Pondering Christianity's Legacy

A Millenium, hence, when the final hymn has been sung, and the last parish priest has laid by his chasuble for a final time at the close of Mass; when the only functioning baptistry is filled with dust, and the vibrant edifices of Christian worship are crumbling mausoleums housing the bodies of the faithful awaiting resurrection day, secular historians will ponder the Christian faiths of the twenty-fifth century much as historians today ponder the Greco-Roman religions of some two Millenia ago.

            I personally am unaware of any residual influence those religions of Greece and Rome play in contemporary religious life. No one today, so far as I know, calls in prayer the names of the eternal Gods of the Greco-Roman world. What remains of their crumbling temples are stark testimonies to the once great influence of their religions. What then served as their religious literature is today relegated to ancient history classes, much as might be the case with the Bible in a Millenium or so. The corridors of history are cluttered with the remains of “true” religions. (Everyone’s religion is the true religion.) This observation raises the issue of the legacy of Christianity; what will today’s Christian faiths have bequeathed to the generations after its demise and final gasp as a vital force in human life?

            Legacies are only a matter of opinion, but there is one feature sparked by the Judeo-Christian faiths that has elbowed its way into contemporary human culture as perhaps a lasting residue of Biblical, Jewish, and Christian faiths. It is the caring concern for the most vulnerable in society. Until recently, such a humane concern was even inculcated into some USA governmental programs (USAID, for example, which Mr. Trump has effectively all but eliminated) but is found primarily in innumerable private benevolent programs for the poor and disfranchised of society.

            In Hebrew Bible God was the protector of the most vulnerable in Israelite society, widows, orphans/fatherless, strangers/sojourners, and the poor.¹ For example:

You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. You shall not afflict any widow or orphan. (Exod 22:21-22 RSV)

You shall not strip your vineyards bare; neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the sojourner: I am the Lord your God. (Lev 19:10 RSV)

Christian faiths used the old covenant texts as Holy Scripture and to them added several postscripts in the form of what they called new covenant texts: gospels, letters/epistles, and an apocalypse. Within these postscript epistles/letters and gospels there is evidence that the gatherings of the earliest Christ followers continued the Israelite tradition of caring for the most vulnerable.

Jesus said, “Congratulations, you poor! God’s domain belongs to you. Congratulations, you hungry! You will have a feast. (Luke 6:20–21 SV)

In a parable: “Quick! Go out in the streets and alleys of the town, and usher in the poor, and crippled, the blind, and the lame.” (Luke 14:21 SV)

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. (Jas 1:27 RSV)

First Timothy 5:9–16 reflects the existence in the second century of an organized ministry to pious church widows and Paul coordinated a collection of money to support the poor saints in Jerusalem (1 Cor 16:1–4; Rom 15:25–29; 2 Cor 8–9; Gal 2:10; Jas 2:16–17).

            Many of the references about care for the disadvantaged in the New Testament relate to those in the household of faith but at several points the concern seems to shade over into care for anyone in need (for example, Rom 12:19–20; 1 Cor 13:8–10; Gal 6:10). The clearest example of humane care for the nobodies of the world, however, is found is a story Jesus told about an unknown man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. The man is mugged and left beside the road half dead. Two other men, likely officials of the Judean temple at Jerusalem, pass by him with a furtive glance while a third man, a Samaritan (despised by Judeans) was moved to act compassionately. He tended the wounds of the half-dead man, and took him to an inn, where he cared for him that evening. The next day he paid the innkeeper what amounted to two day’s pay and told him “Take care of him and whatever more you spend I will repay you when I come back” (Luke 10:29b–35). The Samaritan’s abundant benevolence is simply astonishing!² The story is a product of the history of Judaism, but it has been garnered from history’s dustbins by early Jesus followers, who elevated its putative creator to divine status. It represents (in my view) the best example of disinterested benevolence that Christianity has to offer. What in your view will be the most positive legacy of Judeo-Christianity?

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹M. G. Vanzant, “Orphan,” NIDB, 4.343; B. B. Thurston, “Widow,” NIDB, 5.846–47.

²The story recalls an aphorism in the Gospel of Thomas attributed to Jesus: “Blessed are those who go hungry to fill the starving belly of another.” Gospel of Thomas 69b (my translation).