Another transition
The church began on Pentecost and began to expand across the world. Within 400 years the church experienced a transition. She moved from being an outsider to being a major player in the world of politics and power. (See last week’s offering). Another 400 years of evolution in the church brought about another transition. A transition that many Christians today would like to replicate.
Go back with me to about 800 A.D. The warrior king Charlemagne is about to establish the foundations of what is called Christendom, a sort of Christian Kingdom. The history is rather involved so for the sake of time we will simply say that Charlemagne wanted all of Europe to be Christian. The problem was all those pesky Saxons, those heathen, rebellious, troublesome Saxons. So, Charlemagne engaged in an aggressive evangelism campaign, of sorts. For Charlemagne, the sign of one becoming a Christian was baptism. So, Charlemagne came up with the following evangelistic effort; baptism or die.
If one refused the offer, they would be put to the sword; one less heathen to corrupt Europe. If they were willing to submit to baptism they were spared. Europe gained one new convert, well, sort of a convert. In this way, Charlemagne would expand the borders of Christianity and root out paganism, heathenism, and any other “ism” the Pope disliked. The results were tragically predictable. There was widespread conversion followed by de-conversions, along with war, bloodshed, and treachery. Many of the ‘new converts’ were lukewarm about their faith or even hostile towards it. But numbers, material and training will eventually win the day, and Charlemagne eventually won Europe, more or less. Christendom was established.
One would never say that all the people of Europe were Christians. History would indicate that the political leaders were hardly acting like followers of Christ. In fact, because of the oppressive way that religious orders conducted themselves one would have to ask if the church leaders were even Christian. That is the permanent problem with top down faith. People join up for all the wrong reasons, if they join at all. Adherents to the faith are often lukewarm and carnal, political leaders who give lip service to faith can be godless and still approved by the zealots, and church leaders become more concerned about power and less about making disciples and even end up being abusers of the flock rather than shepherds. That is not to say nothing good came out of Europe, but the system was set up for corruption and corrupt it became. The transition in the 800’s to advancing the Gospel by the power of the state is not limited to Charlemagne.
Today, we have a more subtle name for it. Today it is called “Christian Nationalism”. Now, I am about to get into hot water, but turn on the bubbles and enjoy the hot tub. Christian Nationalism is much more than a call for Christians to be good citizens and patriotic. Much of the efforts of the Christian Nationalism is a top down approach to our political/legal system. The flawed logic being that if we write, pass and enforce the right kinds of laws we can have a Chrsitan nation. That simply is not true. Law is a pretty good teacher and given the choice I would prefer laws that reflect a Biblical worldview. At the core of our problems are not bad laws, the core problem is a sinful human heart and a rebellious will. Law may curtail these, but it can never cure them. If law could save us then Jesus died in vain.
America is not a “Christian nation” in the way Israel was a people chosen by God. Most of our founders held a Biblical worldview, but not all the founders were individually Christian. So we can’t take America back for God. What we can do, what we must do, is avoid the temptation to hope the government can fix our problems. We must also pray passionately for our nation. Paul’s command to pray for the political powers came with Nero on the throne. We have never had a President as corrupt as Nero. Most importantly, we can go about making disciples. If as a nation of 332,000,000 people we had 332,000,000 fully committed disciples of Jesus Christ, we would not need any laws except the law to love one another. We will never get there by the power of Washington but only by the power of Heaven.
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