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Silly Old Christendom

What I find interesting, in all this talk about allegedly separates Islam from Christianity, is the assumption that “Render unto Caesar, render unto God” actually entitles Caesar to anything. As I understand it, and I may be wrong, Jesus was merely refering to the dinar with Caesar’s profile on it, and not some great “sphere […]

What I find interesting, in all this talk about allegedly separates Islam from Christianity, is the assumption that “Render unto Caesar, render unto God” actually entitles Caesar to anything. As I understand it, and I may be wrong, Jesus was merely refering to the dinar with Caesar’s profile on it, and not some great “sphere of life” where Caesar was entitled to taxes and loyalty. Given the totality of the Gospel, I’m not entirely sure Caesar is entitled to take anything. Caesar takes anyway.

The invention of Christendom — the merging of God and Caesar — created a process, entity and set of expectations among many Christians little different from what Muslims would create with dar al Islam: the expectation that Islam would always rule, that Muslims would be privileged in Muslim society, and that the law and culture would reflect scripture and the prejudices of the majority. The slow unraveling of Christendom over the last several centuries, an unraveling at the hands of the total state and of secular ideologies gives us a wonderful opportunity to reclaim the Gospel as a way of living that doesn’t also expect the state and the culture to look certain ways, that doesn’t expect that Caesar will be on “our” side and uphold “our” values. ~Charles Featherstone, LewRockwell.com Blog

Aside from the obvious citation of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans that would address the first point, as well as the obvious observation that unlike in Islam Christians do not expect and do not want the pope, patriarch or bishop to have secular authority, the provenance of the interpretation that Christians owe allegiance to legitimate earthly authorities is so venerable and well-established that I am truly surprised when someone challenges it.

Contrary to what Mr. Featherstone seems to be suggesting, Christendom was never like the dar al-Islam. There was no question of Christian privilege or supremacy, because there was hardly anyone who was not Christian in Christendom, but of rightly ordering social and political life as if Christ God ruled over all of our lives, almost as if Christ were our Lord and Master. But what could that have to do with the Gospel?

It is that claim that Christendom (which is as a word, incidentally, etymologically indistinguishable from Christianity) makes on men that so annoys certain kinds of people: that there is nothing in life that is safely none of God’s business, including political life. There is a common mistake to think that defenders of the idea of Christendom, or of an “integrated” Christian political order in which our religion has a prominent role, are preoccupied with power or lording it over someone. Christendom is the product of the understanding that there can be profane or Christian rulers, that Christian rulers are obviously better for the Faith, and that it pleases and glorifies God to have rulers submit to Him and govern more in accordance with His will. One would have thought the history of the 20th century would have brought home how true this is.

Christendom was not the Kingdom, and never could be, and historians of it are more aware than anyone how far short of God’s glory it often fell, but that it is, for Christians at least, immeasurably more desirable as an idea for organising political and social life than what has come since seems inescapable. If that sort of order does not ultimately return, so be it–unlike the modern gnostic, our Faith does not require us to achieve immanentist goals to reach our salvation, and unlike the Muslim we are not obliged to conquer anyone or increase the territory of any polity to do God’s will. Contrary to Patriarch Antony’s famous letter, there is and always has been a Church without a Christian empire. But that it was better for the Orthodox, for example, when there were Orthodox Christian states is so obvious that it seems redundant to have to say so.

Rather than making the Islamic mistake of attributing spiritual wisdom to what were quintessentially political leaders, the idea of Christendom subordinated political leaders to the requirements of the Faith. Those who dislike Christendom accept that the state is utterly profane and nothing should be done to teach princes and magistrates the truth. They are in this respect uncharitable. Obviously, this idea of Christendom can be misunderstood, and has been misunderstood. This happens when foolish people take the prince or magistrate to be the measure of what it is to be Christian or identify the cause of a prince or magistrate with that of Christ without any qualification, rather than recognise that the prince or magistrate is uniquely at risk of sin and corruption and therefore needs the spiritual balm and remedies the Church can offer to ameliorate the damage that the corruption of power wreaks on all men who wield power.

Christians do not and never have had anything like a caliph, in no small part because Christ was not a prophet who carried a sword and played the part of a potentate. The obvious difference between Christianity and Islam is that traditionally most Christians have had clergy and an episcopate and Muslims have not had any such thing. There was never any confusion between those holding spiritual authority with those holding secular authority.

Saying that Christendom is the merging of God and Caesar is offensive and incorrect. Reading it literally, this suggests that Christians somehow came to worship Caesar, which would have things so backward as to not even be funny (since the Age of Christendom was that remarkable time in history when Caesar paid tribute and submitted to Christ). Even if we grant that this is not what was intended, blithe comparisons to the dar al-Islam are embarrassingly inaccurate. Christendom rose up in part because those in authority became Christians and believed it part of their duty as good rulers to secure their subjects against spiritual dangers. Of course, spiritual teaching, discipline and organisation always remained entirely in the hands of the Church. There is no Christian church that exists today, or has ever existed, because of a disagreement over the line of succession of political rulers. Islam is replete with the religious equivalents of Bonapartists and Orleanists. Even when emperors claimed some competence in discussing or contributing to the definition of doctrine, they did so largely in collaboration with the the ecclesiastical authorities.

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