The Death of Christendom

Frankly, I’m tired of the moaning and sadness (“sadly young adults are missing from our worship service”). Its tedious and has led to numerous half-hearted yet desperate attempts (the “decade of evangelism,” Vision:20/20) to restore something I believe is lost forever. We are mourning the death of Christendom—the death of the happy 1950’s suburban church, when every parish’s Sunday School rolls had 400 children, we had so many teenaged acolytes that we had to process the flag in order for everyone to have something to do and every church could afford a rector and a vicar…But lately I’ve begun to think—Hallelujah!—Christendom is dead…We now have the opportunity to make an inspiring critique of the cultural values that surround us—just as Jesus did regarding the cultural values of Rome. “The Kingdom of God is at hand” is good news, [and] suddenly this cry makes sense again: our values as Christians are different than the often death-dealing values of the powers of this world. –James Cox on Episcopal Café.

Comments

[Chris Yaw]

Yes, we are all mourning the passing of what we once knew. I like to think that the best posture is to look at those 'glory years' with gratitude and joy at the gift it was. For even when a gift is taken away, the time we had with the gift can never be. The looking ahead that is next is, then, done with the same hope that our God embodies when the Lord chose not to say, 'Well, the mosquito's a pest, the skunk smells, and those humans are too damn horny' - and instead leaned back and proclaimed that yes, 'It was good!'

[Fr. Ron Culmer]

Chris,

Here's another way of thinking of this but from a different perspective...one offered by Brian McLaren in his book A New Kind of Christianity. It's still about the "death of Christendom" but with a joy-filled response:

"The church, then, in Paul's mind, must be above all a school of love. If it's not that, it's nothing. Its goal is not simply to pump knowledge into people, but to train them in the 'way of love,' so they may do the 'work of the Lord,' empowered by the Holy Spirit, as the embodiment of Christ. Perhaps school isn't the best metaphor, though, unless we think of a karate school or a dance school or a language school--not simply a community where you learn or learn about, but where you learn to. Not simply a place where you hear lectures and amass information, but a community where you see living examples of Christlikeness and experience inner transformation..."