Good Riddance to the Christendom Inoculation

So some of you (for reasons I can only imagine) follow along with me in spite of the fact that you don't believe most of the stuff I post about. Thanks for coming along anyway!

Let me explain a little something about my people who inhabit my corner of the American sub-culture, a.k.a. evangelical Christianity.

For much of our country's history, Christianity had a good bit of sway. Even when people didn't subscribe fully to all the tenets, the basic Judeo-Christian framework was still the core operating system.

"Christendom" is one name given to an era when Christianity functions as a quasi-moral compass in the broader culture. I recently heard one boomer talk about how his parents were committed Christians and his in-laws were not, but their lives looked basically the same on the outside.

Christendom ruled over "the greatest generation" of World War II vets up to the boomer generation, and so there was a good deal of commonality in terms of the day-to-day practices of many--obviously with lots and lots of exceptions. This was true even as there were tremendous assaults on the validity of the Bible and church authority throughout the early part of the twentieth century.

That's shifted a good bit over the past couple of generations. And many folks in my part of the world (particularly the really, really theologically and politically conservative ones) are really upset about the loss of "Christendom."

But I live and minister in a part of the country where Christendom still holds some sway. And at times I find it more difficult, not less, to talk about matters of faith in ways that are fresh and awakening.

"Inoculation" is when people get a weakened form of a virus or disease in order to build up appropriate anti-bodies to fight off the genuine form of the virus or disease. This is the deadly fruit of Christendom. They become inoculated with a weaker form of Christianity and thus resist the real thing.

Many of the people I work with have all the right vocabulary and all the wrong definitions. They think they already "get" Jesus, sin, grace, forgiveness, mercy, justice and the like. They don't (not that any of us do), and it's infinitely more complicated because they think that they do.

And that's in large part what I fight against as I wage war against Christendom here in the South. Christendom is not a friend except to those Christians who value a "same as me" cultural hegemony and familiarity and comfort over the genuine engagement with the truth of the gospel. Christendom is an enemy of the true gospel. Thank goodness it is dissipating...even here in the South.

Kierkegaard (a long-dead philosopher) has this to say: "Remove from the Christian Religion, as Christendom has done, its ability to shock, and Christianity...is altogether destroyed. It then becomes a tiny superficial thing, capable neither of inflicting deep wounds nor of healing them"