From Oliver O’Donovan’s book The Desire of Nations, summarizing the meaning of Christendom:
The more the political character of Israel’s hope engages us, the more we need to know how it has actually shaped the government of nations. The more the problem of our own modernity engages us, the more we need to see modernity against its background.
I use the term ‘Christendom’ (in keeping with a good deal of current discussion) to refer to a historical idea: that is to say, the idea of a professedly Christian political order, and the history of that idea in practice. Christendom is an era, an era in which the truth of Christianity was taken to be a truth of secular politics…
Let us say that the era lies between AD 313, the date of the Edict of Milan, 1791, the date of the First Amendment to the US Constitution…In the course of this period the idea of Christendom developed and underwent corrections and elaborations; sometimes it was taken to imply more, sometimes less. Yet the idea was always there, giving a unity to the whole era which entitles it to the name ‘Christendom’: it is the idea of a confessionally Christian government, at once ‘secular’ (in the proper sense of that word, confined to the present age) and obedient to Christ, a promise of the age of his unhindered rule.
The rulers of the world have bowed before Christ’s throne. The core idea of Christendom is therefore intimately bound up with the church’s mission. But the relationship between mission and Christian political order should not be misconstrued. It is not, as is often suggested, that Christian political order is a project of the church’s mission, either as an end in itself or as a means to the further missionary end. The church’s one project is to witness to the Kingdom of God. Christendom is a response to mission, and as such a sign that God has blessed it. It is constituted not by the church seizing alien power, but by alien powers becoming attentive to the church.
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Lawrence Adams’ book Going Public: Christian Responsibility in a Divided America develops an ecclesiocentric approach to political issues. A Christian theology of the state grows out of a biblical ecclesiology. The church is indeed political, but not in the way we typically think about politics. Here is an excerpts:
“The church carries on its temporal journey with the firm hope that comes both from its continuation through the rise and fall of cultures and empires
and from the promises of the ultimate triumph of Christ and his kingdom. Yet the American church also carries into the new century the immediate legacy
of recent history, which was, if Max Stackhouse is correct, “a time of vague, free-floating ‘spirituality,’ of little importance for the great issues. Modern [American] churches lacked social significance because, contrary to what had been the case in all preceding ages, they lacked a high view of the Church.” The twentieth century churches in the West contrast
with their ancestors, who knew that “ecclesiology is, indeed, essential to a Christian social philosophy, since the Church is the place where persons are
formed theologically and ethically to live responsibly in the wider society.” It has also been understanding of Christians in many times and places that the church is a public body that both shapes and serves the
building of civilization, and that there is no conflict between spiritual life and public life, as all are to be brought under the will and rule of God in the life of the Christian….
The church is included in this definition as a public institution, an entity in which people hold things in common and work towards common ends. It is a
public space where things of public significance occur, in this understanding, and is a sector of a larger public life. It is divinely appointed (as are also, some would argue, government, family, and economic
arrangements, and all other structures of existence) and is primarily responsible for ordering the right worship of God and the promulgation of divine revelation about salvation and the truth of the Trinity. The church is not merely an association of individuals each pursuing the fruits of personal salvation. It is the public representative of Christ, who is King of all the earth, the visible expression of his lordship and redemption.
Confusion about the church as a public institution can easily follow if this concept is translated into the church becoming an organized political power,
an economic association providing jobs, goods, and services, or a health and welfare organization. Rather, worship and proclamation and comissioning are
public goods that are the province of the church. This can be very difficult to grasp, perhaps especially for individualistic Westerners in the current age, who have learned to place worship, morality, revelation, and “personal growth” in the bin labeled “private” or “personal.” Under these assumptions, to realize the need for a “public church” is to call for a political church that supports candidates, advances policy positions, organizes voters, and sponsors protests. Under a different understanding, a “public church” orders life in a certain way, primarily because it is the will of God and true to created human nature but also because doing so serves the larger common life.
The church then, also serves as a public space in which men and women learn civility and are formed in the virtues that serve in the other arenas of
public life. If one’s life is rightly ordered at the core that the church shapes, the potential for rightly ordering the rest of life, public and private, is advanced. But the public service of the church is not only in training individuals; it is also in serving its purposes for the entirety of public life. For public life is not just the sum total of individual lives; it is the pattern of community responsibility and commonweal that constitute
human existence, according to the creational purposes of the Creator…
The church has faced cultural decline in many times and places. These times of crisis have sometimes been periods of ferment and reflection even as the
world around crumbles, such as when Augustine faced the collapse of Rome and the apparent failure of civilization by producing the most profound works of
theology and public philosophy. All times have their own forms of power and opposition; all are hostile in some degree to faith and Christian norms. Thus all need to be discerned and faced with the primary resources available to the church.
The greatest lesson of all these experiences is that the church never fully knows the meaning of its current situation or the shape of the future; it never has full insight into the intentions of the Lord. Nor do we have any magic means of accurately knowing the immediate future. These are times though, in which the practice of faith, holding trust in him who is worthy
of trust, is the most important calling. Faith results in faithfulness, faithfulness to the calling of love for the culture and the world. By attentive cultivation of its holy life together, in robust communities of faith where understanding is formed, the church will offer its greatest contribution to the shaping of culture toward right and just order. If American culture continues to resist such prophetic demonstration, or even
if it responds with acceptance and repentance, our faith tells us that all is still under the judgment of God and subject to his purposes.
We might ask, in light of all this evidence, what is it that holds the United States together now? Why have these forces not already brought about the fragmentation they indicate? Are we joining the Cassandra chorus that, as in the past, is still wrong about America when we call attention to these
indicators? The fact that the United States still holds together somehow perhaps indicates that the capability in American culture to respond to
challenges with pragmatic fixes will win even in the new situation of advanced moral and cultural pluralism.
However, the evidence from this study points in a different direction. The measurable residual strength still to be found in the local church emerges
as the primary factor in offering the salt of preservation — even with the weakening effects of the erosion of religion in society. To continue such
preservation in an increasingly fragmentary culture, the church will need to remain true to its calling and its faith as it serves its ultimate hope. Such faithfulness will be the crucible both of public virtue and of public
leadership.”
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T. S. Eliot summarizing Christian nationalism:
“My point is that, while there is a considerable measure of agreement that certain things are wrong, the question of how they should be put right is so extremely controversial, that any proposal is immediately countered by a dozen others…I confine myself therefore to the assertion, which I think few will dispute, that a great deal of the machinery of modern life is merely a sanction for un-Christian aims, that it is not only hostile to the pursuit of the Christian life in the world by the few, but to the maintenance of any Christian society of the world. We must abandon the notion that the Christian should be content with freedom of cultus [worship], and with suffering no worldly disabilities on account of his faith [e.g., persecution]. However bigoted the announcement may sound, the Christian can be satisfied with nothing less than a Christian organization of society — which is not the same thing as a society consisting exclusively of devout Christians. It would be a society in which the natural end of man — virtue and well-being in community — is acknowledged for all, and the supernatural end — beatitude [that, life in communion with God] — for those who have eyes to see it…
The rulers [in a Christian society], I have said, will qua rulers, accept Christianity not simply as their own faith to guide their actions, but as the system under which they are to govern….
But it must be kept in mind that even in a Christian society as well organized as we can conceive possible in this world, the limit would be that our temporal and spiritual life should be harmonized: the temporal and spiritual would never be identified. There would always remain a dual allegiance, to the State and to the Church, to one’s countrymen and to one’s fellow-Christians everywhere, and the latter would always have primacy. There would be always be a tension; and this tension is essential to the idea of a Christian society, and is a distinguishing mark between a Christian and pagan society.
But before suggesting how the Church should interfere with the World, we must try to answer the question: why should it interfere with the World?…The Church is not merely for the elect…It therefore must struggle for a condition of society which will give the maximum of opportunity for us to lead wholly Christian lives, and the maximum opportunity for others to become Christians. It maintains the paradox that while we are each responsible for our own souls, we are all responsible for all other souls, who are, like us, on their way to a future heaven or hell….”
Eliot also understood the need for the church to be reasonably unified if society is to be publicly Christianized. A divided church will inevitably lead society into full-scale religious pluralism. Further, Eliot recognized that a corporate commitment to the gospel in the public square did not offset the need for individuals to exercise a personal faith towards Christ:
“I am convinced that you cannot have a national Christian society, a religious-social community, a society with a political philosophy founded upon the Christian faith; if it is constituted as a congeries of private and independent sects. The national Faith must have an official recognition by the State, as well as an accepted status in the community and a basis of conviction in the heart of the individual.”
Eliot also understood that the public square cannot be neutral and if society is not organized on explicitly Christian terms, an idol will dominate. And that idol, even if disguised by the rhetoric of secularism, is bound to be far less gracious than Jesus Christ:
“If you will not have God (and He is a jealous God) you should prepare to pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin.”
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Christians are people who are in touch with reality. Jesus is Lord and we know that fact. We seek to align our lives with the new reality that the crucified and resurrected Jesus is now King of kings and Savior of sinners. The church is the people synced up to this new order.
Non-Christians *think* they live in a world where Jesus is not king. They are out of touch with reality. Narnia is more real than the world non-Christians think they live in.
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Want to make America great again? Ok, then make the local church great again. There’s no other way.
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Liturgy is the needle; Christendom is the thread it pulls through.
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The kingdom of Christ is far broader than the church. But the church, in both her gathered and scattered capacities, acts as the bearer of the kingdom. The church announces the kingdom by proclaiming Jesus is Lord and celebrates the kingdom in the Eucharist. Furthermore, the church embodies the lifestyle of the kingdom in her common life and culture. The kingdom takes initial shape in the institutional church, but spills over from there into all God’s people do in the world.
Jesus makes this point in Matthew 13:31-33, as he describes the extensive and intensive growth of the kingdom, the breadth and depth of the kingdom. The mustard seed parable points to the extensive growth of the kingdom as it fills the earth. The leaven parable points to the intensive growth of the kingdom as it permeates every aspect of human life. Jesus then brings these two forms together in the Great Commission at the end of Matthew’s gospel: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Note the extensive growth of the kingdom included in the commission: all the nations are to be discipled. Jesus is calling on his disciples to do nothing less than Christianize all the peoples of the earth. But at the same time, the intensive growth of the kingdom is also brought into view. The nations are not merely to be converted, but discipled. They are to be taught the whole counsel of Christ, with its wide-ranging implications for every area of life. While the church does not tell people how to do their specific vocations in every detail, she does train them in a broad way so they can carry out their vocations to the glory of God. Obviously the church is central in this double enterprise of kingdom expansion and maturation.
The double growth of the kingdom takes place foundationally through the agencies of the institutional church, though, again, we should not limit the kingdom to the institution, of course. Grace (really, the personal presence of Christ) flows from the heavenly, Spirit-established, Spirit-indwelt community out to the rest of culture. Gifts received and wisdom learned in the church are taken out to the other spheres to remake and reform them in terms of God’s holistic design for human life. The church – especially her worship assembly – is central in all of this.
The pattern in the book of Exodus shows us this truth. Israel’s first task after being freed from slavery is not setting up a theocratic civil government or Hebrew schools, though those things were no doubt on the agenda. Those things would come in due time, but the Israelites started with building the tabernacle, a center for corporate worship and prayer. For forty years they wandered in the wilderness learning how to worship and live as a covenant community; then they were ready to go forth to conquer the Promised Land and set up a theocratic civilization. The pattern of Exodus is clear: first worship, then dominion. We’re not ready to rule the land until we have learned to serve God in his sanctuary.
Ezekiel shows us this truth in his temple vision as well. The rivers of life, flowing out to the world to bring healing and renewal, originate in the sanctuary (Ezek. 47). The water does not flow out from the family hearth or the halls of Congress, but from under the altar. The water that refreshes, nourishes, and makes fruit-bearing possible surges from the church (the new Eden and temple) out to the nations. The current of the river is ultimately destined to reach the four corners of the earth – but the church is the only channel through which the water can run its course.
Again, Haggai makes the same point in Israel’s post-exilic period. The prophet scolds the Israelites for seeking to rebuild their culture before they have restored worship. They are building their houses before they have built God’s house and, as a result, all their cultural efforts are doomed to futility (Hag. 2). Haggai demonstrates that ecclesiastical reformation precedes and empowers cultural transformation.
Finally, we see Paul carrying out this model in his missionary journeys. Paul was certainly concerned that all of cultural and political life come under the discipleship of the gospel. His great hope, after all, is to preach to Caesar! But when Paul entered a city, he aimed first and foremost at planting a church, from which the rest of the culture would be transformed over time. He did not start by making proposals to local legislative bodies or setting up Christian schools. He started with the Word, water, bread, and wine. The church was the tip of his spear in every place he went. He knew if he planted a church in any given city, cultural transformation would soon follow.
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The Apostle Paul could rejoice in chains because he knew the story of Joseph: for the faithful, prison is a prelude to dominion.
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A note on social contract theory:
Social contract theory, originating primarily with Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, is not only contrary to a biblical theology of the state, but also tells a story that is so patently absurd it is hard to believe it ever gained credence in the first place.
Social contractualists, in brief, assume that men, by nature, are isolated individuals existing in a state of war with one another. They then voluntarily enter into a social compact with each other, establishing the “state.” They consent to give up some of their individual liberties to enter into common life. Society follows the individual and is the product of individual decisions.
Biblically, however, the hostility that exists between men is not “natural” at all; rather, it comes in as a result of the fall. Moreover, the story as told by social contract theory makes human community peripheral to human life, as though we were by nature isolated atoms. They claim the individual precedes the social. It would be hard to imagine anything more obviously false. Human beings, from the very point of conception onwards, already exist in community! Community is not something added to human life as a tacked-on, optional extra; it is constitutive of human life. As John Zizoulas has so aptly put it, being is communion; that is, to be is to be in communion. God exists only in community as Father, Son, and Spirit, a unity in Trinity. Mankind is made the communal image of God. The inescapability of community is seen, furthermore, if we ask how these isolated individuals could enter into social compact with one another unless they already shared a common socialization so that they spoke the same language, employed the same customs or rituals, and so forth.
In short, the theories of Hobbes and Locke, so integral to modern Western democracies, simply don’t square with the way the world actually works. They require us to go against the grain of human life. Since the creation of Adam (the only man to ever exist in isolation from other humans, and even then only temporarily), society always has (at least) temporal priority over the individual. There are certain “givens” in human life that are simply not a matter of individual consent. The stories Hobbes and Locke tell, as the mythical foundations of their theories, are non-sense.
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“We do not want, as the newspapers say, a Church that will move with the world. We want a Church that will move the world. … It is by that test that history will really judge any Church, whether it is the real Church or no.”
— Chesterton
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Pastors, before you step into the pulpit tomorrow, ask yourself, “If Paul had preached this sermon in Thessalonica, would it have caused a riot?” If not, you might want to spice it up a bit.
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Ronald Wallace on how a dualistic view of nature and grace leads to the secularization of the state:
“For Thomas of course there was always a living and close connection between God and nature, and thus between grace and nature; but the idea of a natural law, reasonable in itself, gave a certain independence to the State in its secularity. Thomas also so underlined the distinction between man as a natural being and man as a Christian as to make them two potentialities capable of quite distinctive self-realization, the natural aspect of man being worthy of its own free self-expression and sufficient to achieve its own natural end…Francis Schaeffer blames Aquinas for beginning the movement which has set the secular realm free and unrelated to that which is Christian thus allowing nature to become not only “autonomous” but to control and “eat up” grace.”
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Wallace summarizing Calvin’s view of Christendom:
“What Calvin lived to achieve in Geneva deserves to be called a commonwealth in which both Church and State serve each other in serving the Word of God, and the individual is nurtured and trained to true freedom and responsibility in the community.”
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When the church seeks to accommodate her message to the world, the church gets assimilated into the world. The church’s proper posture towards the world is one of confrontation, not accommodation. Seeking to make the church’s teaching palatable to the world is the way of compromise and surrender.
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Who has done more to promote modern liberalism and the postwar consensus – the papacy/Roman Catholicism or secular Jews?
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The principalities and powers have an earthly and heavenly component.
The earthly component can be political or institutional. The heavenly can be angelic or demonic.
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Faithful worshipping churches are the lone bulwark against the principalities and powers.
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Things will change on earth when they change in heaven. How the church wages liturgical warfare in heaven each Lord’s Day shapes what happens in history. Sadly, the contemporary church does not do much fighting each Sunday and so we make little progress in our warfare. When our sermons, singing, and praying mature, we will see the effects in the culture.
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Apart from faithful churches, the world is haunted by demonic principalities and powers.
With faithful churches, the world is enchanted by the presence of Christ and his Spirit.
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Judgment begins with the house of God. Reformation does as well.
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The church exists in three dimensions — as a culture, a counter-culture, and the transformer of culture:
Church as culture — gathered worship/community — priestly
Church as counter-culture — mission/mercy/”holy war” — kingly
Church as transformer of culture — creating a new world through word and deed — prophetic
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Whatever we think might be broken with the American system and the American economy — and no doubt there are many things that need fixing — we should not let our criticisms over shadow the glorious reality that we live in the most prosperous and comfortable nation that has ever existed. Do not let a sense of entitlement drive out gratitude. America has provided the platform on which more prosperity has been built for more people than any other nation in history — no small feat. So yes, make your criticisms and offer your proposed fixes, but also be incredibly grateful for the God-given blessing that comes with being American.
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America will never be great again without great churches.
More specifically, America will never be great without great churches, singing great hymns and psalms, hearing great biblical sermons, enjoying great fellowship within the body, following the leadership of great elders who truly shepherd the flock wisely, and doing great works of service.
Want to make America great again? Make the church in America great again.
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Francis Scott Key (yes, that Francis Scott Key of national anthem fame) penned a hymn that is one of my favorites. It’s entitled “Before the Lord We Bow.” It summarizes a Christian political theology and true Christian patriotism. It ties together the eternal and temporal good of the nation. It is a patriotic hymn (especially in the final verse), but not a chauvinistic one, as it includes a hope for all people groups and nations (verses 3 and 4). It is obviously pro-Christendom and theocratic/christocratic. It is full of joy and thanksgiving for God’s abundant gifts to our people. This is the kind of politics we should aspire to:
1 Before the Lord we bow,
The God who reigns above,
And rules the world below,
Boundless in power and love;
Our thanks we bring
In joy and praise,
Our hearts we raise
To heaven’s high King.
2 The nation Thou hast blest
May well Thy love declare,
From foes and fears at rest,
Protected by Thy care.
For this fair land,
For this bright day
Our thanks we pay–
Gifts of Thy hand.
3 May every mountain height,
Each vale and forest green,
Shine in Thy word’s pure light,
And its rich fruits be seen!
May every tongue
Be tuned to praise,
And join to raise
A grateful song.
4 Earth! hear thy maker’s voice,
The great Redeemer own,
Believe, obey, rejoice,
And worship Him alone;
Cast down thy pride,
Thy sin deplore,
And bow before
The Crucified.
5 And when in power He comes,
O may our native land,
From all its rending tombs,
Send forth a glorious band;
A countless throng
Ever to sing
To heaven’s high King
Salvation’s song.
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Traditional Christian hymnody (especially before the 19th century) is a quite rich source of biblical political theology — not in the details, of course, but in the basic principles.
think about a Christian statesman attending a worship service in the 19th century singing psalms (like Psalm 2) and the Te Deum and “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed,” versus a modern evangelical Christian who holds political office attending church and singing vapid contemporary worship songs. Who is being better fit and equipped to exercise political power as a Christian ruler?
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