What is Christendom?

A Reply to R. Scott Clark

R. Scott Clark has replied to my twitter thread criticizing a statement in Mike Horton’s article “The Cult of Christian Trumpism” in which he asserted “. . . this ideal – of a ‘Christian nation’ other than the universal church; of the gospel as a social, moral, or political agenda; and of saving faith as something that can be legislated and enforced – must be rejected.” In my article “Thinking Theologically in Revolutionary Times” I made it clear that I share Horton’s negative evaluation of the theology on display at the Jericho March. What I took exception to was the idea that Christians who want America to be a Christian nation are wrong to want such a thing. 

Clark’s description of what he considers a Christian nation to entail is interesting. There is a lot ambiguity about the nature of Christendom and we can see that in Clark’s article. He defends his own tradition against the charge of being “Anabaptist” and yet agrees with Horton that Christendom should be rejected. I think that debating who is the least Anabaptist is not really helpful in gaining clarity on this issue. Instead, I want to try to clarify the issues under discussion here by reflecting on what exactly we mean by Christendom. I want to distinguish between a narrow and a broad definition.

Clark argues for a very narrow definition of Christendom. It did not exist under Constantine, who merely legalized Christianity. It came into being with Theodosius and was codified only under Justinian. For Clark, Christendom means one state church persecuting all other denominations, as well an atheists and members of other religions. This narrow definition allows him to argue that his counter examples: American Presbyterians who revised the WCF in 1788, Abraham Kuyper and his own United Reformed Churches in North America, all reject Christendom. His intention is plainly to argue that Horton’s statement ought to be taken as yet another example of Reformed anti-Christendom teaching.

But here is the ambiguity. A broader definition of Christendom would see it as a situation in which the majority of people in a jurisdiction are Christian and where a broad interpretation of Judeo-Christian doctrine forms the foundation of the nation’s constitution and legal system. I would suggest that in such a situation no denomination of Christians need be persecuted. The particulars of doctrine, practice and worship would not be dictated by the government, but all would be free to worship as they choose providing that they respect the natural law and the constitution. This, after all, is the American experience.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms begins by saying “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law . . . “ The preamble to the Declaration of Independence says: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Both documents recognize God as the foundation and origin of natural law, which in turn is the basis for the nation’s positive law. What are we to call America, which grounds its basic law on the Creator, and Canada, which recognizes the supremacy of God? Neither has a state church. So, in the narrow definition of Christendom proposed by Clark, our two countries are not Christendom. But they are an expression of Christendom, in my broader definition of Christendom. 

If Horton and Clark are rejecting the broader definition of Christendom, then I do not think they can look to the American Presbyterians of 1788 or Abraham Kuyper as precedents for their views. If, however, they are talking about the narrower definition of the situation of a nation having only one legal state church, then that is different. In that case the 18th century American Presbyterians, Kupyer, Horton, Clark and I are all in basic agreement. 

The issue is not whether America should have a state church or not. It doesn’t and never has had one. Yet millions of people have lived and died thinking of America as a Christian nation in the broad sense of recognizing God as the source and guarantor of the law under which we live. You don’t have to be a Jericho Marcher in order to understand that what is under attack in the West in 2020 is not the existence of state churches, but the very idea of objective law guaranteed by the existence of a Divine Law Giver. The existence of God, the existence of a natural moral law and even the existence of objective laws of nature are all denied – even scorned and hated – by postmodernists. The entirety of Western culture, with all its magnificent achievements from the rule of law to universities and from hospitals to modern science, is being rejected by those who use Marxist analysis and identity politics to dismiss it all as the glorification of white males and colonialism. 

In this cultural situation we already have freedom of religion in the sense of no one denomination exercising dominion over all the rest. That freedom is hardly under threat. The actual danger is the kind of militant atheism, such as the kind that drove the French Revolution and the Chinese Cultural Revolution, destroying the legal and moral principles on which our civilization has been built. It is ironic that Clark would invoke the name of Abraham Kuyper, who, after all, was the leader of the Anti-Revolutionary Party, which opposed the godless French revolutionary ideas. In his day, Kuyper was fighting a rearguard action against secularism trying to protect the ability of the church to flourish and be salt and light in Dutch society. But sadly, the modern Netherlands has become extremely secular in the decades since his death. 

I think that it is easy to fall into the trap of assuming that what happened in France at the end of the 18th century or what happened in China in the 1970s could never happen here. It is easy to suppose that one’s nation will always recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law. It is difficult to imagine the overthrow of the American constitutional republic. But societies in which God and the rule of law are recognized are delicate flowers that can be crushed under the heel of sophists and dictators. We are always moving historically; nothing is static. And who would deny that we are currently moving in the direction of militant secularism and neo-paganism?

Clark claims that nations only became Christian by military conquest or government decree, never by democratic vote. I suggest that he investigate the recent history of countries like Poland and Hungary, where governments have been re-elected after working to protect the Christian heritage of those countries, much to the consternation of European Union secularist elites. I also suggest that he consider many of the African countries, such as Ghana and Kenya, where the people have become so overwhelmingly Christian that it comes naturally to them to think of themselves as Christian countries. Neither country has a state church, which is not a necessary component of being a Christian country. 

I would argue that Baptists have been right to campaign for religious liberty for individuals for theological reasons. Biblical Christianity requires people to become Christians by exercising personal faith in Jesus Christ and this has to be voluntary, not compelled. So, religious liberty facilitates evangelism. But this does not mean our nation has to be secular, atheistic or non-Christian in order to have religious liberty. We can have a Christian country in the sense that it recognizes God as the ultimate ruler of the world and the supreme giver of law. We can reject the idea of a state church without rejecting Christendom altogether.