Third Way: Christendom

Please pardon this brief excursion into a history that seems alien.  Still, it’s important to understand the significance of the “then” before we can interpret the significance of the “now.”

Hence a brief digression into the era of Christendom.

I want to dispel some misconceptions first.  It did not begin with Constantine, the first Christian emperor of the Roman Empire (d. 337).  It is true that he did make Christianity a legal religion, and he also favored it over pagan religion.

But the marriage between empire and Christianity did not last very long, largely because the empire began to decline.  Tribal groups swept in from the north (Romans called them “barbarians”) and settled throughout the empire.  Rome fell to a tribe of Goths in the year 410.  The last emperor to rule over the Mediterranean world was deposed in the year 476.  The rise of Islam only complicated matters.  By the year 725 roughly 2/3 of the Mediterranean world was under Muslim influence or control.

This created a vacuum of leadership and stability that the church filled.  A growing monastic movement, a burgeoning network of churches, a robust sacramentalism, and an effective—though largely superficial—effort to evangelize these “barbarian” groups all helped to spread Christianity, setting the stage for the Christendom that would emerge some 600 years later.

Christendom refers to the symbiotic relationship between Christianity and culture, church and state.  Over time it became one of the essential features of western civilization, running so deep in our cultural memory that we simply assume that the West is Christian, that Christianity is culturally superior (which is not quite the same thing as saying it is true), and that both Christians and the church should enjoy special privilege and power.

Christendom has left us a worthy legacy.  We still benefit from it today.  It has bequeathed to us a worldview that puts God at the center, a Holy Book (the Bible) that tells us the truth about life, an ethic that governs both personal and institutional behavior, a redemptive view of history, a commitment to justice, and a confidence that God will triumph over evil.  It has also left in its wake many cultural achievements: in art and architecture, music, literature, and education.

But that legacy contains darkness, too: intolerance of outsider groups, the use of coercion and violence, the presumption that Christians are always right, corruption that results from too much power and too little accountability, superficiality of faith, and a complacency in the face of poverty, injustice, and ignorance.  It would be wise for us to hold both legacies—of right and wrong, light and darkness—in tension, because both are part of the larger story.

Why am I recounting this history?  Though Christendom is fading, our memory of it continues and informs how we think and behave as Christians in the West.

Should we strive to restore it, using the very means—intolerance, judgment, compromise, coercion—that helped to set in motion its demise?  Or should we return to first principles, which we learn in the Bible and see playing out during the first 300 years of church history?  

We face the temptation to do the former: to accommodate to cultural fads in a vain attempt to remain relevant, to sacrifice what is distinctively Christian in a foolish attempt to grab for power, and to make unholy alliances with parties and politicians in a vain attempt to advance the causes we think are right and true, often at the expense of biblical truth and personal integrity.
We are pining for something we have lost.  The old configuration of Christendom is waning, cultural influence is abating.  It could be that some kind of recovery lies ahead, but not under current terms.  The foundations must be rebuilt, which requires patience, persistence, and humility.  We must be in it and stay in it for the long haul.  We cannot compromise godly means to secure godly ends.  If one goes bad, so does the other.

Even then, the goal is not a restoration of Christendom.  It is an unswerving and unrelenting commitment to the king, loyalty to the kingdom, and obedience to the Great Commandment (the proper means) and the Great Commission (the proper end).
Some will accuse me at this point of advocating a purely private, spiritual faith.  Such is not the case.  To the contrary, this course of action will always make Christianity influential and relevant because we will be following the way of Jesus, in whom means and ends are one.