Truth Unites - Was Pacifism the Early Church's View?

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

In this video Gavin Ortlund explores whether pacifism was the early church's view. See Han's Madueme's Defending Sin: https://bit.ly/44lXVEe Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville. SUPPORT: Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://truthunites.org/

Were the early Christians pacifists, the word pacifism, you probably heard that word. Basically, it means like a moral opposition to war and violence. And there's kind of a spectrum of different options of what that can't entail, as we'll see in this video. One of the common narratives about the early church is that basically everybody is a pacifist until Augustine, and then Augustine and the fourth century, more generally, everything changes with Constantine becoming a Christian, the emperor becoming a Christian, and so forth. And in this video, what I want to do is try to trace things out, and basically there is some truth to that narrative, but it's more complicated.

And this hopefully will be helpful for just learning. What did early Christians think about this? We can learn a lot from them. There's two reasons this is so important. One is just that the issue itself of pacifism is really important to think about. I mean, it's very practical right now. There's a lot of wars in the world that we have to think about how we should respond and so forth. I've been challenged by the – I've been reading more about the church fathers on social issues lately.

that isn't something I've known as much about. You know, I've studied theology much more than social things and ethics. So I've been learning a lot. It's fascinating. We can learn so much from them, and we have so much to learn. The other reason I like this issue, though, in particular, is it's kind of a case study for how to read church history in general, because it brings up these important methodological questions about the importance of context and the importance of recognizing ambiguity, which are

the two themes that I'll get into here. And stick to the end, because at the end I have four takeaways that I think might be of interest as you're watching. That'll sum everything up. Before I dive in, I do want to give one quick book recommendation, because I'm often, as you have observed on my YouTube channel, criticizing Young Earth Creationism. But it really is in my heart. When I do these things, it's in the spirit of trying to do triage. It's not that I, you know, that's a legitimate concern of mine, is I do want my channel to be a rallying point around the gospel. So in that spirit, I wanted to recommend what I think is maybe the best Young Earth Creationist book that I would recommend to people,

okay? Hands Metoamay, Defending Sin, a response to the challenges of evolution and the natural sciences. I'll hold it up so you can see it. Fantastic book. It's just out. I put a link to this in the video description. It's from Baker Academic. Fantastic book. And I was just reading it over the weekend and just thinking, you know, this is the kind of book. To put it up in a nutshell, the reason I often criticize Youngerth Creationism is because I see that as a stumbling block for people coming to faith or in their faith. But that's not, that usually has to do with how that view is argued. Okay.

Hans is a great example of someone who is arguing really well for that view. And though I don't agree with it, I think he makes, he gives a much fairer and just better argued case. So if someone's asking for, what do you think is the best case for Youngerth Creationism, I would say this book. And even though he's specifically defending a traditional view of sin, he kind of gets into all kinds of stuff about animal death before the fall and things like that. So I highly recommend it.

Check it out in the video description. All right, let's dive in. And in what follows, I'm going to be benefiting a lot from this book by Christopher Hall, Living Wisely with the Church Fathers. This is part of a series of books he's done. And I like his books and his writing. My friend Trevin put me onto this. So this is now the third video that he has inspired because he's always given me a good

video ideas. Thank you, Trevin. But basically, I started reading this, and I realized we have so much to learn on these social issues from the church fathers and the early church more generally, and they don't fit into our paradigms. I put it on Twitter recently. I'll put up this tweet. You can read. I was just basically saying the church fathers and the early church, they challenge all of us. They don't fit into either the right or the left, you know, for example. They're kind of helpfully, edifyingly subversive to our instincts, and they challenge us. And that's what, that's just in a nutshell what I love about all of church history. So hopefully this video, you'll get some of that on this topic. Let's dive in. So in the early church you do have,

especially so I'm going to say the anti-Nicine church a lot in this video, that means before the Council of Nicaea in 325. And most specifically, I'm thinking, before the edict of Milan in 313, February of 313, everything changes because now Christianity becomes legal. huge watershed moment in the early church. Prior to that, okay, the church is this very small persecuted group in a pagan world. We can learn so much from them as we increasingly live in a world where we're sort of culturally marginalized. We can learn so much from that earliest span of church history.

And in that time, there is this strong impulse toward pacifism. And I think even though I am not a pacifist, I've wrestled with this issue, I respect that view in a way. I don't incline to it. You'll see what I think as we go. But I think we have something to learn nonetheless from the mentality of these early Christians. For example, Justin Martyr and Athenagoras, these early second century apologists, they have this strong commitment to nonviolence and toward how basically Jesus Christ has put away the sword.

This is the way of thinking. Justin Martyr, and his first apology, is quoting from Isaiah 2, and this reference to the nations beating their swords into plowshares and no longer lifting up sword against each other. And he says that basically this is fulfilled. Jesus fulfilled Isaiah 22. We now live in the era of peace that Christ has ushered in. You know, fascinating. And basically so he's saying that we who formerly used to murder one another now refrain from making war upon our enemies.

Now, with all that one of the themes of this video is going to be, we have to be so careful. in the way we interpret historical data. It's really easy to kind of take something and run too far with it, because these kinds of statements are often talking about Christian conduct in general, not necessarily addressing more specific questions about the role of the state or other circumstances, and so forth. They're also coming in a context where there's a lot of persecution from the state and so forth, and as we'll see in which there's a lot of sin that's sort of interwoven into military service

necessarily because of the context they're in. So that's why we have to be careful how we take these. Nonetheless, it's a strong statement. Athanagoras has some similar statements like this where he's responding to the charge of cannibalism because of Christian views of the Eucharist, and he responds basically by saying, well, how can we be cannibalists when we refuse to kill?

Okay, and he's got other statements condemning the gladiator contests, and he's saying that basically to see a man being put to death is the same as killing him, which is an amazingly strong statement. If you think about it, now I'm going to do another video on the early church's view of entertainment, the theater, the gladiator contest, and so forth. Wow, there is so much we have to learn from that, you know. And it's not as much of just, I went into that topic thinking I'm just going to get convicted

and just going to be hit with a hammer because of how much time I spend on YouTube and things like that. But it's not just that. So stay tuned for that video. The thumbnail says, would the church fathers watch TV? So that's how you can recognize that one when it comes out. Hopefully that'll be of interest, kind of a fun, just edifying video to learn from. So this is reflective of an early mentality.

You've got Justin saying Christians no longer make war on their enemies. Athenagoras is saying, we refuse to kill, to watch someone being killed is just as bad to kill. even factoring in the context, these are strong statements and they're reflective of a certain mentality in the early church that I think we can learn a lot from. You also see something similar in Turtullian. Tratullion seems to forbid military service to Christians, at least in one or two passages. So, you know, he's basically saying there is no agreement between the light and the dark. How can a Christian man a war when Christ has taken away the sword? Okay, this is a lot of the imagery. Christ has taken away the sword. You find that kind of language a lot in the anti-Nicene church.

Now, that can seem, that can make it seem pretty clear cut. One of the things we're going to hammer home here is the importance of context and the ambiguity here. Because in these early centuries, enrollment in the army, as well as service in the Roman government, would often require idolatrous sacrifices. There's a legitimate question here to ask of, well, are these statements really so cast against Roman military service that they don't necessarily address all kinds of military service in any other context, that kind of question. This is the kind of context questions that come up here. And the reason that's a legitimate question to ask is that Tertullian himself references dispute about when and whether Christians are able to serve in a pagan context without getting sort of sucked into the idolatry that is there. And he gives examples like Joseph and Daniel from the Old Testament to talk about this disputed question. And he basically seems to grant that at least in some

context this is possible. Let us grant that it is possible for anyone to succeed in moving in whatsoever office under the mere name of the office, neither sacrificing nor lending his authority to the sacrifices, and he goes on and so forth. Of course, these, man, these translations of Tratullion are so old and kind of cluttered. But basically, you can see the reference there. This helps you into the sacrifices. This helps you understand the context a little better. And what's kind of motivating some of these concerns and some of these restrictions on military service. It gives you a little fuller picture. Similarly, in the apostolic tradition, you have these listing of various roles that catechumans have to give up to get baptized. Like, you know, being a magician.

It's like you can't get baptized if you're still practicing magic. Same with prostitution, other things. Okay, it gets to military service or being like a military governor. Look what it says about this. A military man in authority must not execute men. If he is ordered, he must not carried out. Norm must he take military oath. If he refuses, he shall be rejected.

If someone is a military governor or the ruler of a city who wears the purple, he shall cease or he shall be rejected. The catechumen are faithful who wants to become a soldier is to be rejected, for he has despised God. Wow, that's a long, there's always when I'm doing these videos, these statements that stand out to me that I hadn't thought about until I'm talking. Because I write up my script very carefully so I don't waste your time. But, you know, no matter how careful you are, it's the same thing happens when you preach a sermon. You always say something that surprises you, you know.

That final statement, for he has despised God. You know, again, there's this mentality. back there that we can learn something from. But there's also some nuance in this, if you notice. So it's those serving in the higher office who have to leave it, and no one should seek becoming a soldier, but those serving in a lower office are simply required not to kill or to take oaths. So you might have a Roman soldier who's in a capacity that doesn't require killing. This is the case in military roles. You could have a cook or a technician or a builder or a Smith. Some people think that there were servants for the soldiers, people who had served the soldiers

who did the fighting. So you could have a catacumen who remains in a role like this, as envisioned by the apostolic tradition. So again, this is helping us understand a little bit some of the concerns behind these prohibitions. It doesn't seem to be the case that sort of any participation in a war effort is just intrinsically evil through and through. Rather, the concerns seem a little more specific and more about killing. And this is a tension you see in the early church. On the one hand, there is this deep impulse. And I, as someone who wants to be a peacemaker in the best sense of that term, I've thought a lot about this topic. I have a respect for pacifism to a degree. You know, as someone who's thought a lot about this, I have to say, I deeply respect this impulse

against, they're in this bloodthirsty world. Okay. And there's this strong impulse in the early church against bloodshed. I love that. We can learn from that. Yes, amen. Jesus Christ has put away the sword. On the other hand, there's attention here because the early Christians are also being accused of being subversive to the Roman state. And so they're trying to defend themselves. So, no, no, we're loyal citizens, we pay our taxes and so forth. And to that extent, you can see Christians emphasizing that they pray for the success of the Roman army in wars. So you see that in Cyprian, even though Cyprian is very strongly against violence and bloodshed, and he's talking about how it's terrible that the state would kill for sport and things like this, he's not too far from Turtullian.

But he also urges in his letter to Demetrius, that Christians are loyal citizens who pray for the repulsing of Rome's enemies. You also see this in origin. I'll put up the same quotation that he uses from Isaiah 2 about beating our swords into plowshares and so forth. You can read this. same theme of Justin Martyr, we don't do that anymore. We don't fight like that anymore. Jesus Christ has come and brought peace, right? But then he also talks about in many passages how Christians show their loyalty to Rome through their prayers. He has a passage where he says,

basically, our prayers are more effective than if we were to serve in the military. So he's clearly praying for, and he does have a concept that some of these wars, like these defensive wars, can be just wars. He doesn't really talk about that or flush that out. a whole lot. So the mentality doesn't seem to be that all killing is equally bad. That seems implicit in the way a Cyprian or an origin will pray for the Roman army. And that seems to be very different than like the Gladiator games, right? And so sometimes this is what you get when you're talking about church history. It's helpful to realize this. Sometimes it's kind of ambiguous. You know, sometimes it's not super clear. Sometimes church history is not like this compact little

object that you can just do whatever you want with it, and you just get it and it's clear. Sometimes it's a little more murky and you're sort of working with it. And so in this early period, it's a little ambiguous, as we'll see, because I'm going to bring in some countervailing evidence, too. Another aspect of this issue in this early period of church history is just how the context is shaping things. It gives us a reminder of how important it is to pay attention to context when you're studying church history.

For example, you can find what looked like a very clear denunciate. of all military service, but on inspection, it's responding to a very specific event that had just transpired. And some people think this is going on with Canon 12 of Nicaa 1, which initially sounds like a pretty whole, I'll just put it up, I won't read it, but it sounds like a pretty much a wholesale prohibition of military service. But then as you look at it, you study it, you pay attention to the little nuances of language, and especially what is in the parentheses here. what a lot of scholars think is this is responding to a specific event where military veterans basically had returned to fight under Valerius Licinius. So he was one of, he was basically

an emperor kind of at the same time as Constantine I first and then Constantine sort of took over. And he had persecuted Christians. And so some people think this is talking about people who went back and participated in his army, even while he's opposing Christians. And that would explain, you know, so much. It would explain the harsh measures for this canon, where you have 10 years as a prostrator. Prostrators were people who could come in. This is a part of penance. You could come into the church building and participate a bit, but then you had to leave with the catacumans.

So I want to be clear. But, so, you know, there's these kinds of nuances and issues of context and ambiguity. But I want to be clear, there is a lot of rigorous pacifism in this anti-nicine period. I'm not trying to say that's not there. You know, one of the fun things about studying this for me is I have no ax to grind on this topic. I don't really care in a sense. I mean, I care about the issue, but it's not like I have no angle here. I'm not like wanting it to be one way or the other.

I'm just genuinely kind of open-minded to whatever the truth is. And so it was fun to study. And so I just want to try to be really accurate all the way. there is a lot of pacifism, strong pacifism. I would say that certainly seems to be the predominating position among Christians prior to the fourth century. Lettanchus, a great example of this, kind of in this later, you know, pushing into the fourth century in his divine institutes.

He's condemning the practice of child exposure and the gladiator games and the sexual immorality of the theater. I'll get to that in my video on entertainment in the early church. the early church's view of entertainment, my video on that. And then in that context, like Tantius says, for when God forbids us to kill, he not only prohibits us from open violence, which is not even allowed by the public laws, but he warns us against the commission of those things which are esteemed, lawful among men. Thus, it will be neither lawful for a just man to engage in warfare, since his warfare is justice itself, nor to accuse anyone of a capital charge, because it makes no difference

whether you put a man to death by word or rather by the sword. And he goes on a bit. So this is a very strong statement. Killing either by the word or by sword is wrong and it's very articulate, clear sort of pacifist instinct that you can see there and in many other places as well. I don't want to take away from that. But ultimately, the reason I'm emphasizing

these comments about context and ambiguity is because I think we have countervailing evidence and I think we have to factor that in and we get a little more complicated picture here. So we have a letter from Marcus Aurelius to the Senate about Christians. Now, when we think of Marcus Aurelius, we probably think of either quotes we've seen from him or we think of Richard Harris from the movie Gladiator, put up a picture of him. I love the movie Gladiator.

I'm recording this in 2024. It's already 24 years old. Can you believe that? Love that movie. Cool historical movie. It spawned a lot of interest in like the Roman Empire and stuff like that. But anyway, fascinating character in that movie, but Marcus Aurelius is also important in church history.

He was addressed by early Christians like Athenagoras, and Justin Martyr includes this alleged copy of his letter where he's talking about those whom we supposed to be atheists, that's Christians. And basically, to summarize this rather than read it all, the story here is that Roman soldiers are serving under Marcus Aurelius, fighting against the Germanic tribes up there, and there's a drought, and the soldiers are thinking. thirsty, and Christians pray, and God sent rain. And so Marcus Aurelius is talking about this, and he's saying, you know, let's not attack the Christians so much because of this. Now,

Tertullian and Eusebius both mentioned this as well, and they both seem to describe these Christians praying for rain as soldiers in the army. Tertullian says they are Christians fighting under him, and so they're fighting under Marcus Aurelius. And Eusebius references them as soldiers, as well as as Christians. Christopher Hall concludes that we can reliably conclude on the basis of this incident that Christians were serving in the Roman army in the second century. Now, on the other hand, we still need to be so careful here. Caution is still important because it's really easy to misread this data in this way too, because one of the things that Hall points out is that another scholar named Ron Sider is basically saying these sources don't tell us whether or not they were Christians

and joined the army as a Christian or whether they were a soldier and became a Christian after they're already in the army. And that's a really important distinction that we'll talk about more. Louis Swift or Lewis Swift in his book on this topic thinks that we have good reason to think that basically you have a lot of Christian soldiers, especially throughout the third century and the number of Christian soldiers is growing a lot in the late third century because he talks about the Diocletian persecution at the turn of the fourth century and says this attestalien. a growth of Christians serving in the military around that time. You also have in the early fourth century the Senate of Aral in 314, which stipulates discipline for those who throw down

their arms in time of peace. This is a great example of the kind of data that you get. It's kind of ambiguous. You have to be careful. This is disputed. But some scholars think this is a reference to soldiers serving during a time of peace. Because basically in the Roman Empire, the soldiers acted kind of like police during peace times. And so the reference here is to Christians refusing to fulfill that obligation and coming under discipline. That's what a lot of people think. And basically what he notes is the idea of Christians serving during periods of relative calm, but deserting when war threatened, is simply not credible. So summing up, in terms of the Antin Nicene Church, we have this very strong, pacifistic impulse. There's this deep, clear, articulate,

concern about bloodshed. They are opposing the bloodthirstiness of their world and the gladiator games and stuff like this. More on that in the video on entertainment. However, the evidence is not unambiguous and it does look like at the same time. Number one, there's qualifications to that. There are allowances for some forms of service. The attitude about wars isn't only negative, and there do seem to be Christians who are serving in the military in some capacity. Okay. Then things start really changing in the fourth century for two reasons. Number one is you have, as I mentioned earlier, the conversion of Emperor Constantine.

Okay. And then as you're going forward, you get the full union of church and empire later in the fourth century under Theodosius in 380. So, you know, if you think of what it's like to be a Christian in 311, two years before the Edict of Milan, and then in 381, okay, after Christianity becomes the official state religion of the Roman Empire, in 70 years, everything changes. It's a completely different context.

And if you just think about, you know, for example, now you have to answer different questions like, okay, now we're a Christian empire. So if we're attacked by the Germanic tribes, how do we defend ourselves? Totally different kind of question than when you're just, getting slaughtered by the empire, you know? And the reality is that there's a huge change here in how Christians are thinking, though it's not out of thin air. You know, as I say, the change

early on, you can find some precedent for this, but there is change as well. And so that's the first cause of the change is the fourth century union of church and state. The other big cause is Augustine of Hippo, who is such a decisive figure in church history, are arguably for both good and ill, and people can debate, you know, how much good, how much ill. But Augustine, late 4th century, early 5th century, really is the architect for just war theory. It's hard to, I was trying to think of how to describe Augustine's influence. It's kind of like Michael Jordan on the Bulls. Maybe it's a lame metaphor.

I just watched The Last Dance, that TV show again. So there's a great scene. I can't remember who it was. It might have been Steve Kerr. But someone asks another Bulls player. I grew up in Chicago in the 90s, so, you know, but someone asks Steve Kerr, like, what made the difference in this game? And he thinks for a second, then he's like, well, the difference is that we had Michael on our team. You know, Michael Jordan is like, he's just so good that he just single-handedly

determines so much. Well, St. Augustine, single-handedly determines a lot of the church's development, especially in the medieval West. So you're going through the fourth century, you're seeing all these changes. Suddenly, it goes from being a Christian goes from being really costly to really common. And in response to that, you're getting all these distinctions between different kinds of Christian service, different kinds of Christian status. So as martyrdom is becoming less common, virginity is increasing to some extent sort of taking that role of like the pinnacle model of Christian virtue and so forth. You also have this distinction between, the distinction between clergy and laity increases.

Celibacy becomes more common. And Eusebius talks about how basically that the Christian life itself is of two different characters. And he says basically Christ's disciples gave two different kinds of teaching. First, they gave teaching to those who rose above human nature if they're able to receive that. And then second, there's a teaching that is accommodated to the weakness of the majority. Okay.

And note how he describes these two. Two ways of life were thus given by the law of Christ to his church. The one is above nature and above common human living. It admits not marriage, childbearing, property, nor the possession of wealth, but wholly and permanently separate from the common customary life of mankind. It devotes itself to the service of God alone. And the other, more humble, more human, permits men to join in pure nuptials and to produce children to undertake government, to give orders to soldiers fighting for right, it allows them to

have mines for farming, for trade, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It calls that a secondary grade of piety. So you see there the permission for this second, more common grade of piety to serve in not just get married and own property, but to serve in government and in the military. Okay. So, and a different translation, it renders that as this life lays down practical rules for those fighting and adjust war. That's the translation from this book that I've previously mentioned. I'll put up the picture. It's an important book. So now, in the fourth century, you still have a lot

of restrictions on military service like this canon from 340. So basically here, this is quite typical of the thinking. There's a discomfort with military service, but you're trying to give exceptions. In this case, it's on the basis of compulsory service, required service. Chris Hall talks about Basel. He's got another interesting take where basically he's saying he makes a distinction between murder and killing, but he still recommends church discipline for soldiers who've engaged in merely killing as opposed to murder, as he uses those terms. and, you know, Jonathan McGuckin and a few other scholars read this passage in the same way, that Basel does seem to think that any sort of killing is a matter of repentance.

So you can also see the older, more rigorous, pacifist view of a Turtelian persisting into this time, Martin of Tours in the 5th century, Paulinus, the Bishop of Nola, or he's in the 5th, sorry, Martin of Tours in the 4th. So you can find people like this who are still saying like, Jesus Christ put away the sword. We're no longer in the time where we make war, and it does seem to be a more rigorous, pacifist position. But what really comes into the picture is Augustine, and he builds a theory of just war. He basically teaches that there are times when it is just to both wage war and participate in war. He warns that there are very rare conditions that have to be met. But he does basic, and he says, you know, it's always better to achieve peace, by diplomacy than by the sword, but he says there is such a thing as a just war. And he builds a theory for how do you know that and so forth? And his treatment of this is so hugely influential.

Now, there is no denying that Augustine is representing a huge modification of prior thought, but it's not completely out of thin air. So as I've said, there were Christians who were serving before, and you can find people praying for the military origin can have a category for a defensive war being a just war. So it's not completely new, but Augustine really is a game changer on this issue from what I can tell. And I guess what you could basically say, one of the things with Augustine that he appeals to is the Old Testament.

This is something origin also struggled with. I mean, you know, it's kind of interesting in the early church. You know, if you say that there's no such thing as a just war, you know, what do we do? with like the Book of Joshua, I just did a video on the Conquest of Canaan a few weeks ago. Some, like, origin will allegorize some of these passages. And Augustine is coming along and saying, no, no, no, no, that, you know, David was a warrior, and that was just. But Augustine also points to New Testament figures, like Cornelius and the Centurion of Matthew

8. And this seems like a good point, you know. We don't want to be like Marcian and reject the Old Testament. And then we've also, like, think of David and Goliath. You know, David is killing Goliath. There seems to be a place for that kind of action that doesn't seem like it's murder or homicide. And then in the New Testament as well, in addition to those two figures I just mentioned,

Augustine brings up Luke 314, which seems like a very relevant passage. Basically, soldiers come to John the Baptist, and they're asking, what shall we do? Meaning, what does repentance look like? You're calling us to repent. What does that look like? And he says, do not extort money. from anyone by threats or by false accusation and be content with your wages. And Augustine points out, certainly he did not prohibit them to serve as soldiers when he commanded

them to be content with their pay for their service. This is something C.S. Lewis brings up also in mere Christianity, I'll put up his statement about this. It's a good point. You know, Lewis also has a good essay on this called Why I'm not a pacifist. And basically, to lay my cards on the table a little bit, I think that's a pretty good argument from Luke 314. Another one of Augustine's appeals is essentially, that there's times where taking life actually results in a greater preservation of life. And he has a lot to say about defensive wars. And just pragmatically and logically, that does seem to be right.

It does seem to be the case that sometimes taking some life actually saves more lives. And it's not hard to think of scenarios where that can happen. But great caution is needed here, of course, because just because there can be a just war doesn't mean that most wars are just. You know, what's amazing when you get into just war theory is how strict the criteria often are. So, you know, most non-defensive wars are probably unjust. Like, as I understand it, again, not being an expert on this issue, more of a learner on it, in traditional just war theory to engage in a preemptive military strike, the threat against you has to be both credible and immediate. So that's pretty strict if you think about that. You know,

that would exclude like the Iraq War of 2005 from being a just war. Because if you are going to have a preemptive military strike, the threat needs to be credible and immediate. In that case, it wasn't. It was just wrong. The intel about weapons of mass destruction was wrong. So, you know, the point is Augustine has strict boundaries on what just wars are, but there is such a thing as a just war. And then that idea, basically from Augustine, he, it just develops, and that remains in the mix going forward in the tradition. So let me sum up now and kind of sum it up in four steps. Conclusions and takeaways and big picture observations, four of them.

Number one, there is a strong instinct toward pacifism in the anti-Nicine church. And we can learn a lot from that, as I have said. War, violence, and killing are strongly condemned in the early church. there's something good about that, you know, especially given the context that they're in. And there's something noble about that. And I think that pacifism is a legitimate Christian view. I don't think it's wrong as a Christian to hold that view. It's got a lot of historical precedence.

And sometimes that view isn't taken seriously enough, you know. The things that are good about that view are really good. And as we face an increasingly hostile world, I think we have a lot to learn from that pre-fourth century, early church. we can learn so much from them because we're facing contexts that aren't as bad as what they faced, but there's common principles that we can learn from. Okay, number two, just war theory has a legitimate Christian history. I don't see this as a takeover or a violent reversal. Even in the early church before Augustine, there are qualifications and exceptions

to the condemnation of war and killing. and the just war tradition that then takes off with Augustine seems to basically just remain in the picture so much that when C.S. Lewis argues against pacifism, he can appeal to the tradition because it's become so strong since Augustine. Furthermore, that view has some pretty strong arguments in terms of the Old Testament, in terms of the logical and pragmatic reasons for it, and so forth. Third conclusion, the nature of the church's development from a strongly pacifistic instinct to just war theory is a good case study of some of the challenges of studying church history generally. It draws attention to how much of a factor context is and the presence of ambiguity in sorting through data that seems conflicting at times. And I think there's a lot we can learn from that. I could talk about this a lot.

I don't even know how much to go into this. I could just, you know, I kind of think of this in like our debates, Protestant to Catholic to Orthodox and so forth. And I think just all of us do well to remember how dynamic and complicated church history is. When we try to use church history as a weapon, we often find we will be ultimately misusing it. That's not to say we should never make appeals from church history, but it's really easy to do it poorly. You know, the conversion of Constantine, for example, just that you see how much that changes the entire church. If we didn't have that, we wouldn't have these ecumenical councils at all. It's an emperor in every single one of the first seven ecumenical councils who both convokes and presides over

the council. And so, you know, when we make these appeals to like the early church as a whole, it's like, well, what even is that? The early church in the third century is totally different from the early church in the fifth century. And sometimes we just were naive to how much change is going on. So, you know, people are fighting over like, oh, the church looks like us. And then others are saying, no, it looks like us. And sometimes we don't realize just how diverse the subject matter is that we're talking about. And how much it's changing along the way. And that's fine.

It's just good to recognize that. And then to recognize the ambiguity of church history. So not every issue is clear. If you go into things thinking, well, on any given issue, I will just study what the church ultimately got to, there will be some issues where it's kind of ambiguous. and it's not easy to put all the pieces together. And so we just, you know, if you're looking to church history to, like, deliver the ultimate resolution, like this will solve everything. I'll just study it enough, and then I'll know everything. You'll have that experience of like when

your glasses are the slightly the wrong prescription on some issues where your lens just isn't quite clear. It's just, there's points that are a little murky, and not everything is totally Christly clear. And I say that as someone who is always encouraging Christians to learn from church history. I just put out a tweet last night about the importance of learning from church history. But you have to kind of also know what you're dealing with. It's complicated and sometimes it's ambiguous and you just got to know that going into it. Fourth and finally, whatever specific convictions God leads you to on this question of pacifism, those of you who watch my videos know, if you're a Christian, like I am, it is helpful to learn something from this instinct

against violence and bloodshed. Jesus calls us to be peacemakers, and even if we are not pacifists, I am not a pacifist, but we should recognize that war is not like a good thing to glory in. You know, it should be embraced with reluctance rather than necessity, not with glee. and then in every area of our lives, and it's always to the larger end of peace. The simple fact is, God is a peacemaker, and we are called to be peacemakers in every area of our lives. That includes our online dialogue. In our hearts, we should desire to dwell in a harmonious relationship with other people if we can. And the reason for that, of course, is the gospel.

One of the ways to summarize the gospel is just to say God has been a peacemaker with us through Christ. God has offered us peace terms. We were at war with him through sin, and he offered us peace terms because of Christ at the cross. Romans 510, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his son. God made peace with us through Christ, if we've repented and trusted in him. And if you really drink that into your heart, you know, if you really take that and say, okay, the God at whom I was waging war with my sin came down to me in the person of Christ and said, let's be at peace.

Let's make peace. you know if that reality is alive in your heart and you really know that's how god still feels about me today he still wants to live in peace with me as i as i walk with the lord you can't help but then seek to live try to live peacefully with others so that's just a pastoral implication from all this as well all right that's all i got whether it was good or not so good who knows it's the best that i got i'm not an expert on this issue not an expert read some books learned a lot, tried to condense it down, hope this helps. If you are, thanks for watching, and I always forget to do this. I need to do this more because I need more, a little more support

right now, actually. If it would be a source of joy for you to support Truth Unites, you can do that on the website. I would love to partner with people. If, and here's the way I love to cast it, because this is what gives me joy to say it like this. If it would be a joy to you to support Truth Unites, Like you would really be happy and feel good about that, then that would make me have joy as well. But don't do it if it's a burden in the slightest. But I do need support and would appreciate it if you're able to help. All right. Thanks for watching everybody.

Keep your eyes peeled for the video. The early church's view on entertainment. Would the church fathers watch TV? Would they go to plays? And would they be on social media? Well, who knows? It's a thought experiment. but we'll try to maybe learn a little bit that might help us know a little bit about maybe what the answer could be

and we can learn from that. So keep your eyes peeled for that video. All right, thanks for watching. See you next time.