Contemporary Europe is referred to as being in a post-Christian era. While gorgeous cathedrals still mark the continent’s landscape and their bells continue to ring, the number of occupants inside their walls is a mere echo from what they were centuries before. The decline of the Christian religion in Europe has been occurring for centuries, which is why the cause has often been attributed to the philosophies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. While such philosophies during the Enlightenment did have an impact on the minds of Europeans, they can hardly bear sole responsibility for the state of the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches as they exist today. Ultimately, the blame for the decline of Christianity in Europe falls on the Church itself, as it has placed a premium on enforcing a social gospel and hypocritical morality on unbelievers, while neglecting the sanctification of their own members.
Taking Responsibility
The Enlightenment opened the minds of Europeans to new ways of thinking about and interpreting the world around them. They even began to reassess the way they saw themselves in relation to their government and, yes, even the Church. While the Enlightenment did mark the beginning of a decline of Christendom in Europe, this event happened long before the great decline of Christianity in Western Europe began to occur. This is why it is best to take a more recent look at the causes of the decline witnessed during the twentieth century.
Social Gospel through Legislation
World War II left the European continent in a dismal state. Everywhere it seemed that physical and economic suffering was the norm. Both churches and governments struggled and worked together to rebuild the pieces. In the process, Roman Catholic and Protestant churches began to develop a new gospel separate from the one of spiritual salvation found in the Scriptures; the social gospel was born. Due to a relaxed opposition between Christians and Marxists in post-war Italy, the Roman Catholic Church saw a large growth of cooperation on social issues. According to the German Catholic bioethicist, Corinna Delkeskamp-Hayes, the purpose of the Roman Catholic Church is no longer “merely to convert individual non-Catholics to the Roman faith, but to politically influence legislation through voting majorities.” Since World War II, unbelieving Europeans have watched as Protestants and Catholics spread their social gospel through the arm of government and rightly wonder why the Church should have a monopoly over the social welfare of society. Many unbelieving Europeans have since participated in this social gospel without ever having heard the true Gospel. In their minds, the Church has nothing to offer.
Morality through Legislation
Rather than spread the true Gospel to unbelievers in their midst, European churches have instead sought to enforce biblical morality on those outside the church through the legislation. In the words of a Stephan Bauzon, a Catholic European bioethicist, “Since 1987, Europe has changed (e.g., the introduction of the Euro, the Treaty of Nice, the end of the USSR, etc.), but the rampant hedonistic European philosophy — one that refuses any limitation on individual freedom — has not changed at all. The hedonistic approach to life (a characteristic of our post-Christian Europe) has stabilized its dominance over people’s minds.” A hedonistic, self-gratifying lifestyle is to be expected by an unbeliever. Christians, who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and under the disciplining hand of the Church, are held to God's moral standard. Rather than enforcing God's standard on unbelievers through government legislation, the Church is to preach the Gospel of salvation. Waiving the moral finger in the face of unbelievers without preaching the Gospel has been and will continue to lead the European Church into a further decline.
The enforcement of moral standards on those outside the Church in Europe is not unique to the twentieth century alone. The centuries leading up to the Enlightenment were rank with this confusion by the Church of enforcing the Law before preaching the Gospel. History Professor Hugh McLeod from Cambridge University states that “by the late eighteenth century [Anglican] churchmen were forced to conclude that persuasion offered better returns than coercion and that the future lay more in clerical example, religious education and internal reform of the church than in the legal enforcement of its moral prescriptions.”
In a typical overreaction, the Church not only began to lax its moral expectations on unbelievers – for a time – but also eased the standards on church members, as well. This fault, found both in Catholic and Protestant churches, would prove to be a mistake. Professor McLeod went on to add that “attendance at [Anglican] church services, participation in catechising and the practice of communion all became more dependent on the inclination of parishioners than on the insistence of the clergy.” While the church does not bear responsibility for the moral behavior of those outside the church, it is still very much accountable for the sanctification of its own members. Today, the moral expectation of those outside the Church has been on the rise, while the sanctification process of believers has been all but abandoned once their names are added to the members list.
We Are Being Watched
In the Pope's 2006 book titled Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam, he attributes what he refers to as the "universality" of Western universities to Christianity, through which he justifies the West’s “export democracy” by force doctrine into Islamic countries. The connections that the Catholic and Protestant churches have made with Western governments engaged in warfare to spread Christian influenced, universal values have further tarnished the image of Christianity, contributing to an even further decline of that religion in Europe.
In this book, the Pope goes on to say that “the thinking that prevails in the West regarding the universal feature of the West is that none of them has universal value. According to the proponents of these ideas,…export[ing] these same [Western] institutions to culture or traditions that are different from our own would be an act of imperialism.” The Pope accuses those that oppose the export democracy doctrine of “timidity, prudence, convenience, reluctance, and fear.” The European Catholic and Protestant church’s promotion of the exportation of Western culture by force into other cultures has been observed by unbelievers.
In order to move forward, the Church needs to first stop laying the blame of the decline of Christianity on philosophies from centuries ago. Instead, the Church should start taking responsibility for its actions and in-actions since World War II. While individual Christians should be involved with providing their time and efforts to help the sick and poor, they should be reminded that this is not the Gospel. Feeding the poor and healing the sick is showing love to one’s neighbor, also known as the Great Commandment. The Great Commandment, however, is not the same thing as the Great Commission, which is to preach the Gospel to all nations. Rather than spreading a Western culture -- admittedly blessed by its association with Christianity -- through warfare, the Church should focus its evangelistic methods on peaceful means.
This is similar to the downfall of the church through enlightenment influence on America. Individualism and pragmatisim (which put together leads to a perverse "do-it-yourself"ism) have riddled our church. Two books that have had a profound influence on my thinking on this subject are "The Democratization of American Christianity" by Nathan O Hatch and "The Lost Soul of American Protestantism" by D.G. Hart.
ReplyDeleteThe first book gives a history of the church from the revolution era through the 19th century and how confessionalism was traded for "no creed but the bible"ism and how political Jeffersonian individualism was adopted by the populist church against the "tyranny" of the confessionally bound institutional church. Once you lost authority outside the individual, the fracturing and massive influx of denominationalism became rampant and personal opinion became the sole authority of each individual church. The church became much more entrenched in revolutionary political rhetoric and here we are. Massive revivals were the standard for evangelism and preachers used all kinds of emotional triggers to convince their audience (see the first great awakening). It started to become an outward show instead of an inward reality.
The second book picks up at the 19th century and goes through the more modern era. The second great awakening and all of that mixed with American pragmatism led to the further throwing away of doctrine and ecumenism became measured not by the great tapestry of theology we shared in common, but working together for a common good with the lowest common denominator of doctrine. How little could we agree upon and still unite, which of course leads to the division between the left, the right and the confessionists (Dr Hart asserts confessionalism is a third alternative to the left and the right, I believe rightly so). Tranformationalism became the goal of both the right and the left. The right eventually through moral/political transformation that was especially heralded in the 80s and 90s (but it started back in the 50s and before) and the left who became more bent on social justice and transformation. The left was a much more modern church who turned in large part to science and naturalism, and the right (read fundamentalists) was a much more combative reclusive church who turned solely to a literal view of the scriptures. The introductory portion of the book says that Martin Luther King Jr. and Jerry Falwell have more in common with each other (social transformation) than either do with J. Gresham Machen (he and others who followed his lead founded of the OPC and Westminster Seminary Philadelphia after being kicked out of the Northern Presbyterian Church, which later became the PCUSA, for fighting for the confession.
You see a picture of a very different scene than you do in Europe, but it actually led to much the same result, albeit from a different route. Individualism fractured the church beyond repair and led to a pragmatic Christianity which is no gospel at all. In turn that led to the need for salvation through good works in social justice, or good works through rigid moralism. That is the church in America today, watered down and pragmatic or ignorant and bigoted.
Churches need to stop behaving like just another Political Action Committee. The verse that refers to the Church as being the "salt of the earth" and the "light of the world" are statements of fact, not imperatives. That means the Church does not need to "make" these happen through politics. Instead, the Church needs to focus on its own personal holiness and it will naturally BE "salt of the earth" and the "light of the world."
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