Bad News/Good News:  The Death of Christendom

Matthew 24:36-39, 2 Timothy 4:1-5

            The older I get, the more nostalgic I become.   I think back to the late 1950’s and early ‘60’s when I was growing up on the farm in South Dakota, and I think with a certain amount of wistfulness about some of the things that are no more.   I started my education with “Dick and Jane” in a one room schoolhouse that sat at the end of our half-mile driveway.   There were 7 other students in eight grades.  I helped my mom wash clothes with her old Maytag wringer washer sitting in the middle of the kitchen with two big tubs of rinse water.   I remember warm milk fresh from the cow on my breakfast cereal, and cold winter nights when I would shiver under the covers in our poorly insulated house.   Ahhh, those were the days.  

            Things have sure changed.   You have your own memories, I know.  Here are a few thoughts about how things have changed just since 1970:   

            1970                                                                            Now

            Long hair                                                                   Longing for hair

            Moving to California to be cool                         Moving to CA to warm up

            Rolling Stones                                                              Kidney stones

            The Grateful Dead                                                   Dr. Kevorkian

            “Whatever”                                                                  “Depends”

            It’s the technological changes that seem the most dramatic.   The computer is a good example.  If the automobile had developed at a pace equivalent to that of the computer during just the last 20 years, today a Rolls Royce would cost less than three dollars, get three million miles to the gallon, deliver enough power to drive the Queen Elizabeth II, and six of them would fit on the head of a pin!  (story file, 13.5.5)

            The world has surely changed.  But none of the changes that have occurred in the world are more important for us as Christians than the changes that have occurred in the relationship between the Christian church and our world. 

            When I was a kid growing up in South Dakota in the fifties and sixties, the church was pretty much the only game in town on Sundays.  You couldn't shop on Sunday, and you couldn't buy gas.   No school would even think of scheduling a soccer game or a baseball game on a Sunday.  Now, Sunday is becoming more and more just like any other day of the week.  In our modern world, the church has become just one of many "options" that people consider.  And not a very important option at that.  So soccer games and little league and the company picnic often provide a more interesting, more important agenda, than stepping into this boat called the Christian Church.

            How did this happen?  Well, to find out, we need to pick up where we left off last week, with an idea called Christendom. 

            You will remember that Christendom began in the fourth century a.d. when the Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity and ended a long period of persecution.  With that act, he started a movement that lasted about nine centuries.  Constantine and those who followed him made every attempt to create a Christian civilization.  A Christian culture.  During those nine centuries, it was the church that defined life throughout the western world.  "Sometimes the Church's influence bordered on monopoly.  If people were educated, they got it from the Church. Art and music served christian themes.  The church even became a prominent land holding institution."  (George Hunter)  At the height of Christendom, the Church controlled a third of the lands of France and Germany, a fourth of the land of Great Britain, and much of the land throughout Europe.

            Christianity was pervasive in western culture. 

            In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the world began to change.  One thing that happened, as you probably know, is that the church became more and more corrupt.  Another thing that happened was that "armies of various nobles and barons sacked the monasteries and seized church property; they said at the time that the property was being 'secularized,' that is, [taken away] from the control of the Church."  The process of secularization then moved beyond property to the realm of the mind and heart.  The Renaissance opened people’s minds to a new way of thinking called “humanism.”  The Protestant Reformation broke up the monopoly of the Roman Catholic Church.  The rise of Nationalism challenged the unity of the western world.  Scientific discoveries challenged some fondly held beliefs.  Then came the enlightenment and urbanization.  

All of these changes widened the gap between the church and society.  And in the midst of all these changes, the church often became its own worst enemy, resisting change and refusing to even consider some of the new scientific discoveries.  In other words, the church contributed to secularization by alienating people.  

Christendom was dealt a death blow during the middle ages.  For the past five hundred years, this process of secularization – this pulling things out from under the influence of the church -- has continued. 

Dramatic changes in our own country beginning in the 1960’s have just about nailed the coffin shut on Christendom. 

            One Christian writer says that the turning point for him was on a Sunday evening sometime in 1963.  He writes this:  "Then, in Greenville, South Carolina, in defiance of the state's time-honored blue laws, the Fox Theater opened on Sunday.  Seven of us--regular attenders of the Methodist Youth Fellowship. . .made a pact to enter the front door of the church, be seen, then quietly slip out the back door and join John Wayne at the Fox." (p. 15)  The removal of the blue laws opened the floodgates for change—and pulled one more thing out from under the church’s control (that is, Sunday).  Then came the shopping malls and a wide variety of other interesting places to go.  Now, Sunday has a whole new identity in a post-Christendom world.   In the meantime, other societal changes have again seriously challenged the western church:  the sexual revolution, the feminist movement, the civil rights movement, advances in science and technology.   The growing influence of non-Caucasian racial ethnic groups. 

I think that the death of Christendom sort of “snuck up on the Church.”  We didn’t see it coming.  But today we can clearly see its effects:   

            The culture is no longer immersed in the gospel and its symbols.

So, kids growing up today do not hear the Christian message in the public schools.  They don't necessarily hear it in the music they listen to or see it in the movies they watch. 

A whole generation is growing up without knowing the story. 

            What that means is that a mission field has sprung up in our own back yard.  One of the most fertile mission fields is not overseas, but right outside our doors.   Did you know that right here in Bayville, 33% have no faith involvement—they are unchurched. 

Christendom is fading fast.  And it may surprise you to hear me say that I am not sorry to see it go.  Here's the reason.  The up side of Christendom is that people know the gospel; but there’s a big down side.  Kierkegaard once said that when everybody is a Christian, nobody is a Christian.  What that means is that in Christendom, the message gets watered down to the point where people think that being born into a Christian society makes them a Christian, being born into a Christian family makes them a Christian.  In Christendom, you don’t really have to decide to follow Jesus.   Somebody else decided that for you, so Christian commitment becomes watered down along with the message.  And then, the church gets lazy--we expect the culture to spread the gospel for us. 

            Things are different in this post-Christendom era.  There are lots of choices.  You have to choose to follow Christ if you want to be a Christian.  You have to choose to study the Bible, and participate in church if you want to learn what it’s all about.  In the post-Christendom era, the church gets its job back.  It is clear now that the message will not be spread unless we do it. 

            In the Bible passage from Matthew we heard Jesus talking about what the world will be like when he returns.  It will be just like the days of Noah, he said; people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage--and people didn't know what hit them right up until Noah loaded up those animals and big fat raindrops started to fall out of the sky.  And that's what it will be like when I return, Jesus says; most people won't see it coming and will miss the boat. 

            We are living in those days.  The days that are like the days of Noah.  Now, by saying that I'm not trying to predict Jesus' second coming.  What I am saying is that we have an important job to do in the meantime.  People are so busy with their lives that they are drawn further and further away from the church and further and further away from God.  It's not that they don't believe in God, most of them.  It's just that they are not all that aware of God as a real Person who wants to be involved in their lives. 

            In Noah's day, people saw absolutely no point in getting on that boat.  People today have a similar attitude toward the church.  What's the point in being a part of that, they say.  It's boring, it's archaic, all they want is my money, and (here’s the kicker)  my life is fine without it.

            That’s why we need to tell them, in language that makes sense to them, why it makes a difference to be in relationship with Jesus Christ, and a part of the church.   Tune in next week we’ll talk about how to do that.   For today, listen to these words of challenge from the Apostle Paul (read 2 Timothy passage). 

Communion Intro: 

            As we come to the Lord’s Table today, I want to encourage you to think about who we are and what we are about.   The Good Ship Morning Star is not a large one.  People on the outside may not think that what we do in here is very important.   It doesn’t compete with Great Adventure or Golf or kids’ sports or sleeping in (Sunday morning).

            But you know what?  It doesn’t matter what people on the outside think about what goes on in here.  What matters is what you think about what goes on in here.    How important is it to you to be here?   Is it easy to stay away? 

            Look around you.  Our place of worship is not very pretentious.   But when you come through those doors and find your place in the body of Christ, when you sing those hymns and raise your voice in prayer, heaven comes down like lightning on this spot.    This becomes holy ground because Jesus Christ is here in our midst.   I’ve seen people moved to tears in this place, because God has touched them.   And I’ve seen people laugh for joy because God has lifted their sorrow and healed their wounds.   These things don’t happen because of a building or a stirring sermon.  They happen because God’s people come with expectant and ready hearts.  Hearts that want to worship; hearts that want to serve; hearts that want to be healed.