Nov. 26 (second time), 2007
We are on our way back to Yangon after visiting three orphanages. It’s 3:30 in the afternoon right now. It’s very warm, probably close to 90 degrees out. We’re in a 11-passenger van if you only count the regular seats. There’s two seats that fold down and block off the passage to the back after everyone’s in, so that gets the total up to 13 seats. There may even be a couple other fold down seats I don’t know about in here somewhere.
We broke up into two teams today. Abba, Chashaq, Chasah and I were on a team with Tim and Chuck, both from PA and about my age, and Bebo, which is what David calls his daughter Elisabeth.
It’s very easy to get your heart completely stolen while you’re there. We asked before we left about how to act around the children. Do we shake their hands, hug them, what? We were told that it’s best to watch. Sometimes the children will hug you, and then it’s certainly okay to hug them back. What we didn’t know to ask, but we do know now, is what do you do if they grab your hands, worm their way under your arms, surround you, wrap their arms around you and stick with you wherever you go.
Actually, at the first orphanage, the children were a little more reserved than that. We had a very inexperienced crew, and we learned how to play games with that many children at the first one. We handed out presents, many sent by some of you, and gave them candy. At the 2nd and 3rd orphanages the children were just as affectionate as I described. One young lady, Ting Sui, gave me a bracelet, and whole groups of them won our hearts so much it was painful to leave. The games were much better, too, because we learned at the first one. Hot potato worked real well. Like the Mercy Home children, they are really good sports.
At the third orphanage, Chasah taught them to dance the grapevine. Abba played his _Rejoice, O Israel_ song. It was very fun. Then we played Hot Potato, too, and gave them their gifts. It’s so fun to be with them that when we leave, I pull the window open and we slap hands and say bye all the way out the gate.
Uh, that’s it for this update. Nothing more to tell except that we sang a little in the van on the way back (we’re still on the way back) and Bebo can really sing, but Chuck, uh, doesn’t sing as well as Bebo. He belts it out, though, and he’s a joy to be around. Very cheerful, enjoyable man.
Much love!
Shammah
Monday, November 26, 2007
On trip to Myanmar
Nov. 26
I don’t know if we are going to have internet access in Kalaymyo, but apparently we are going to have it the whole time in Yangon.
There’s not much to tell yet. We got to Bangkok on Saturday night after leaving Friday morning. There was no Friday night, however. We left at 8 in the morning to Washington DC, which is an hour ahead of us. From there we flew west, so we crossed about six time zones, going back six hours, before we hit the international date line. At that point, what was Friday afternoon suddenly became Saturday afternoon. Think of it as daylight savings time on steroids.
You don’t fly due west, as you may think. The world is a sphere, and apparently it’s good to fly above land rather that water, so from DC we flew Northwest, eventually heading due west only when we were at the northern edge of Canada. Because it’s late November, and we were flying up near the arctic circle, it got dark even though it was only two or three in the afternoon local time. We then flew across Alaska, zipped over a very small portion of the Pacific south of the Bering strait, and then followed the Russian coast down to Japan.
We landed in Tokyo at about 4 pm on Friday turned Saturday afternoon. Then we jumped on a plane for a seven hour flight to Bangkok, Thailand, crossing Vietnam and part of China (I think) in the process. We did amazingly well being in the air 23 hours in a 26 hour period that all occurred on one day (though which day it was changed in the middle of the afternoon). Chasah got motion sickness the last several hours of the Bangkok flight, but Becky, David’s wife, had Dramamine for her to take.
We stayed overnight Saturday night at a hotel called Convenient Resort. Our plane didn’t leave until noon, so we had a little time to walk in the morning. Our hotel seemed to be in the middle of a wilderness but on the edge of a city. A multi-level highway passed behind the hotel, but it was separated from us by a very large field with grasses some ten feet tall. The field wasn’t dry, but looked like a marsh, with a green, powdery algae floating in the spots where you could see the water. Meanwhile, in front of the hotel was a similar field, but dryer, and the city was on the other side of it. I couldn’t see the city, just the tops of buildings over the tall grasses.
It was amazing watching the hotel staff in the morning. Due to jet lag, I was downstairs before 5 a.m. There were about five people asleep on stairs and in chairs in the hallway. In fact, I passed the first one I saw on the second floor stairs. He was in a sitting position with his head in his hands, elbows on his knees, but he was obviously asleep, because he didn’t look up when I walked past him.
When those same people had to load us up for the trip back to the airport, that was the amazing part. They were trying to get 15 people and 45 bags into one van and two cars. They did it. Maybe someone took pictures. There’s no explaining it.
The flight to Yangon, Myanmar yesterday (Sunday) was short. Friends of David picked us up in a bus. They drive strangely in this country. In every other country I’ve been in, if you drive on the left side of the road, the steering wheel is on the right side of the car (Like Britain, Kenya, India, and Japan). If you drive on the right side, then the steering wheel is on the left (like the US, mainland Europe, and Ethiopia). Here, however, they drive on the right side, like the US, but the steering wheel is also on the right side, like England. Thus, the passenger side of the vehicle is in the middle of the street. So, when they picked us up at the airport, they didn’t load the bus through the door, which opened in the middle of the street, but they handed the bags up through the driver’s side rear window. There were a lot of bags. We took pictures of Matthew, a 15-year-old on this trip, sitting on them with his head pressed sideways against the tall ceiling of the bus.
The hotel here is beautiful. The city has lots of areas of vegetation. There are trees everywhere. I’m looking out the hotel window at some really massive shade trees. It’s not the trunk that’s so big, but the really wide spread of the top of the tree.
Today we’re going to visit three orphanages. We’re really looking forward to it.
Oh, the money. The exchange rate is 1275 to one dollar. I don’t know the name of their money yet. It sounds something like Chen, but it’s not that, I don’t think. I can’t read the letters on the money. There biggest bill is a 1,000 bill, so when you exchange a hundred dollars you get a big wad of cash. Even a $20 that I exchanged yesterday gave me a whole handful of bills.
Ok, now the spiritual stuff.
David told me about a guy he had met at an orphanage here. He asked him how the orphanage got started. The man said, “I got a good job making $25 per month, so I thought I should do something with all that money. I thought I’d better start an orphanage or something.”
I heard that story around 6:15 this morning. Around 5:30 this morning I was reading Mark, and I found the passage that says, “It is difficult to enter the kingdom of God.” Now, the next sentence is that it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, but the first sentence didn’t mention rich people. It just says it’s difficult to enter the kingdom of heaven. 1 Peter 4:18 says something similar, that it is only with difficulty that the righteous are saved.
When I heard the story about the guy with $25/month who felt compelled by his sudden “riches” to start an orphanage, I wonder whether people like me have any hope of going to heaven. I’ll bet he never checked on the price of a TV or motorcycle before he started the orphanage.
Oh, well. I quit worrying about going to heaven years ago. If that happens, it will only be because God has an inordinate amount of mercy. I think I’ll be happy just to be a part of helping real men of God like that orphanage guy do good. It is simply amazing how much work there’s available to do around the world. When you see the needs, it’s very clear that the difference between giving a child a fish and teaching him to fish is a huge and important one. It can be very important to feed people, but it may be even more important to put in wells and irrigation and provide training.
In fact, looking at people’s houses in Kenya, India, and other places has really made it clear why Jesus spoke of God providing food and clothing without ever mentioning shelter. Shelter’s pretty important in places where it snows, and shade can be important in places like Tennessee. However, in America we really overestimate shelter. People live quite happily in all sorts of homes, both with and without doors, and almost none of them in other places are all sealed up like ours are. If they do have a home that happens to have walls and a roof with no large holes in them, they leave a gap between the walls and roof so the air can move. I suspect we were made to live outdoors, breathing moving air.
Well, I love all of you. I’m told we’re going to meet more incredibly wonderful people today that we’re going to fall in love with. I think it’s possible that Americans are the grumpiest people on earth, though Europeans probably compete with us. Money and happiness are truly not much related to one another. There’s a bumper sticker I’ve read that says, “Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy the things that make you happy.” That’s pure hogs’ wallow. The best things in life can’t be bought with money. May our children, who get to grow up with both village life and surrounded by American extravagance, prove to all America the truth of that.
Great grace be with you.
Oh, everyone’s doing well and healthy. Chashaq and Chasah, new to Asia, are loving it. I walked to a 7-11—yes, a real 7-11—in Bangkok with Chashaq, and he bought a big gulp there with a few bhat that he had gotten as change when he paid for internet at the Convenient Resort. Elisabeth, David’s daughter, was there with us. It was fun. Ratatouille was available with Thai subtitles on DVD in that 7-11, but it was 169 bhat, and I didn’t have any to buy it with. Sorry, kids. Besides, if I’d have bought it, I’d have probably felt so guilty today after hearing about the orphanage guy that I’d have been depressed the whole rest of the trip.
I’m not depressed, though, I’m thrilled to be alive, to know y’all, to be a part of this trip, to be with the friends I’m traveling with, and to know that we are learning how to live our the life of Christ in a world of great needs while living in a country of great deception.
Love,
Shammah
I don’t know if we are going to have internet access in Kalaymyo, but apparently we are going to have it the whole time in Yangon.
There’s not much to tell yet. We got to Bangkok on Saturday night after leaving Friday morning. There was no Friday night, however. We left at 8 in the morning to Washington DC, which is an hour ahead of us. From there we flew west, so we crossed about six time zones, going back six hours, before we hit the international date line. At that point, what was Friday afternoon suddenly became Saturday afternoon. Think of it as daylight savings time on steroids.
You don’t fly due west, as you may think. The world is a sphere, and apparently it’s good to fly above land rather that water, so from DC we flew Northwest, eventually heading due west only when we were at the northern edge of Canada. Because it’s late November, and we were flying up near the arctic circle, it got dark even though it was only two or three in the afternoon local time. We then flew across Alaska, zipped over a very small portion of the Pacific south of the Bering strait, and then followed the Russian coast down to Japan.
We landed in Tokyo at about 4 pm on Friday turned Saturday afternoon. Then we jumped on a plane for a seven hour flight to Bangkok, Thailand, crossing Vietnam and part of China (I think) in the process. We did amazingly well being in the air 23 hours in a 26 hour period that all occurred on one day (though which day it was changed in the middle of the afternoon). Chasah got motion sickness the last several hours of the Bangkok flight, but Becky, David’s wife, had Dramamine for her to take.
We stayed overnight Saturday night at a hotel called Convenient Resort. Our plane didn’t leave until noon, so we had a little time to walk in the morning. Our hotel seemed to be in the middle of a wilderness but on the edge of a city. A multi-level highway passed behind the hotel, but it was separated from us by a very large field with grasses some ten feet tall. The field wasn’t dry, but looked like a marsh, with a green, powdery algae floating in the spots where you could see the water. Meanwhile, in front of the hotel was a similar field, but dryer, and the city was on the other side of it. I couldn’t see the city, just the tops of buildings over the tall grasses.
It was amazing watching the hotel staff in the morning. Due to jet lag, I was downstairs before 5 a.m. There were about five people asleep on stairs and in chairs in the hallway. In fact, I passed the first one I saw on the second floor stairs. He was in a sitting position with his head in his hands, elbows on his knees, but he was obviously asleep, because he didn’t look up when I walked past him.
When those same people had to load us up for the trip back to the airport, that was the amazing part. They were trying to get 15 people and 45 bags into one van and two cars. They did it. Maybe someone took pictures. There’s no explaining it.
The flight to Yangon, Myanmar yesterday (Sunday) was short. Friends of David picked us up in a bus. They drive strangely in this country. In every other country I’ve been in, if you drive on the left side of the road, the steering wheel is on the right side of the car (Like Britain, Kenya, India, and Japan). If you drive on the right side, then the steering wheel is on the left (like the US, mainland Europe, and Ethiopia). Here, however, they drive on the right side, like the US, but the steering wheel is also on the right side, like England. Thus, the passenger side of the vehicle is in the middle of the street. So, when they picked us up at the airport, they didn’t load the bus through the door, which opened in the middle of the street, but they handed the bags up through the driver’s side rear window. There were a lot of bags. We took pictures of Matthew, a 15-year-old on this trip, sitting on them with his head pressed sideways against the tall ceiling of the bus.
The hotel here is beautiful. The city has lots of areas of vegetation. There are trees everywhere. I’m looking out the hotel window at some really massive shade trees. It’s not the trunk that’s so big, but the really wide spread of the top of the tree.
Today we’re going to visit three orphanages. We’re really looking forward to it.
Oh, the money. The exchange rate is 1275 to one dollar. I don’t know the name of their money yet. It sounds something like Chen, but it’s not that, I don’t think. I can’t read the letters on the money. There biggest bill is a 1,000 bill, so when you exchange a hundred dollars you get a big wad of cash. Even a $20 that I exchanged yesterday gave me a whole handful of bills.
Ok, now the spiritual stuff.
David told me about a guy he had met at an orphanage here. He asked him how the orphanage got started. The man said, “I got a good job making $25 per month, so I thought I should do something with all that money. I thought I’d better start an orphanage or something.”
I heard that story around 6:15 this morning. Around 5:30 this morning I was reading Mark, and I found the passage that says, “It is difficult to enter the kingdom of God.” Now, the next sentence is that it is harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, but the first sentence didn’t mention rich people. It just says it’s difficult to enter the kingdom of heaven. 1 Peter 4:18 says something similar, that it is only with difficulty that the righteous are saved.
When I heard the story about the guy with $25/month who felt compelled by his sudden “riches” to start an orphanage, I wonder whether people like me have any hope of going to heaven. I’ll bet he never checked on the price of a TV or motorcycle before he started the orphanage.
Oh, well. I quit worrying about going to heaven years ago. If that happens, it will only be because God has an inordinate amount of mercy. I think I’ll be happy just to be a part of helping real men of God like that orphanage guy do good. It is simply amazing how much work there’s available to do around the world. When you see the needs, it’s very clear that the difference between giving a child a fish and teaching him to fish is a huge and important one. It can be very important to feed people, but it may be even more important to put in wells and irrigation and provide training.
In fact, looking at people’s houses in Kenya, India, and other places has really made it clear why Jesus spoke of God providing food and clothing without ever mentioning shelter. Shelter’s pretty important in places where it snows, and shade can be important in places like Tennessee. However, in America we really overestimate shelter. People live quite happily in all sorts of homes, both with and without doors, and almost none of them in other places are all sealed up like ours are. If they do have a home that happens to have walls and a roof with no large holes in them, they leave a gap between the walls and roof so the air can move. I suspect we were made to live outdoors, breathing moving air.
Well, I love all of you. I’m told we’re going to meet more incredibly wonderful people today that we’re going to fall in love with. I think it’s possible that Americans are the grumpiest people on earth, though Europeans probably compete with us. Money and happiness are truly not much related to one another. There’s a bumper sticker I’ve read that says, “Money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy the things that make you happy.” That’s pure hogs’ wallow. The best things in life can’t be bought with money. May our children, who get to grow up with both village life and surrounded by American extravagance, prove to all America the truth of that.
Great grace be with you.
Oh, everyone’s doing well and healthy. Chashaq and Chasah, new to Asia, are loving it. I walked to a 7-11—yes, a real 7-11—in Bangkok with Chashaq, and he bought a big gulp there with a few bhat that he had gotten as change when he paid for internet at the Convenient Resort. Elisabeth, David’s daughter, was there with us. It was fun. Ratatouille was available with Thai subtitles on DVD in that 7-11, but it was 169 bhat, and I didn’t have any to buy it with. Sorry, kids. Besides, if I’d have bought it, I’d have probably felt so guilty today after hearing about the orphanage guy that I’d have been depressed the whole rest of the trip.
I’m not depressed, though, I’m thrilled to be alive, to know y’all, to be a part of this trip, to be with the friends I’m traveling with, and to know that we are learning how to live our the life of Christ in a world of great needs while living in a country of great deception.
Love,
Shammah
Monday, November 19, 2007
The Church and the World
Yes, and the Caesars too would have believed on Christ, if either the Caesars
had not been necessary for the world, or if Christians could have been Caesars.
~Tertullian, Apology 21, c. AD 210
This statement by Tertullian, a lawyer by profession, is not an argument, but a simple statement of fact. To him, all Christians knew this to be true.
In case you're missing what he's saying, let's parse it a bit. This sentence is part of a letter written to the Caesar. In the letter, he points out that it seems impossible to stop the Christians. There are so many, he says, that if Caesar banished them all from the empire he would have no one left to rule. This is an exagerration, of course, but his point stands. There were many Christians, and Tertullian is famous for the statement made in this letter, "The more often we are mowed down by you, the more in number we grow. The blood of the martyrs is seed" (ch. 50).
His point in the statement at the top of this page is that if it were possible to convert the Caesar, it would have already happened. Two things would have to be true, though, for a Caesar to believe on Christ. Either, one, the world would have to have no need of Caesars, or, two, a Christian would have to be able to be a Caesar. Neither, however, according to Tertullian, are true.
It would be possible for a Caesar to believe on Christ if he could just quit being Caesar. However, the world has need of Caesars. Or, if a Christian could be a Caesar, then the Caesar could believe and remain Caesar. Alas, a Christian cannot be a Caesar.
Again, Tertullian is not arguing this point. He is stating it as something that apparently all Christians understood. There are two reasons that I can see in their writings for why this is so.
One, Christians have their own kingdom. Theirs comes from heaven. An early anonymous Christian letter stated, "As citizens we share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to us as our native country, and every land of our birth as a land of strangers" (Letter to Diognetus 5). "If my kingdom were of this earth," Jesus said, "Then would my servants fight for me." Their kingdom is from heaven, however, and their weapons are spiritual. Thus, the early church understood that the prophecy that we would beat our swords into ploughshares was fulfilled in the church, not in a future millennial kingdom. It is not the job of Christians to rule an earthly kingdom.
Two, Christians cannot use the sword, and the government must use the sword. Governments are the ministers of God, says the apostle Paul in Romans 13, to use the sword to correct evildoers. Christians, however, cannot do so. They must forgive, turn the other cheek, and pray for those who do them wrong. These two ministries are incompatible, and thus every person must choose one or the other. They cannot do both.
The early church did not lose this view until the 4th century, when bishops began to be appointed by and paid by the Roman government. Even as late as the Council of Nicea in AD 325, a council at which the Roman emperor presided, it was stated that Christians cannot join the military "like a dog returning to his own vomit" (Council of Nicea, Canon 12).
This did not mean that Christians were of no value in war. Justin's letter to the emperor contains an account of a victory accomplished by the prayer of a battalion of Christians that refused to bear the sword. The very heavens battled against Rome's enemies at their prayer; a withering hail drove them from the battlefield (Justin Martyr, First Apology 68, appendix, c. AD 155). Tertullion himself argued that "it is the immense number of Christians which make your enemies so few" and called the emperor to take into account "the important protection we afford you" (Tertullian, ibid. ch. 37).
Oh, that we had the same faith today, the ability to trust God for our safety and for the safety of the lands we dwell in; that we would call on the same weapons that the early church called on and that we, too, would believe in their power.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Christianity after Constantine
I often object to things that people blame on Constantine. For example, Constantine did not change the Sabbath to Sunday. Saturn was the chief god of the Roman pantheon, and, as you may be able to figure out, Saturday was the day that was named after him. The whole idea that the Romans wanted to celebrate Sunday over Saturday isn't true. The only people who honored Sunday over any other day of the week were the Christians, who called it the 8th day and honored it because Christ rose on that day.
However, things did change drastically under Constantine. I like to call it the great judo throw. In judo, in order to throw an opponent, you push him first, getting him to push back against you. Once he does, you pull him toward you and use his momentum to perform the throw.
That's exactly what happened under Constantine. First, Diocletian orchestrated "The Great Persecution" from AD 303 - 311. Then Constantine gained control of the empire and saw his famous vision. He issued the Edict of Toleration, finally granting Christianity official approval to be practiced in the Roman empire. Up to that point it was a forbidden religion only because its adherents refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods or the Roman emperor.
The favor granted by Constantine proved to be too much for the church. They granted the emperor rights within the church that should never have been his. They failed to keep the separation of church and state, and they paid a terrible price for their courting of imperial favor. Those that want America to be a Christian nation would be wise to learn from the example of the 4th century church. The separation of church and state did not come from America's Constitution. It came from Jesus and his apostles, who proclaimed the kingdom of God, which is from heaven and not from earth. Christians can and should be subject to governments, but they cannot be the government. As Tertullian put it back in AD 200, "The Caesars, too, would have believed on Christ, if either the Caesars had not been necessary for the world, or if Christians could have been Caesars" (Apology 21).
What brings all this up for me is something I read today in Getting to Know the Church Fathers by Bryan Litfin. I haven't read much from the Post-Nicene Fathers (those after Constantine and the Council of Nicea that he presided over), so it's nice to have an introduction like his. In this case, I was reading about John Chrysostom, a late 4th and early 5th century church leader. He began as bishop of Antioch, but in AD 397 he was chosen by the emperor to be bishop of Constantinople. This competed with Rome as the most powerful bishopric in the world, since Constantinople was now capitol of the empire. John gladly took the position, the book tells us.
Now, it's important to keep in mind here that just this part of the story violates many principles held just decades earlier by all the church. Church leaders did not jump from church to church or city to city in the Pre-Nicene church. Elders were men chosen from among the congregation for their godly lives and leadership. They were raised up in that congregation, and then they served in that congregation. They did not do things like move from Antioch to Constantinople, and they certainly didn't do it at the bidding of the emperor.
It gets worse, however. It turns out that Theophilus, the bishop of Alexandria in Egypt, had someone groomed for that position. He was miffed that his man didn't get it, and it was made all the worse that the replacement came from Antioch a long-time rival city of Alexandria. Litfin tells us, "Perhaps you can imagine Theophilus's frustration when he found out that, not only had his candidate been rejected, but that John Chrysostom--an Antiochan!--was to be given this powerful position" (p. 202). In the margin, I wrote, "Only if Theophilus was no disciple."
Of course, I can't imagine that! I'm not in a state church. In the church I'm a part of, leaders serve. They are not in positions of power that they have to fight over, and if they did, it would prove that they are not worthy to lead. Hopefully, should something like that happen, we would take the advice of Cyprian, the great bishop of Carthage, who was fortunate enough to live prior to Nicea, and remove that leader from his position*!
Litfin writes, "From that day, Theophilus became John's sworn enemy. He was an ambitious schemer who wanted to advance Alexandria's power against Antioch or Constantinople. This was the ugly world John entered as a brand new bishop in the imperial capital (sic)" (ibid.). It seems that Theophilus was not the lover of God that his name suggests.
I suppose there's one nice thing in all of this. It reduces the number of church fathers that it's important that we are familiar with. It appears the ones after Nicea were no more familiar with what it is like to live in an apostolically established church than we Americans are.
*footnote: Cyprian wrote: "A people obedient to the Lord's precepts, and fearing God, ought to separate themselves from a sinful prelate, and not to associate themselves with the sacrifices of a sacrilegious priest, especially since they themselves have the power of either choosing worthy priests or of rejecting unworthy ones" (Epistle 67, from The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5).
However, things did change drastically under Constantine. I like to call it the great judo throw. In judo, in order to throw an opponent, you push him first, getting him to push back against you. Once he does, you pull him toward you and use his momentum to perform the throw.
That's exactly what happened under Constantine. First, Diocletian orchestrated "The Great Persecution" from AD 303 - 311. Then Constantine gained control of the empire and saw his famous vision. He issued the Edict of Toleration, finally granting Christianity official approval to be practiced in the Roman empire. Up to that point it was a forbidden religion only because its adherents refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods or the Roman emperor.
The favor granted by Constantine proved to be too much for the church. They granted the emperor rights within the church that should never have been his. They failed to keep the separation of church and state, and they paid a terrible price for their courting of imperial favor. Those that want America to be a Christian nation would be wise to learn from the example of the 4th century church. The separation of church and state did not come from America's Constitution. It came from Jesus and his apostles, who proclaimed the kingdom of God, which is from heaven and not from earth. Christians can and should be subject to governments, but they cannot be the government. As Tertullian put it back in AD 200, "The Caesars, too, would have believed on Christ, if either the Caesars had not been necessary for the world, or if Christians could have been Caesars" (Apology 21).
What brings all this up for me is something I read today in Getting to Know the Church Fathers by Bryan Litfin. I haven't read much from the Post-Nicene Fathers (those after Constantine and the Council of Nicea that he presided over), so it's nice to have an introduction like his. In this case, I was reading about John Chrysostom, a late 4th and early 5th century church leader. He began as bishop of Antioch, but in AD 397 he was chosen by the emperor to be bishop of Constantinople. This competed with Rome as the most powerful bishopric in the world, since Constantinople was now capitol of the empire. John gladly took the position, the book tells us.
Now, it's important to keep in mind here that just this part of the story violates many principles held just decades earlier by all the church. Church leaders did not jump from church to church or city to city in the Pre-Nicene church. Elders were men chosen from among the congregation for their godly lives and leadership. They were raised up in that congregation, and then they served in that congregation. They did not do things like move from Antioch to Constantinople, and they certainly didn't do it at the bidding of the emperor.
It gets worse, however. It turns out that Theophilus, the bishop of Alexandria in Egypt, had someone groomed for that position. He was miffed that his man didn't get it, and it was made all the worse that the replacement came from Antioch a long-time rival city of Alexandria. Litfin tells us, "Perhaps you can imagine Theophilus's frustration when he found out that, not only had his candidate been rejected, but that John Chrysostom--an Antiochan!--was to be given this powerful position" (p. 202). In the margin, I wrote, "Only if Theophilus was no disciple."
Of course, I can't imagine that! I'm not in a state church. In the church I'm a part of, leaders serve. They are not in positions of power that they have to fight over, and if they did, it would prove that they are not worthy to lead. Hopefully, should something like that happen, we would take the advice of Cyprian, the great bishop of Carthage, who was fortunate enough to live prior to Nicea, and remove that leader from his position*!
Litfin writes, "From that day, Theophilus became John's sworn enemy. He was an ambitious schemer who wanted to advance Alexandria's power against Antioch or Constantinople. This was the ugly world John entered as a brand new bishop in the imperial capital (sic)" (ibid.). It seems that Theophilus was not the lover of God that his name suggests.
I suppose there's one nice thing in all of this. It reduces the number of church fathers that it's important that we are familiar with. It appears the ones after Nicea were no more familiar with what it is like to live in an apostolically established church than we Americans are.
*footnote: Cyprian wrote: "A people obedient to the Lord's precepts, and fearing God, ought to separate themselves from a sinful prelate, and not to associate themselves with the sacrifices of a sacrilegious priest, especially since they themselves have the power of either choosing worthy priests or of rejecting unworthy ones" (Epistle 67, from The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5).
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