Post-Christendom

Metadata

Author: Stuart Murray Williams and Nigel Wright
Full Title: Post-Christendom
Category: #books

Highlights

Evangelism meant encouraging those who already knew the story to live by it and inviting those already familiar with church to participate actively.
We have already discovered through the disappointments of the Decade of Evangelism in Britain in the 1990s that ‘exhortation and invitation’ evangelism is becoming obsolete.
eventually one expression of Christianity triumphed, enshrined in definitive and obligatory creeds (though their theological niceties were unintelligible to almost all who repeated them).
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- Note: which, even as it defines the group, creates an inner ring within it
Christendom was a totalitarian culture: anyone challenging its beliefs or causing dissension was perceived as undermining society and dealt with severely.
In a society where everyone belonged, everyone had to subscribe to the same beliefs, at least in public.
Evidence from as early as the fourth century suggests the behaviour of Christians was no longer distinctive as it had been in pre-Christendom.
Council of Elvira, which was dealing with Christians involved in murder and pimping and church leaders involved in adultery and usury.
‘A more concentrated and thorough job was done of doctrinal and liturgical (sacramental) instruction than was done with biblical and moral teaching. The emphasis had shifted from the earlier days of the church … Being a Christian was now defined primarily in terms of doctrine and not in terms of behaviour.’
Preoccupation with individual eternal destiny replaced expectation of the coming of God’s kingdom.
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The state was no longer accorded a limited preservative function but had replaced the church as the bearer of the meaning of history.
The vision of a new Christian nation, corpus Christi, scattered through the nations was replaced by a vision of an earthly Christian Empire.
The church became more concerned about maintaining social order than achieving social justice.
No longer associated with the start of the Christian life but its end, ‘clinical’ baptism (after kline, bed) was understood not as commitment to a life of discipleship but as preparation for life after death, conferring immortality rather than forgiveness.
As late as the fifth-century, children from Christian homes were usually baptised after the age of twelve, but in most places by the sixth century infant baptism was normal.
Monasticism gave devout men and women an alternative way to respond: as noted above, ‘conversion’, largely redundant in a sacral society, connoted entry into religious orders.
They might have reflected on their survival and growth through 250 years of intermittent persecution and decided they did not need imperial protection or patronage.
They might have differentiated between toleration and imperial endorsement, welcoming the former and courteously but firmly refusing the latter.
For the churches the Christendom shift was revolutionary; for the Empire it was minor, replacing one imperial religion with another.
for the church to come in from the margins to the centre, it had to push Jesus out from the centre to the margins of Christianity.
The church owned roughly one third of all arable land and developed an efficient administrative system to ensure its holdings were well ordered and funds flowed into its coffers.
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Others comment on how rarely most people received communion,
Consequently, the authority of the Old Testament (suitably interpreted) increased and much New Testament teaching was regarded as unreachable idealism – applicable still to clergy and the religious orders, but achievable by all only in the eschatological kingdom.
Jesus was worshipped, but not followed.
Jürgen Moltmann summarises these: ‘Community with the church replaced community in the church. In this way what we nowadays call “the church from above” came into being, the church which takes care of the people, but in which the people themselves have no say.’
In the 360s the Council of Laodicea banned congregational singing and restricted singing to clergy and trained choirs.
The ‘agape meals’, once the communal context for breaking bread, fell into disrepute and the Council of Carthage in 397 forbade these.
One aspect of this move towards clerical performance was the increasing dominance of monologue preaching.
a rhetorical model more concerned about demonstrating a preacher’s knowledge and skill than the impact on listeners.
The text says nothing about church leaders exercising church discipline, but in a clerically dominated church this became as inevitable as monologue sermons.
In pre-Christendom, expelling disruptive members (the final resort for any unwilling to receive communal pastoral admonition) meant consigning them to the world beyond the church. But the world had disappeared in Christendom, so expulsion now meant ‘extermination’ (literally ‘outside the boundaries’) – either exile beyond Christendom or execution. Church discipline had become lethal!
over the centuries, the church became an institution rather than a movement and its energies were primarily directed towards maintenance rather than mission.
Evangelism was no longer a winsome invitation to a deviant and dangerous way of living and into a puzzling and yet strangely attractive community.
Inquisitors were advised to arrest on suspicion of heresy any who seemed unusually godly;
What was troubling, however – and convincing evidence of unorthodoxy – was rejection of key elements in the sacral system: oath, tithe and just war.
‘curse not, lie not, swear allegiance to no man’.
Another difference was the availability of further options for those not persuaded any version of Christendom was legitimate. Spiritualists represented radical rejection of external forms of religion. They believed personal spirituality was the core of faith, relegating outward forms and ceremonies to non-essential status or regarding them as hindrances to spiritual growth and unity. The reform of the church was insignificant, if this meant concern with structural issues. This was an attractive option in an age of bitter disputes over such matters. Spiritualists might conform outwardly to whatever form of religion was required locally (since such conformity was irrelevant to spiritual life) and continue to practice their own beliefs.
Although they eventually conceded they could not achieve their aims without dividing Christendom and creating alternative churches, they were unwilling to abandon the Christendom system and its presuppositions.
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The Reformers advocated returning to Christianity’s biblical roots and insisted the Bible, not church tradition, was authoritative. How, then, did they approach biblical interpretation? During the past millennium, despite advances in biblical understanding resulting from the labours of generations of biblical interpreters and theologians, the Christendom mindset was dominant. Theologians consistently interpreted the Bible in ways that supported the supposedly Christian status quo.
But this interest in Jesus did not mean his example and teaching were normative for discipleship.
Consequently, their return to the biblical roots did not mean subjecting ethical and ecclesiastical issues to the same scrutiny they applied to doctrine. They rejected the peasants’ calls for reform of the oppressive tithing system and vilified those who advocated communitarian models of economic sharing. And they refused to address the peasants’ concerns about church structures and local accountability.
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Although the pope was dethroned as head of the church, the hierarchical and clerical structure that had governed the church throughout Christendom survived intact. They adjusted terminology and organisational arrangements, but the clergy/laity divide persisted – despite talk of the ‘priesthood of all believers’ – and they replaced the monopoly
They endorsed the orthodox position for the past millennium – a position challenged only by dissident movements and now by Anabaptists – that the Great Commission was accomplished centuries earlier and Europe was a Christian society. Evangelists were obsolete, their task completed long ago. Reformers did not recognise the legitimacy of evangelism in an officially Christian society, and they regarded mission beyond Christendom as God’s responsibility, not theirs.
- Note: THE big mistake on the part of the evangelicals? Moving the goalposts? The world bowed to Christ, but some decided that wasn’t good enough, that the citizens of Christendom had to be more than just inhabitants of the society, but strivers towards an ideal --- making the goal something that could never be achieved (and something that would keep them in business forever).
Unsurprisingly, Reformers defined the church in relation to the preaching of true doctrine and proper administration of the sacraments.
Pastors exercised what became known as ‘ministry of Word and sacrament’ and operated essentially in maintenance mode.
- Note: I.e. beyond lip service in sermons, and maybe exhortations to read your Bible, pray every day, the church lost any notion that discipling was a matter of intentional growth
Bosch writes: ‘The Reformation definitions of the Church were silent on its missionary dimensions. Ecclesiological definitions were almost exclusively preoccupied with matters concerning the purity of doctrine, the sacraments and church discipline. Mission had to content itself with a position on the church’s periphery.’15
The Reformation caused enormous upheaval and produced lasting divisions in the church and European society. But actually nothing much really changed, at least in relation to Christendom. All the defining structures, attitudes, methods, reflexes and processes were still in place.
Evangelism today is deeply unpopular, within and beyond the churches.
Knowing churches are declining, reluctance to invite friends into a struggling institution.
Distaste for strategies that involve conversations with strangers and attempts to evangelise without establishing prior relationships.
Disillusionment from past experiences of ‘converts’ not becoming disciples or integrated into congregations.
Could mission in Christendom have produced this deep-seated aversion to evangelism? Such aversion comes not from widespread familiarity with this story, although members of Jewish and Muslim communities are often well informed, but from deep suspicion that evangelism is neither pleasant nor honourable.
Might a ‘decade of repentance’ for the legacy of past centuries be more helpful than another decade of evangelism?
Hoping passive and inwardly focused churches will attract others is to invest in Christendom expectations.
‘Incarnation and explanation’ evangelism is superseding ‘exhortation and invitation’.
Post-Christendom evangelism must be uncoupled from ‘inviting people to church’ and disabused of any lingering feeling others should pay attention to what churches say.
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- Note: This is important. Even setting aside being negatively viewed, the culture at large hasn’t taken churches seriously in a long time. It no longer sets a place at the table for them. Why should it?
Unpretentious long-term witness is our best hope. Gentle questioning must supersede domineering assertions. Bold humility must replace arrogant insecurity. The images of fellow travellers and conversation partners must usurp memories of inquisitors and crusaders.
Many assume Christianity has been tried and found wanting: we struggle to gain a hearing for something widely regarded as passé.