Posted by JohnnyC
on June 7, 2008, 10:37 am, in reply to "Part two applying it to Christian History"
72.214.122.146
Part 3 A deeper look at Cult and Sect activity in the formation and development of Christianity.
As we saw in part 2 Christianity became the religion it is, by a combination of Cult and Sect time periods. At First it was a sect then it was a cult as it moved throughout Pagan Rome. As Christianity began to officially come together in one religion you had several Sects arguing over theology. These arguments actually shaped Heresy and Orthodoxy. Not knowledge or revelation but argument shaped Christian Theology. Among the Gentile Sects that argued were Marcionism, Montanism, Gnosticism, Monarchianism.
Indeed our theology came about in many ways due to these arguments of Sect against Sect after they had gone through phases of cult like change by being located in different areas. And they all deemed the Jewish Christians to be wrong. Consider this quote from “A history of Christian thought by Justo L. Gonzalez.”
“On the other hand, the challenge posed by (perceived) heresies drew another response whose consequences were also great; theological activity. The thought and the pens of many Christians were stimulated by the challenge of those who attempted to show that the other versions of Christianity were more reasonable than the traditional one, and thus many theological works were produced whose influence went far beyond the direct denial of heresy.
These antiheretical writers who flourished late in the second century and early in the third were exponents of various theological traditions. In Gaul lived Irenaeus, a native of Asia Minor, who represented that theology which we have already seen from Asia Minor. Tertullian in Carthage, while drawing from Irenaeus, was also an exponent of the practical and moral interests that we have seen in the western church. Finally, Clement and Origen, whose theological activity was centered in Alexandria, reflected the intellectual atmosphere of that city.”
---End quote (mine)---
So we see here that writers from different parts of the world contributed to gentile Christianity by interpreting the message from their society’s world view. As we have already seen by moving form one world view to the next they fall under Cult status, if they reinterpret the message or assimilate it with their culture. What is interesting is these anti-heretical writings from all different areas were later collected and used as a sort of theological work in themselves. So this combination of cultic worldviews created the newly forming Proto-Orthodox (Catholic) Sect of Christianity.
Later during the reformation Protestant religions became sects or revitalizing movements derived from Catholicism. These Sects later gave birth to more sects all of them trying to fix perceived wrongs in interpretation and bring their faith back to the truth. In my opinion none have really gone back to the beginning in an effort to discover what the original followers of Jesus taught. Many do go back to the early gentile writings but seldom does anyone go back to the early Jewish-Christian writings because the early gentile Christians had deemed these heretical.
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