Greetings all!

As, perhaps, you can tell by my topic title, I'm curious as to how you incorporate Christianity into your pre-gospel stories. And I don't mean simply using Godly morals or values, but how do you use those things in a setting with false religions and no gospel message or knowledge of the One True God?

*sits* I am quite curious, trust me. I've considered the idea, but am not sure I know what I'd do until faced with the situation (which has yet to arise).

Obviously, Christianity didn't exist in the prior to the death of Christ. However, most theologians, both today and down through history, hold that prior to the coming of Christ people were saved by looking forward to the coming of Christ. This is how the Israelite's were saved and how men like Job and Abraham were saved.

I would say that the most difference in the pre-Christ world is faith looking forward, instead of faith looking backward as we have today. Other then that it would be very much the same as modern Christian living. Beyond that, the differences will be cultural.

I agree. They still believed in the son of God. They believed He was coming and they served Him, preparing for His coming.

But what if you wrote a story set in the Americas? Not even a thought about God, or would it work to slip some mention in there? What about Asia?

@Nykaela: I'd say that coming from that perspective you wouldn't be able to include Christianity (pre-Christ or post-Christ, either one), unless you physically had a character from a Christian society come to that society. The 'noble savage' sort of conception doesn't really work in this case.

Herman

Two things come to mind in answer to this question.

One is this as early as 200 AD we have evidence that Christians came to the Americas, not certainly, but possibly (and way earlier for Asia). Thus, in the case of the Americas, there really is no time in known history that Christianity couldn't be brought into the story somehow because anything prior to about 200 AD is mostly myth in terms of what we know. This isn't so much the case for Asia though which leads me to my second point.

As pastor, author, and theologian points out often a son can learn what kind of father he needs to be through the negative example of his father. You see the very fact that a son knows his father is a bad father means that he must know what a good father is. This can also be applied to history. You don't only have to portray what is right through doing right. You can also portray it through wrong as long as you make it very clear that it is evil.

If I where to do a story, say in early American history, I would do a story about people today looking back to that day somehow or another, and end the story with a comparison of the hope that we have in Christ as opposed to the despair that they suffered under nations like the Aztecs.

You'd have to be especially careful though, especially with a 'wrapper' story like that, not to come across as preachy at the end.

Herman

I know I'm chipping in!... but another thought I had was this, doesn't it say somewhere in the Bible that as each person has a soul, each person has some sort of knowledge that there IS a God, and are therefore still accountable to him? So even in pre-gospel days with people who had never been contacted by other Christians or missionaries, they would still have some sort of knowledge about God. They could come to a personal relationship with him by their own knowledge of his existence and what they see in his creation around them... this is how I dealt with this in regard to an untouched jungle tribe.
Please correct me if I'm wrong!

R.M. Ballantyne has a few native characters of the Americas in his books who become Christians through that sort of knowledge. I find the idea very plausible, Cynthia, as it's the Holy Spirit who saves, not knowledge or missionaries, or whatever. I'd heard multiple accounts of people in Islamic nations falling to their knees and praying to Christ, being saved all at once, only to say "Who's Jesus?"

*nods*
Wow! Proof God works in amazing ways!

Indeed. And comforting too - knowing nothing, including sheer ignorance of who He is - can stop Him from saving His sheep from their sins.

If you're curious about this sort of thing read the book Eternity In Their Hearts by Don Richardson. Also, as far as this whole "getting saved by innate knowledge" thing goes, remember something: it's not belief in God that saves you, but trust in Him to save you from your sins. Wether you need to know of the coming Savior (as some gentile cultures did) is something I don't feel comfortable addressing as I don't know the answer myself. Also it might be prudent to contrast this forum's optimism with the following passage: "How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?" - Romans 10:14-15a ESV

Later in that same chapter it says '17 So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
18 But I say, Have they not heard? Yes verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world.'

I recently read a couple of historical fiction books by Tracy L. Higley. They are part of a series about the seven wonders of the world and are set at a time--usually several centuries--before Christ. Both presented the gospel in a different way. One, which was about the pyramids of Egypt, had no mention of a coming Messiah, but rather of one God (which, I think, fits perfectly in a land that has a god for everything). The other, set in Greece, had characters who were Jews, who were looking forward to the coming of Messiah, a Savior. It was, as Airi said in her post, faith looking forward. People, especially in the book about Greece, knew of the prophecy of a promised Messiah and were looking forward to it, building their faith around it...that there would come Someone who would save them, not just from those who ruled over them, but from their sins as well.