We are coming to the end of our course, “The Cradle of Early Christianity,” after time spent journeying from Athens, to Thessalonica, to Philippi, to Pergamum (modern Bergama),  Smyrna (modern Izmir), Ephesus, and Constantinople (Istanbul).  We have surveyed the ruins of numerous ancient cities, temples, statues, churches, and seen many churches which have become mosques and then museums. A few of these churches transformed into mosques continue to function as mosques even today. It is hard not to ask what has happened to the Spirit, which lead to the transformation of the pagan Roman Empire through the work of the Apostles Paul and John, Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna amongst many other Christian missionaries and Church leaders.

Yesterday a group of students and I received an answer to this question, at least partially. We went to Mass at St. Anthony of Padua Church in Istanbul. The Church was so cold that we could see our breath when we exhaled in this gorgeous building. More significantly, the Mass in English was packed with people from the Philippines and Africa who lived and worked in Istanbul. They were full of fervor and joy. The second reading from 1 Corinthians 12:12-30 fit the occasion perfectly: “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit. Now the body is not a single part, but many. You are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it.” The body of Christ has many parts and numerous gifts. I have kept on looking for the heirs of the eastern Roman Empire, and there are not many of them here. For all sorts of reasons, due to conquest, infighting, political emigration and more sinister events perpetrated against them, they are not here in great numbers. Yet, the body of Christ has grown to include members who come from areas Paul could not have imagined. In sheer numbers, there are not many of them, but they are alive to the Spirit of God.

These Christians are also a wake-up call to a western Christian used to material comforts, spiritual freedom and a kind of spiritual torpor and laziness, that the Spirit is emanating from other areas than the West. It might seem like the body of Christ is not present or alive because it does not fit my historical conception of what it ought to be or because it does not reflect my neighborhood parish in wealth or demographics, but the missionary work started by Paul and other early Christian apostles and disciples is alive here today.  It is a matter of the Spirit, not wealth, Empire or numbers.

John W. Martens

John W. Martens is an associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn,where he teaches early Christianity and Judaism. He also directs the Master of Arts in Theology program at the St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity. He was born in Vancouver, B.C. into a Mennonite family that had decided to confront modernity in an urban setting. His post-secondary education began at Tabor College, Hillsboro, Kansas, came to an abrupt stop, then started again at Vancouver Community College, where his interest in Judaism and Christianity in the earliest centuries emerged. He then studied at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and McMaster University, with stops at University of Haifa and University of Tubingen. His writing often explores the intersection of Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman culture and belief, such as in "let the little children come to me: Children and Childhood in Early Christianity" (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), but he is not beyond jumping into the intersection of modernity and ancient religion, as in "The End of the World: The Apocalyptic Imagination in Film and Television" (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford Press, 2003). He blogs at  www.biblejunkies.com and at www.americamagazine.org for "The Good Word." You can follow him on Twitter @biblejunkies, where he would be excited to welcome you to his random and obscure interests, which range from the Vancouver Canucks and Minnesota Timberwolves, to his dog, and 70s punk, pop and rock. When he can, he brings students to Greece, Turkey and Rome to explore the artifacts and landscape of the ancient world. He lives in St. Paul with his wife and has two sons. He is certain that the world will not end until the Vancouver Canucks have won the Stanley Cup, as evidence has emerged from the Revelation of John, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, and 4 Ezra which all point in this direction.