Strange Religion, by Nijay K. Gupta, Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2024. 228 Pages
What Makes Christianity Weird?
What is it about Christianity that’s distinctive? Different than other philosophies of life, faith disciplines, and religions?
Nijay Gupta begins his book with a question that answers my own: “Why did the early Christians call themselves ‘believers’?” I had never really wondered that. It seems self-evident to me. But, to the ancients, this was one of several Christian characteristics that explains how, in Gupta’s words, “The First Christians Were Weird, Dangerous, and Compelling.”
Strange Religion is organized into four sections that explore what it meant to become a Christian, what the first Christians believed, how they worshiped, and how they lived. In his inimically refreshing and engaging style, Gupta describes the innovations and pioneers who began a distinctly new religion that was not a religion at all.
Part 1, Becoming a Christian
The first three chapters depict the early Christians’ worship practices and belief system against the backdrop of Roman religion, and in comparison to the Jewish religion from which Christianity originally sprang. I learned quite a bit, particularly concerning the importance of temple rituals and obligations to the gods.
Evidently, pax deorum, “peace with the gods,” was the primary motivation for all the festivals, temples, rites, and rituals of Roman religion. It was believed the gods were aware of earthly things, though they dwelt in their Elysian idyl, and occasionally even visited earth (usually to bed a mortal, or involve themselves in battle). But, by and large, the gods stayed where they were. Peace with the gods was kept by regular and lavish offerings, and perhaps a god might also, in the manner of a patron, choose to reciprocate with a blessing.
People did not have relationships with gods.
Yet Christians not only believed Jesus, they experienced the indwelling of Jesus’s Spirit within them, a palpable and constant oneness with the God of the Universe. For Christians, faith was everything, but for Romans “personal beliefs, best intentions, and heartfelt emotions did not enhance religions. What mattered was what the gods actually called for—sacrifice and compliance” (30).
For Romans, such devotion—faith—and relationship sounded like superstition, and undermined the careful balance of pax deorum. That made Christianity not only strange, but dangerous.
Part 2, What the First Christians Believed
Four chapters portray both Christian concepts and Roman response. From
- the resurrection of a crucified criminal
- to the absolute power of Almighty God and God the Son, Jesus
- to the transforming power of the indwelling Holy Spirit
- to God’s real and tangible presence throughout the earth
- and Christians’ instant 24/7 access to God no matter where they are,
Christianity presented truly revolutionary concepts. Even mystery religions, with their promises of ecstatic intimacies with a god, and knowledge of celestial secrets, did not speak to faith and relationship, and eternal life.
Christians have no need of sacred buildings, temples, priests, or sacrifices. There was nothing Christians needed to do to keep peace with God. Gupta’s chapter on “Cult Without Smoke and Blood” was a fascinating window into the ritual practices of the Greco-Roman world, and even the Jewish temple rites. Special days, festivals, the concrete reality of animal sacrifice (gushing blood and billows of pungent smoke) juxtaposed against Christian gatherings of singing, praying, and reading sacred writing, was eye-opening.
The last chapter in this section, “Possessed by the Spirit of God,” draws attention to Christians becoming individually and corporately God’s living temple, rather than needing to congregate in a physical temple or holy ground that offered extra connection power to the spiritual realm. The entire planet, in a way, becomes God’s sacred space, or “hot spot,” as Gupta writes, where people can meet with God.
Finally, the first Christians keened after the time to come when God would fulfill the promise of living in restored relationship with humanity and all creation. No other religion had such a future orientation.
Part 3, How the First Christians Worshiped
Christians using the language of family confused the tiered and hierarchical Greco-Roman world of status. Christians met privately in homes, greeted each other with holy kisses, and spoke of each other as brothers and sisters, prompting dark suspicions among outsiders about what Christians were really up to—they all seemed far to familiar with each other. Such behavior seemed to undermine the pater familias, the patriarchal family unit with the head of household as ruler.
Church gatherings also followed a liturgy of prayers, songs, and the repeating of faith creeds, where every believer was a priest, and every member whether enslaved or free, Greek or Jew, male or female was treated as equal participants. Yet, the very fabric of Roman society was woven with strong threads of standing and rank. Christians threatened the whole system.
Part 4, How the First Christians Lived
The final three chapters speak to the highly unusual practice among Christians of seeing each other as incarnations of Christ, and equal co-heirs with Christ.
Gupta also saves a chapter to talk about the imperfections of the early Christian community, the conflicts that seemed to drive wedges in their assemblies, the competitions that seemed to crop up between leaders at times, and cultural differences that divided believers. The early Christians also never seemed to have spoken out against slavery, though their contemporaries, the Essenes, did. Christians also used the language of shaming and judgment with each other over certain disputes.
What I Liked
Hands down, excellent scholarship and approachable writing style. One of Gupta’s many gifts is an ability to give enough of an in-depth look in a topic to be satisfying, yet not so exhaustive as to dishearten the ordinary reader. For those who love a good bibliography and footnotes, Gupta obliges, but in such an inobtrusive manner (actually endnotes) that each chapter easily flows.
I also appreciate Gupta’s ability to pull themes through the book to keep it as a cohesive flow. He included two necessary topics: the imperfections of Christians, and the overlap of Christianity with mystery religions (where they overlap is not nearly as significant as where they differ).
This is also, literally, a new book—Some of the information was new to me (and I read a lot), but mostly, this was a new perspective on cultural data that helps to inform how our faith is to be today. To be fair, western cultures have been so shaped by exposure to Christianity, to the Bible, and to Christians, that Christianity itself may seem far from strange or weird to most. Christians may seem anachronistic, stale, so yesterday. But reading Strange Religion energized me and reminded me that the essentials of what made Christians originally weird still makes us weird.
(I do not have a list of things I did not like, though there was an unnecessary phrase that surfaced at regular intervals: variations of “I’ll get to that later.” As a reader, that just leaves a bunch of pop-ups waiting to be satisfied.)
I really enjoy reading Nijay Gupta’s work, and Strange Religion is just as interesting and appealing as everything else I have read from this author. I highly recommend it.
