From Christendom to Post-Christendom

In many ways post-Christendom is a moniker for the Western religious landscape that is long overdue. Nearly three decades ago W. A. Visser’t Hooft suggested that Europe consisted simply of “statistical Christians” who long ago gave up the practice of Christianity and live without biblical convictions even though they continue to be counted as church members.1 He observed that among these statistical Christians of Europe a new form of paganism had arisen. A few years later William Edgar observed that secularization was not ushering in an era of non religion and materialism but rather a revival of pre-Christian spirituality.2 A decade after Visser’t Hooft, Lesslie Newbigin posed the question “Can the West be converted?”3 Newbigin recognized what Visser’t Hooft and Edgar saw as a West no longer influenced by a Judeo-Christian worldview. In fact, this emerging milieu in Europe was more resistant to the Christian gospel than what he had experienced in his 20 years as a missionary in India.4 What he observed, he suggested, was “born out of a rejection of Christianity.”5

Many observers of the Western religious landscape have identified a shift in contemporary Western society to witchcraft, earth goddesses and shamanism. For example, Paul Heelas noted, “I think that it is fair to say that paganism has become the key resource for those (increasing numbers) who have counter-cultural concerns.”6 Similarly, Peter Jones identified a new religious left from which results a Western spiritual monism. He stated, “The real enemy of the Church’s faith is no longer antireligious atheistic humanism but a revived pagan religion.”7

The emergence of new spiritualities, as well as the continued interest in religion in general, emphasizes the significance of religious experience of those in the post-Christian West.8 In order to understand the religious landscape of the West, it would be instructive to lay out the road from Christendom to post-Christendom. In significant ways, post-Christendom and the concomitant new religious identities offer a critique of monolithic religions as new spiritualities emerge with competing beliefs that are continuous with Western culture.

Christendom held the notion of an idealized society comprising the union of church and culture that would reflect Christ’s rule on earth. Even the splintering of Christianity in various denominations over its history did not extinguish the hope of such a society. The reformation movements of the Middle Ages along with the missionary movements of the early modern era all had the hope of ushering in a time where societies would reflect the ideal of Christendom. Craig Carter aptly defned Christendom as,

... the concept of Western civilization as having a religious arm (the church) and a secular arm (civil government), both of which are united in their adherence to Christian faith, which is seen as the so-called soul of Europe or the West. The essence of the idea is the assertion that Western civilization is Christian. Within this Christian civilization, the state and the church have different roles to play, but, since membership in both is coterminous, both can be seen as aspect of one unified reality—Christendom.9

The symbiotic relationship between church and culture inherent in Christendom, or the corpus Christianum, has its origins in changing contours of religious life in the Roman Empire. After Emperor Constantine’s ostensible conversion in A.D. 312, the prospect of Christianity becoming a dominant religious economy in the empire was secure. Having emerged as a new religious movement of Jews, Romans and Greeks who experienced periods of persecution for culturally deviant religious expressions, the Christian church found itself as a significant religious movement by the reign of Constantine.

By A.D. 323 the entire Roman Empire was united under Constantine’s reign after his defeat of Licinius (emperor of the East). Constantine’s actions of legalizing the church bolstered the authority of the clergy as prominent figures in society. The clergy would now be exempted from certain taxes and civic duties in order to concentrate fully on the responsibilities of their office. Bishops sat as judges in civil suits and were given authority equal to law.10 In spite of the early ecumenical councils’ attempts to regulate the clergy, the temptation for power and wealth often corrupted their motivations and led to compromises and theological dogma that was reactionary to particular circumstances. Several of the early ecumenical councils documented disciplinary issues of the clergy and gave instructions on rightly using their new found authority.

Constantine, following previous emperors who dedicated buildings to the pantheon of Roman gods, embarked upon a massive and spectacular building campaign to honor the God who gave him victory at the Milvian Bridge. These basilicas were immense and costly and appeared more like the audience halls or emperors and pagan temples rather than the house churches a century before. The basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, the first seat of the bishop of Rome and once an imperial palace, is but one example of the great expense of building a church according to imperial standards,

Around 500 pounds weight of it [gold] were needed at a cost of some 36,000 solidi. This sum, which might be translated into approximately £60 million today, could have fed about 12,000 poor for a year (according to calculations from Dominic Janes’ God and Gold in Late Antiquity). Another 22,200 solidi worth of silver (3,700 lbs.) was required for light fittings and another 400 pounds of gold for fifty gold vessels.11

Naturally, priestly vestments came in line with the ornate churches. In fact, frescos of the time depicted priestly garb as elaborate as the emperor’s. Their authority and position of power grew as well. These newfound positions of authority and luxury did not escape the notice of some Christians who recalled a time when such authority and luxury were absent. St. Jerome, for example, would write, “Parchments are dyed purple, gold is melted into lettering, manuscripts are dressed up in jewels, while Christ lies at the door naked and dying” (Ep. 22, 32).

Constantine’s conversion impacted the forms of the church, function of the clergy as well as the state’s connection with Christianity for centuries. By the end of the fourth century the church would accept its newfound wealth. Such church-state relations legitimized the spread of Christianity and the imperial religion became a means for social control. The social control of the church was justified theologically as God’s desire for those who would be conquered by the empire. Augustine of Hippo, one of the most prolific early church theologians who continues to impact Western theology to this day, regarded such control with acceptance, “For which of us, yea, which of you, does not speak well of the laws issued by the emperors against heathen sacrifices? In these, assuredly, a penalty much more severe has been appointed, for the punishment of that impiety is death.”12 Indeed, it was an era of Christendom.

It was Augustine’s acceptance of church/state commensurability that set the agenda for the advancement of Roman Christianity on the continent of Europe and motivated missionary activities as later European empires sought to expand their dominion across the globe. Similar justification would also be seen later in the crusades. With the increasing influence of a new religious movement that had emerged in Arabia in the seventh century, Islam was quickly spreading into Christian lands. By 732 it was threatening Europe when halted by Charles Martel at Tours. Christendom would show its full force when Pope Urban II initiated the crusades with the words, “God wills it.” To ensure the church’s military force Urban promised absolution from sin and debt as well as salvation to those who die in battle. Christendom had become a powerful idea of protecting what was rightfully Christian and conquering land that was rightly God’s.

As the various empires that formed after the fall of Rome expanded globally and propagated their forms of Christendom it was a decidedly European Christianity that exhibited what it meant to be civilized. Conformity to European Christianity was the measure of success of new emerging nation-states. The overall affect, however, would prove to be the ultimate downfall of Christendom. As indigenous people were forced to become Christian, their religious beliefs often found expression in new syncratic forms of Christianity such as Santeria or Voodoo. Equally as detrimental to Christendom was the knowledge of religious others in the so-called “New World” that would be brought back to the “Old World.” This increasing contact with multiple faith expressions introduced a plurality of beliefs once foreign to Christendom.

At best, the post-Christendom moniker describes a shift from a predominately European Christian worldview to many competing worldviews. It would be wrong to simply think of post-Christendom as a postmodern phenomena unrelated to the history from where it emerged. Instead, post-Christendom is a product of its past; the inevitable outcome of Christendom itself. For the most part, Christendom was an era of Christianity’s ability or perhaps authority to socially control those who lived in the region so often referred to as the West. Not all that surprisingly, however, was the remnant of animistic beliefs in the populace which worked their way into the church as well. Nevertheless, Christendom continued relatively unabated until the Enlightenment. There were occasional threats to such social control, but such threats were more often than not the result of Christendom itself. The Reformation of the 16th century, for example, provided sharp change in ecclesiological and theological matters. One result from this reform was greater emphasis on individual authority to interpret the Bible which ultimately led to multiple meanings of the text and eventually competing Christian worldviews. The fragmentation of the church allowed competition in the religious economy and it was not long before the West saw distinctly Lutheran, Calvinist and Free Churches emerge in the religious marketplace.

Instead, post-Christendom is a product of its past; the inevitable outcome of Christendom itself.

While it is arguably true that pre-Christian paganism was absorbed into empirical Christianity around the time of Constantine, the West has never escaped its fascination with the supernatural. Embedded to some degree in the folk Christianity of the masses, it was inevitable that animistic practices would emerge in Christendom. Even the Reformation could not thwart such folk practices. The disenchantment that was so much a part of the Enlightenment and the Reformation was ineffective in eliminating deep held beliefs in the supernatural. This is not surprising given that 80 percent of Europeans at the time were peasants who seemed to always hold their Christian beliefs in tension with their folk traditions. Still the promise of the Enlightenment project, with the hopes of human ingenuity and scientific advances due to the progress of rational persons provided an impetus to the ongoing vitality of religious belief, though often at the expense of revealed religion. Rationalism

Perhaps one of the greatest influences on the demise of revealed religions was Benedict de Spinoza (1632-1677). Born in Amsterdam of an emigrant family from Portugal, Spinoza was a Jew who eventually found himself excommunicated from his synagogue for his beliefs about God. In Ethics, Spinoza argued that whatever good thoughts one had originated from God. Spinoza wrote, “By God I understand a Being absolutely Infinite”13 and “Whatever is is in God; nothing is or can be conceived to be out of God.”14 Even though Spinoza reasoned that the Bible, revelation, miracles, and the like were beyond rational science and that faith should always answer to reason, he did not dismiss God. In fact, the reality of God became inwardly expressed and experienced and therefore legitimate for the individual. To him, something could be known through the senses, reasoning and intuition.15 Indeed, this form of rationalism through reliance upon the “observable” experiences of religious people prompted many to religious movements based upon the experiential. There was no longer the need for clergy or Bible to teach people about God. The human mind itself “possesses an adequate knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God.”16

One influenced by the teachings of Spinoza was Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772).17 Swedenborg, a geologist and scientist who had a Lutheran background, became a medium and mystic. He believed that there was a religious crisis created by science and rationalism. Similar to Spinoza, Swedenborg held that truth could be obtained through intuition. Unlike Spinoza, however, he believed that the Word provided a new revelation based upon personal experiences. These experiences were learned spiritual truths that came through dreams, visions and communication with the spirits, including planetary spirits. He claimed, “I have been able to talk with spirits and angels, not only those in the vicinity of our earth, but also those near other worlds.”18 In fact, James Herrick stated, “Swedenborg likely invented the genre of the first-hand account of alien contact.”19

Both Spinoza and Swedenborg contributed to the elevation of personal experience and intuition to the level of rational truth. Their influence would be profound on the formation of religious beliefs in the West. As Irving Hexham and Karla Powe have noted, Swedenborgian teachings can be directly tied to Joseph Smith (1805-1844), Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891), and Gerald Gardner (1884-1964) as well as others. As one of his biographers noted, “Swedenborg’s religious teachings provide a new vision of God, new insight into the nature of the relationship between the spiritual and natural worlds, and a universal and rational ethic to guide men to a useful life.”20

While it might be tempting to give Swedenborg undeserved credit for the Western religious landscape, his influence was certainly felt widely. More so, the climate of the spiritual lives of the West was such that Swedenborg’s teachings, while not widely disseminated, seemed to be at the very core of human nature. The elevation of human rational experience is certainly seen in the Great Awakenings’ emphasis on personal salvation and spiritual experience. Harold Bloom noted that religion in the United States after the 1800s was “purely experiential.”21 He talked about the American religion in these terms, “Experiential faith largely divorced from doctrine, would have left an emptiness in America but for something more vibrant that replaced doctrine, a timeless knowing that in itself saves.”22 Such spiritual experience legitimized religious life and opened the door to many extra-biblical expressions often at the expense of the intellectual pursuit of Christian doctrine. Now, everyone’s personal experiences were legitimate. Globalization

This new rationalism was not the only influence on the development of Western religious history and the demise of Christendom; globalization had its part as well. Globalization can be understood as a world-wide network of interconnectedness resulting from technological advancements in communication, travel and commerce associated with modern society.23 While to some degree there is a homogenization of the world inherent in globalization, the term is better understood in the context of an interaction between traditional ways of life and the worldwide impact of modernization. There seems to be a generally recognized paradox in modern society that allows for “the contradictory processes of homogenization and globalization on the one hand and regionalization and nationalization on the other” to occur concurrently.24 Thus, Anthony Giddens defines globalization as “the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.”25 Just as the West influenced other parts of the world so other parts of the world have influenced the West.

The revival of Druidry provides an example of the affect of globalization. With the advent of early technology in the form of the printing press, the classical sources became increasingly available for study. In 1511 Caesar’s works on the Gallic War and the Roman Civ- il War were printed in Venice and made available for scholarly study. It was in Caesar’s works that the Druids were rediscovered.26 Combined with an awakening to the need of a factual prehistory of Western Europe, scholars in France and Britain began researching and writing on the origins of Europeans. Spurred perhaps by the fascination of the New World’s Noble Savage, ample comparative ethnographies were available to those interested in the prehistory of Europe.27 Stuart Piggot noted that, “It was the American Indian rather than the Irish Celt that influenced concepts of ancient Britons, Germans or Gauls....”28 Thus, the interaction with other cultures began to inform the pre-history of Europe. Such an influence is seen in two salient features of globalization: pluralization and ancientization.

Pluralization

One feature of globalization is the legitimization of multiple worldviews. Since societies are now interconnected there is a natural exchange of ideas resulting in a plurality of understandings of reality. Among this plurality is of course the religious. With the increase of individualization resulting from modernity comes the freedom to choose personal convictions often resulting in cultural and religious fragmentation. Thus, an emergence of a global religious and cultural marketplace provides new options in the exercise of personal autonomy that legitimizes different worldviews and ushers in a worldwide culture of pluralism.29

Inherent in religious pluralism is a greater awareness of social others.30 As a result, religious and social others have made the West ask the question, “Who am I?” which has given impetus to the quest for discovering its cultural identity by looking at other plausibility structures.31 This search for religious identity is exemplified by one contemporary Druid informant’s comment,

I believe that we all are praying, worshipping, and practicing to the same god/dess, or Spirit or the One. We just all call them a different name. We need different religions and faiths. It’s the diversity of people, culture, environment and belief that makes it so. No one religion is the right one. You have to find the one that makes sense to you and feel right. I may not agree with some of the formal religions but then some of them don’t agree with my beliefs. You practice yours and don’t bother or look down at me for my beliefs and I’ll do the same. We can all tolerate each others’ beliefs and faiths. Another informant communicated the sentiment of many. In regards to formal religions, “[they] can be good things as long as they are tolerant and allow other people to have their own beliefs and don’t attempt to convert people. Belief in ‘one right way’ is to my mind a simplistic and childish version of what divinity could be.”

Along with greater awareness of others is the potential for the growth of fundamentalist movements that attempt to entrench themselves and react against those who are different. The opposite reaction is also apparent. Pluralism has an equalizing affect on the religious marketplace. Competing truth claims raise questions about the veracity of religion and spawn reactions like those of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens as well as the producers of the independent film Zeitgeist.32 However, as Harold Netland pointed out, in the face of such challenges there can still be only one truth.33

Ancientization

Another salient feature of globalization is what I have termed ancientization. Whether it is the Mormon appeal to a lost Jewish tribe, the contemporary Emerging Church’s appeal to the Church Fathers or the Neopagan appeal to a European native religion, the desire to be connected with the ancient legitimizes the formation of new identities. Similar to the effects of easternization on the Western religious landscape, this ancientization authenticates religious identity through a connection with the ancient past. Ancientization can be understood as a utilization of knowledge obtained from ancient sources, whether literary, archeological or folk tradition, for the construction of a contemporary identity. It offers a legitimizing effect in the minds of religious practitioners as it addresses the way things were and thus should be. Just as pluralization is a result of the global community shrinking, so ancientization is a result of a global reconnection with the past.

In the case of the Druids (and other NRMs), the revival of pre-Christian religious expressions in the 17th-18th centuries had as much to do with the access to ancient literature (i.e. Gallic Wars) as it did with the discovery of religious others in foreign lands (i.e. Native Americans in the New World). Emma Restall Orr, joint chosen chief of the British Druid Order, illustrates this phenomena,

From the sixteenth century there came an increasing interest in antiquarianism, with a growing number of books being printed, including those of Classical writers. Images were being brought back to Britain from the colonies about indigenous peoples of Africa and the Americas, and people were becoming interested in discovering more of their roots.34

So, the awareness of past (ancient) religious others helped form the religious identity of the present. It seems apparent that globalization has as much to do with an awareness of this past as it does with the advancement of modernity, technology and rationalism in the present. In essence, history has a globalizing effect on the present. If this is the case, then, legitimization of religious identity involves at least two salient features of globalization: ancientization and pluralization.

Even while being identified as Christian today, Westerners have an ability to hold competing worldviews in tension. Such tension has become characteristic of post-Christendom. This cognitive bargaining is demonstrated, for example, in that a Christian might practice spiritual disciplines of other religions such as Yoga, Tai Chi, Feng Shui or Druidry and not recognize any inconsistency. Equally telling are the emerging syncratic identities of those who are comfortable with multiple religious expressions incorporated into one such as Christo-Buddhists or Christo-Druids.

Religious indicators in the West suggest that religious belief has remained strong and may in fact be increasing; nevertheless, participation in religious institutions remains low. Yet the question of whether or not Westerners ever belonged to a religious institution remains in spite of the perceived affiliations that more than sixty percent have with a Christian church.35 Rodney Stark and others have suggested that the United Stated and Western Europe were never really Christianized in the first place. As such, to suggest a decline of Christian influence is somewhat meaningless. However, the self-perception of the West as Christian remains. For example, the recent US Religious Landscape Survey (USRLS) conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life indicated that 26 percent identified with an evangelical church, 18 percent identified with a mainline Protestant church, 24 percent identified with the Catholic Church and 7 percent identified with a Black church. Approximately 75 percent of US adults continue to self-identify as Christian. This number increases when considering the Christian family of new religious movements (Latter-day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses).

In the European context 8 out of 10 agree that it is good for a society to be made up of different races and religions. Fifty-two percent ranked religion as more important than politics.36 In some countries like Malta, Cyprus and Poland, nearly 9 out of 10 ranked religion as important; whereas other countries like Czech Republic, Estonia and Sweden, 30 percent ranked religion as important.37 Many Europeans continue to value the idea of religion. This is manifested in the fact that only 18 percent of Europeans do not believe in some form of supernatural being. In contrast, 52 percent continue to hold some belief in God while 27 percent believe in a life force or spirit.38 Summarizing the belief in God in Europe, one recent study suggested,

Looking at the results of the survey we have firstly seen that in Europe religion and spirituality are still important: four in five EU citizens have religious or spiritual beliefs and only 18% declare that they don’t believe that there is any sort of spirit, God or life force. Nevertheless this spirituality is heterogeneous and is felt with different intensity across Europe: there is seemingly a move away from religion in its traditional form - “I believe there is a God” - which seems to affect the Protestant countries as well as countries with a strong secular tradition. At the same time, there is an affirmation of traditional religious beliefs in countries where the Church or Religious Institutions have been historically strong, as well as in some Eastern European countries. The third tendency is the development of a new kind of religion characterised by the belief that “there is some sort of spirit or life force.” This new religion or spirituality is more marked in certain Protestant countries, such as Sweden or Denmark as well as in the Czech Republic and Estonia.39 Where the spiritual market place is weak (weak understood in terms of non-active membership) the tendency for religious switching occurs. In the case of the United States only 39 percent attend religious service once a week or more, 58 percent pray daily and 68 percent believe there are multiple paths to salvation. In such a context, it is easy to see a trajectory toward religious switching. More than a quarter of US adults have switched from their childhood faith to another or to no faith at all.40 Furthermore, 2.46 million US adults have switched to what the USRLS labeled “Other Faiths” (Unitarian Universalist, Wicca, etc.). Approximately 9 percent of those in the Other Faiths category were raised in the faith of their parents and have remained in the faith from childhood to adulthood. While 91 percent of those of Other Faiths switched into their current faith, 73 percent switched from Christianity. That represents 1.97 million US adults who were once either Protestant or Catholic – fifty percent of those switching to Other Faiths were once Protestant while 23 percent were once Catholic. In comparison to Buddhism (54 percent indicated having been Christian), more than twice as many Christians have converted to Other Faiths (1.97 million compared to 850,500).41

While many in the West continue to identify as Christian, their religious identity demonstrates a smorgasbord of practices. For example, consider the number of people in the West who consult their horoscope or believe in the scientific nature of astrology.42 Gallup showed that beliefs in the psychic and paranormal increased from 1990 to 2001. In the case of astrology, 28 percent of respondents believed that astrology affected people’s lives.43 A 2005 survey conducted by Gallup indicated a slight decline to 25 percent.44 Despite the modest decline in the belief of astrology, 75 percent of the US population believes in the “paranormal.”

The diversity of religious beliefs is an indicator that religion continues to play an important role in the lives of people living in Western society. The effect of a shrinking world has made us realize that we are not all that dissimilar from our medieval ancestors. In fact, combined with a desire to understand our cultural and religious origins, there are any number of ancient religious views competing for adherents. Those spiritualities that emerge and find success in our post-Christendom context will be those that effectively incorporate contemporary beliefs and somehow tie them to the ancient ways thus giving legitimacy for their practice today.

In spite of what one might believe about the Western religious landscape, few will argue that religion is no longer important. In fact, there is every indication that the West will spawn numerous otherworldly beliefs as the climate is ripe for new spiritualities. This does not necessarily suggest that post-Christendom spiritualities will be successful in the Western religious landscape. However, the very notion that Western society leans as much to beliefs that are congruent with pre-Christian beliefs points to the potential for success.

The Western religious landscape is a complex web of multiple religious worldviews in the context of a predominately self identified Christian religious people. We are living in an era of increasing religious diversity. As we have seen in regards to religious beliefs, the lines of religion are beginning to blur. At the same time, people continue to look for a system of beliefs that align with their personal experiences. Increasingly, new religious identities are emerging to fill the longing for religious identity. The tenacity of ancient beliefs in astrology and fortune telling is indication that one characteristic of the contemporary search for identity is its tie to the ancient.

Particularly in the United Stated, beliefs that have been traditionally thought of as foundational to Christianity are in decline while non-traditional beliefs are increasing. For example, the belief that astrology expresses scientific truth (53%) as well as the belief that the Earth has been visited by extraterrestrials (24%) is congruent with the beliefs of many NRMs and especially with contemporary Paganism and New Age religions. Interestingly enough, nearly 40 percent of those who believe the Bible is inspired by God or the actual word of God also believe that the horoscope affects their future.45 With this in mind, the growing numbers of those that would be considered “nature worshippers” should not be a surprise. A number of individuals in both the United Stated (26%) and Canada (33%) view nature as sacred in and of itself.46 These heterodoxical beliefs among the dominant Christian tradition in North America and Western Europe provide a bridge for potential conversion of Christians to new forms of spirituality.

In summary then, the evolution of the Western religious landscape is on a trajectory toward increased religious switching as various religions compete for the attention of Westerners. Those religious expressions that will see some success are ones that will emphasize the autonomy of an individual’s authority to interpret their experiences. Such experiences will further be legitimized by globalization which has introduced a climate of pluralism and offers individuals the opportunity to see the religious expressions of the world. As an individual’s experience is legitimized by the experience of others then ancientization will affect the desire to know the past and to infuse it into the future to form a new self-religious identity.