\/li>\nStephen treated the transient mobility of the tabernacle<\/strong>\u00a0as the norm, a blessing on leaders from Joshua to David (Acts 7:44-45<\/a>); yet the first mention of the word tabernacle in his speech honored not YHWH\u00a0but Molek<\/strong>, the Canaanite god who demanded\u00a0infant sacrifices. This detour into idolatry is\u00a0an explicit indictment of the serial infidelities of Israel and an implicit indictment of the listening Sanhedrin crowd\u2019s idolatry of the Temple. Stephen got Molek by citing Amos 5:25-27<\/a>; the Greek reading in Acts also mentions the god Rephan<\/strong>\u00a0(possibly an Egyptian star deity) and prophesies the exile to Babylon<\/strong> (Acts 7:42-43<\/a>).<\/li>\nMeanwhile, Stephen marks the Temple\u2019s now fixed presence as an exception, a special request from David<\/strong>, which was actually built by Solomon<\/strong> (Acts 7:45-47<\/a>). The listening men of the Sanhedrin would have been aware of Solomon\u2019s history as the husband of Pharoah\u2019s daughter and the keeper of thousands of pagan concubines. It wouldn\u2019t take much to recognize a further inference\u00a0to\u00a0Herod<\/strong>, the thoroughly Hellenized, hedonistic builder of the new Temple they so treasured.<\/li>\nFinally,\u00a0Stephen trumpets that \u201cthe Most High does not live in houses built by human hands,\u201d ending with the words of the prophet Isaiah (66:1-2<\/a>; Acts 7:48-50<\/a>). His final condemnation of his listeners is brutal: \u201cYou stiff-necked people!\u00a0Your hearts\u00a0and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!<\/span>\u00a0Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute?\u00a0They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him\u2014<\/span>you who have received the law that was given through angels\u00a0but have not obeyed it.\u201d (Acts 7:51-53<\/a>)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
It was probably not just a sudden burst of rage at Stephen\u2019s vision of Jesus the end of the speech (Acts 7:54-56<\/a>) that led the Sanhedrin to stone Stephen. They were likely growing murderously angry throughout his recitation of all the other nations and lands that formed a part of Israel\u2019s heritage, including many God showed particular care for.<\/p>\n
When James, the most Jewish of the early Christian leaders, places Rahab next to Abraham in James 2:25<\/a>, he may well be following this provocative, prophetic, nation-humbling rhetorical pattern set by Stephen.<\/p>\n
<\/a>
Frieze from Saint-Etienne-du-Mont<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n***
**
***Application: today\u2019s public policy<\/strong><\/p>\n
Given that polls show that U.S. President Donald Trump continues to enjoy majority approval from self-professed \u201cevangelicals,\u201d<\/a> it\u00a0is appropriate to ask whether the American church is receiving teaching that adequately challenges his administration\u2019s nationalist narratives of God-ordained ethnic and political dominance.<\/p>\n
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has redoubled its commitment to nationalistic policies and attitudes. President Trump famously failed to direct his talent for targeted invective to condemn the odious racism and anti-Semitism of white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, Virginia. Meanwhile, his administration has boosted the \u201cRAISE Act,\u201d a fringe Congressional bill that would filter immigrants to the U.S. for language, education, financial resources and celebrity (Nobelists and Olympic medalists only, please). His much-litigated \u201ctravel ban\u201d has sought to bar refugees from Middle Eastern countries, even those already vetted and ready to be received in the U.S.<\/p>\n
I was raised conservative. I can easily imagine solving specific social problems on technical grounds with reasonable restrictions on immigration and security provisions grounded in equality before the law. But the\u00a0foundation of Trump\u2019s policies is a consistent, angry rhetoric of scapegoating and mass accusation. The church should resist such literally \u201cdiabolical\u201d language with all its heart. We can model our resistance on Stephen\u2019s speech as we recite the central roles of despised and marginalized people in building our nation.<\/p>\n
How quickly we forget that the famous pilgrims were England\u2019s despised rejects. Early pioneers likely learned our now famous love of individual autonomy from Native American culture and exported that love back to Enlightenment Europe, not the reverse (see the last chapter of Charles Mann\u2019s book\u00a01491<\/a>). \u00a0Irish Catholic refugees<\/a> were once a persecuted minority condemned for low morals, taking American jobs, and being prone to treason. Enslaved Africans and their oft-persecuted African-American descendants have rewarded\u00a0us with multiple waves of the world\u2019s most infectious popular culture<\/a>, a masterpiece of enduring resilience and defiant celebration.<\/p>\n
During his March 2017 visit to Calvin College, Dr. Willie Jennings<\/a> was asked how the church should respond to racism and nationalism. He had a simple answer: we should focus on our shared identity as Gentiles, as despised \u201cGreeks\u201d who have been graciously grafted into God\u2019s kingdom.<\/p>\n
If we trust in Jesus, our origin is in every tribe and nation, and our destination is a celestial city of Jerusalem.\u00a0That\u2019s the very definition of cosmic city-dwelling:\u00a0of cosmopolitanism.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When it comes to an ideological battle between nationalism and cosmopolitanism, the New Testament is entirely on the side of cosmopolitanism. Nationalists are the villains! Nowhere is the story more powerfully told than in the martyrdom of Stephen. 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