The Dream of the Rood (available here) is a classic piece of Anglo-Saxon poetry, from the 8th or 10th centuries. Rood is the old English word for ‘rod’ or ‘pole’, and came to be used of the Cross. The poem narrates a dream sequence, in which the author sees a tree being cut down, and eventually used in the crucifixion of Christ.
Then the Cross itself describes how it felt, to be used as the means of execution for Jesus. In doing so, Christ is described in Anglo-Saxon terms, as a powerful warrior, winning a magnificent battle, on the Cross, over the enemies of sin and satan.
In this, the poem was perhaps one of the earliest examples how the Gospel was initially contextualised, in North European culture. Taking on the values of a violent, warrior and honour-based society, the poem translates the atonement into terms they could understand.
As such, it was in line with the missional strategy of the church, to evangelise the upper classes first, in order to penetrate the culture, and achieve a dominant position in the commanding heights of the ideology and the state.
The idea was that the faith would eventually spread to the lower orders, in an evangelistic version of economic trickle-down theory. The trouble was that, like neo-monetarism, it didn’t work. Faith, like finance, remained the preserve of the elites.
As historian Henry Mayr-Harting wrote, the strategy took 3-4 centuries, and also left the bulk of the population untouched. What passed for Christianity was, in addition, merely a thin veneer laid over the deep roots of paganism in English life.
In a reversal of Jesus’ parable, the yeast failed to leaven the loaf. Furthermore, it baptised and integrated the warrior ethos into the foundation of our Western culture and church. This alliance of crown and cross was not altered by at least the (Magisterial) Reformation.
If anything, the situation may have even become worse. Instead of a universal (catholic) church, each ruler became arbiter of which religion would dominate his realm. The slogan “cuius regio, cuius religio” meant the ruler’s religion automatically became the religion of his subjects.
Later, this tendency would result in the conflation of Christianity with colonial conquest and capitalism. And today, we witness it still, in the worship of success and wealth, in forms of “Prosperity Teaching”.
Our desire for power and popularity leads us to compromise with the principalities and powers. The process is identified by Jacques Ellul, French Protestant theologian and sociologist, in his books The False Presence of the Kingdom, and The Subversion of Christianity.
Martin Luther contrasts this theology of glory (theologia gloriae), from authentic gospel humility, the theology of the cross (theologiae crucis); and yet, himself didn’t follow his theological logic, but supported princes against peasants, and emitted seriously anti-semitic sentiments.
Only the Radical Reformation consciously opposed this mixing of religion and rule; and even they had their flaws (Munster, etc). Perhaps the Constantinian temptation toward Christendom is a permanent danger for the church?
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