You may be thinking, "How is a discussion of Christendom relevant to 21st century believers since the vast majority of Christians have never heard of it or know what it is?" Good point, but then many followers of Christ, if asked, couldn't tell you much about the doctrine of the substitutionary atonement. Nevertheless that doctrine is essential to a correct understanding of the gospel. Most Christians never use the words substitutionary atonement when giving their personal testimony, but they do affirm with great joy that Christ died in their place when they deserved to receive God's punishment. My point is that often the subtilty and depth of biblical teachings are frequently absent from the everyday conversation of Christians. Such is the case with Christendom. I think that Christians often believe in some vague notions akin to the concept of Christendom without having any substantial knowledge about it. I did for years.
On the other hand you may have heard about Christendom and even understand its role in church history, but still wonder whether this is a worthwhile discussion. For example you maybe asking the following questions or other like them.
Isn't Christendom dead? Why talk about something that's dead?
Isn't Christendom a Roman Catholic idea concocted during the Middle Ages?
Isn't the idea of Christendom contrary to biblical teaching on such topics as end times apostasy, the individual nature of conversion, Christ's warnings about laying up treasures on earth, etc?
Isn't the idea of Christendom dangerous? Doesn't history show us how corrupt the church became once it became the official religion of Rome? Haven't we learned that the church and state need to be separate institutions for the sake of both?
I could go on. There are good answers to these very valid questions. On this site I hope to explore the meaning of Christendom for today and to address such questions along the way. That will take me down all sorts of roads, lead to some dead ends, and occasionally leave me out on a limb chainsawing my way to the forest floor.
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3 comments:
This is loosely connected to the topic, but it is something I have been thinking about none-the-less. If Christians in America were forbidden from worshiping on pain of death, would we still have extended arguments about the use of one particular modifier in place of another in our book of church order? I'm not trying to say that intellectualism is unimportant in the Christian life, on the contrary I think that we must engage in the Lord with every part, our mind also belongs to the Lord and we should use it for Him. When you are facing death, however, you stop worrying about whether your worship service has a guitar or a piano, and whether it has small groups that connect with you and meet your needs. It forces you to think about the essentials. Is that such a bad thing?
A.T. In facing death I suspect that anyone who was sane would find the distinctions you mention to be trivial by comparison to the freedom to worship without fear of retaliation. Forcing yourself to think about essentials by using a hypothetical situation is a worthwhile exercise. Then you should apply what you have learned to your present circumstances. The application bit is trickier since you are not able fall back on black or white answers.
True, having such a fascination with death, especially a manufactured one rather than one imposed by an actual imminent threat of death, will leave one emotionally and intellectually stunted in the long run. After all, most of the occupations that we hold or seek to hold are luxury occupations in a sense. That is not to say that those occupations are irrelevant simply because when faced with a society in which we fight merely for existence they would become less important. The fact is we do live in a society of luxury, but the luxury that we have, especially the spiritual luxury, should seek to be informed by some sort of essentialism.
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