Thoughts on ethics, society, politics, religion, philosophy, theology, and everything in between
The past 2,000 years of Church history have been a long and winding road. The early Church tried to do its best to live out the radically countercultural reality of Jesus’s Kingdom in the midst of a hostile culture. But beginning in the fourth century, there was a dramatic transition to Christendom, in which Christianity … Read more
The End of Christendom For many centuries, from the late Roman Empire, through the Middle Ages, and into the Modern period, the political, social, and ecclesial status quo in Western civilization was that of Christendom. All of society was (supposedly) Christian. “Christian” governments used coercion and violence to force everyone to be part of the … Read more
A Great Apostasy? There is a popular belief among many Christians that in the early fourth century, with the conversion of the Roman Emperor Constantine to Christianity, the church suddenly committed a “Great Apostasy” by turning away from the Way of Jesus, making a grab for worldly political power, and embracing “Constantinianism.” Usually this is … Read more
In the first part of this series, I described and assessed four different models for how the church should relate to the political powers of this world: Christendom, Pietism, Dual Citizenship, and Natural Law. In this second part, I advocate an alternative model that bears some similarities to the Pietism and Natural Law models, while … Read more
For nearly 2,000 years, the church has wrestled with the question of how it should relate to the political powers of this world. This is an enormously complex and difficult issue, and Christians have given a wide variety of answers to this question through the centuries. At the risk of oversimplification, I propose that Christian … Read more