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Anyone who has even dabbled in early Christian history knows Marcion, the
well-to-do shipbuilder from Sinope on the Black Sea, who moved to Rome
sometime early (c. 130) in the Second Century. There he not only became a
member of the emerging Christian Church, but also a bishop, as, apparently, his
father before him had been in Asia Minor. In Rome, Marcion became one of the
most widely-known and influential Christian leaders of that profoundly formative
century.

Church history knows him as the first major Christian heretic.

There come times in history, however, for both reevaluating and learning new
things from those of the past, even the ancient past. The time has come for a new
look at this remarkable man, Marcion, about whom we know a good deal; a man
who has been demonized by Christians for the better part of two millennia.

The reason for such a reevaluation arises not from the past, however, but from the
present-which is why traditional biblical scholars and historians will choose, for
the most part, not to look in fresh ways at the figure of Marcion. But for those who
are concerned about the nature of religion-and Christianity--at the start of the
Twenty-First Century, this reassessment of Marcion is highly instructive,
particularly for preachers concerned with speaking in relevant and compelling
ways to contemporary people.

What has changed that compels a rethinking of Marcion is that the world has
become strikingly pluralist in nature-and near the heart of that "new pluralism" is
religious pluralism. But we need to be more specific. What has changed
dramatically, and specifically, is the role of Jews and the Jewish people at large, in
these days since World War II, a half century ago.

Following the Twentieth Century's near-destruction of the Jews-whose
obliteration was closer under the Nazis than ever before in a long history of
holocausts-the Jews rose from the gas chambers and the ovens to found a nation
for themselves, their first since the sacking of Palestine by the Romans in 70. The
state of Israel was born in 1948. Since then, it has established itself as a mighty
player on the world stage, shaping a new civil-religious identity not only for those
who live within its still shifting boundaries, but also for those of Jewish origin and
affiliation throughout the world.

In short, Judaism-in all of its still warring factions-is neither a dead nor a dying
religion. It is one of the great "new" religions of today's world, if I may say it that
way. It is now a fully viable religion everywhere, along with the other great living
religions of the world, including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, among others.
And, in a pluralist world of several "great religions," those religions and their
leaders must learn to live together, work together, "be different" together-all in a
way that is based on mutual understanding, respect, and what we might call
non-violation. It is an ideal, to be sure; but one to which all humanity in this new
century, and millennium, must aspire.

Which brings us back to Marcion.

For all practical purposes, Marcion appears to have been the first Christian leader
to confront fully the implications of the relationship between early Christians and
the Jews from which they had sprung. Even more profoundly, perhaps, Marcion
also seems to have been the first Christian to become concerned about a "canon"
of writing that would express the identity of the new Christian religion that he was
embracing. And he became enamored with the letters of Paul that were in
circulation at the time.

For Marcion, Paul provided the reason why the Jewish religion had collapsed in
the second half of that first century. It was an old, dated religion with a vindictive
God, a God of law and legalities, and the "new God," reflected in Christ, was a
God of love, mercy, and grace. Moreover, in Paul's writing, Marcion was able to
document (Marcion left some still-available writing of his own) that Paul
announced the final and completed separation of the "new religion" of Christ
from the "old religion" of the Jews. Everything, Marcion heard Paul saying, had
passed from the old to the new-"lo, all things have become new."

For Marcion, if Christianity was to survive in the Roman world, it had to embrace
its "newness." It had to cut its ties to Judaism, despite its roots there-which
Marcion was well aware of. Beyond that, Judaism itself was, from that Second
Century perspective, a destroyed religion, one whose temple and will had been
leveled by the Romans. Judaism was over. It was time to move on. If Judaism
remained the coattails of the "new religion" of Christ, then it was entirely
conceivable, he believed, that the new religion itself could be dragged down, too.

In Paul, Marcion found the theology in which all of that outlook was
embodied-and, remarkably, if one reads Paul today as Marcion did then, it is
shockingly easy to understand Marcion's perspective.

So Marcion boldly proposed a new "canon" of writing, of "scripture," one that
would embody what he took to be Pauline Christianity-since Paul, and not the
Apostles, had best understood what Christ had come to say and do in the world.
Marcion's canon was built around Paul's letters, or most of them. It also included
a revised reading of Luke's biography of Christ, as well as the extended version
that made up Luke-Acts, which included the story of Paul's role in the First
Century church. The Jewish scriptures, Marcion believed, had no place
whatsoever in the new "official" canon of Christian scripture; nor did the
documents of the earlier century that tried to tie Christ back in those Jewish
origins. The break, for Marcion, had to be made, and made cleanly.

The story from there is well known. Other Christian leaders of the era opposed
Marcion's outlook, contending that Christianity needed to identify itself as a kind
of "new Judaism," adopting Jewish scriptures as part of "official" Christian
canon. In addition, Marcion's slight leanings toward gnosticism had to be
repudiated as well; and, in the end, Marcion was pilloried by the early church for
the creation, and widespread propagation, of his "heretical" sect.

Ironically, it is very easy to argue that the canon of Christian scripture adopted by
the "orthodox" church in the century after Marcion, was profoundly influenced
by Marcion's arguments. For example, it was probably Marcion who ensured that
Paul's letters would become part of the Christian canon. It may also have been in
response to Marcion's discussions of Acts-and Paul's role there-that caused the
"other half" of Luke's Gospel to be included in the Christian canon.

So what about Marcion today?

Here's the point. The early church, in rejecting Marcion's ideas about separating
cleanly from Judaism, argued that the Jewish scriptures, which the dying religion
would no long need, were important to emerging Christianity as a way to attract
left-over Jews into the new Christian religion. If one read them in certain ways,
those old scriptures "argued," they said, for the coming of Christ and the religion
that was to replace Judaism. So Marcion's argument for a "break" with Judaism
was replaced by the orthodox view of an absorption of what was left of Judaism
into Christianity.

Now-today-Judaism, as we indicated earlier, is back; and back in a big way-not as
a sect, or even as a narrow, bigoted religion in itself. It is back as a thriving, potent
combination of religion and statehood, not at all unlike the historical linkage
between Christianity as the dominant civil religion of the United States; the
similarities, for anyone interesting in thinking about them, are striking. And
Judaism does not want to be swallowed up into Christianity. In fact, it wants the
"break" between the two religions to be cleanly made.

Judaism, in a sense, wants Marcion back. And in a richly pluralist religious world,
a world in which Judaism is striving to work out its own global identity and dignity,
there is no reason that Christianity should not "turn loose of" its old ties to
Judaism.

Of course Christianity's roots are Jewish, however that transition was actually
made those long centuries ago. Of course Jesus and the disciples, and Paul, were
Jews-shaped by Jewish traditions and thinking. Everyone knows that. Of course
the Old Testament is a remarkable story that, to a certain extent, blends over into
the New Testament, though some interesting twisting and turning is required to
get it there.

But Christianity would probably have survived just a well if Marcion had actually
prevailed in some way in that Second Century. And Christianity will survive quite
well, in all its diversities, if in some way it cuts itself free from the Jewish scriptures
today. Not that that is fully necessary-because today's religious pluralism is not
based nearly as much in "scripture" or writing as it is in the struggle toward
mutual religious acceptance and respect.

Still, the need to embrace religious pluralism-without in any way sacrificing one's
tradition or faith commitments-places Christian preachers in the situation of
carrying out three important tasks, not based in the past but in the present, and
for the future.

First, it means that they-you and me-have to actively rethink, and articulate for
others, a new relationship between Christians and Jews for these new times. No
more derogatory or slurring statements, suggestions, or innuendoes about "those
Jews," however biblical we think such notions to be.

Second, it means that you and I need to completely rework, if not actually cease,
our preaching about those New Testament texts, whether in the gospels or in
Paul, that enable people to persist in anti-Jewish, or anti-Semitic thinking. Such
texts, as Marcion well understood, are everywhere; and, while Marcion's motives
were different that those we have in mind here, his "editing" of those early
writings were intended to achieve something of the same thing.

Finally, it means that when you and I choose to preach from the Old Testament,
those Jewish scriptures, we do so not because we think they are "really" Christian
scriptures, but because we venture to "borrow" the great writings of another
religion-one that, in short, is not our own.

Are these suggestions radical and even inflammatory to many Christian
theologians and preachers? Of course they are. But we are called to live in
radical-meaning "new in the extreme"-times. And being responsible religious
leaders in our day requires that we go about our work in ways unheard of in our
Christian past.

Except that there was Marcion. What might Christianity have been had he not
been cast out as a heretic?

--Joseph M. Webb