Christendom is often spoken of pejoratively. Christendom is a distortion of Christianity and the Church, often seen as happening through political means. Christendom is seen as the establishment of the Church as the religion of the state (in its most obvious form Constantine is the one we hate as the originator of this relationship). However, Christendom is also used to describe the non-established dominance that Protestantism and Christianity have had in the history of the United States. Today, In varying ways, we are being asked to react or respond to the loss of this dominance, the loss of this particular form of Christendom. While I agree that the above definitions of Christendom are true they are not complete. This incompleteness and that the term is generally used pejoratively hides from us a larger pattern a larger reality of the Church and the potential social implications of that reality.
The Church as the continued physical presence of Christ in the world, should and can have an effect on the world. This is the Church's eschatological impact. Yet this eschatological impact given that it is oriented towards another time and world in this time and world means that it's effect is always already partial. (I fear I may be misunderstood here: these two times and worlds overlap, in that sense they are neither strictly temporal nor strictly spatial, and thus can and do overlap, this I believe is the witness of scripture and tradition.) In the final analysis what we know is passing away and what is to come is not of our making. (Yet we are also forced to express aspects of this reality in temporal language,it is inescapable) Christendom I wish to argue emerges out of this boundary that is created by the Church's eschatological being in the midst of a world that is passing away and yet asserts itself continually in rebellion against the new that God, through Christ and the Church, seeks to bring about. Christendom is the natural outcome of a society still bound to this world and its fallen and demonic tendencies thoroughly impacted by the presence of the eschaton mediated through the Church.
As evidence of this Christendom, as a phenomenon produced by the Church as eschaton, I would first point to the patterns of large scale social disruption caused by a high conversion rate, followed by persecution. Acts 19 account of Paul's mission work in Ephesus, where in it is indicated that the presence of the Church in Ephesus had such great impact that those who made idols and were connected to the worship the goddess Artemis feared for their livelihood and the future of the temple of Artemis(see Acts 19:23ff). We have here in Scripture the first instance of Christendom: when so many have entered into the Church or come under the Church's influence and are no longer buying idols, we have all the necessary conditions of Christendom. The Church by virtue of its numbers in a particular society (limited possibly to just a city as here in acts, or extending over an entire empire matters little) gains a disruptive influence, which is followed by persecution. We see this pattern intensify as the Church expands throughout the Roman empire. Rarely (despite certain ideological interpretations of the the early church) did the Church simply appeal to the poor and outcasts but the Church has always appealed to every level of society. Once there are enough people from the society to opt out of the public religion, which Greek and Roman Religion was at base, civic religion, the system based on that public religion of the gods and emperor, suddenly has a problem. Persecution of Christians is then the way to ensure that a significant number of the society are doing their civic duties. (This is not to deny that their would be true belief in the nature of these acts and their effects on the world spiritual and physical) The Church then finds itself in a peculiar situation, where great numbers of its members abandon the Church and make the appropriate sacrifices, hand over holy objects, give keys to the churches, etc. The whole Donatist schism was, from this perspective, about the existence of Christendom and was a denial its validity. Where as those who argued for the reception of the lapsed back into the Church implicitly admitting the validity of Christendom as an effect of the the eschatological presence of the Church in the World.
What I am arguing here is that Christendom predates Constantine. Constantine simply recognizes an effect of the Church's presence in the world and seeks to live in this by product we have come to call Christendom. The Church accepted Constantine because in rejecting the rigorists of any stripe whether they be "gnostic" or Donatist the Church already accepted the imperfect manifestation of the eschaton in this world, which we now call Christendom. What I hope to explore around this understanding of Christendom is 1) what happens when we return to a occasional or spotty manifestation of Christendom (which I believe we currently find and may continue to find in the States ), and 2) how even those who seem to reject Christendom are currently attempting to preserve it even as it crumbles. What I find encouraging from the pre-Constantinian Church is that it found ways to take in stride the rising and falling of its members as Christendom came into existence and then crumbled around it in the midst of persecutions and as its members fled in droves.
The Church as the continued physical presence of Christ in the world, should and can have an effect on the world. This is the Church's eschatological impact. Yet this eschatological impact given that it is oriented towards another time and world in this time and world means that it's effect is always already partial. (I fear I may be misunderstood here: these two times and worlds overlap, in that sense they are neither strictly temporal nor strictly spatial, and thus can and do overlap, this I believe is the witness of scripture and tradition.) In the final analysis what we know is passing away and what is to come is not of our making. (Yet we are also forced to express aspects of this reality in temporal language,it is inescapable) Christendom I wish to argue emerges out of this boundary that is created by the Church's eschatological being in the midst of a world that is passing away and yet asserts itself continually in rebellion against the new that God, through Christ and the Church, seeks to bring about. Christendom is the natural outcome of a society still bound to this world and its fallen and demonic tendencies thoroughly impacted by the presence of the eschaton mediated through the Church.
As evidence of this Christendom, as a phenomenon produced by the Church as eschaton, I would first point to the patterns of large scale social disruption caused by a high conversion rate, followed by persecution. Acts 19 account of Paul's mission work in Ephesus, where in it is indicated that the presence of the Church in Ephesus had such great impact that those who made idols and were connected to the worship the goddess Artemis feared for their livelihood and the future of the temple of Artemis(see Acts 19:23ff). We have here in Scripture the first instance of Christendom: when so many have entered into the Church or come under the Church's influence and are no longer buying idols, we have all the necessary conditions of Christendom. The Church by virtue of its numbers in a particular society (limited possibly to just a city as here in acts, or extending over an entire empire matters little) gains a disruptive influence, which is followed by persecution. We see this pattern intensify as the Church expands throughout the Roman empire. Rarely (despite certain ideological interpretations of the the early church) did the Church simply appeal to the poor and outcasts but the Church has always appealed to every level of society. Once there are enough people from the society to opt out of the public religion, which Greek and Roman Religion was at base, civic religion, the system based on that public religion of the gods and emperor, suddenly has a problem. Persecution of Christians is then the way to ensure that a significant number of the society are doing their civic duties. (This is not to deny that their would be true belief in the nature of these acts and their effects on the world spiritual and physical) The Church then finds itself in a peculiar situation, where great numbers of its members abandon the Church and make the appropriate sacrifices, hand over holy objects, give keys to the churches, etc. The whole Donatist schism was, from this perspective, about the existence of Christendom and was a denial its validity. Where as those who argued for the reception of the lapsed back into the Church implicitly admitting the validity of Christendom as an effect of the the eschatological presence of the Church in the World.
What I am arguing here is that Christendom predates Constantine. Constantine simply recognizes an effect of the Church's presence in the world and seeks to live in this by product we have come to call Christendom. The Church accepted Constantine because in rejecting the rigorists of any stripe whether they be "gnostic" or Donatist the Church already accepted the imperfect manifestation of the eschaton in this world, which we now call Christendom. What I hope to explore around this understanding of Christendom is 1) what happens when we return to a occasional or spotty manifestation of Christendom (which I believe we currently find and may continue to find in the States ), and 2) how even those who seem to reject Christendom are currently attempting to preserve it even as it crumbles. What I find encouraging from the pre-Constantinian Church is that it found ways to take in stride the rising and falling of its members as Christendom came into existence and then crumbled around it in the midst of persecutions and as its members fled in droves.
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Larry,
ReplyDeleteI suppose you mean Christendom in the sense of Christians having the sort of realpolitik power.
This, of course, has nothing to do with attempting to rule as Christ might rule. Most Christians that achieve power are so compromised by their climb to power, and their thinking is so colored by the unholy system of which there are part, that they have lost their Christian voice, and the society they attempt to construct has no more to do with Christ than with Caesar.
But I do not believe it is impossible to maintain an authentic Christian witness in the very midst of political power, so long as one is careful to maintain one's faith throughout the political process, and remembers that the political powers of this world are fallen and demonic.
Jeremiah,
ReplyDeleteumm, no that is not what I mean. Or rather that was the pejorative definitions I gave at the beginning. Perhaps you should read the post more carefully, since I am tyring to move us beyond that narrow and negative definition. Acts 19 is not an example of that.
Though I will be arguing that expecting the eschatological impact of the Church to be pure is a theological and pragmatic questionable expectation. So you are right I may be pessimistic about placing our hope in the activity you describe as possible. It is an effect not the goal of the Church in the world.
I wonder if monasticism is an iteration of Christendom. I know...I say that with some trepidation. When the society that is the church codifies itself in such a strong way, there is something of Christendom that is revealed.
ReplyDeleteCould Taize be an iteration of Christendom? Now, you know I am a huge fan of Taize. But there is a precarious balance we strike in our faith...Paul wrestles with it when he speaks to the church in Rome about their place in civic life and the sinfulness of the flesh. And this is still our struggle. We have been promised a revealed Kingdom...incarnated faith. But we are participants, sinful participants in the Kingdom.
It's tough.
Tripp, an interesting question. But given that Monasticism is a response to (early on one might say reaction to) the new form of Christendom that arose. The Church however, very quickly recognized the ecclesial nature of monasticism. Thus the prayer life of the monk is considered to be of the Church. The influence monasteries and monks had was a function of Christendom.
ReplyDeleteHowever I would argue monasticism as a valid interpretation of Acts is ecclesial and not part of the phenomenon of Christendom. Though if Christendom was not an effect of The Church there would be no monasticism most likely. Monks and Nuns remind us of the eschatological nature of the Church.
You should read Nodet And Taylor's work. The origins of monasticism precede Christendom in several significant ways. The more organized the Church became, of course, the more organized monasticism became.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it is interesting to note that monasticism experiences a reaction formation against Christendom...and that their words were not heeded.
Interesting, thought Tripp. Though in this last comment I think you have lost where I am attempting to push the idea of Christendom. As I am understanding Christendom, Monasticism did not predate it. Constantine did not invent Christendom nor bring it into existence, he simply recognized what was already happening when the Church wasn't persecuted.
ReplyDeleteI will check out Nodet and Taylor, I do not believe I have read them. It might be interesting to note the scholarly matrix out of which this thought emerges. There is of course Frend The Rise of Christianity, but also Chadwick' history of the early church, and then Robin Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, and Wilken, the Spirit of Early Christian Thought (I think this is a very significant text), then Meyendorff on Byzantium(various essays) Schmemann (he addresses distinguishing Christendom and Church in the Liturgy, well that is how I have come to see much of his work), and lastly Georges Florovsky. It is of course the last three Orthodox thinkers that have convinced me my knee jerk rejection of Christendom was wrong and that there are larger patterns that a Protestant fixation on Constantine and what followed blinds us to. Unfortunately there is a heavy Donatistic purity strain in most Protestantism that can't accept the ambiguity that has always existed in the relationship between church and world.