Truth Unites - A Christian Approach to Justice: Gregory of Nyssa on Slavery

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

One of the most controversial topics in our culture is justice. In the  church, issues related to justice have been divisive and fracturing.  Here I propose several ways we can learn about what it means to stand up  for justice from the early church father Gregory of Nyssa, particularly  his opposition to slavery.    This talk was originally delivered at Karam Forum 2021. Learn more about  the great work of the Karam Forum here: https://karamforum.org/ Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

One of the most painful things in this world is injustice. If you're walking down the street and you happen to walk under a construction site and two by four randomly falls and hits you on the head, that hurts in one way. If you're walking down the street and a thief sneaks up behind you and hits you with the two by four, that hurts in a different way. Even if the physical injuries are the same, there's a particular kind of pain that we associate with injustice. It's a feeling of anguish, feeling of darkness.

The way that I think of it is when you're at the piano and you hit a bunch of different notes that are out of tune with each other, and it creates this feeling of tension and dissonance, and you think, this is not the way it's supposed to be. That's a little bit what injustice feels like. I know that for some of us, when I mentioned this topic, we have had experiences that we can go back to in our mind, and it's like it happened yesterday. Maybe growing up in school, for example, when you or someone that you, you love is bullied. And you see how destructive that is in someone's life. And you think, how can people do this? Don't they see the pain that they're causing? This is not the way that it's supposed to be. And then as we get older, we can see injustice taking so many different forms.

And it happens in so many different contexts. And sadly, we can even see injustice in the church. And many of us have been through this, where at first you're saying it's not that bad. But then as time goes by, your eyes are opened and you see the abuse of power or whatever it is that's going on. You think, same feeling. This is not the way it's supposed to be. Church should be safe. Well, this whole issue of justice is one of the most controversial topics in our culture right now. Of course, people have always cared about justice, but right now, this has become a flashpoint in the polarization that our culture is going through.

Just think about how people respond when I say words like, this, cultural Marxism, critical race theory, wokeness, toxic masculinity. Now, all I've done is just say these words, and some of you may already be angry with me. So if I could just begin by asking for your patience and your help, because I am not an expert on this topic, but I'm also passionately convinced that Christians should not shy away from this topic. And And so as a Christian and then also as a pastor, I don't believe that the church should be aloof from the issues in the culture. So I've been on my own journey of learning, and I want to speak to this topic in the spirit

of sharing what I've been learning. And what has helped me so much is church history. We're not the first people to wrestle with this topic of justice. And there is so much wisdom and perspective we can get by looking to the past, and then we get a fresh perspective on the issues we're wrestling with in the present. So I'd like to share three convictions that have been stirring in my heart as I've been learning from one Christian in particular, a man named Gregory of Nisa who lived in the fourth century. The first thing that Gregory has helped me to see is that there have always been Christians

who care about justice. So go back with me in your mind's eye to the year 379 AD and picture a church in the middle of modern-day Turkey. and Gregory is the bishop of this church, and he's preaching through the book of Ecclesiastes for Lent this year. And in his fourth homily, he gets to a little clause in Ecclesiastes 2.7 that says, I obtained servants. Now, as you look out at the church, you see a very diverse congregation, including both slaves and slave owners. And you wonder, what is Gregory going to say about this? Now, we have to remember that in the ancient world, slavery was an almost universally accepted.

part of life, sadly, including for many Christians, but not for Gregory. Gregory starts off the sermon basically saying, can you even imagine the arrogance of thinking that you can own another human being? He says, this is a pride that rises up to God in heaven, and as he develops this rebuke throughout the sermon, he does not hold back. One historian has called this sermon the most scathing criticism of slaveholding in all of antiquity. And what made Gregory's sermon so prophetic is that he wasn't just saying it's injustice to mistreat a slave. He was saying it's injustice to ever have a slave.

He wasn't just condemning the abuses. He was condemning the institution as such. And Gregory is a reminder for us that as you look back at church history, you can see a lot of injustice. You can see a lot of hypocrisy. But you also see these prophetic voices. that God has raised up. And I think it's always been like that. You think all the way back to the Old Testament where the nation of Israel has some dark stretches of time. There's a lot of injustice. But God raises

up these prophetic figures like Amos, who rebukes the people for injustice and says, let justice roll on like a river. Or you think all the way up to more recent history, how many churches tragically capitulated to Hitler in Nazi Germany. But you also have these profound. prophetic voices that God raises up, like Dietrich Bonhofer and Martin Neumoler and others. And I love the thought of Bonhofer at his desk, writing a letter to his brother-in-law, explaining why he's decided to found an illegal seminary at his own great peril. And he's writing and he says, there are some things in this world that are worth standing up for. And for me, justice is one of them, just as Christ himself is.

There have always been Christians who care about justice, even when their voices have been in the minority. And that leads me to this haunting question. I come back to again and again, if I had lived in Gregory's time, would I have had his clarity? Would I have had his courage? I hope so. Well, that leads to the second conviction that's been sort of stirring in my heart as I've been learning from Gregory,

and that is not only have there always been Christians who care about justice, but Christians have really good reasons to care about justice. And for Gregory, it came down to three things, and he unpacks these throughout the sermon. He says, first of all, slavery violates our equality. Gregory says, we are all fundamentally equal. We're all made from the same dust.

We all look at the same sun. We all breathe the same air. At one point, he says, we all have the same intestines, which is kind of a gross image, but it's true, you know. He's saying, look, if we're all fundamentally equal, how can you think you can own someone else? Secondly, he says, slavery violates our nature. Gregory says there's something we call the natural law.

Human beings are on top. The animal kingdom is on the bottom. We rule over the animal kingdom. And when you own a slave, you're treating a human being as though they were an animal. He says that's a perversion of the natural law. Thirdly, Gregory says slavery violates not just our equality, not just our nature. It violates our dignity. Gregory goes on at great length in this sermon about what it means to be made in the image of God.

He says to be made in the image of God invests profound value and dignity in every single person. At one point he says, a single human person is of greater value than the entire physical universe. At another point in the sermon, he says, if you knew how much that person was worth, you would know no amount of money is enough to purchase them. And what I walk away with from Gregory's sermon is this powerful vision of the value of human beings as made in God's image. You know, in the ancient Near East, there were other religious texts that talked about being made in the image of a deity, but it was always about the royalty. The king is in the image of this deity, or the queen is the offspring of that deity, or something like that. Genesis 1 comes along and says, we're all royalty. Every single person you ever meet

is a reflection of the creator made in his image. When you think about that, it's a powerful reason to care about justice. Well, that leads to the third conviction that's been stirring in my heart as I've been engaging with Gregory, and that is Christians should care about justice today. Now, look, obviously, this is very complicated to figure out how to do that, because there are competing visions of justice out there. I don't want to take away from the complexity of this topic. We shouldn't forget that some of the greatest atrocities in all of human history, were committed in the name of justice, especially throughout the 20th century. So Gregory cannot sort of resolve all of our questions about this topic, but I do think he speaks

to some of the conversations that are happening today and probably is something to challenge all of us. First, I think Gregory challenges a secular perspective about justice. Because we hear a lot of voices saying essentially that in order to get justice, we have to get rid of religion. We have to embrace the values of the Enlightenment and move beyond the sort of superstitious beliefs of the past and so forth. And Gregory really complicates that narrative because he's a reminder that well before the Enlightenment, you can find many people decrying injustice like slavery. And for many people, it was precisely their religious faith that motivated them to do so.

Secondly, I think Gregory's sermon challenges some progressive Christian perspectives on justice. Because we also hear a lot of voices out there saying or implying something like this, in order to get justice, Christianity has to fundamentally change in one way or another. Often we'll hear the appeal, for example, that, well, Christians may have always thought about marriage in this one particular way pretty much universally throughout church history, but these were the same people who thought slavery was okay. It's like, well, Gregory sort of complicates that narrative too, because he's a reminder.

Those two issues don't have the same historical track record. Thirdly, I think Gregory's sermon challenges some conservative Christian perspectives on justice. Because there are some voices that are so focused upon opposing certain cultural trends with respect to justice that you walk away with more of a sense of what, what they're against than what they're for. There's so much emphasis put upon how justice can become a threat to the gospel

and comparatively less focus put upon how justice is part of how we live out the gospel. I think Gregory also challenges that mentality. He's a reminder for us that justice is a part of our heritage. This is a part of our tradition, something we need to retrieve. Christians should be the greatest advocates for justice. properly defined. So what does it mean to care about justice today? Well, again, not being comprehensive.

Here are three kind of starting steps that I'm considering and invite you to consider as well. Number one is listen. Sometimes we're so eager to take action and that can be good, but it often helps to start by simply listening to the people around us because other people have had different experiences and they'll just be able to see things that we can't quite see. So we've got to go into these conversations, not assuming that we already know in advance what we're going to learn. Somebody once said, you're not really listening until you're willing to be changed by what you hear.

Number two is learn. There are so many different issues of justice that we're facing in the world today. Racism, abortion, human trafficking, fatherlessness, climate issues. On and on we could go. each of these issues is complicated. Each of these issues has a complicated history. The better we understand them, the better positioned we are to address them. So a helpful starting step for many of us is simply find an issue that you really care about

and start reading and researching about it. Number three, not just listen, not just learn, but lean in. Now what does that mean to lean in? Well, I don't think we can know in advance. It means at least this, being ready and having an open heart. So, for example, here's one thing that all of us can do right now in this moment. Decide in advance that when we are in a context where we have an occasion to speak or act on behalf of justice, we will not shrink back in fear.

And I think we're naive if we think that we won't need courage in that moment. because that moment will not come by denouncing your enemy on social media. Far more likely that it will come when you have to speak against the sins of your own tribe. And it won't feel courageous. It will feel very vulnerable. But we can decide in advance, I'm going to lean in. Well, this is a heavy topic, and there's so much more to say about it. But let me leave us with one final encouragement.

We've been saying that there have always been Christians who care. about justice. Christians have really good reasons to care about justice. Christians should care about justice today. In all of that, it helps to kind of land on this point to remember that we have a God who cares about justice. In fact, we have a God who himself knows that feeling of anguish better than anyone, because in the person of Christ, he took on and experienced the worst injustice when he bore our sins upon the cross. We have a God who deeply cares about justice. So should we.