That attempt was not wholly bad. Christendom was motivated, in part, by a desire to apply Christian faith and ethics to the whole of life, to redeem fallen society. But, while Christian involvement in politics is indeed an important element of discipleship, the structural combination of church with state power has always been detrimental to the gospel message, distorting and compromising its ethics, in order to not alienate either leaders or citizens.
As a result, Christianity became identified with colonialism, imperialism, and slavery. We live today with that legacy, whenever we preach to people today. They, rightfully, are suspicious of our message, because of behaviour by its messengers throughout history. For Christians, real or nominal, were frequently enthusiastic carriers of the oppressors’ values. The famous nineteenth century missionary to Africa, David Livingstone, famously said that his message was “Christianity, Civilisation, and Commerce” – by which he meant capitalism.
To be sure, there was some method to this madness. Since capitalism was coming, it benefitted indigenous peoples to receive the tools which would fit them for positions in that system; and which later would equip the first generation of independence leaders. But, that can be merely a rationalisation for abuse; and moreover, today the West, and western Christianity are no longer in the cultural ascendency.
Paradoxically, we today bewail the influence of modernity on faith, in dissolving traditional ties. But during the imperial phase of capitalism, modernity, westernisation and Christianity went hand-in-hand: via education, economic development. What Christians failed, and still fail, to understand is this link between capitalism and modernity. Specifically, the right-wing Christians of today don’t realise that capitalism undermines the very morals they seek to enshrine. As a result, modernity has bypassed Christianity, so that we are left looking out-of-date: our sexual morality is discredited by the individualism of late capitalism, and technical advance leaves us behind – who would expect to get computer classes from a church?
However the identification of power with faith as a historical legacy continues. Religion was imposed through state power: e.g. religious assemblies and education in schools. This has largely vanished in western schools today. But its legacy remains: as something to be resisted. It was also mainly ineffective: I remember standing resentfully against the back wall, during religious assemblies. Many evangelists therefore lamented its main effect as that of “inoculation”: like vaccine, giving you enough of the virus, to prevent getting the real thing.
It did mean, however, that people had a folk-memory, of the stories, which Christians could appeal to, for people to “return” to their faith. Thus revivalism meant sense as a strategy, to “revive” something that had been alive. Today, there is little Christian memory left; even atheists, like Richard Dawkins, now advocate increased religious education, so people can understand their own cultural inheritance better. But evangelistic appeals to the Christian inheritance today is vulnerable to the law of diminishing returns, as further people “remember” the past, and those who do, see it largely in negative terms, as an oppressive history: of racism, patriarchy, and cultural imposition.
We must therefore avoid being defensive, voicing justifications and excuses, or pointing the finger at others. This will just lead to accusations of bad faith. Instead, we must admit the historic sins of the church, especially when it’s our denomination, and even when it is not: refusing to accuse others, but accepting our collective responsibility. In addition, we can excavate the resources within Christianity for social justice, to build credibility; though at times, this will require an apologetic challenge to sins in society, such as abortion, which are tolerated or even celebrated. However, we need to combine these verbal tactics, with embodied expressions of activism, to demonstrate the reality of what we claim.
At times, this will entail solidarity, with other groups, with whom we may have little in common: often, Christians oppose, for example, strikers, as disturbers of the status quo: in contrast, we offered hospitality to strikers at the college next door to our church building. Although they realised we don’t support them on all issues, like sexuality for example, such gestures do upset their preconceptions of our conservatism.
John Yoder, who ran foul of his own sins (with multiple accusations of sexual abuse) nevertheless identified this curse of Constantinianism. He referred to a “Neo-Constantinianism”, even “Neo-Neo-Neo…”! Even though church is officially separated from political power, in practice it is allied with corporate greed and exploitation, via an individualistic, laissez faire, libertarianism. Because the basic temptation is to ally with power, or if not, to simply want to be liked, to be popular – albeit with the stated aim of wining people, even whole societies, for Christ; but at the cost of assimilation to that culture. Western Christians have been good at pointing out the cultural idols of other countries, but not so adept at recognising our own.
Even outside Europe, however, Christendom exercised influence, as an overall approach: the alliance between Christianity and US imperialism or capitalism, or present-day political (and financial!) aggrandisement by evangelicals in Brazil. Much of the church-planting in British cities, like London, also falls into this trap: appealing mainly to middle class incomers, and not attracting indigenous, working class, immigrant, or lumpen elements. They are in, but not of, the city.
Much progressive Christianity also expresses this "Neo-Neo-Neo-Neo-Constantinian" temptation, lowering or changing elements of discipleship in order to fit in: where mediaeval chaplains did it to appeal to royalty, who wanted extra mistresses, the new progressive churches do so in order to retain as many of the middle classes as they can, while the faith declines around them. In this, they are similar to the older liberal churches, who adapted to an earlier moment in capitalist modernity. Neither, however, proved much good at actually converting unbelievers.
Having said that, evangelicals should not get on their high-horse: we are also declining, perhaps a little more slowly perhaps. The challenge of evangelism applies to us as well: in a way, we are simply trapped in an even older moment of capitulation to the spirit of an even earlier age of capitalism and modernity. The same problem, however, also applies to churches, which have been heralded as the hope of global Christianity.
As urbanisation, education and technological development have taken root, churches in South Korea and Nigeria have seen church growth plateau and even go into reverse. On a trip to Brazil, I met pastors worried that the methods, which saw them hit revival, were ceasing to work now. It does realise the question whether the much-vaunted “reverse mission, by those from the global south, can “save” European Christianity, if they fail to contextualise the gospel here. As Tim Keller commented recently, European Christians are therefore, paradoxically in the forefront of dealing with these new conditions, and may even be a laboratory of the future.
The concomitant loss of social and political, however, is uncomfortable. The move to re-assert such power, as in the US, has, however, proved delusory; as their identification with one, particularly right-wing political party, has led to a loss of credibility with, especially young adults. European Christians should therefore resist this temptation, allied as it has been historically with reactionary political currents, like fascism, in our history, which appeal to defending our supposedly “Christian” cultural heritage, against enemies: Muslims, immigrants. Instead we should acknowledge and confess the hijacking of faith by subchristian influences – perhaps present in the initial conversion of Europe – such as, the enculturation of faith to the warrior ethic of Anglo-Saxon culture.
Being in a minority, while uncomfortable, and especially as we are still victim to an “imperial melancholy”, as Paul Gilroy termed it, can nevertheless be enriching and empowering. We can take risks, try experiments, without worrying whether we will lose power, because we don’t have any! Stuart Murray, although he dabbles with liberal theology today, advertises this potential, of being a minority. Historian Arnold Toynbee similarly identified the cultural power of a “creative minority”, in either effecting positive change, or halting cultural disintegration.
Hence, we should be looking, perhaps, to traditions which have arisen out of minority status. The European Anabaptist way of thinking may have something to contribute. However, there are limits to it; because it grew up within Christendom, even though they critiqued it. As result they were always parasitic upon the wider culture, even as they provided a valid model for being a contrast society within it. Therefore, we may need to learn from churches in places where they are a minority within a different, even hostile, culture: e.g. under Islam, or Communism. How have these churches survived, even thrived, perhaps grown, under such conditions?
Even here, there will be differences of course. Despite increasing legislation on, for example, hate crimes, which threaten to limit Christian freedom to preach on sexuality etc., we are still not yet in a situation of active persecution. In the West, it is more a matter of seduction, whereby the powers of ideology attempt to make us conform to their values. Here is the challenge, to maintain our beliefs, while not retreating into a ghetto. From a traditionalist bent, Rod Dreher attempts this with his “Benedict Option”. Mark Sayers also examines this, in his books on the “Disappearing” and the “Reappearing” Church. Not all his suggestions work in Europe (he is Australian), but the questions must be asked.
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