Gentle reader, please see PART I for the context of what follows. As I noted in my conclusion to PART I, there are at least three ways open to Christians – each has the potential for moving the Christian to holiness or hellishness. The second, and for me, the most hope-full, is Compassionate-Generous Pluralism.
Too often it seems, we forget – or we did not know – that early on in the Christian movement a crucial decision was made: to accept the reality of two different Christian peoples. These two were separate and equal and quite different. Jewish Christians (think: Peter and James) remained faithful to the Mosaic Law; non-Jewish Christians (think: Paul) were allowed a different practice under what Christian-Jews called the ‘Noachide Laws’ (the universal covenant for the rest of humankind).
In Judaism, God accepts the prayers and obedience of ‘righteous gentiles’ who live under the covenant of Noah. These ‘righteous gentiles’ embraced the seven ‘Noachide Laws’: prohibition of murder, theft, idolatry, sexual immorality, cursing God, eating blood and the command to set up courts of ‘true justice.’ The ruling of the council in Jerusalem cited in Acts 15:20 alludes to these laws for the ‘people’ God was raising up from among the Gentiles.
The differences between the two Christian peoples included, among other things, understandings of the way to salvation, with Paul insisting that ‘no one can be justified by doing the works of the law’ and James, the leader of the Jewish-Christian Church, stating clearly that we are justified ‘by works and not by faith alone’ (see Gal.2:16 and James 2:24).
It is crucial to remember (or to learn) that the first church council, composed of Jesus’ original followers, family, and the earliest converts, set a precedent that there can be more than one way of being authentically Christian (see Acts 15:1-31).
These folks were being true to Jesus’ own example. The apostles he called forth were truly diverse: ‘Simon the Zealot’ (the sword-bearer), James, a Pharisee in spirit and practice, some had been disciples of John the Baptist (his movement ran parallel to Jesus’ movement). Jesus’ ‘Beloved Disciple’ had a Sadduccean background. The ‘twelve’ represented the pan-Israelite harmony Jesus’ movement proclaimed. His message: the Spirit of God’s reign is available to all.
As Christians know (or should know) that the basis of unity was JESUS himself – his spirit and his way of being in the world. The basis of unity was NOT a neat ideological conformity. True, they all strove to believe, one way or another, in God as revealed to Israel, and they, mostly, came to believe that Jesus was a man ‘sent from God.’ After Jesus-the-Christ left them, the heart of their unity – of their community – continued to be a ‘way of being in the world.’
The early Jesus Community was defined by how disciples treat one another and those they meet as they follow Jesus-the-Christ. ‘By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another’ (John 13:35). [To Be Continued]
Searcher-Seeker 
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