AROUND MY NECK hangs a cross made of polished pear wood and brushed steel. Growing up, I was taught that it was a timeless, universal reminder of Christian faith. But as Nijay K. Gupta reveals in a new book, Strange Religion, it can also be seen as a tangible reminder of another truth: The earliest Christians were weird.
As Gupta writes, “Weird is not always bad ... weird can be good. But weird can also be dangerous.” This danger was precisely why the earliest Christians were regarded with suspicion, even fear, by the Romans. “Christians had no temples, no priests, and no cult statues,” Gupta writes. “They had no sacred legends or texts of their own in the first century. ... They went out and intentionally tried to spread their religious practices far and wide.” Because the power of the Roman Empire depended on the strength of its civic religion and practices, “this naturally brought [early Christians] under suspicion” by the authorities. A threat to the religious status quo was seen as directly undermining the stability of the state.
Gupta focuses his latest book on the decades after the crucifixion when the church was becoming established.
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