Faith Works 12-8-18

Faith Works 12-8-18

Jeff Gill

 

Christendom, Christianity, and Nativity

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When I get to talk to David Woodyard about civil religion and the state of our country, he likes to remind me about the distinction between Christendom and Christianity.

It's a useful distinction, one that points out that there's the faith and practices of those who would follow Christ, the prince of peace, and there's the cultural construct of Christian life which we used to think of as "normal."

In fact, if you look just a scratch below the surface, at the entertainment industry, into politics and justice and foreign policy, there was no golden age of our country actually being comprehensively Christian. The idea of a Christendom had some outward expressions, like Sunday closing laws and Prohibition, but in practice we've been a fairly complicated nation from the get-go.

Yes, the majority religious expression has been Christian, but even there, we've been Protestant and Catholic, Orthodoxy common in Alaska in early days and Pentecostalism since Azusa Street in 1906. Our Christianities have been in the way of our Christendom.

For many Christians, the end of Christendom is visible and disturbing today in a variety of ways: everything is open on Sunday mornings, let alone the afternoons, and liquor is for sale as well. Sports programs for youth take place on Sunday mornings, and public displays of symbols of faith have become contentious, whether on school property or in governmental settings.

What David and I agree on, though, and Stanley Hauerwas and Will Willimon have written at length on the subject, is that the concept of Christendom can be bad for Christianity. If we Christians, of whatever tribe or faction or denomination, start to assume that the government or the schools or our Biblical epic movies are teaching our faith for us, and we can slack off and let someone else do it for us for free, we lose control of the message. So if the culture changes – and culture is a changeable thing, we've learned in the last few decades, haven't we? – then our Christian formation changes and we can't do much about it.

While my views on the so-called "separation of church and state" are complicated and would take longer than I have in a newspaper column, I do think that Thomas Jefferson was not being disingenuous when he said that it was for the good of the churches more than to benefit the state that he wanted to keep them separated. European Christendom is still paying a price for having state established churches, even if the property upkeep for leaks in the steeple is done through tax dollars.

Churches in America today have an advantage over at least most Christian churches of fifty to seventy-five years ago. There's not even a hint of belief that the city, county, or state government is going to teach our kids the Bible; we have no reason to think that the basic tenets of our faith are going to be communicated from the Oval Office; movies and TV have no interest in religious orthodoxy and we all know it. If we want an accurate sense of our spiritual basics to be transmitted to seekers or children or grandchildren, we need to do it ourselves.

Which is why I think it's a sign of healthy religiosity, and a vital Christianity in Licking County, that there are living nativities going on all over the place. I see signs, I get mailings, and people email me asking if I'd promote their church's live nativity whether in house or drive through.

Twenty years ago, these were fairly unusual, but year by year more churches are doing them. So many that I'm actually not going to list any here, for fear of leaving someone out! (And yes, my own congregation is doing one…)

But I think the new popularity of living nativity presentations is a good thing. South Succotash United Methodist Church might do theirs differently than St. Somewhat's Catholic Church would, and I suspect adherents of each would learn something about their own Christian traditions by seeing how another body arranges and offers the old, old story.

So go visit a few. See a bunch of them, and think about what they're trying to tell you. Because it's a story that has shaped human history, and empires and governments, and you and me, whatever your faith. We can all learn from a good manger scene.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he has been a wise man and a shepherd, but never an angel in a nativity pageant. Tell him how you fit into the story at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.