Does this ancient document have authority in modern debates about moral theology?

THE QUESTION:

What was the ancient Didache and what is its to moral controversies relevance today?

THE RELIGION GUY'S ANSWER:

Except for the Bible or Quran, ancient writings rarely pop up in 21st Century public disputes. So it was rather interesting to see that happen with the Didache, whose importance rests on its likely status as the oldest surviving text from Christianity's earliest days other than the New Testament itself. Certain scholars think it was written even before the Gospels, between A.D. 50 and 70, but more common dating puts it in the early 2nd Century A.D.

This text's sudden media appearance involved the unending abortion debate, which is hotter than ever in the U.S. with the Supreme Court set to re-examine the law next term in the Dobbs case and the Catholic bishops' conference considering whether to endorse denial of Communion to "pro-choice" office-holders, President Biden included.

Garry Wills, the Northwestern University historian and renegade Catholic, recently sought to convince New York Times readers that "the cult of the fetus" embraced by Catholic bishops (also evangelical Protestants) is off-base because, among other things, Jesus and the New Testament authors never condemn abortion as sinful.

A blistering response by National Review's Michael Brendan Dougherty cited the Didache as prime evidence in contending that Christianity from its earliest phase opposed abortion. The document's second chapter forbids "grave sins," listed as follows:

"You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born. You shall not covet the things of your neighbor, you shall not swear, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not speak evil, you shall bear no grudge . . . (Roberts-Donaldson translation).

A later section targets "murderers of children, destroyers of the handiwork of God" in a catalogue of people who are living out "the way of death."

Ah, those mysterious Protestant Evangelicals, as pondered by our cultural elites

Just when you thought you’d seen enough analysis of those U.S. Protestant Evangelicals to last a lifetime or two, a major April release is commanding yet more ink: “The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America” by Frances FitzGerald (Simon & Schuster).

Any book from FitzGerald, a boldface author who won the Pulitzer Prize for her Vietnam lament “Fire in the Lake” (1972), gets guaranteed media attention. Her latest, hailed as “masterful” by Time magazine, will surely be mandatory reading for religion writers. This blockbuster has already gained major reviews from highbrow analysts Randall Balmer, Alan Wolfe and Garry Wills (also a Pulitzer medalist).

The Religion Guy has yet to read this 740-pager but is wary after learning that FitzGerald pays so much attention to figures like Rousas Rushdoony. His idiosyncratic theocracy scheme frightens the journalism natives, but is hardly representative of mainstream evangelicalism, or even of its most politicized segments.

Otherwise, the reviews provide significant cultural indicators of how elitists view a movement that’s somehow so mystifying and unnerving to outsiders, and the way adherents are ogled with condescension, particularly after so many voted for Donald J. Trump. Irredeemable deplorables, anyone?

Balmer, Dartmouth’s religion chair and the author of a somewhat competing 2016 title, “Evangelicalism in America” (Baylor University Press), says having such a “distinguished author” undertake this topic should be “cause for celebration.” But he finds the result “curiously pinched and narrow.”

One of his criticisms, echoed by others, is that FitzGerald’s narrative omits African-American Protestants. That’s an important choice that the Religion Guy finds justifiable because these believers, as well as Latino Protestants, have such distinct subcultures. Explaining the larger population of “white” evangelicals is more than enough for one book.