19. How did second- and third-century Christian writers feel about (a) the ‘shamelessness of the theater and the savagery of the arena’? (b) the viewing of “a man put to death”? (c) that which can ‘inflame one with passion or lust’? (d) How can one learn to do wrong things?

¹⁹ How did those early Christians feel about the gladiatorial games and the theater, which were the “going thing” in the way of entertainment? Notice these comments of some professed Christian writers who lived during the second and third centuries:

“We [Christians] have nothing to do, in speech, sight or hearing, with the madness of the circus, the shamelessness of the theatre, the savagery of the arena . . . Why should we offend you, if we assume the existence of other pleasures?”​—Tertullian.

“We, deeming that to see a man put to death is much the same as killing him, have abjured [solemnly renounced] such spectacles [gladiatorial games].”​—Athenagoras.

20. (a) Why did the early Christians avoid abased entertainment? (b) Why was their conduct noticeably different?

²⁰ Though these men lived some years after the first-century Christians, we can see how they understood the position of a Christian in these matters. They shunned such debased amusements. They could see the inconsistency for those who had been elevated out of darkness, who had removed obscene talk, violence and immorality from their lives, deliberately to sit and watch such things as entertainment. For the most part those Christians heeded Paul’s counsel to “quit sharing with them in the unfruitful works that belong to darkness, but, rather, even be reproving them.” Their daily lives of purity in the midst of a debased world were a constant ‘reproof’ to the people of the nations. No wonder these were labeled by the ungodly world as “enemies of mankind.” Those disciples gladly showed that they were under a better influence than their carnal-minded neighbors. They demonstrated that they had been “made new in the force actuating [their] mind.” And what a different “force” it was!