“…And do not call it fixity…”

Alcuin, once asked the famous question, “Quid Hinieldus cum Christo?(What does Ingeld have to do with Christ?)” He was reproving the monks of Lindisfarne for listening to and studying the secular poetry of Beowulf. His question begs the question, “Should we read anything other than the Bible?” How could Beowulf or Homer or (to use a more recent example) Harry Potter be beneficial for the Christian?

For centuries, Christians have been in danger of preaching dualism. There is a strong desire to separate the physical from the spiritual, the sacred from the profane. We sometimes live for the life to come at the expense of the present life. Yet, this has not been the history of the Church.

I recently visited Greece and Italy. While wandering through the ruins, our tour guide would often point out old temples, originally dedicated to pagan gods that were converted into a Christian churches. The early Church was constantly in the process of reconciling paganism not destroying it.

At one point during the trip, I was able to visit the ruins of the ancient city of Corinth. At the top of a high hill there stood the temple to Venus (Greek: Aphrodite – the goddess of love) and at the bottom, closer to the sea, stood the temple of Apollo – the god of power. Here, in this city, dominated by perverted desires for power and eroticism, Paul came and lived for eighteen months during his missionary journey. Paul lived and strove with the people of the city; he did not march into the city with guns blazing, seeking to destroy their temples and their way of life. He came and demonstrated true power and love through his daily life. He pointed the people to the true God through their false gods.

Oddly enough, we find in his first letter to the Corinthians, the most famous chapter ever written on love. In that chapter, through positive description and exhortation, Paul points to a higher power and a more fulfilling love that all men desire. He overcomes the eroticism of the city not by destroying their temples but showing them true love.

Herein lies the power of Christianity, that it reconciles the pagan, heathen, atheist: it does not destroy them. The love of God is creative not destructive.

What does Ingeld have to do with Christ? Everything. If God’s love is creative then we will most clearly see His love through the act of reconciliation. Ingeld can teach us much about Christ because the insufficiencies of Ingeld point us to the substance of Christ. Like the Corinthians, our eroticism and lust for power is reconciled and fulfilled in the person of Christ wherein our souls can finally rest. In one way, when we fear and isolate ourselves from the secular or physical world, we cut ourselves off from the love of God. We cannot just read the Bible and hope to find God’s love because His love is alive, working “to unite all things in him (Christ), things in heaven and things on earth.” (Eph. 1:10)