{"id":1242,"date":"2006-02-05T10:54:39","date_gmt":"2006-02-05T14:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/nateptest\/2006\/02\/05\/christianist-donatism-of-a-sort\/"},"modified":"2006-02-05T10:54:39","modified_gmt":"2006-02-05T14:54:39","slug":"christianist-donatism-of-a-sort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/2006\/02\/05\/christianist-donatism-of-a-sort\/","title":{"rendered":"Christianist Donatism, of a sort"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

The Christianists are at it again.  And they’re behaving somewhat heretically, again.<\/p>\n

If you didn’t read the Times the other day, there was an article about the new film “The End of the Spear.”<\/a>  Here’s what’s going down:<\/p>\n

Christian ministers were enthusiastic at the early private screenings
\nof “End of the Spear,” made by Every Tribe Entertainment, an
\nevangelical film company. But days before the film’s premiere, a
\ncontroversy erupted over the casting of a gay actor that has all but
\neclipsed the movie and revealed fault lines among evangelicals.<\/p>\n

The film relates the true story of five American missionaries who
\nwere killed in 1956 by an indigenous tribe in Ecuador. The
\nmissionaries’ families ultimately converted the tribe to Christianity,
\nand forgave and befriended the killers. The tale inspired evangelicals
\n40 years ago with its message of redemption and grace, and the film
\ncompany expected a similar reception. <\/p>\n

On Jan. 12, though, the
\nRev. Jason Janz took the filmmakers to task for casting Chad Allen, an
\nopenly gay man and an activist, in the movie’s lead role as one of the
\nslain missionaries, and later, his grown son. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

(Growing up in Sunday School, we heard this story of these missionaries numerous times, and their martyrdom was held up as an example to us.) (I might also note that I might not have seen the film, because I’m getting a bit concerned about Hollywood’s pursuit of the “Christian” audience, but Chad Allen is just yummy<\/a>….)<\/p>\n

That which seems to be the problem here is that some people deem the deliverer of the Gospel message to be unworthy to present it, and his unworthiness somehow invalidates the enterprise.<\/p>\n

Let’s go back to the fourth century, to discuss a conflict between the Donatists and non-Donatists.  Wikipedia tells the story as well as anyone<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Their primary disagreement with the rest of the Church was over the
\ntreatment of those who forsook their faith during the Persecution (303–305 AD) of Diocletian.
\nThe rest of the Church was far more forgiving of these people than the
\nDonatists were. They refused to accept the sacraments and spiritual
\nauthority of the priests and bishops who had fallen away from the faith
\nduring the persecution. Many church leaders had gone as far as turning
\nin Christians to the Roman authorities and had handed over sacred
\nreligious texts to authorities to be publicly burned. These people were
\ncalled traditors (“people who had handed over”). These traditors<\/i> had returned to positions of authority under Constantine, and the
\nDonatists proclaimed that any sacraments celebrated by these priests
\nand bishops were invalid. As a result, many towns were divided between
\nDonatist and non-Donatist congregations. The sect had particularly
\ndeveloped and grown in North Africa. Constantine, as emperor, began to
\nget involved in the dispute, and in 314 he called a council atArles
\nin France; the issue was debated and the decision went against the
\nDonatists. The Donatists refused to accept the decision of the council,
\ntheir distaste for bishops who had collaborated with Rome came out of
\ntheir broader view of the Roman empire….<\/p>\n

Augustine campaigned against this heterodox belief throughout his tenure as
\nbishop of Hippo, and through his efforts the Church gained the upper
\nhand. His view, which was also the majority view within the Church, was
\nthat it was the office of priest, not the personal character of the
\nincumbent, that gave validity to the celebration of the sacraments.
\nThis is the view that prevailed and has persisted to the present day….<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The basic idea here is that the personal worthiness of the minister has no bearing on the worthiness or importance of the Christian message.  Sure, we should aim toward people who are virtuous, but their failure to live up to a code of virtue — especially one on which not all agree — does not affect the message, because the message is independent of the human messenger.  If it is a transcendant message, as Christians claim, then it must transcend the limitations of the messenger.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Jason Janz<\/a> seems to be skirting close to heresy, at least in some sense.  Perhaps he should go back to seminary for a bit more time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Christianists are at it again.  And they’re behaving somewhat heretically, again. If you didn’t read the Times the other day, there was an article about the new film “The End of the Spear.”  Here’s what’s going down: Christian ministers were enthusiastic at the early private screenings of “End of the Spear,” made by Every […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":709,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rayleejun"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5G3PH-k2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/709"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/natep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}