Acts 15 – Dissension
Implicitly
bound cultural features are important in established communal identities and
social control.[1]
Circumcision amid the Hebrews is an example of an implicitly bound cultural
feature for the purpose of establishing communal identity. The party of the
circumcision amongst the Jerusalem Council witnesses how deeply imbedded
circumcision was as the main cultural identifier in Judaism. The conflict
regarding Gentile conversions comes to the forefront of the Jerusalem Council
again due to the issue of the implicitly culturally bound Judaic identity.[2]
What was thought to have been settled in Acts 10-11 has reared its head again and
is brought up for debate in the council of the Apostles and elders in
Jerusalem. Believers who came out of the “sect of the Pharisees” voiced their
concern for the ancestral traditions that set them apart. The acceptance of
Gentiles without requiring circumcision and adherence to the Law of Moses were
part of the qualifiers, essentials elements of Judaic proselytism. There is a
level of sincerity within their concern, but the discernment of the theological
trajectory of Gentile inclusion is already in motion. The issue here is much
more than just circumcision and adherence to the Law of Moses. It is the issue
of national identity that has been part of the struggle for the Jewish nation.
N.T. Wright clarifies what the Pharisees intentions comprised during this
period,
. . . the agenda
of the Pharisees in this period was not simply to do with ‘purity,’ whether
their own or other peoples’. All the evidence suggests that at least the
majority of the Pharisees . . . had as their main aim that which purity symbolized: The political struggle to
maintain Jewish identity and to realize the dream of national liberation. . . .
The majority of the Pharisees until A.D. 70 were Shammaites, whose legendary
strictness in this period was not simply a matter of personal application of
purity codes but, as we see in the case of Saul of Tarsus, had to do with a
desire to purify, cleanse and defend the nation against paganism.[3]
The positive deviance practices and strategies of going to
the Gentiles, though they are thoroughly witnessed and authenticated by the
Spirit in Acts 10 – 11, are perceived as deviant by the sect of the Pharisees
(Judiazers), maybe even being perceived as deteriorating the Jewish national
distinctive according to Wright. The Jewish narrative relates the struggle to
maintain their identity and now it is potentially being diluted through the
inclusion of Gentiles without proper proselytism.
As observed earlier in the
narrative of Acts, the Apostles and elders in Jerusalem had affirmed the
Hellenist Christian mission to Samaria and Antioch in Acts 8:14-17 and
11:22-23. The conflict over the issue of circumcision and adherence to the Law
of Moses in Acts 15 suggests the Jerusalem Council was limited in their
abilities to give oversight. This is demonstrated in the council’s inability to
render sweeping edicts that held sway with the sect of the Pharisees. The
Antioch church and the Jerusalem Council are caught in a quandary, Keener
explains,
The churches of
the Diaspora, like the synagogues, were ruled by local elders, not by a
hierarchy in Jerusalem; but just as synagogues respected messengers from the
temple authorities in the homeland, the non-Palestinian churches need to
resolve the issues raised by those purporting to speak for Judean Christians.[4]
The sect of the Pharisees assumes that the Gentiles would
assimilate into the Judaic national identity as part of Israel by conforming to
Judaism. The assumption of the Pharisees represents the expectations of a
colonial cultural mode of expansion. The expectations are that in order to
belong, people must give up their cultural identity for another that is imposed
upon them. As demonstrated in the expectation of Gentiles to first proselytes
to Judaism in order to become part of the church. Anderson recognized that this
thought pattern is revealed in the narrative of Acts 15, he writes,
. . .
circumcision represents for them continuity with the Law of Moses. Delegates
from the church in Jerusalem were sent to Antioch with the demand ‘Unless you
are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved’ (Acts
15:1). Circumcision, originally given to Abraham as a covenant sign, has now
become for the church at Jerusalem the religious equivalent and requirement of
the Law of Moses.[5]
The narrative of Acts demonstrates a trajectory of deviance
from the traditional expectations of Judaic cultural assimilation to a
multicultural setting that engages people in their indigenous cultures.
The trajectory in the Acts of the
Apostles appears to definitively indicate that the positive deviance approach
is congruent with God’s plan as the Gospel is to go to all nations just as
Jesus commanded.[6]
This challenges the conventional wisdom and the cultural ideology of
assimilation to Judaism. Through the Hellenists positive deviance approach, the
Hellenists practices and strategies functioned as a means of empowering
contextualization of the Gospel into the Gentile cultural setting. The
Hellenists appear to have followed the descriptive Christology found in the
narrative of the Gospels as the driving force of their theological practices.
Acts 15 demonstrates the effect of
the positive deviance approach. The traditional mode of proselytism has been
redefined along with what it means to be identified with Jesus Christ. Judaic
Christianity as represented in the Jerusalem church irrevocably experienced an
upset of its social and cultural equilibrium as the Hellenists moved amongst
the Gentiles. Johnson and Harrington address how the narrative of Acts 15 has established
the trajectory and expansion of the Gospel with the approval of the Council, “.
. . the meeting allows Luke to legitimate in formal fashion the Gentile
mission: the human Church now catches up with the divine initiative, and
formally declares itself on the side of God’s plan to save all humanity.”[7]
The divine initiative deviated from the constructed path of Judaic culture to
include the Gentile cultures. The development of the Gentile mission came
through empowering contextualization with theological practices.
Johnson and
Harrington provide further discussion about the basis of contextualization in
the new formulation as found in faith, they assert, “. . . the debate enables
Luke to define more precisely the basis for this legitimacy, by establishing faith as the basis of salvation (and of
inclusion within God’s people) for all, both Gentiles and Jews.”[8]
The effect of the Council is to define clearly that the basis of
contextualization is through faith and not conformity to Judaic proselytism.
The emergence of faith as the means of contextualization at the council yields
an unprecedented opportunity for the forward movement of the Gospel amid the
Gentile nations as God’s initiative.
The initiative of God directly deviates
from the traditional identification with Israel through proselytism, instead
Christian converts maintain their own cultural identities thereby increasing
Israel’s identification. Contextualization is legitimatized by the Jerusalem
Council and which also recognized the theological practices of the Hellenists
as deviant to Judaism, but in sync with what God was doing, with God’s
initiative. Johnson and Harrington write,
. . . the
discussion provides the opportunity to emphasize the essential continuity between these stages in the
divine plan: the inclusion of the Gentiles does not mean the replacement of
‘Israel’ but its expansion; the elimination of Mosaic ethos (custom) for the Gentiles does not mean the elimination of
Torah, but rather the fulfillment of its prophetic intention, ‘made known long
ago’ (15:18) , as well as the continuation of those aspects of Torah that have
always applied to the proselyte and sojourner.[9]
The outcome of Jerusalem Council creates an uneasy
atmosphere of multiculturalism. The position of the Pharisees failed due to its
own success of separating themselves from the location of Gentile culture.
Their success was in maintaining a clear demarcation of the identity of Israel
through circumcision and the Law of Moses, but their zeal for the semiotics of
Judaism and their organization as a sect created an inflexible position
stalling the advance of the Gospel. The Council’s decision that they “should
not trouble the Gentiles who are turning to God”[10]
indicates there would not be a need to conform to Judaic traditions such as
circumcision and keeping the Law of Moses. The essential requirements given by
the council, “abstaining from things polluted by idols and from fornication and
from whatever has been strangled and from blood.”[11]
These essentials reflect the expectations of proselytes and sojourners in
Judaic culture and are offered by the council as the standard of representing
the New Covenant Israel.
The
council’s decision demonstrates that what could not be accomplished from a hierarchical
top down system had been accomplished through an intuitive Positive Deviance Approach
from within the community of faith. By means of contextualization through a
theological praxis based in the descriptive Christology found in narrative of
the Gospels, the Hellenists practices and strategies achieve what would
otherwise have been unthinkable, a Gentile church.
In the narrative of Acts the
dramatization plays out the full consequences of Jesus’ deviance as
demonstrated in the Gospels. The innovation of Jesus Christ as the fount of
deviance in relationship to the traditions and conventional wisdom is an
inescapable feature of the forward movement of the Hellenists in engaging
Gentile culture. This feature mobilized the Hellenistic members of the church
to search for and engage the variances or deviant practices and strategies in
their midst. The descriptive Christology inspired the theological praxis that
led to the contextualization of the Gospel amid the Gentiles. This led to the
inevitable emergence of the multicultural church and trajectory that brought
about the Gospels’ expansion into the Gentile world as witnessed in Acts.
The conclusion of the Jerusalem Council was that the Gentiles are welcome just as they are, on the same basis of faith in Jesus and God’s grace. The implication is that the modernist contemporary and institutional church in America should not expect marginalized people to conform to their cultural identification, but should adhere to and agree with the Jerusalem Council’s edict. Contextualization amid mainstream society is widely demonstrated through the use of popular music and leadership techniques, but contextualization amid the toughest segment of society demonstrate a need for an empowered theological praxis as demonstrated in the New Testament by Jesus Christ and the Hellenist.
[1] Ferraro,
Cultural Anthropology, 304–317.
[2]
Acts 15:1-5.
[3] N. T.
Wright, The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is
(InterVarsity Press, 2011), 56.
[4] Keener
and Press, The IVP Bible Background Commentary, Ac 15:2.
[5] Anderson,
An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches, 203.
[6]
Acts 1:8
[7] Johnson
and Harrington, The Acts of the Apostles, 268.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Johnson
and Harrington, The Acts of the Apostles, Acts 15:1-21.
[10]
Acts 15:19.
[11]
Acts 15:20.
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