Me, all the clothing I wear, all the language I know. And human beings themselves, made by other humans, struggling to create happy children and families. And even things built by machines were really built by human beings, who built the machines initially. ![]() Each brick was placed by human hands, each hinge fitted on each door, every road surface outside, every bulb in every streetlight. Someone laid the tiles on the floor, someone fitted the windows. Someone sanded the wood and varnished it. Someone once made this pew I’m sitting on, I thought. “Instead of thinking gigantic thoughts, I tried to focus on something small, the smallest thing I could think of. It was nonviolent, both on a personal level and a political level.”Ģ34. It was resolute in its vision of marriage and sexuality as between one man and one woman for life. It was staunch in its active resistance to infanticide and abortion. The church was spread across socioeconomic lines as well, and there was a high value for caring for the poor those with extra were expected to share with those with less. The church was marked by five distinctive features, all of which made it stand out against the backdrop of the empire: The church was multiracial and multiethnic, with a high value for diversity, equity, and inclusion. ![]() His thesis was that it wasn’t the church’s relevance or relatability to the culture but its difference and distinctness that made it compelling to so many. Larry Hurtado, historian of early Christianity, in his wildly celebrated book Destroyer of the Gods, told the story of how a tiny Jewish sect of Jesus followers overcame the bastion of paganism and won over the Roman Empire in only a few centuries.
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