The Seven Churches of Asia Respond to John's Apocalyptic Letter

 

Setting of the Letter: Upon receiving St. John’s apocalyptic missive to the seven churches of Asia in the mid-90s AD, those churches decided to formulate a collective response.  Delegates, two from each church, were sent to Ephesus to discuss the letter and compose a reply to John, their beloved elder imprisoned by the Roman authorities on the Isle of Patmos.  The council listened to testimonies from Nicolaitans, who gave tearful descriptions of their exclusion from certain Christian communities.  Activists were brought in to explain their involvement in social justice.  While disagreeing among themselves, they nevertheless were able to formulate a rejection of John’s theology.

[This is a fictional and satirical letter, of course, intended to highlight current differences among those in the Christian tradition—whether actually Christians or not—on the issue of Church and State, culture, and society relations.  Certain groups in John’s day, claiming to represent Christianity, held views diametrically opposed to Christian doctrine and ethics.  Also, today, certain groups continue to oppose Christian doctrine and ethics even though a book like John’s Apocalypse was accepted into the Christian canon.  Such groups would rather leave John in exile on the little island of Patmos than associate with him, let alone emend their ways.]

Dear John,

Thank you for your very interesting and creative letters to each of us and the apocalyptic visions that followed.  We very much enjoyed your engagement with earlier texts in Scripture and use of the apocalyptic genre to make your point—theological discourse is often too dry.  That being said, we have some concerns with the overall view that you have taken about our engagement with the state, culture, and society as Christians and as churches.  We have disagreement among ourselves about those concerns, and so we are writing openly about our differences.  Yet we are in agreement that a more reasonable and kinder approach to the state, culture, and society should characterise Christianity.

First, we should state what we did understand your position to be in your letter.  You do give some room for different responses, depending on what really is the state’s or culture's challenges to us at any one point in history.  We think that this is advisable as well, since the church may be permitted or even favoured at one point in history and disfavoured or even persecuted at another.  Your overall view, however, is decidedly negative.  You see the general trend in history to be towards an apocalyptic, tyrannical persecution of the church that only an intervention by God can withstand.  We could decipher your symbolism to see that you apply this to the current Roman government and to Roman economic practices.

Part of our group found this concerning, not necessarily because they disagree with you but because they do not want the church to become political.  They see a separation between the spiritual and the political in distinct terms.  Sermons from the pulpit should not endorse or oppose certain government persons or policies, they say.  Their reasons are that this will also divide the church into political camps, it will make government funding for church projects in education or charity work difficult or impossible, and it will even lead to further persecution.  They also believe that the church should pray for the government and support it as a God-given authority.  This is their understanding of ‘render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’  In a word, there is no place for politics in the Church.

Another group in our meeting took a very different position.  They were quite in agreement with you that we as Christians need to respond to the government’s policies and actions.  They do not, however, think that the best approach is to write a ‘Christian’ view on some matter so much as a human rights view of social justice.  We do not, they say, need to divide Christians and others over issues of social justice.  In fact, some said, they thought that the Church has some catching up to do on matters of social justice in society.  Mentioning Jesus in such an exclusive and exalted way, as you do throughout your letter, shuts out so many good and honest citizens who have high ethical standards.  We need a united front, and Christian exclusivity is a problem.  Could we not rather, they suggested, speak of ‘human rights,’ such as equality, life, freedom, and so forth?  This universalism could even include the atheists, such as the Epicureans, as well as other religions.  They would not want to formulate Christian identity around dogma but rather see Christianity as one way among others to speak of a universal ‘spiritual experience’ of the divine and as one voice among many that supports universal human rights.

There was a smaller group in our meeting, although the most vocal.  It presented a third position.  While agreeing with the last mentioned group in their opposition to uniquely Christian views, they rejected the universal approach to rights.  They rather wanted to identify justice with respect to the issues facing particular groups of people.  In this way, they almost agreed with the first group noted in this letter, given its desire to formulate a uniquely Christian rather than universal view.  However, they quickly took the same approach to every group that falls out of favour with the current Roman government or any authority.  For example, they did not want to include the barbarian because of some universal justice concept but simply because the barbarian is entitled to his or her own version of justice.  They have their truth and justice whether or not it agrees with the Roman view—or the Christian view.  This group found your railings against ‘Jezebel’ and the so-called ‘Nicolaitans,’ with their open views on sexual ethics, to be offensive.  They also found your comment about a ‘synagogue of Satan’ and your hyper-negative view of culture to be bigoted and insensitive.  Identifying the Roman emperor with the Antichrist was surely extreme, offensive, and needlessly provocative.  This progressive group wants to move ahead in relations with culture and with the state by charting a moral path of diversity, equity, and inclusion.  Like the previous view, it calls for understanding Christian identity not in terms of religious beliefs but in terms of moral action understood as social justice.

While we might go on at a greater length about our meeting, we think that this brief overview of our three different positions might be enough to convey to you that we reject your letter to us, whatever our reasons.  After these discussions, we took a vote on whether or not to petition the government for your release from exile on Patmos.  The majority vote was not to do so.  Should you be released, we believe that your views would be detrimental for the churches themselves and for their relationship to their municipalities, and probably for the church everywhere in relation to the Roman government. 

We have, furthermore, resolved the following:

There is to be no more prophesy (and especially no more apocalypticism) in the church;

Theology and ethics will not be based on the interpretation of Scripture, which is too ‘Christian’ and also divisive as we have discovered we have different interpretations;

Theology and ethics will be based on a common understanding of social justice with others in society—they are not to be stated as uniquely Christian;

Consequently, we will, like the Stoics, simply speak of ‘God’ (and by this they really mean ‘Reason’) and not explain what we mean by this, and we will no longer identify God with Jesus as that is so specific a definition that it will completely divide Christians from others in society;

Social justice will be understood as ‘affirming’ the views and practices of others, without judgements on their views and practices.  We will celebrate the diversity among us, including the sexual practices of the Nicolaitans, rather than push for some sort of unity, and we will make tolerance and inclusivity the gold standard for our communities, including eating meat sacrificed to idols as we participate with all faiths in religious devotion;

As evangelism is too confrontational a practice, calling for people to believe exclusively in Jesus Christ’s death on the cross for all our sins and so be saved.  We prefer inclusivity, and so we will henceforth cease from all proselytism;

There will be no preaching in churches that touches on exclusive beliefs of Christians or anything political;

However, the churches are encouraged to back social causes that others in society also back.  Christians are encouraged not to do so as Christians so much as citizens concerned about social justice.  Activism is encouraged, but only activism supported by all oppressed groups.

We expect that, in taking these approaches, we will be able to avoid being singled out as ‘Christians’ and therefore not be persecuted.  While our decisions leave you in exile, know that we remember you fondly.  Your devotion is admirable, even if your views are outdated and unacceptable.

Sincerely,

The Churches of Western Asia (AD 96)

Wanted: Good Friends and a Worthy Enemy for a Faltering Evangelicalism

 

The 1^st/2^nd c. AD philosopher, Plutarch, wrote several essays on friendship and then one essay entitled How to Profit by One’s Enemies.  The writings balance one another in that they worked towards the common goal of exploring how relationships might make one better—or worse.  Therein lies a relevant lesson for Evangelicals in the 21^st century.  What it needs, if it is still possible to rescue it, is good friends and a worthy enemy.  'Evangelical' means different things in different parts of the world, so the point made here applies primarily to the North American context.

On the ‘friendship’ side of the equation, one of the developments over the past fifty years has been the breakup of friendships between Evangelicals.  The ‘instruments of unity’ have either disappeared or become too weak.  It is difficult to find unity around a central figure—an evangelist like Billy Graham, a pastor like John Stott, or a scholar like Howard Marshall.  A few prominent names might come to mind, but they represent large, independent churches or agencies without an ecclesial affiliation.  It is also difficult to have larger scale cooperation the more the Evangelical churches choose independence from denominations.  And it is difficult for once multidenominational, Evangelical seminaries to play any role in unity in light of this disarray.  The result is, to a large extent, that 'Evangelical' denominations turn inward for their own relationships, and independent churches have little engagement with other churches.  A missionary, for example, might find funding from a collection of local churches, but the supporting churches have no connectivity with each other in a definable mission of the Church.  The independent church movement has, moreover, disconnected these churches from an historical understanding of the Church—‘friendships’ with the past are broken.

On the ‘enemies’ side, Plutarch’s point is that enemies can make us better people.  When someone identifies errors in an enemy, e.g., one might practice some self-awareness as well.  His point is rather like Jesus’ warning not to point out the speck in someone else’s eye when one has a log in one's own eye (Matthew 7.4), but he offers a lengthy essay on the profit one might gain from one’s enemies.  The fact is, Evangelicalism has lost a good enemy.  It did rather well when the mainline denominations thrived but needed a reforming, revivalist movement like Evangelicalism to keep them orthodox or pull them back to orthodoxy.  The threat to orthodoxy was liberalism, which opposed the belief that the Bible is God’s Word and treated it as just any other book, opposed the belief in miracles and endorsed ‘science’ in interpretation of Scripture and theology, questioned orthodox dogma, and replaced the details of doctrine with the most general affirmations (Christianity as simply the belief in God the Father, the brotherhood of mankind, and the infinite worth of the human soul, ala Adolph von Harnack).  The mainline denominations’ denial of orthodoxy over the past sixty years, their progressive decline in numbers, and Evangelicals withdrawal from them eventually meant that the ‘liberal’ enemy of Evangelicalism was no longer a worthy opponent.  (In a Plutarchian manner, ask Evangelicals in the Church of England if their opponents in the denomination in any way help to improve them.)  Evangelicals had developed particular tools to fight liberalism, but these are not quite the tools needed to fight the battle in a postmodern, post-Christian era.

Postmodernity’s challenge is not a challenge about what is true; it is a challenge of truth itself.  For them, truth is constructed and functional, not objective and authoritative ('my truth' is not necessarily 'your truth').  It is not so interested in debating theological doctrine as simply dismissing the importance of doctrine.  Instead, it makes ‘social justice’ and activism the major concerns, and in doing so Evangelicals have become confused.  Progressive Evangelicals (ones guided more by culture than Scripture--not really Evangelicals) have aligned themselves with this agenda.  Of course they are for social justice and believe in activism--who wouldn't be?  Evangelicals have always been activist in social justice, such as the Abolition movement of the 19th century or the Pro-Life movement of the 20th century.  

The problem, of course, is that ‘social justice’ means nothing until it is defined.  If it is not defined by Scripture and the Church's long history, it will be defined by the contemporary culture--and it has been. Progressives have allowed themselves to be moved from their concern for Scripture as the authority in Christian faith and practice by chasing after partnerships with those pursuing activist agendas in the public sphere.  They have also moved to a spirituality that is not centred on Christ and His forgiving and transforming grace.  They have become weak in their concern for evangelism, wanting to be more agreeable and inclusive than appear to be confrontational and exclusive.  And the details of social justice have turned out to be a radical change from what Christians have valued.  Evangelicals could fight the enemy of liberalism, an error in solid form.  But they are, of course, embarrassed to be defined as persons opposed to ‘social justice,' which is no justice at all in its particulars for the unborn, for children, for marriage, for family, for law and order, for equality, etc.  A ghostlike enemy cloaked in some undefined 'social justice' does not help to define Evangelicals, and they are even painted as unethical or needing to catch up to the alleged higher ethic that the culture offers.

Without good friendships and without a good enemy, Evangelicalism has been faltering.  It may not be possible to save it as a movement, although what it was historically is still something that can be promoted.  What it was, as historian David Bebbington famously determined, was a movement committed to the authority of Scripture, with Christ at the centre, the need for conversion and salvation in the cross of Christ, and an activism of believers engaging the world through the deep streams of  Christian faith and practice.  Let's hope that, even as Evangelicalism has been knocked on its heels through the loss of good friendships and the lack of a good enemy (!), it will nonetheless survive as a movement in this new era of postmodernity.  Those values identified by Bebbington are worth continuing, along with a clearer understanding of the Church's role (we need a better ecclesiology) in all of this.

A Brief Comparison of Plutarch and Paul on Opposition to Homosexuality

After two thousand years of a clear understanding that Romans 1.26-27 and 1 Corinthians 6.9 understand homosexuality to be sinful, some revisionist interpreters in the late 20th century began to venture alternative—albeit contradictory—readings of Biblical texts in a vain attempt to dismiss Scripture’s testimony declaring homosexuality to be a sin.  Some revisionist interpretations have even been proposed by Biblical and Classics scholars, who should know better but who, for one reason or another (sometimes even intentionally), have misled their readers.[1]

Some of the revisionist readings, however, can be dismissed by considering just a few passages in Plutarch (1st/2nd c. AD).  This is helpful, since laity can become confused amidst all the primary texts from antiquity that might be considered.  The following, brief study examines some of the conceptual and linguistic parallels between Paul and Plutarch in just a few passages.  Plutarch undermines a number of the fanciful, revisionist readings of the two texts in Paul. (There is, of course, no textual relation between these two authors.)

In Plutarch’s Dialogue on Love, two characters argue over whether homosexual or heterosexual love is better.  (Some other dialogues covered the same subject.)[2]  Homosexual love is discussed with respect to pedophilia, but the age of participants in same-sex love is not at all the issue.  Pederasty is handled as same-sex relationships.  The real issue being argued at this point in the argument is the distinction between friendship and erotic love as expressed in homosexual and heterosexual relations.  In the dialogue, Protogenes argues against mere sexual pleasure by arguing for homosexual friendship.  He rejects lust:

… mere pleasure is base and unworthy of a free man. For this reason also it is not gentlemanly or urbane to make love to slave boys: such a love is mere copulation, like the love of women (Plutarch, Dialogue on Love 751b).[3]

Protogenes is not arguing against sexual intercourse and is actually arguing for homosexuality. He argues that homosexual love of boys (not the use of slave boys) is preferable when it is voluntary as it is first friendship.  He does not believe that friendship is possible between men and women as the basis of the relationship is sexual pleasure first and last:

 genuine Love has no connexion whatsoever with the women’s quarters. I deny that it is love that you have felt for women and girls—any more than flies feel love for milk (Plutarch, Dialogue on Love 750c).

Daphnaeus, on the other hand, argues that heterosexual love is natural love, being what nature intends for the production of children and continuation of the human race.  (This is Paul’s position.)  To counter Protogenes, he says that friendship can develop even if sex is the initial attraction between men and women.  Of particular interest is a passage that allows comparison with Paul's language:

But I count this as a great argument in favour of [men’s love of] women: if [for argument’s sake][4] union contrary to nature [παρὰ φύσιν] with males does not destroy or curtail a lover’s tenderness, it stands to reason that the love between men and women, being normal and natural [τῇ φύσει], will be conducive to friendship developing in due course from favour [‘favour’ means freely giving sex]…. But to consort with males (whether without consent, in which case it involves violence and brigandage; or if with consent, there is still weakness [softness, μαλακίᾳ] and effeminacy [θηλύτητι] on the part of those who, contrary to nature [παρὰ φύσιν], allow themselves in Plato’s words’ to be covered and mounted like cattle’)—this is a completely ill-favoured favour, indecent, an unlovely affront to Aphroditê (Plutarch, Dialogue on Love 751c-e).

The comparison between a few passages in Plutarch and Paul of ideas and language can be more clearly seen in a table:

Plutarch	Paul
Homosexual sex is ‘ill-favoured’ and ‘indecent’ [ἀσχήμων] and an affront to Aphrodite, the goddess of love	Homosexual sex is ‘shameless’ [ἀσχημοσύνην] (Romans 1.27)
Heterosexual love is normal and ‘natural’ [τῇ φύσει].  Homosexual sex is ‘contrary to nature’ [παρὰ φύσιν].	Lesbians exchange ‘natural use’ [of sexual organs; φυσικὴν χρῆσιν] for what is ‘against nature’ [τὴν παρὰ φύσιν] (1.26).  Homosexual male acts involve men forsaking the ‘natural use’ [τὴν φυσικὴν χρῆσιν] of women (1.27)
Daphnaeus sidelines the argument that homosexuality might destroy or curtail a lover’s tenderness.  However, whether rape or consensual, homosexual sex involves softness [μαλακίᾳ] and effeminacy.[5]  'If you wish to distress the man who hates you, do not revile him as lewd [κίναιδον][6], effeminate [soft, μαλακὸν], licentious, vulgar, or illiberal, but be a man yourself, show self-control, be truthful, and treat with kindness and justice those who have to deal with you' (Plutarch, How to Profit by One's Enemies 4).[7]   Note that the word ‘soft’ [μαλακὸν] appears between two other sexual terms and should be understood here to refer to homosexuality, as it often does.[8]  It is here differentiated from the word for the active male giving sex in a homosexual relationship (κίναιδον).	Homosexuals receive ‘in themselves the due penalty for their error’ (1.27) Homosexuals are ‘soft men’ [μαλακοὶ] (1 Cor. 6.9)

Conclusions: Over against recent revisionist suggestions to read Romans 1.26-27 differently, Paul is speaking about homosexuality and saying that it is a sin.  He does not mention pederasty because he is not talking about it.  Even when Plutarch has his characters focus on pederasty in the passage cited, the discussion is really about homosexuality, not adult males having sex with boys.  The problem that Daphnaeus and Paul have with homosexuality is not that it is not mutual love of adults but that it is unnatural love.  Unnatural love is not, as some revisionist have ventured, acting against your own inclinations (such as a heterosexual male having sex with another male) but same-sex love.  Daphnaeus says it is against the goddess, Aphrodite; Paul says it is against God the creator.  Nor is the issue having same-sex with slaves—Daphnaeus ignores the point of Protogenes about sex with slave boys because the issue is homosexual versus heterosexual sex.  Both Plutarch and Paul note the diminishment of character among homosexuals--Paul with a vague reference ('in themselves the due penalty'), Plutarch (really Daphnaeus) more explicitly identifies the loss as softness and effeminacy.

The closeness of argument between Daphnaeus and Paul extends to the Greek terminology used: indecent/shameful,’ ‘against nature,’ ‘natural,’ and ‘soft’ (bringing in 1 Corinthians 6.9 to the discussion of Romans 1.26-27).  Moreover, ‘soft’ takes the argument beyond a discussion of the act to a discussion of orientation or disposition, which both Daphnaeus and Paul argue, against a number of ancient and modern writers, is not natural.

So much has been written on homosexuality in recent decades that distorts the issues and attempts to dart down some shadowy cul-de-sac of interpretation to undermine the unchanging witness of both Scripture and the Church over centuries.  One of the problems with these recent challenges is that they have thrown up alternative theses that confuse their readers and go nowhere under scrutiny, but they have done so without proper attention to the relevant primary texts.  Under closer examination of primary sources, such as Plutarch, the revisionist readings are easily dispelled.  This brief essay considers a few texts from a near contemporary of Paul's, a popular and prolific, pagan author, Plutarch.  Paul, of course, is not dependent on non-Jewish contexts for his theology, but he easily uses language from his Graeco-Roman context to express himself to an audience that is also familiar with it.  These passages from Plutarch demonstrate this.

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[1] S. Donald Fortson and Rollin G. Grams, Unchanging Witness: The Consistent Christian Teaching on Homosexuality in Scripture and Tradition (Nashville: B&H Press, 2016).

[2] Cf. Xenophon, Symposium (4^th c. BC) and Lucian, Amores (4^th c. AD).

[3] Plutarch, Moralia, Vol. IX, trans. Edwin Minar, Jr., F. H. Sandrach, and W. C. Helmbold (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1928).

[4] This is the meaning of the first class conditional in Greek.

[5] For example, Plutarch offers a few characteristics when he discusses false accusations of homosexuality: ‘an unwarranted suspicion of unmanliness was aroused against Lacydes, king of the Argives, by a certain arrangement of his hair and a mincing gait, and Pompey suffered in the same way on account of his habit of scratching his head with one finger [a signal for homosexuals], although he was very far removed from effeminacy and licentiousness’ (Plutarch, How to profit by one's enemies 6).  Homosexuality is one example of softness in men.  People who are soft are incapable of self-control, too weak to withstand desires.  Plutarch says, ‘But for a man who is sick it is intolerable, nay, an aggravation of the sickness, to be told, “See what comes of your intemperance [ἀκρασίας], your soft living [μαλακίας], your gluttony and wenching” (How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend 28).  Similarly, they like soft living, which is characteristic of women, who are soft.  Thus, homosexual men are soft men in the senses that they (1) in to vice; (2) play the part of soft women; and (3) like the soft life.

[6] That is, the active partner in a male, same-sex relationship, over against the pathic.

[7] Plutarch, Moralia, Vol. II, trans. Frank Cole Babbitt (Loeb Classical Library; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1928).

[8] Cf. the extensive discussion in chapter 15 of Fortson and Grams, Unchanging Witness.

The Church and Friendship

 At times, Greek and Roman philosophers turned to the subject of friendship as a moral category.  Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch gave considerable thought to the nature of true friendship and to the relationship between it and the virtues.  In this brief reflection, I would like to point out a few points made by the 1st/2nd century philosopher and writer, Plutarch, in his essay, ‘On Abundance of Friends.’ Some of his comments offer a way to compare and contrast his statements with our understanding of the church.

The question to consider is, 'How does thinking about the church as a place for forming and practicing friendship expand our understanding of the church?'  Plutarch's comments will challenge a shallow view of 'friendship,' such as we have with Facebook 'friends.'  The Covid pandemic has shut down fellowshipping together, challenging our understanding of the church as primarily a worship service with programmes and some light fellowship around these.  Plutarch's comments also address this problem.  Yet Paul's understanding of the church calls for even a higher bar of relationships than Plutarch's concern for more depth to friendship.  Paul uses the language of intimate friendship for the church, but he also uses the language of family.  Especially, however, Paul's understanding of church relationships and community are always and essentially in Christ.  These initial comments should orient the reader to the following engagement with Plutarch.

Not Many Friends

Plutarch's main point is that true friendship precludes having many friends.  He says,

But among many other things what stands chiefly in the way of getting a friend is the desire for many friends…’ (II).[1] 

As he concludes his essay, Plutarch restates his point:

… the soul suitable for many friendships must be impressionable, and versatile, and pliant, and changeable. But friendship requires a steady constant and unchangeable character, a person that is uniform in his intimacy. And so a constant friend is a thing rare and hard to find (IX).

Rather, he avers, friendship comes in pairs.  That is, one hears of celebrated friendships between two people, not a group.

Choosing Your Friends Carefully

A corollary of this point is that one should not fall into friendship but choose friends carefully.  Plutarch says,

We ought not, therefore, lightly to welcome or strike up an intimate friendship with any chance comers, or love those who attach themselves to us, but attach ourselves to those who are worthy of our friendship (IV).

The argument does make good sense and is the sort of advice to offer young people.  One might also apply this to the broken friendship in the betrayal of Jesus by Judas, and Plutarch does discuss the painful ending of a friendship too quickly formed.  Yet the story of Judas among Jesus’ intimate disciples might also alert us to the problem in Plutarch’s advice.  The formation of friendships involves vulnerability and, as a matter of fact, disappointment and pain.  This vulnerability points to one aspect of ecclesiology: the church functions as a cauldron in which intimidate friendships might be formed among people who fellowship, worship, and work together.  This more ‘process’ notion of friendship must be willing to accept that there will be failed friendships, even betrayals. 

Three Components of Friendship

Just what goes into the cauldron for the formation of friendship?  From the following two overlapping quotations, Plutarch identifies three components of friendship:

What then is the purchase-money of friendship? Benevolence and complaisance conjoined with virtue, and yet nature has nothing more rare than these (II).

And since true friendship has three main requirements, virtue, as a thing good; and familiarity, as a thing pleasant; and use, as a thing serviceable; for we ought to choose a friend with judgement, and rejoice in his company, and make use of him in need… (III).

We might restate the point.  Friendship has to do with the formation and support in one another of common virtues, with the bond of fellowship, and with mutual care and concern.  This point from Plutarch is also applicable to considerations about the church.  Some, for example, wish to focus on the Christian community as a friendship bond among diverse persons.  This is certainly a key characteristic of the church in the New Testament, as Paul points out in Galatians 3.28; 1 Corinthians 12.13; and Colossians 3.11.  This is, however, not a celebration of diversity but a celebration of unity despite diversity.  The emphasis is on the unity, and that unity is found in Christ.  Thus, the New Testament does not celebrate diversity in community but unity in Christ.

With Plutarch, Paul would agree on the importance of friends having common virtues.  This applies to the friendships formed in the church.  There is no room for friendship understood as something separable from common virtues—no ‘walking together’ of people who disagree over matters of virtue.  This is a regular point in Paul’s writings, and the Corinthian correspondence stands as an example of the importance of having clear lines such that believers are not ‘unequally yoked with unbelievers’ (2 Corinthians 6.14) and do not tolerate egregious sin as a mark of love and grace but rather expel the immoral person (1 Corinthians 5).

Plutarch’s point about friends having mutual care and concern for one another is also a feature of Paul’s letters.  First, there is a common labor that builds bonds of friendship: Paul begins the letter of Philippians by noting the church’s partnership in the Gospel—their labor towards the same evangelistic ends (1.5).  Second, this leads to mutual care and concern between Paul and the Philippian believers.  They are partakers with Paul in grace, in his imprisonment, in his defense and confirmation of the Gospel, and this has the effect of binding them together more firmly in the mutual affection of Christ Jesus (1.7-8).  This mutual care and concern is very practical.  Paul sends Timothy back to the church when he cannot visit.  Timothy is ‘genuinely concerned for your welfare’ (2.20).  The church has sent along Epaphroditus to be with Paul and minister to his needs and do the work of Christ (2.25, 30).  Such reflections on Paul’s letters could be greatly expanded.  The point is that, as with Plutarch, friendship requires agreement about virtues, intimate fellowship, and a relationship of mutual care and concern.  In the church, people fall out over disagreements about Christian virtue, their bond of fellowship can fail, and they may settle for common worship and not be more deeply formed in friendship by mutual care and concern.  What Paul would insist in this is that friendship in the church, koinonia, must be fellowship in Christ.  Common virtues, the nature of fellowship, and the activity and care of the church’s members are defined by Christ, our relationship with Christ and who He is.

Conclusion

In comparing Plutarch's philosophical reflection on friendship to what Paul says about intimate relationships in the church, we see how important it was for Paul to move to a theology of friendship.  That is, relationships were understood and practiced as 'in Christ' relationships.  This overlaps at points with Plutarch's emphases about friendship--even in ways that challenge our practices in the church--but Plutarch's views ultimately fall short of what Paul expected from believers.  While reminding us in an age of Facebook and Covid of the importance of true friendship, Plutarch's thoughts need to be expanded by asking at every point, 'And what does it mean to understand this aspect of friendship as in Christ?'  In a cultural context that celebrates diversity as a virtue, we need to respond that the Christian virtue is unity in Christ, not our differences in some sort of community of toleration and inclusion.  Diversity, toleration, and inclusion are not absolute virtues but are always to be understood as values that need to be considered in Christ.  Plutarch helps us to think more deeply about the church as a cauldron for the formation of intimate friendship, but Paul helps us to gain an ecclesiology that understands Christian fellowship as in Christ friendship and family.  Therein lies a worthy challenge for our practice of church.

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[1] Plutarch, Plutarch’s Morals, Vol. 1, trans. Simon Ford (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1878).