“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they wondered; and they recognized that they had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13 RSV)

“We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29)

The world needs a church with Peter’s boldness. Recently, I have commented on this blog about the lamentable divisiveness that characterizes contemporary culture and reaches even into the church (see “Civility: Reconciliation Lite”). While I stand by the observations made in that piece, I also want to make it clear that I do not advocate any form of reconciliation that requires the abandonment or constriction of core convictions as to the nature of the Gospel and its claims on believers.

My roots are in the variety of Baptist Christianity that self-identifies as “moderate.” Moderation has a notable pedigree.  Aristotle championed the “Golden Mean” as the key ethical principle. Nutritionists encourage us to moderate our consumption, limiting portions and varying the foods we eat. Moderation avoids the polar pitfalls of rash behavior and timidity. Immoderation suggests over-consumption, over-reaction, over-statement, and over-confidence. When Barry Goldwater, the Republican candidate for President in the 1964 election, proclaimed in his speech accepting the party nomination that “[E]xtremism in defense of liberty is no vice…[M]oderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue” he offered his opposition evidence for their contention that he did not have the temperament for the presidency – that he could not be trusted with the nuclear codes, for example.

Yet, when moderation becomes synonymous with a fear to advocate a position clearly and strongly, it borders on complicity with an unacceptable status quo. Martin Luther King, Jr. was right to reject ministers in Birmingham when they called on him to be “patient”; one can only imagine someone counseling Moses to wait until Egyptian norms and mores evolved to allow for the Egyptians to emancipate their Hebrew slaves willingly. Although I disagree with their application of the viewpoint they express, those on the religious right who talk about “hating the sin” (which they demonstrate quite clearly) but “loving the sinner” (which, sadly, they show little evidence of believing) correctly point out the distinction between tolerating people and abandoning one’s convictions. Hurting people is wrong; challenging ideas based on conviction, argument, and evidence is necessary.

Of the twelve disciples of Jesus, Peter receives the most detailed treatment in the New Testament, probably because he became, as Jesus as announced (Matt 16:18 par.), the most important leader in the early church. The New Testament picture of Peter does not, as one might expect, lionize the fisherman become preacher; instead, it reveals an impetuous, mercurial character.  Peter was quick to respond to Jesus’ invitation to follow him (Matt 4:18 par), quick to demonstrate an almost childlike faith (Matt 14:28 par), and quick to confess Jesus as Lord (Matt 16:16 par; Matt 17:1 par). On the other hand, Peter was often slow to understand (Matt 15:15), even to the point of rebuking the one whom he had just confessed as Lord because he failed to understand profoundly (Matt 16:18 par) or, when the situation became dangerous, of denying that he even knew Jesus (cf. Matt 26:33,35 par). His quick confession contrasts with his slowness to recognize the implications of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection for spreading the Gospel to Gentiles (cf. Acts 10; Gal 2:11-14).

Against the background of Peter’s tendency to waver, well-documented in the texts cited above and elsewhere in the New Testament, his courage during the earliest days of the Church in the face of the opposition of the Jewish leadership, a courage already in evidence at Pentecost (Acts 2), stands in stark contrast. Acts reports that observers of the preaching and teaching of Peter and John in those earliest days noted their surprising boldness (parresia – Acts 4:13, 29, 31), some attributing it to the fact that the two apostles “had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). Warned by the Sanhedrin against continuing to preach the Gospel,

In this respect, Peter offers a model for the contemporary moderate Christians. He may have had no “silver or gold” to give as alms, but he gave healing in Jesus’ name (Acts 3:6). Contemporary Christian “moderates,” on the other hand, often confuse conflict avoidance with harmony, toleration with peace, and passivism with pacifism, valuing a laissez faire attitude toward others over the hard work of bold peace-making (see “Blessed are the Peacemakers”). In any case, we “moderate” Baptists can often state clearly what we oppose – usually anything related to Fundamentalism – but we find it difficult to be “for” anything other than the status quo ante. We are uncomfortable with claiming the Bible as our own for fear of seeming Fundamentalist; we place virtually no importance on evangelism for the same reason; we take moderate positions on the major cultural and social issues of today, accepting one of the binary choices given in the larger discussion rather than raising a leading voice on anything. The Radical Anabaptist strain in our genetic heritage seems to have become recessive. Jesus was a radical, immoderate in whom he loved, what he demanded, and how he lived.  “Moderate” can be synonymous with “lukewarm” (Rev 3:16).

The world needs a church with Peter’s boldness.