The End of Christendom?

How do you see, and now you've presented an excellent series on, at least here in the adult Sunday school class at Escanito on the end of Christendom, and what do you see, this is a big question, I'm just trying to formulate some as I go here, but what do you see are the challenges for the church now in this new sort of world in which we find ourselves where we're not, slowly finding ourselves as not the accepted religion in law and in order?

What does this mean for us going forward? How are we, what are some of the challenges you see?

The End of Christendom and the Church’s New Challenge

Well, one of the books that has really influenced me recently is a book that you'll all wanna run out and get, it's only about 800 pages long, and it's entitled Christendom, the Triumph of a Religion, 300 to 1300, you know, which is the timeframe we're all interested in.

But what it argues very convincingly, I think, is that Christendom was established by civil government embracing Christianity, or at least a form of Christianity, and enforcing it in law. Now that's not to say lots of people didn't embrace it, it's not to say a lot of, there were a lot of genuine Christians in Christendom, but the essential definition of Christendom is that it's Christianity enforced in law.

And I think what you see on the part of Christian nationalists is probably a somewhat romantic desire to go back to Christianity being enforced in law. And, you know, some people have criticized me for saying that Christendom is over, and I say, I'm saying that purely descriptively as a historian, I'm not necessarily saying it's good or bad, I actually think it's probably good.

But it's simply a fact. Now maybe you can think Christendom can be restored, if you're a post-millennial, you probably do think that. But the huge difference that makes, I think, for the church is that we have to realize that we have a whole new burden of being persuasive rather than coercive.

And I don't think that's bad, because I don't think Jesus was ever coercive. He'll be coercive when He comes again in glory. But for now, there's really not a coercive moment in the New Testament, I don't think.

The New Testament is all about trying to persuade people that Jesus is who He says He is, that the gospel is what we have to believe. And what that will mean, of course, for us, is that we have to be a lot clearer about who we are and what the gospel is and how we can seek to persuade people.

We know, of course, no persuasion can succeed unless the Holy Spirit uses it, but we have to be prepared. I'm intrigued, and I don't say this critically, but I'm intrigued that from time to time, I see Franklin Graham do an ad on TV for a minute or two in which he tells you to pray to be saved.

That may be helpful to people. I'm glad he at least gets people thinking about things. But I think that notion that I can speak to you for a minute and then teach you a prayer and you can become a Christian, it is an assumption of Christendom.

It's the revivalistic assumption of America. Everybody knows the gospel. They just need to be called to believe it. Well, the problem is most people don't know the gospel anymore. The even bigger problem is a lot of people think they know the gospel and they don't, and so we have a whole new level of challenge to be clear and communicative and persuasive with the gospel.

And I think we ought to see it as a great challenge. It'll be frustrating because a lot of people won't be persuaded, but the Lord will use us to gather His elect.

Why Christendom’s Coercion Weakened the Church

So you made a pretty powerful statement about you think Christendom, which it would be probably good for you to define what you mean by that, and then number two, you did a little bit, yeah, but number two, you made a statement of it's probably a good thing it doesn't exist anymore.

That's a powerful observation. I would love for you to talk a little bit more about what you, as a theologian historian, what are you thinking about in that statement?

Before you go, and I'm gonna dump everything on you right now because that's, in light of that, what would, if we achieved Christendom again, what kind of problems has coercion brought in the past?

Well, think for a minute of the coronation of King Charles III. I'm a sort of junkie for those sorts of things, so I regretted that he shortened the coronation from five hours to two. I was ready for five hours, but very near the beginning of the coronation, you know, if you're a bunch of rebels and didn't watch it, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the moderator of the Church of Scotland come to the king before he's crowned, and they say, "'Will you solemnly promise to uphold the Protestant Reformed religion?'.

And he says, "'I will.'". How many people of the 2 ,000 in that abbey believe in the Protestant Reformed religion? What will the king do to uphold it? You see, Christianity in Europe, I think, was greatly weakened by governments pretending to uphold Christianity when they didn't.

And in that process, Christianity was weakened, not strengthened. I happen to believe that Queen Elizabeth II was a sincere Christian. I don't know anything about Charles's heart. But government support establishing religion, I think, everywhere in Europe ultimately weakened religion, weakened both its orthodoxy and its appeal to the people so that in European history, the church came to be seen as the defender of privilege and status quo, rather than the defender of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And it was worse probably in Roman Catholic countries than in Protestant countries. But yeah, I mean, in the Netherlands, the Reformed Church had a state church quality to it. But the Netherlands, arguably now, is one of the most secularized countries in the world.

It hasn't worked, the merger of church and state. And I think Christianity, for all of its craziness in America is much more vital in America. It's in trouble in America now more than it has been. But Christianity was much more vital in America by the church having to support itself, try to persuade people.

Regrettably, the people who really took advantage of that were the Baptists.

Formalism Under State Churches and the Need for Heart Religion

Yeah, we feed all the Presbyterian churches, though.

Well, you know, if you're Dutch Reformed, your attitude is, you know, if you don't know you should be here, you really don't belong here. No, just kidding. Sort of like this conference. You had to know about it before you could be invited.

Anyway, so, you know, I think that call to having to be persuasive is a very good thing. And to say, we can't expect anybody else to do the church's job for it.

And you said under Christendom, one of the challenges that we faced with a sort of coercive approach was formalism.

Well, yeah, I mean, there was a time in the 17th century where if you were not an attending member of the Church of England, you were fined. Well, nobody had money to be fined, so everybody went. But they didn't pay attention, necessarily.

Calvin complained about that. In Geneva, they had to go to church. So Calvin said people sat in the pews and made rude noises while the preachers tried to preach. Because they resented being forced to be there.

So, you know, the problem becomes everyone is formally a Protestant, but have hearts been engaged. And that's really where the revivalist tradition comes from. We want to try to get the gospel through to the hearts.

These people are theoretically Protestants, but they're not sincerely Protestants. How do we bridge that gap?

Psalm Singing and the Closing Banter

But they sure did sing Psalm 23. Well, didn't they?

They did.

They did.

The Crimson, too.

Your favorite.

Crimmond.

Oh, Crimmond, sorry.

That's all right. You should sing that once in a while.