S2S Books: "The Patient Ferment of the Early Church" by Alan Kreider

This is Strength to Strength Books, and we welcome you here for a review of this book, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire, and the author is Alan Crider. At Strength to Strength, it is our vision to offer resources that strengthen your obedient love-faith relationship with King Jesus and give you solid footing in a shaky world. And we believe that as we look at church history, that it'll give us a—it'll give us a way to move forward, especially in our world today. And this book, we believe, will offer us many resources, many insights, and it'll inflame our imagination on what could we as a church today, how could we relate to the world around us as we mine out the resources and the teachings of the early church.

This book is not a dry academic read. And as a little bit of a teaser, author Alan Crider makes a case that the early church didn't have any missionary strategy, which is incredible in light of its growth. Beginning at the beginning of the first century, there was no church, and by the end of the century, followers of the way were in every place. Alan Crider's recent book on church history, Resurrection and Reformation, he says this: "Christians by the year 100 had begun new congregations in every part of the empire. Many of these were still in their infancy, with very few members, but they were there, and they continued to grow.

This growth happened because believers obeyed their Lord, taking with them the good news wherever they went. They went with the Spirit of Jesus, never using violence or force to bring people into the church. That is not to say that the early spread of the gospel involved no bloodshed. Many believers bore the marks of persecution in their bodies. Many others died. But the gospel of Jesus, the prince of peace, penetrated the entire Roman empire peaceably, with no believers shedding blood of others or using force."

And so Rodney Stark, another early Christian historian, says this. He said that the early church grew about 40% every decade. The odds were stacked against it, but it grew. He goes on to say, "Christianity revitalized life in Greco-Roman cities by providing new norms and new kinds of social relationships able to cope with many urgent problems.

To cities filled with the homeless and the impoverished, Christianity offered charity as well as hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachment. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded sense of family.

To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for social solidarity. And to cities filled with epidemics, fires, and earthquakes, Christianity offered effective nursing services." And so at Strength to Strength, we believe that the church is God's plan A for change in the world. And in this circle of brothers here, I'm confident that these brothers believe that as well. All of them are involved in different ways in reaching out in their communities.

Stephen Brubaker captures this so well with this quote about the church: "The divinely resourced organism for withstanding tsunamis of moral degradation is the Church of Jesus Christ. A church anchored in 2,000 years of faithful doctrine and practice, a church receiving with gratitude the wisdom that precedes it, a church built on the grace of the past is in the best position to not only withstand but turn back the shadows of evil and injustice to prevail against the gates of hell."

And so our goal is to look at the apostolic church as the New Testament church, as the faith once more delivered to the saints, to look at that as the answer for our day, the Church of Jesus Christ, and then to look at the early church as commentary on how we can live that out in our world. And so we're going to be digging in this book here this evening. We have, obviously, as you can see, three other brothers here on the call. We have Kevin Shank is joining us here from York, Pennsylvania, and he is part of the church called Tidings of Peace. Is that right, Kevin? Correct. Kevin grew up in that city.

His father, the late Clayton Shank, has been an inspiration to me in the past and his desire to see Anabaptist churches planted in cities. Also joining us is Wendell Martin from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, part of the Disciples of Jesus congregation. It's good to have you here, Wendell. Wendell also is part of the admin team for Strength to Strength. And then also Hector from State College here. Hector, as some of you might know, wrote a book called Jesus and the Mennonites.

And in that book, he draws from this book, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church. So Hector and Kevin and Wendell, good to have you here. I'm looking forward to doing this book review with you. What we've done is we've taken some of the kind of the four topics that are addressed in this book and passed them out here among us. So Kevin will kick off here with looking at the topic of patience.

And then Wendell will look at the topic of habitus, the embodied behavior of the Christian. And then also we'll look at how the early Christians assembled, and that would be Hector, their worship services, and then finally the word ferment that's used in the title here. I'll talk a little bit about that. So Kevin, we'll turn to you here. Kevin, tell us a little bit about why. Why do you think this book is important for our day? How has it inspired you? And then hop on in and tell us a little more about this particular idea, this idea of patience and why Alan thinks that the early church embodied that and cared deeply about that.

Sure. So thanks for having me. This is great. I appreciate the opportunity and look forward to this discussion. In terms of why this book is important to me, part of that is an irony. I don't think that a book about patience presents itself as the best candidate to really blow open your worldview and turn some things upside down for you, but that's exactly what this book has done for me. And for that matter, there's been a ferment. I first read this book about two years ago, and I continue to digest what I read and to return for inspiration. And so I think you stated well why it matters.

The other thing that the book says on the back cover is a timely history for the church in our secular age, and I would say, amen. There's so much here. So anything more you want from that? Nope. That sounds wonderful. But Kevin, you're somebody who isn't necessarily a patient person, I think I've heard you say as well. And so this is a challenge you in terms of, especially when you think of evangelism, right? Of reaching—Right. Precisely. We want to see great things happen and happen right now. Right.

There's absolutely an irony here. There's an irony that I'm here talking about patience because I have not been a patient person. I have not been formed as a very patient person. And so it's been my prayer and desire that that would change. And this book has certainly been seminal in that regard.

It's been absolutely phenomenal in challenging my worldview. And that's really where I want to end this presentation on patience. So we'll circle back around there. Sure. But first, I just want to say this book is aptly named, and there's many, many careful things about this book, but I think from the title on through, the fact that it starts with patience is accurate. Patience permeates every part of this book. And so I'll give an introduction here, and I'm sure that my other brothers here, if they're doing justice to their topics, will be talking about patience as well because it really is phenomenal. It's impressive how much patience fits as an interpretation of the history of the early church.

But I'll start where Alan Crider starts with the writings. And this feels like a fitting introduction, a fitting place to start for several reasons. Number one, Alan points out that the best surviving literature of this era that we're looking at in the early church is Christian literature. And so it's not that Christians didn't write. It's not that they didn't write passionately and write well. They definitely did. But as we look at these writers, and the writers that he especially focuses on here are Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Lactantius.

And that takes us from the first to the fourth century, end of the first to beginning of the fourth. And these are prolific writers. We have quite a bit of their work remaining to this day. And they either wrote treatises on patience or patience just permeated their work to the point that if they were writing about other character qualities, they were basing them on the quality of patience as saying all character springs from patience. And so in Crider's very careful review of this history and this time period and what these leaders are writing, he finds that the subject of patience is unavoidable. But it's also impressive, and you alluded to this, Brian, that there's just an incredible surprising lack of things that we would expect to see for an organization to be successful based on our Western worldview.

There's lack of instructions on how to convert pagans to Christianity. There's lack of strategy. There's hardly even mentions of evangelism. Rather, there's a grave concern with how does transformation look? What does integrity look like in our lives and in the life of the church? And there's also a double irony here because one of the quotes from the early church that really captures so much of what Crider is trying to bring out is this statement by Cyprian, "We do not speak great things, but we live them." So they were far more concerned with lives that were well-lived than with words, even though they also produced the best literature of the time.

But it was incredibly focused on this thing of a life that is well-lived. So as we think about what did they write, I want to use that as a springboard to talk about the theology of patience that emerges from this time. So the subject and their treatises on patience start with the commands of Christ. So we start with the Sermon on the Mount. What did Jesus say about how we should live in this world? And many of these commands are quite obviously linked back to patience, especially when it comes to nonviolence and how we respond when we're not being treated well and things are not going well. And so we are patient, number one, because Jesus told us to be patient.

But we don't stop there. And the early church writers didn't stop there. They also continued to develop this subject and talked about following the example of Christ and the way that Jesus embodied patience in his life. And because he embodied patience and willingness to suffer and not being in a hurry, then we should do that as well. And then further, patience seems to be the character quality of God that was most clear to these early Christians.

They stress the character of God as the character of patience, which is really interesting because I would have said the character of God that's most obvious is love. That's what we talk about most frequently. And I think there's good reason for that. But in terms of the patience of God, I was interested in how often the verse comes up from the end of Matthew 5 where it talks about God sending rain on the just and on the unjust. And I find that very interesting because that is the statement that immediately precedes Jesus' instructions for us to be perfect, right? "Be therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect."

And when the early Christians are looking at this, they're saying, "Oh, this is talking about being patient." And so it almost seems like we could say, "Be patient, even as your Father in heaven is patient." And I want to revisit that again just a little bit. But moving on from the theology, we could hardly say enough about the practices of patience that were evident during this time in terms of willingness to suffer, commitment to nonviolence, as was already mentioned.

But also that transformation takes time. They realized that transformation takes time and that transformation was an important part of the work of the church. And they embraced that need for time. They embraced taking time. And it didn't take long until the church developed very lengthy processes of catechesis to help pagans become Christians, not because they were out campaigning that they do so, but because people were actually fascinated by the church. And also that the church grew in a patient way. As I already alluded, it wasn't focused on growth. It was focused on transformation. And so there really was an emphasis on the foundation and building up from there.

Much more can be said about all of these things, and I expect that we'll get into it a bit more. Another thing about patience that I find fascinating in this book is that it's used as a historical lens. So when we're talking about the early church, we're talking specifically about the first 300 years of the church. And the reason for that is because there's a very natural bookmark there when Constantine embraces Christianity and the church starts to change very rapidly. And so we have a new era of the church following Constantine. But in this first 300 years, there's an emphasis on patience. And then these changes that are occurring, and when we're trying to understand the changes, Alan gives us a lens to say that the change Constantine brings is impatience.

He is the impatient convert. He's the one who is attracted to what he sees in Christianity, but he's too impatient to embrace the patient lifestyle for himself. And so he waits until the last minute so he can live out his impatience and then still get the faith in the end. And that sets a pattern for how Rome then at large follows and embraces Christianity in many parts. And that brings a different character into the church. He further builds this out by talking about Augustine and the way that Augustine starts to embrace impatience in the church as a leader and the way that he has new ideas about patience, which in effect negate the patience that had been taught by the church up to that point in time.

Like the use of force and like the use of strategy for growth and so on and so forth. I would say that this book itself, and this is just a promotion for the book, I think this book is a work of patience. This is Crider's final and seminal work. It's thoroughly researched. He demonstrates a thorough grasp of the materials.

It's notated exhaustively throughout. And yet he engages so gracefully with people that he disagrees with. And it's riveting. It's engaging. It's a worthwhile read. It's not dry academic, as was said. But I want to end here with this emerging reality for me of patience as a worldview.

So I talked about the passage from the Sermon on the Mount. But probably the piece of scripture that has been most provocative for me following reading this book comes from 2 Peter 3:9. It says, "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise as some men count slackness, but is patient towards us, not willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance." So I would say for the first part of my life, I would have emphasized that God is not willing that any should perish. And when you start to connect that to our part of bringing the kingdom and doing the work of the kingdom, that can easily feed into an idea of a high-pressure faith and high-pressure Christianity and focus of the church.

But interestingly, when Peter uses this statement about God, he's using it to explain why things are not moving faster, why things are not happening at the rate we think they should happen. Because he's talking about people who are saying, "Well, when's Jesus going to come back? If he hasn't come back yet, he never will."

And so what's really interesting about that is that suddenly patience becomes both actually an explanation for why things are the way they are. Why is this world the way it is? Why hasn't Jesus come back yet? Why are we still here carrying on?

It's because of the patience of God. That's what Peter says. And so when you look around you, you think about your own life. You think about the things you wish were different in the world. And you ask these same questions to scripture. The response is, "Because God is patient." And because God is patient, he is not coercing anyone. He is willing to take time. He's gentle towards our weakness. He's large and loving enough to heal us from our wounds, most of them self-inflicted, right? And so patience provides an explanation for why things are the way they are. It also provides a litmus test for if I want to proceed in my life or my church with the character of God, then it's got to pass the patience litmus test.

So I think that Crider succeeds very handsomely, both in drawing a very thought-provoking and compelling picture of the inception of the church formed in a womb of patience. And also he invites us to recapture that quality in the church today. And I hope that will be true.

Sure. Yeah. And I'll just open it up here for Wendell or Hector right shortly to ask any questions. One thing I was going to mention at the beginning is that Alan Crider is the late Alan Crider. As I understand, he died a year after this book was published, which I think this book was published in 2016, I believe.

Alan was a professor at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Indiana. He studied at Goshen College, at Princeton University, at Harvard University, at University of London. And his studies focused on the early church and kind of around the question of how did the early church grow.

And I know that he had some other books. I think one book is called Alien Residence, this idea of the church had this pilgrim and stranger sense to it. And he pulls this out in the book as well. So I mentioned it at the beginning about Alan. So thank you, Kevin, for those thoughts and this idea of transformation takes time, patience, that being the strong point of those early followers of Jesus, those early Christian communities.

One of the things that I grapple with is when I hear patience, I quickly fear slothfulness or just chilling and just not being busy about our Father's business. It almost seems like those two kind of go hand in hand, or I'm fearful of that.

So maybe help me understand how can I ally my fears there. So you could use the word slothfulness, or you could say indifference or lethargic or any number of things that we're taught to fear.

I think it might be worth repeating again this quote that Cyprian used, "We do not speak great things, but we love them." So evidently, throughout these histories, as we look them up, the early church was not sitting early Christians were not sitting around just waiting for Jesus to come back, right? There was a very keen interest in how life ought to be lived.

But yet, I think the reason I like the idea of a litmus test is because I think when it comes to evaluating these questions of how ought life to be lived in all reality, patience is not an excuse. It's a means of evaluation. Does this fit the character of God? And I think there's an irony here, right?

There's a paradox, which Jesus is all about paradox, right? So there's a paradox that a patient community is one that is more likely in all reality to provide a context of belonging and healing and transformation rather than one that is high pressure and overwhelming people. And that's not hard to understand, but it gives us a lot to grapple with.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. Wow. Yeah. I mean, the idea of as I've gotten older and just realized that I'm just not as sanctified as I thought it might be at 42.

I struggle with different things. And I just realized how patient God is and how patient those around me are with me. And it is such a beautiful attribute of God and of other believers is this patience. And as we can exhibit that to others, it is such a beautiful testimony because, yeah, we live in a very impatient world, very impatient world.

Hey, Kevin, I really liked your bringing out there the scripture from 2 Peter 3, God's patience. That's a great way to think about the difference between not willing that any should perish and the fact that the reality of that is because of his patience.

So I like that. And I was going to ask you the question too, basically the same question Brian just asked. So you got to before me, Brian. Thanks.

Yeah. Is there anything you would add to that, Wendell? What's that? I said, is there anything you would add to that? I don't know.

Other than that,

the difference between patience and laziness, I was going to ask, what's the difference between patience and laziness? Yeah. There's one more thing I could add. So in studying the New Testament uses of the idea of patience and words that could be used to represent patience, there are actually two distinct words that are used almost interchangeably throughout the New Testament. And both of them have been translated as patience, patiencia, into the Latin.

But the one has the connotation of not being angry, long in the temper is the literal translation of it. So long suffering, right? And the other one has the idea of being willing to wait and managing ambition, right? And I think it's interesting because I don't know how better you could define the two distinct meanings of the word patience.

And they used them both. They felt that they were both applicable to the character of God and what we ought to be as his followers.

And so anyhow, the long suffering piece is interesting because willingness to suffer was obviously big to them. That should continue to be a hallmark of Jesus' followers, right? Take up your cross and follow me. But this thing of managing ambition, I think that's more where this fear comes in of laziness and indifference and whatnot.

But this is one interesting point I didn't mention before. Tertullian, on his treatise on patience, said that he believes the work of the Holy Spirit in a believer's life is predicated on their embrace of patience. And if they start to live in an impatient way, that the Holy Spirit will get uncomfortable and leave.

And so Tertullian, he was very interested in the work of the Holy Spirit. He was a very charismatic believer, so to speak. But that was his understanding of the nature of being a spirit-filled person and living a spirit-filled life. And so when you think then about, and you connect then with this idea of we do not speak great things, but we live them.

And you take that to our context where Christianity moved to America and became an enterprise, right? So we have embraced many ideas about the church that pose it as a high-pressure sale. We really have to do this. We have to compel people and convince them and use words.

And in contrast, this is describing something that I think the world is actually a lot more hungry for and ready for, which is lives that are deeply transformed, spirit compelled to live great things rather than speak them. And that's not an impassionate vision of what believers ought to be. Rather, there's every reason both to get excited and to be very sobered by that challenge.

Yeah. On page 259 of this book, in this idea of patience, this quote says, "Religion cannot be promoted by compulsion. The advocates of a religion must make their case by patience. When people seek to defend a religion by bloodshed and torture, the religion is polluted and outraged." And so I think of in this current moment in the United States, we sit, what is it, 15, 16 days away from the national election for a president.

And there is a sense of urgency everywhere. I mean, there is a, I'm getting texts on my phone to get out and vote. I'm getting, when you drive into downtown State College, there's a big truck with a big digital sign sitting right there by the street, trying to capture as many students as possible and saying, "Go vote. Here, scan this QR code." There's a sense of urgency in our world and a sense of compulsion. Obviously, at the end of the day, at the bottom of the ballot box is a gun. There is a sense of force. There is a very forceful reality.

And so we've been raised, all four of us, I believe, have been raised in a church that understands this idea of separation of churches, day of non-resistance, of a lot, of this understanding of we never forced anybody. However, much has bled in.

Much of this impatience, maybe we're not going to vote. I know that none of us are going to vote on November 5th. But what other things have we soaked up in our Western world that are totally counter to the ways of Jesus and his kingdom and his church? And that's what I find. And I think that this spirit of patience, this heart, this desire, this embracing of this virtue really convicts me because I am the opposite of that.

So great challenge. Thank you, Kevin. Any quick questions for Kevin yet before we move on here? We'll circle back to this idea, I'm sure, many times. Any more questions from you all, the rest of you? Okay. So let's turn right. Let's move on to Wendell here. And Wendell's going to be talking about habitus. So what in the world does the word habitus mean? And also, maybe before we jump into that, tell us a little bit about what this book has meant to you or why you think it's important.

Yes. Well, I'm excited to be here talking about this book too. So patience firmment of the early church.

I heard this book being discussed for probably two years before I read it. And I thought that I had the impression this was going to be a dry academic book. Well, I cracked it open. And I told one of my brothers here at church, I said, "I thought this book was going to be boring. This is really interesting. I'm really enjoying it." So I would just encourage you all to, if you're thinking about reading this book, it's very worthwhile. It's very engaging, as someone said before. And I think if you're someone who's excited about following Jesus and what that means for your life, you'll find it very fascinating.

I think, yeah, it can really shape your world in a good way and challenge maybe some of your preconceptions. I want to talk about the idea of habitus. Now, that's not a word that many of us use and probably not real familiar with the idea of what it means. So to introduce that in page 39, which is in the chapter Push and Pull, which a lot of what I'm going to refer to is from that chapter in the book.

Near the beginning of the book, I think it's the second or third chapter.

He talks about the fact that we often tend to think that we do things because of our ideas, because of what we believe. I think, therefore, I am. We believe things, and that's why we act out of it. And he's pushing on that idea a little bit to say that actually the things that we do shape who we are, and I think can actually shape what we believe.

And he talks about this idea of habitus, which is a really big idea, I think, that comes out in this book. And I think here on page 49 has a good statement, I think, of what it is. And that is that it is distinctive, reflexive, and embodied expression of the faith.

And Brian, earlier, you referred to it as embodied behavior. Behavior, right.

But he said it's a distinctive, reflexive, and embodied expression of the faith, especially for us Christians. And if you think of words that you know that sound similar to this, you might think of habit or habitual. And there's definitely related ideas going on there.

And it has a lot so it has a lot to do with the way of life, the way we live, the way Christians live. And there's a quote here from page 51 that I thought was really powerful. And he says here, this is actually coming after a quote by Justin Martyr, and he's referring to Justin Martyr and Tertullian and how they are talking about martyrs and people that suffered for their faith. And he says this, that it was not primarily what the Christians said that carried weight with outsiders, but it was what they did and embodied that was most disconcerting and converting.

It was their habitus, their reflexes and ways of life that suggested there was another way to perceive reality that made the Christians interesting, challenging, and worth investigating. So I really like the way he puts that. Their way of life was what made them stand out. And that's what I took that definition of habitus as being a distinctive expression of the faith. And that's what I see here, especially when Christians were dying for their faith and the pagans were looking on and saying, "What's going on here? There's something odd. There's something unusual, distinctive, and worth investigating." And ultimately, that it was part of what drew the pagans into becoming followers of Jesus.

There's also a quote, and maybe I don't want to go to that right now, but he also talks about habitus being a reflexive way of life. And so when I think of reflexes, I think that thing where you do the knee jerk, where the doctor taps you right below the knee there, below your kneecap, and you have your reflex kicks in. And so a reflex is something that you don't really even think about because it's built into who you are. And in our bodies, it's actually part of our nerves and the way our nerves are wired that it doesn't have to go back to the thinking part of us to actually engage because it's what we do almost automatically.

And so he's using this in a way of saying that habitus is something that's reflexive.

And then so I go to page 59. There's a quote that I like as well. I think this is from Tertullian. Oh, yeah. Tertullian says he's comparing the Christian assembly to pagan private associations. And he says, Tertullian, he uses a quote from Tertullian. He says, "We are from among yourselves." Tertullian exalts, "Christians are made not born."

And that kind of actually feels like it's maybe fighting against the idea of reflexive, that it's the reflexes that are kicking in. But what Tertullian is saying, "Christians are made and not born." Yeah, there is this rewiring that needs to happen and this transformation that needs to happen to take us from being pagans to being little Christ like Jesus. And that's whether we're in the first century or the 21st century, that's a reality that we all need to grapple with. We do need to be rewired. The transformation and rewiring needs to happen.

So yeah, I'm doing a lot of quotes here, but I just found them really powerful. On page 143, this is in the chapter of catechesis and baptism. This is also in the idea of transformation. And he's kind of loosely quoting from Justin Martyr's apology. He says, "Christians have renounced their old habitus or way of life and entered an alternative life-giving habitus in each of four areas that are very these four areas that are very basic areas of society: in sex, continence, in place of magic, dedication to God, in wealth, bringing what we have into a common fund and sharing with everyone in need, in violence and xenophobia, living together and praying for our enemies and trying to persuade those who unjustly hate us.

This new habitus, Justin contends, is rooted in the teachings of Christ, whose word was the power of God." So I think that, yeah, that's a powerful

picture of how the change, the transformation that happens to make this habitus reflexive. And he also says it's embodied. Okay. So Allen points out that early Christians, the early Christians here, did not use their meetings, their assemblies, or whatever you want to call it, assemblies, worship services. They did not use them as evangelistic tools. In fact, often, from what we can tell, pagans were kept out. They were intentionally, partly because of the fear of persecution, but they didn't use it as a there was no such thing as seeker-friendly services. And so he says on page 61, "What the outsiders saw was not their worship. It was their habitus." According to Tertullian, the outsiders looked at the Christians and saw them energetically feeding poor people and burying them, caring for boys and girls who lacked property and parents, and being attentive to aged slaves and prisoners.

They interpreted these actions as a work of love. And I think this is kind of what for me really got my attention. They interpreted these actions as work of love, and they said, "Vide," that's Latin, "look," how they love one another. They didn't say, "All day, listen to the Christians' message." They did not say, "Legge," or read what they write.

And he makes a point that hearing and reading were important, but the most powerful way the early Christians impacted the pagan society around them was by them looking on and seeing what's happening. The Christians' truth, we must not miss the reality the pagans said, "Look, Christianity's truth was visible. It was embodied and enacted by its members. It was made tangible, sacramental."

And he says some people, a minority in society, no doubt, but a small number that was growing, were drawn by this habitus. And they want to know, "Why is it that you live like this?"

So yeah, sorry. Yeah. And we have other places where this comes up. He talks about the way Christians actually cared for people during the plague in Carthig. He refers to that. And I referred to that in the last quote too, but yeah, to me, this whole idea of habitus and way of life that's reflexive.

Sorry, what was the first one?

It's distinctive. It stands out. It's reflexive. And it's something that's learned. It's an action that's learned, reaction that's learned, and it's embodied. It's something that's actually a part of who we are in our bodies. Yeah, that's powerful. Do you have any thoughts or questions?

I have two questions for you, Wendell. The one is, do you have any comments on anything that stood out to you in terms of how habitus was formed by the early churches, what approach they took to that? And the second question is, do you have anything more to say about it being embodied? I think you already touched on this, but I was just wondering if you had anything even more explicit to talk about.

What does that mean for habitus to be in your body, so to speak, this habitual, distinctive thing that is almost part of your physicality, so to speak? Yeah. So talking about the time that they took to bring people into the Christian community, what stood out to me was the fact that they recognized that this is not something that you flip a switch and all of who you are changes overnight.

When we think that what we believe is the only thing that affects who we are, or maybe the primary thing that affects who we are, we think that when we change our minds about something or gain a different perspective on something, that automatically changes everything. And we don't realize that we're people that we live in bodies. And when our bodies are used to doing something, it actually takes time to change. And so I think that was what was kind of probably the biggest thing that stuck out to me on that. They actually realized that, yeah, it takes time for people to change from being pagans to being Christians.

And the other thing on embodied, I guess I've heard someone else say this, something like, "What the hands do, the heart believes," or maybe it's the heart eventually believes. I'm not sure if I inserted that in or if that was there originally.

But that's a powerful idea to me. And that's rolled around in my head for years. But what we do actually shapes who we are. Now, I know that when you hear that, you might be thinking of, "Yeah, but I know people who do things that say something about them." But when you actually get to know them better, you find out that that's not actually who they are. Well, yeah, we do see that. I mean, that's hypocrisy, right?

But when your heart is where it should be in following Jesus, there's something powerful about actually doing things that you maybe don't feel at the moment. There's things that we practice, like maybe it might be feet washing. It might be the Holy Kiss.

It might be the bread and wine of communion that actually shape us in powerful ways that I think we often don't realize.

And maybe that's pretty vague, but yeah, that's what I got for right now on that. Did you say feet washing too? Yes, I did. Yeah. And interestingly, the kiss of peace, Crider talks about that in the early church writings.

That was huge. That kiss of peace was huge, which right here, I grabbed one of their quotes here. "The kiss of peace also shaped Christian witness. Believers, many of them poor, emerged from worship with exhilarating knowledge that they had kissed unequals on the level I, a struggling stoneworker, had kissed a Decoran," which is a—I'm probably pronouncing that wrong—"but which is a Roman official. Whenever others might say about whatever others might say about them, the believers knew that they were people of worth, brothers and sisters in Christ.

They knew this in their bodies. Outsiders would look at them and wonder what had happened to them in worship that gave them dignity and confidence." Isn't that amazing? So in that community, those kingdom communities, there was this presence of heaven or this kiss of heaven there. And yeah, they were brothers and sisters. They were eating at the same table. Slaves, the bottom rung of society with the top rung of societies were meeting together, eating together, communing together, worshiping together. And they also gave each other that kiss of peace. And I think that's so powerful. I think the Holy Kiss, as we sometimes call it, which is a biblical term, or the kiss of peace or the kiss of charity, is really an amazing testament of brotherhood.

I want to see us as a church fight for that. And again, we see that being a central part of these early Christian communities. Back to your—and I should say continue with the embodiment idea. Jesus taught that in the sermon.

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. Okay? So do that embodied thing, that physical thing. Put your treasure. Give it away. Invest it in the kingdom. And there your heart's going to be too. So it's an amazing reality. Of course, John D. Martin has taught that so much. So yeah, any more questions on this really, really important part, this embodiment idea? It's kind of taking this virtue of patience and putting it into practice. Right.

Hector, speak up here. You've been pretty quiet. What happened to you?

Have you been—are you being patient with us? I'm being patient with you. No. The habitus thing is really—it's kind of a weird term, but I think it's pretty interesting on a lot of levels. One of the things that we are taught—I've been taught all my life that I grew up with, that I find really astounding with the habitus concept is that we're expected to change overnight.

To be a new man, it's just going to be—and we're a new man. But wow, the early Christians didn't believe that at all. It just really messes with my worldview, so.

Yeah. I'm not sure how to think about that, but I guess the historical record is there.

Yeah.

Right.

One other comment I would make on this subject of habitus. I was very provoked by the YouTuber UsefulCharts after he had finished this grandiose exploration of the development of Christian denominations, and he surveyed all these different denominations and made this huge family tree of all of these different Christian groups and what inspired them and how they developed and whatnot. He was then asked to do a similar project with Judaism, and he himself is a convert to Judaism. And so he said, "I'm going to begin by talking about the differences that I see between Christianity and Judaism at the beginning of this project." And he said, "The primary difference between Christianity and Judaism is that Christianity is concerned with what you believe.

Judaism is concerned with what you do, how you live your life." And I thought, "Isn't that such a tragedy that after studying the breadth and depth of Christian groups that exist across the globe today, he was able to make that kind of assessment with such confidence?" And I think it just underscores in an anecdotal sort of way the need for the church to recapture a passion for habitus.

Yeah. We could stay here a long time on this, but I guess, hey, these are all little teasers for our listeners to get the book, read it, and contemplate on some of these profound truths. And really, what's interesting, Wendell and Kevin and Hector, is that there are Christian leaders who are really thinking about this. They're just seeing this impoverishment among the churches.

And they're realizing, "Whoa, what is happening? How can we help our people actually have a conviction and have a way of life that can sustain them in the face of a world that is so pluralistic, that is so post-Christian?" And they're realizing just in the head isn't enough. It needs to embody you.

It needs to be reflexive, right, Wendell? Right. You just do it. You just do it. It needs to be ingrained in us. And I think of John Mark Comer and some of those who are really putting a lot of thought into discipleship and how people can slow down. Okay? Become patient, slow down, and spend time with their communities, spend time in the Word, spend time with Jesus so that they can actually have the sustenance they need to be faithful in our day.

So yeah, it's these ancient people. They're teaching us today how to do that. And that's amazing. Super amazing. Okay. So I think, Hector, Wendell gave you a little bit of a kind of stole your thunder, maybe even on your part of this time. And that is— Sorry.

That's okay. I would say you did a great lead-in there for Hector to talk about their Sunday gatherings. So talk to us about that a little bit. What were those like, and is there anything that we can learn from them today?

So I got into this book by someone continually nagging me and finally giving me the book to read because he said, "If I'm writing a book, I got to read this book." So I read it. And actually, you guys are saying it's not a dry read. Now, I would differ a little bit. I don't really like reading academic stuff. So it is a little—it is a little bit more of a weight than definitely not a light read by any means.

I've chewed on thicker paper, but there's definitely a lot in there.

But I did really enjoy it because it was one of those things that kind of really just every time you turn a page, you're just not sure if you're going to get whacked on the side of the head with another weird idea. I read David Brousseau for the first time when I was probably 15.

I didn't really pay much attention. So I'm not unfamiliar with the early church, but Alan Crider's way of documenting and bringing out just and kind of making some things that we don't usually think about just really stick out. One is the Saturday gathering.

It was actually Saturday evening that they would gather for worship and for communion. It would gather after work, late Saturday evening, come together for a meal, a time of sharing, and a time of praying. And then they would end this time with communion or the Eucharist, which I find the order interesting.