Catacombs and
Colosseums
A recent magazine article carries a picture of the ancient Colosseum of Rome and speaks of it as the place ''where early Christians died for faith the world now takes for granted.''
The writer, perhaps, spoke more truth than he meant to say. However much we take our faith for granted now, it certainly was not a matter of course in the heyday of the Colosseum. That Flavian amphitheater, still a show-place in modern Rome, was built by Jewish slaves. The outside walls cost more than fifty million dollars. It seated no less than fifty thousand people. In its arenas gladiators and wild beasts fought for public entertainment. One thousand animals were slain there on an emperor's birthday.
If we had sat in those grandstands amidst ''the grandeur that was Rome'' we might have been deceived. For it was not the howling mob in the Colosseum that determined the course of history. Underground in the catacombs another force was working. A handful of men and women who worshipped another King called Jesus, who had died and risen and was coming back some day—here was the beginning of an empire within an empire, the Christians beneath the Caesars. They crept along the subterranean passageways
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and tunnels, among the tombs and caverns, haunted and persecuted, ''the scum of the earth.'' If we had prowled around in these gloomy depths we might have come on little companies singing, listening to a Gospel message, observing the Lord's Supper. We might have said, ''They haven't a chance.'' But the Christians underground eventually upset the Caesars above the ground. The catacombs overcame the Colosseum and finally put the amphitheater out of business.
There is something fascinating about these saints of the catacombs. It has intrigued our writers and showed up in Quo Vadis years ago, and in similar books today. We cannot forget this fellowship of simple believers who loved Jesus Christ more than their lives, in the world but not of it, whose blood was the seed of the church. It was said of them long ago: ''They live, each in his native land but as though they were not really at home there. They share in all duties like citizens and suffer all hardships like strangers. Every foreign land is for them a fatherland and every fatherland a foreign land. They dwell on earth but are citizens of heaven. They obey the laws that men make, but their lives are better than the laws. They love all men, but are persecuted by all.''
These denizens of God's Underground were on fire with a passion which swords could not kill nor water drown nor fire destroy. Their blood was spilled so freely in the arena that a traveler was asked, ''Do you want a relic? Take a handful of sand from the Colosseum. It is all martyrs!''
Here was a minority group in a pagan land, but, like many minority groups before and after, they changed the course of history. Today the professing church has
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grown rich and increased with goods and needs nothing. As the magazine writer said, the faith is now taken for granted. What once was asserted is now assumed. We sing,
Our fathers, chained in prisons dark,
Were still in heart and conscience free:
How sweet would be their children's fate,
If they, like them, could die for Thee!
But we are a pretty comfortable crowd of Christians, who seem to forget that for us the Gospel is not something to come to church to hear, but something to go from church to tell. The cause of Christ is not carried forward by complacent Sunday morning bench-warmers who come in to sit but never go out to serve.
The worst of it is, we have moved from the arena into the grandstand, from the catacombs into the Colosseum.
Certainly we have caught the spirit of the Colosseum. One would think Christians had never heard those Scriptures, ''But not conformed to this world''; ''Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God''; ''If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.'' The gods of Rome—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—are still our gods, and we ''fear the Lord and serve our own gods.''
Campbell Morgan said we Christians are not to catch the spirit of the age but to condemn it, and, so far as we may, correct it. But churches are filled with worldlings. They sit in the choirs, teach classes, hold offices. They are affiliated with all the unfruitful works of darkness and never reprove them. If their hypocrisy
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is pointed out, they adopt the hush-hush policy by mis-using the admonition, ''Judge not that ye be not judged,'' only another device of the devil to shut our mouths while the church moves into the Colosseum. We have long since ceased being disturbed by these sensitive souls who howl when the sword of the Spirit opens the pus-pockets of iniquity.
Living in Rome, we are tempted as never before to do as Rome does. When the church moves from persecution to popularity, from the arena into the grandstand, the Gospel fire dies down until God starts another minority underground. He has followed this procedure through the centuries. Witness the Pilgrims, the Quakers, the Wesleyan movement. The church languishes when her members wear medals in the grandstand; she prospers when they wear scars in the arena. And be not deceived: what a lot of people think is the world becoming more Christian is the Christians becoming more worldly!
Furthermore, we have become enamored of the showmanship of the Colosseum. The time has come when sound doctrine cannot be endured, and, somehow, we have fallen for the notion that the church must compete with the world by entering the entertainment business. It is ridiculous to begin with, for we cannot begin to match the cleverness of this age by running third-rate amusements. It is an admission of failure and a sad commentary on present-day preaching when we must resort to numerous devices of music, movies, magic, and monkeyshines to fill the pews. It is contrary to the whole genius of the Christian message and ministry, for God ordained that men should be won by the foolishness of preaching, and when preaching
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fails there is no substitute. There are minor uses for lesser gifts, but the proclamation of the Gospel by Spirit-filled men is God's chosen means.
After all, ''we are running a lifeboat and not a showboat.'' But this is the age of the Colosseum, and not a few Christians think we must stage a glorified circus to keep step with these days of super-duper glamour.
It is the day of the spectator. Decadent Rome sat in the grandstand. America is a nation of onlookers today. Thousands upon thousands sit at football stadiums and baseball diamonds and horse races, watching man and beast strive for mastery. Then they go to the theater to be entertained again. Some of them go to church on Sunday and again they are spectators, not participants, and the preacher is expected to perform for their enjoyment. They go home with no more intention of practising the sermon than they take seriously what they saw in the theater. It is all unreal. Even Christians sit like the listeners of Ezekiel's day, hearing the Word but doing it not, and go out having deceived themselves. ''Spectatoritis,'' whether in the amphitheater or at church, means a flabby generation of comfortable onlookers. For the church it spells decay. ''I enjoyed the sermon'' may be a sad index to the state of both pulpit and pew.
The church has moved from the catacombs to the Colosseum in its emphasis on size. We stage mammoth demonstrations and gigantic convocations. We put celebrities on the platform and borrow from Caesar to enhance the banner of Christ. We have gone crazy over bigness. Just now church unification is the fashion. That is another admission of failure. Failing in the Spirit we are trying to impress men with size, as though
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strength lay in statistics. When the patient is very ill and the doctors hold a consultation, it does not mean only that the patient is up against it; it may mean that the doctors are up against it! We have gone on the defensive, forgetting that the best defense is a good offense. If instead of all this banding together to make a show of strength, we secured a fresh filling of the Spirit and launched out with an aggressive evangelism we would win more souls in a week than we now win in a year. The fact is, the more we unify, the fewer souls are brought to Christ. The way out is by expansion, not by concentration. The saints of the catacombs did not sit in huddles and draw up resolutions deploring the status quo. They believed, lived, and preached the Gospel in the power of God, and empires gave way before them.
Actually, we need a thinning instead of a thickening. I learned long ago that growing corn and cotton must be thinned. We reduced the quantity to improve the quality. Gideon had to think of his troops, and a similar procedure might help God's army today. Jesus thinned His crowd, as recorded in the sixth chapter of John, and doubtless there was many another such occasion. Many believed on Him, we are told, but He did not believe in them. Today the persecuted minority has become the popular majority.
Real Christians, however, are still a minority in a pagan land right here in America. If instead of aping the world in spirit, showmanship and size, we returned to the offense of the cross and were willing to be the scum of the earth and a ''theater to the world'' in the New Testament sense instead of in the modern sense, we might once again shake the world. Men are not
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impressed from the Colosseum but from the catacombs. ''Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men: and the weakness of God is stronger than men.''
