How the church handled “Woke” in the 4th century

What we can learn from two men who lined up on either side of a fault line.

Feb 17, 2023

Dateline: February 17th, in the Year of our Lord 2023

Aberrant theology was a specter that menaced the early church until about the 5th century. Arianism was far and away the most influential heresy of this time. It was not the most flagrant, nor was it the most obvious, nor was it as widely condemned– at first. In the end, Arianism did the most widespread damage because it was a nuanced and subtle compromise that had major long term consequences.

In several respects, Arianism was a Christian compromise with the “wokeness” of its day, just as some Christian leaders are compromising with “woke” ideas now: Both compromises respond to a sophistry that originated in high academia from pagan or atheistic ideas. In both cases, this ideology metastasized into cultural behaviors and action, demanded of everyone. Both compromises sought to avoid shame from the dominant narrative and worldview, or reflected the sublimation of that worldview into the church. Both compromises were justified using Scripture. Both compromises were championed by Christians using highly nuanced arguments. And, both compromises were widely embraced among a sizable, influential Christian class. One compromise responded to an error regarding the nature of God (Arianism), the other an error regarding the nature of Man and justice (feminism/antiracism). In a way, the Greek narrative provided an underpinning for the way they thought about life, just as Critical Theory’s DEI is now pervading our daily life.

Near the end of the 3rd century AD, Arius was a priest in the church at Alexandria, Egypt — the intellectual center of the Empire. Arius is said to have been distinguished in appearance. People were charmed by his manners and impressed by his intellectual air. He was devoted as far as we can tell, and even denounced Christians who too freely blended Christianity and Greek paganism. But, when it came to meshing with Greek culture, Arius’s teachings would become a subtle salve.

A short digression here might help: According to Greek and Roman cultural belief, derived from Socrates, “God" must have singular unity. What, then, could be done with the Christian claim of a God in 3 persons — Father, Son, and Spirit — all 3 transcendent? This was anathema to the Greeks and wildly unpopular. It drove the educated class away from Christianity.

Bolder heresies that addressed the “transcendence” problem were common at the time– and Arius rejected each of these. But, Arius did make a small adjustment to be more “relevant,” as we would say today: If God is the Father of Jesus, the Father must have preceded him in a very nuanced way.

For about a decade, I taught church history in Sunday school. When I first encountered Arius’s arguments, they were so fine tuned that I found it hard to discern the problem, even after several readings. Some of my friends claimed Arius said God came before Jesus in time– this turned out not to be true. Arius was more nuanced than that. What is the difference between “begotten” and “made,” especially when you’re outside of time? Why does it matter? I read the contemporary arguments on both sides, and admit that unlike other clear heresies, I could scarcely understand the Arian nuance. My students asked tough questions about the distinctions of Arius that neither I nor they could parse. Yet, Arius’ heresy got the most attention.

How does today’s “woke” doctrine compare with such an historic heresy? The similarity is not so much between the errors themselves. It’s more of a reflection of how errors get mainstreamed into Christianity through compromise. Our culture makes an idol out of what it calls “identity” and demands a new form of equity. It assumes that this idea of equity is the highest form of justice. And, to avoid offending this justice, Christians must follow the path and accept a softened form of feminism and anti-racism.

By contrast, God tells us we share a common brotherhood and sisterhood as descendents of Adam, and that our nations, tribes, or families are part of divine order. In God’s word, “oppression” is a deliberate act, unrelated to identity. Race is unspoken of in Scripture. For example, the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8) is identified by his nationality– his race may be assumed but is not mentioned. And, the biblical patriarchal system, including the authors of Scripture and the people it references, do not reflect “equity” in modern parlance. Overt teaching about divinely ordered sexual roles in the church and family, now either ignored or heavily qualified in contemporary churches, are unambiguous in Scripture. These biblical frames should be our starting point. Instead, some follow the cultural whims of our day and justify them using Scripture as a proof text.

In my recent Federalist piece, “Wokeness Comes for Classical Christian Education”, I call out the ever subtle and widening acceptance emerging in otherwise conservative classical Christian circles. These circles avoid or quickly condemn the most brazen claims of Critical Theory. At the same time, they nuance their proposal to rework curriculum by calling it a “third way”– neither left nor right.

Arians were “third way’ers.” They compromised, with nuance. They condemned heresies like Docetism, which taught that Christ was not really man at all. Or Modalism, which taught that the logos problem could be solved by “modes” of the Godhead.

So why did the Arian heresy become the most devastating historical heresy in the church? Because its appeal was so nuanced as to seem, in fact, inoffensive and not really a heresy at all. This caused it to spread like wildfire.

The Rest of the Story…

With the outer provinces largely unconvinced, Arius relocated to the cultural center of Rome with hope that his compromise would appeal to the well-connected elite. He found his audience — Christians in Rome preferred an erudite compromise that made them appear to non-Christians less like fumblers and simpletons.

Arius came to hold sway with the elite leaders and influencers from Emperor Constantine to many of the bishops in educated urban centers. Thus, Arianism became a dominant belief system in the politically connected church. During the debates between 323 and 381 over Arianism, the Bible was translated into Gothic by an Arian scribe in one of these elite urban centers. This transported Arianism into northern Europe, where it divided the church for centuries. The damage done is hard to overstate and was not foreseen early on as it rose to prominence. It seems we are in this situation today.

Somehow, despite its banished status and much ridicule from the elites, trinitarian Christianity eventually won the day. A scrappy collection of trinitarian bishops from the outer provinces was led by an outspoken and unpopular bishop named Athanasius, who refused to accept the Arian narrative, its tenets, or even its small compromises. He railed against this heresy with all of his force and might. Contra Mundum — "against the world" — was attributed to Athanasius, the great champion of trinitarianism, as he stood rejected by the entire power-elite in Christendom. It eventually became his title: Athanasius Contra Mundum.

Athanasius’s work was not without personal cost. The Roman emperor was friendly to Arian ideas and Athanasius was repeatedly politically exiled, tried for false crimes, and shouted down. He was exiled 5 times (thankfully, today, we just get canceled) and was only granted peace during the last 8 years of his life.

Trinitarians fought boldly and in ways that today would certainly have led pundits to say, "I agree with what they're saying, but not the way they say it." Or, “He shouldn’t be directly accusing Christian brothers of… .” Or, “This should be handled in a private conversation.” Athanasius’ tone would curdle the “Christian” sentiments of our day.

Read his very public “Discourses Against the Arians” in which he does not hold back. Here’s just a small sample:

[Arianism] in her craft and cunning, affects to array herself in Scripture language , like her father the devil, and is forcing her way back into the Church's paradise — that with the pretense of Christianity, her smooth sophistry (for reason she has none) may deceive men into wrong thoughts of Christ — nay, since she has already seduced certain of the foolish…

He goes on to use some bold terms, calling Arians the Antichrist, Satan, Judas, mad, and heretics, to name but a few. Can we imagine a Christian leader today writing “Discourses Against Christian ‘Anti-Racists’ and Feminists”?

It does beg the question: Are we taking Truth seriously enough in our cultural moment?

As with Arianism, some Christians today ask, “What’s wrong with righting past wrongs? Don’t they have a point? We just want to be welcoming to everyone! Can we agree to disagree?” These “third way” sentiments accept the underlying premise of atheistic Marxism--and in turn make giving way to man’s authority more important than giving way to God’s truth. The danger is hard to discern through our smeared cultural glasses. What begins as a modest addition of a book here or there turns into removing even more, and before long, even some classical Christian schools will be “woke” schools.

We owe to Athanasius two of the church’s creeds and more. On January 7, 367 AD, Athanasius wrote a letter listing the books that he suggested were “Canon,” thus giving us our Bibles today. He is considered a saint. History has treated well a man who was seen as a pariah in his time. Arius, beloved in his time, is now credited with the most damaging heresy in the history of the church.

In his book Fault Lines, Voddie Baucham goes beyond predicting that Christian organizations will divide over “identity.” He foretells division right at the sinew and bone level — within our communities. I've seen much of this already over the past year. How the church, and classical Christian education, aligns now may define the course of the church for centuries. The question is not will the church divide over the cultural pressure of our time, but which side of the divide will each of us be on? Divides have two sides. There is no “third way” in this divide, just as Arianism was not a “third way” between monism and trinitarianism.

On a final, but related note: I’d like to invite everyone to Join me at Repairing the Ruins, the national conference on classical Christian education, this summer in Pittsburgh. We will be celebrating Athanasius.