On Sunday, the 25th of June, four young men from Liverpool, England known as the Beatles, did something which had never been done. Through a satellite link, 400 million people on five continents, heard Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Star sing the catchy anthem, “All You Need Is Love.” Written on cardboard placards in an assortment of languages, flowers, streamers and balloons were added to give the sense of celebration and hope to a global community. If there was just love, peace and harmony on earth could be realized. This message was significant in that the world around them was not at peace, at all. The performers had grown up in a country scarred by war, where even great stretches of their native city, Liverpool, had been levelled by German bombs. Just three weeks before the broadcast, The Six Day War had broken out in Israel. Egyptian and Syrian planes littered landscapes that had been traveled by the biblical patriarchs. Through this conflict the Jewish people miraculously routed an Arab alliance in six days, taking back their holy city of Jerusalem. In Vietnam hatred seemed to be burning out of control like the firebombs being dropped on the country’s jungles. Most terrifying of all were the tensions between the world’s two nuclear superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States. The world lived under the shadow of nuclear war as each country pointed their missiles at each other. As the historian Tom Holland writes, “Humanity had arrogated to itself what had always previously been viewed as a divine prerogative: the power to end the world. Never had the world been in such a place of apocalyptic danger.”
Yet, on that very same Sunday, approximately 650 million people across the globe, attended services of Christian worship under the most internationally recognized symbol: the cross. The meaning behind this symbol had done more over the preceding centuries to usher in love in the areas of compassion for the weak, dignity for people, and care within relationships. It was not just an idea but a transformative power. In a world where dominance and power were seen as the controlling rule of life, the cross proclaimed that the very lowest of the low can become the highest. It is the meek who “will inherit the earth.” (Matthew 5:5) The victims of the world can become victors. The poor and marginalized are endowed with a dignity seen and validated by the Almighty. It was a message, beginning 2000 years earlier, which turned the values of the world upside down. The cross has become the standard by which we understand and measure what the meaning of love is which the Beatles referenced.
In this article, we will see three ways that the gospel of Jesus Christ transformed the very fabric of culture making the world a much greater place for human flourishing.
The Revolutionary Message of the Cross
To the first century audience, the cross and its values appeared painfully absurd. The apostle Paul expressed the folly of the cross as follows:
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1 Corinthians 1:18
Paul, who wrote half of the books in the New Testament, was obsessed with this message. He presented the crucifixion of Jesus as a stark dividing line in the values of humanity, with some deriding it and some devoted to it. At the time, the “God on a cross” was an obnoxious folly. Crucifixion was the most barbarous and cruel form of capital punishment used by the Romans to display the terror of the state for those who opposed it. Yet, over time, for millions it was this proclamation which made sense of their lives and the world around them.
Charity
Let’s go back to the time before Jesus entered into the world. The ethic of the ancient world was one that was ruled by the strong who had unrestricted rule over the weak, and there was never any question of it. The greatest philosophers and thinkers would have scoffed at the idea that “all men are created equal.”
“…that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule.”
Aristotle, 384–322 BC
The gods and heroes of the ancient myths were predatory and scorned the weak. The starving deserved no sympathy. Beggars were best deported. Pity risked undermining a wise man’s self-control. On the sides of roads or on garbage heaps, babies abandoned by their parents were a common sight to those travelling. Few had ever questioned this practice. In Sparta, for example, condemning deformed infants for the good of the state was a virtuous practice. Neglect, disdain and abandonment of the poor and less fortunate had always been taken for granted until the emergence of a Christian people. It was Christians who were the first to ever organize widespread care for the poor, abandoned and sick. Emperor Julian, who hated Christianity, complained to a pagan priest:
“when it came about that the poor were neglected and overlooked by the [pagan] priests, then I think the impious Galilaeans [i.e., Christians] observed this fact and devoted themselves to philanthropy.” “[They] support not only their poor, but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us.”
The roots of Christian charity ran deep. Jesus had stated that our judgement in heaven will be based on how we cared for the poor and needy. In fact, Jesus identified his very life with the hurting of the world.
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.“
Matthew 25:35-36
For generations, Christians had taken weekly collections for orphans, widows, the imprisoned, and the sick. As Christianity grew in numbers so did its funding for those in need. Because of this entire system of social security had begun to emerge. This was an entirely new reality brought about by the message of the cross.
Consent
This new way of living came to redefine the relationship of men to women. Roman law defined marriage as a monogamous institution, but that had not meant that it required men to display life-long fidelity. Men could legally divorce at will and sexually force themselves on their inferiors as they pleased. Christianity stood in strong opposition to this exploitative behavior. A sacred understanding of marriage was introduced into the world. The husband and wife were joined as Christ and his church, “one flesh” in a pledge of strict love and faithfulness to each other. By the standards of the day, this commitment and respect given to marriage was heroic. Over time, as Tom Holland informs:
The assumption that marriage existed to cement alliances between two families—an assumption as universal as it was primordial—had not easily been undermined. No couple could be forced into a betrothal, nor into wedlock, nor into a physical coupling… It was consent, not coercion, that constituted the only proper foundation of a marriage…Opening up before the Christian people was the path to a radical new conception of marriage: one founded on mutual attraction, on love.
So strange was the Christian conception of marriage that it had always raised eyebrows in the lands beyond where Christianity flourished. Indeed the message of the cross brought something entirely new.
Compassion
It is no surprise that the Jesus movement made a priority of caring for the sick, which was the beginning of hospitals. The Greeks had their physicians to care for the wealthy who could afford it. The Romans had their “sick bays” for slaves and soldiers. But these existed to return the injured to economic and military usefulness. Christians, following the lead of teachings like the Good Samaritan, developed something altogether new: healthcare for all. David Bentley Hart gives a sketch of the early development:
“St. Ephraim the Syrian (A.D. c. 306-373), when the city of Edessa was ravaged by plague, established hospitals open to all who were afflicted. St. Basil the Great (A.D. 329-379) founded a hospital in Cappadocia with a ward set aside for the care of lepers, whom he did not disdain to nurse with his own hands. St. Benedict of Nursia (A.D. c. 480 – c. 547) opened a free infirmary at Monte Cassino and made care of the sick a paramount duty of his monks. In Rome, the Christian noblewoman and scholar St. Fabiola (d. A.D. c. 399) established the first public hospital in Western Europe and—despite her wealth and position—often ventured out into the streets personally to seek out those who needed care. St. John Chrysostom (A.D. 347-407), while patriarch of Constantinople, used his influence to fund several such institutions in the city.”
This care for the poor and sick was headed up by church leaders. From the 5th century there was, a “cascade of hospitals”. These movements were thoroughly and particularly Christian.
Today, if you need first aid, look for a white cross on a green background—the internationally recognized sign. If you’re in a crisis, it’s the “Red Cross” which millions turn. The Good Samaritan lives because of a revolution of love offered by the crucified Christ.
Is Love All You Need?
What are the lessons that can be taken from the message of the cross in relation to hope for our world?
The message of the cross must continue to inform culture.
The ideas of compassion, charity and consent that we take for granted today were once considered weird. Compassion and care for the undeserving was considered a weakness; now we consider it a virtue. Once powerful men could possess the bodies of whomever they pleased; now we name this as the abuse that it is. Once, it was assumed that certain classes of people could be enslaved; now we consider that idea a kind of “blasphemy.” This change occurred because our culture became shaped by God crucified on the cross. These ideas will always lose their meaning unless they are anchored to the message of the gospel.
The message of the cross will continue to transform culture.
It was a year before the Beatle’s transmitted their performance by satellites that John Lennon in an interview declared, “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I know I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now.” Yet, four years later, on April 10th, 1970, the band announced they were finished. A year later, embarking on a solo career, John Lennon wrote his hymn to atheistic secularism, Imagine.
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky
Imagine all the people
Livin’ for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Livin’ life in peace
You
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Far from having “no possessions,” Lennon lived safely inside a gated community away from the sufferings of the world, on a seventy-two acre Berkshire estate, complete with a Rolls-Royce and swimming pool. In a decade his life would be no more.
Though the Beatles and their revolution of secular love abruptly ended, it would be in the 1970’s that global Christianity experienced an unprecedented growth. Far from seeing a world in which there was “no religion,” the world became more oriented to it. A pivot event was the opening of China to the rest of the world in the mid-1970’s, when Mao’s Cultural Revolution ended. China can now boast of the fastest growing church in the world, with an estimated 16,500 new Christians every day. Between 1900 and 2000, the number of Christians in Africa grew from 10 million to over 360 million, from 10 percent of the population to 46 percent. The World Christian Encyclopedia recorded that more Anglican Christians worship in Nigeria in any given week than all the Episcopal and Anglican churches of Europe and North America combined. The message of the cross is now transforming the Global South (countries south of the Equator) in the way it once did in Europe and North America. As Jesus prophesied,
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations…
Matthew 24:14
Where the gospel is established, cultures reflect more love than they do power.
Story of Grace 