As is my usual style, I'll post a snippet and sometimes comment on it, sometimes not. I hope you enjoy the ride! Here's the first one, summarizing his previous book (see excerpts here):
the scenes that displayed pagan resistance to the coming of the Christians illuminated fundamental features of Christianity's surprise: businessmen discerned the danger to their livelihood (Philippi, Ephesus), politicians found themselves in a pickle (Felix, Festus), local religious authorities saw their celebrations stop (Lystra), and so on. The modes of resistance varied, but they were all eventually intertwined with a sort of violence—the type that was based on the truth that the repentance and cultural reconstitution required by the Christians amounted to a devastation of constitutive patterns of a long-established, normal way of life.—One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, ix<idle musing>
If only that were true today! Unfortunately, it seems that Christianity has imbibed so much of culture as to be a part of it. Perhaps the only distinction that Christians can claim is to be more obnoxious and loud-mouthed than anyone else.
May we once again be leaven that makes the whole loaf edible, instead of a errant yeast that poisons the loaf!
</idle musing>
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