We're all cultural Christians, an author interview
We're all cultural Christians, an author interview
In which Nadya Williams talks about her new book, *Cultural Christians in the Early Church*
Gentle reader,
Today, I’m delighted to bring you an interview with Nadya Williams about her fascinating new book Cultural Christians in the Early Church: A Historical and Practical Introduction to Christians in the Greco-Roman World (Zondervan Academic, 256 pages).
The book releases tomorrow, but you can preorder it today!
From the publisher’s description of the book:
Too often Christians today think of cultural Christianity as a modern concept, and one most likely to occur in areas where Christianity is the majority culture, such as the American "Bible Belt." The story that this book presents, refutes both of these assumptions.
Cultural Christians in the Early Church, which aims to be both historical and practical, argues that cultural Christians were the rule, rather than the exception, in the early church. Using different categories of sins as its organizing principle, the book considers the challenge of culture to the earliest converts to Christianity, as they struggled to live on mission in the Greco-Roman cultural milieu of the Roman Empire. … Ultimately, recognizing that cultural sins were always a part of the story of the church and its people is a message that is both a source of comfort and a call to action in our pursuit of sanctification today.
My interview with Williams follows:
BFJ: The cover cracks me up. Can you tell us about the cover?
NW: This is the work of the brilliant cover designers at Zondervan Academic, so I can’t take any credit for it! That said, I think that it perfectly reflects the idea of this book. As Christians, we see our history going back to the early church. But also, Christians in every period of history were influenced (often without realizing it) by their own surrounding culture, and it shaped their behaviors in all kinds of subtle or not-so-subtle ways. So, the “WWJD” on the chariot license plate is both very modern and very ancient in intent. Ultimately, just like so many of the early Christians I discuss in this book, we can be just as eager to proclaim our faith outwardly in cheesy ways (like WWJD or the fish symbol) but fail to live up to it in the moments that require self-sacrifice.
BFJ: Why did you write Cultural Christians?
NW: Up until summer 2023, I was a professor of ancient history for 15 years, teaching in three different secular state universities. And every time I taught early Christianity, my students always had this assumption that the early Christians were very different from Christians today—holier, better, generally more devout. I realized from conversations with Christians at my church that they held this view as well. And sometimes there even seemed to be a sense of longing: oh, we wish we were just like those believers. Well, as I argued in a recent Anxious Bench post about the book, I’ve got both good news and bad news for my readers. The good news is: we’re a lot more like the early Christians than we realize. But the bad news is: we’re a lot more like the early Christians than we realize.
BFJ: Give us the short version: what’s the book about?
NW: Believers today readily assume that we are quite different from the early Christians, who were (common assumption goes) more conscientiously counter-cultural in their pagan milieu. Thence the historic love for restoration movements—restoring that mythical time when the church was perfect! And so, the idea of “Cultural Christianity” is something we assume could only exist in places like the “Bible Belt”—where Christianity is the majority culture, so it becomes almost a sort of Sunday club for everyone. And cultural Christians, in the definition I use in this book, are the people who go to church on Sunday and self-identify as Christians, yet whose daily lives and decision-making in various areas—from money to politics to marriage and sexuality—are defined by the culture rather than by the gospel of Jesus Christ.
But my argument is that these people are not this new modern and Southern phenomenon. Rather, cultural Christians have always been part of churches from the earliest days, even when Christianity was not a fashionable identity to claim, and when professing Christ could cost something—even one's life! The reason for this, I argue, is because human beings have always been more deeply shaped by the culture in which we dwell than we care (or dare) to admit. And so, the stories of early Christians behaving more like Romans than Christians are very much our stories too as believers today—we too sometimes are indistinguishable from everyone else around.
BFJ: Share a detail you’re fond of from the book?
NW: Over the course of the fourth century CE in the senate house in Rome, there was a protracted tug-of-war between several successive emperors over what to do with the pagan altar and statue of the goddess Victory, who had stood in the senate house since the days of Augustus. Christian emperors simply kept moving Victory and her altar into storage, but every time a pagan emperor came to power, he’d move her back out of storage. I’ve found the battles over this statue fascinating as an example of Christian nationalism in the Roman Empire that came naturally to the pagans—this belief that Roman victories came because of the gods’ favor—but also came rather too naturally to the Christians at the time as well. Thence (my theory) reluctance from Christian emperors to destroy this statue or altar—the worst anyone did was move it into storage, out of sight. Gotta keep the idols around, just in case we ever need them again.
BFJ: That’s a great story! A lot of Christians would like to withdraw from culture. Why do you think this is?
NW: I suspect it’s our modern (and maybe particularly American) phenomenon of seeing ourselves as one-person islands, in control of our destiny, and dreaming of having more and more control over every aspect of our environment. If you lived in a small village or city-state in the Ancient Mediterranean, you had no way of doing this except running away into the desert—as some people I consider in this book did. But what’s so striking is that even then, running away from culture doesn’t work: our cultural baggage and our sinful nature always come along for the ride. This is a sobering reminder to Christians today. The gospel is meant to be lived out in community and in recognition of the reality that yes, people are difficult to deal with, but it is in community with other (difficult) people that we grow in sanctification. Alone, it’s easier to just remake the gospel in our own image.
BFJ: What do people mistakenly assume when they hear about your book?
NW: That it’s more academic than it is. Yes, a lot of research has gone into this book, but I wrote it for the church, not (primarily) for the academy! Although, of course, it has been a gift to see some academics read it and find it convincing.
Nadya Williams (PhD, Classics and Program in the Ancient World, Princeton University) is a military historian of the Greco-Roman world and the co-editor of Civilians and Warfare in World History. She is Book Review Editor at Current, where she also edits The Arena blog. She is a regular contributor to the Anxious Bench, and has also written for Plough, Front Porch Republic, Church Life Journal, History Today Magazine, History News Network, and The Conversation.
BFJ: How does the book relate to your experience of discipleship?
NW: I’m an introvert who loves people, but really needs a lot of time alone—which I don’t get, because I’m a homeschooling mom too! Writing this book I was repeatedly convicted of the sense of community that Christianity is about. We are called, first and foremost, to love other people in ways that are both spiritual and practical. That is what discipleship is about. It cannot happen apart from genuine, kind, loving relationship that seeks the flourishing of others. I’m repeatedly humbled by interactions with older Christians—people who have been living out their faith sacrificially for decades. It transforms them over time, and I would love to be like them someday!
BFJ: Are there difficulties in the spiritual life that your book can help to address?
NW: There are quite a few—nine, to be exact, as each chapter in the book deals with a particular type/category of cultural sin to which both early Christians and we are prone! But let me single out one particular spiritual sin that has been in the news much of late: Christian nationalism. We sometimes forget that the first few centuries of the church were in the context of the Roman Empire. So when the Goths brutally sacked the city of Rome in 410 CE, both pagans and Christians in the empire were horrified that this could happen. Augustine, who was quite shaken by it himself, wrote The City of God to respond to this very crisis, showing that Christians were asking this very Christian nationalist question: how could God possibly do this to us? And Augustine’s answer was: yes, love your earthly nation, but don’t make it your idol.
I think this is a healthy reminder for us, as we head into another difficult season of presidential elections. How can we seek the good of the place where we are without making it into an idol?
BFJ: If you could gift everyone with one insight from the book, what would it be?
NW: We are all cultural Christians in some ways, and that’s humbling to admit. It’s a lot easier to let ancient history stay ancient history, but my point throughout this book is: nope, this is us too.
BFJ: How has your spiritual life and prayer life changed as you’ve matured?
NW: I came to Christ as an adult, and the first few years I really did feel aware that I was a “baby Christian,” figuring out the details of the faith and living it. But a lot of the things that brought me joy and a feeling of being closer to God from the beginning still bring me joy now. It’s hard to describe it, but I find a real spiritual joy and awe in reading the New Testament in Greek, for instance. I’ve joked on occasion that coming to Christ was an occupational hazard of being a Classicist and an ancient historian, and the joy of reading the New Testament is certainly one way that this comes through. But over time, the heart and emotion has perhaps emerged a bit more in how I relate to God, especially in prayer.
BFJ: What would your 10-year-old self say if she learned you’d grow up to write about this stuff?
NW: I grew up in a secular Jewish family, and right before I turned 10, my family immigrated to Israel. I turned 10 on the day after we landed in Tel Aviv. I think my 10-year-old self would have been shocked and bewildered to hear about my life now, including this kind of writing. After all, back then I wasn’t even sure I believed in God! But this is a good reminder that we just don’t know how the story is going to turn out. We’re not the authors of it, and that’s a good thing.
BFJ: Besides Cultural Christians, what are your top reading recommendations for folks who want to think more deeply about these matters? Why do you recommend them?
NW: Christians today are woefully uninformed about the ancient world. And yet, the early Christians were living in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean and were deeply shaped by it. To understand them and the culture that shaped them (and which they tried to resist) better, it would be good to read the most influential texts of their time. So, my first recommendation is: read the great epics that every educated person in the Roman Empire knew—Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Vergil’s Aeneid. These gave the pagan world its most enduring cultural values—which were decidedly martial and masculine. But second, read some Greek tragedies—because they show the tragedy of living in a world of despair where (people believed) the gods treated people as playthings or worse. In this regard, I imagine early Christians thinking about this incredible contrast between a God who loves humanity—a concept we never see anywhere in pagan theology—and the abusive and merciless gods of Greco-Roman mythology. How amazing it must have been to hear about this God for the first time, and experience such love from a community of believers—people deeply flawed and sinful, and yet ones who really did try to be kinder, more caring, more loving.
I’m so grateful to Nadya for taking the time to share with us.
Grab your copy of her book here.
Grace & peace,
BFJ
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