His Joelness has once again started sipping the kool-aid with an arbitrary blurb about Plato not being a Christian.
At one point, in an unbecoming manner, Joel “Olsteen” Watts, claims,
“There is a certain known Biblioblogger out there who, following in the way of Clement of Alexandria, believes that Christianity and Platonism can be mixed. I’m not going to say he’s wrong, but when he is burning in the fires of hell, I’ll let Abraham tell him he was wrong”
Well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see this was a cheap shot at me. But where have I or Clement ever said Plato was a Christian? It’s called knowing historical context, Joel. You are becoming like other bloggers, besmirching Clement’s good name, and it’s getting tiring.
Let’s go over this one more time:
1. Roman Egypt in the second-century was POLYTHEISTIC. Theistic Platonisms, in this context, were ideologies to SUBVERT the status quo.
2. In the United States, our civil religion leans MONOTHEISTIC. Therefore, it is hard to comprehend just how much Clement was arguing against the Roman Egyptian authorities.
3. Clement’s theology comes at a time when Jewish bodies were excluded from the Roman Egyptian body-politic. To rely upon a Jewish Platonist philospher and theologian (Philo), to preach to these same Roman Egyptians is a bit, makes little sense unless we understand the differences between Middle Platonism and others, and how hybrid it was with other ideas. I am not one to argue that Platonism is absolute, like many conservative evangelicals argue. In a second century context, Platonism was Good News for the poor.
