Editorial
Always Something
Schisms, Reformation, Recovery & Renewal
by Allan Carlson
Christendom was torn by two great schisms. The first came in 1054, when disagreements over the precise nature of the Trinity and papal preeminence led to mutual excommunications by Patriarch Michael Cerularius in Constantinople and Pope Leo IX in Rome. The second came in 1517, when the Augustinian monk and theologian Martin Luther challenged church doctrines pertaining to redemption and salvation, which quickly devolved into a full rejection of papal authority.
In both cases, Christian rupture occurred at a time of mounting pressure from Islam. In the eleventh century, it came from the Seljuk Turks, tribes that were moving into Christian Anatolia. In the sixteenth century, the new force came from the Ottoman Turks, whose armies had conquered Constantinople, overrun the whole of the Balkans, and hungered for Vienna.
Both the Byzantine and Holy Roman emperors, charged with defending the borders of Christendom, looked on with dismay. In 1095, Alexios I Komnenos finally appealed to the Roman pope and the princes of the West for limited forms of help. He reaped the Crusades, vastly larger campaigns. While the first succeeded in driving all the way to and recapturing Jerusalem, the second turned instead on Constantinople itself, which was sacked. For his part, Charles V waded into the conflict between Luther and Rome, hoping to rally a unified empire to stop Suleiman the Magnificent. The Habsburg emperor failed in this, but Vienna would hold in 1525, and again in 1683.
Where do matters stand in 2017? Christendom, understood as a politico-religious fortress largely conterminous with Europe, is gone. Part of this was inevitable, and good. Once Christian missionaries and colonists fanned out from Europe, also beginning around 1517, they planted churches in the Americas, Siberia, southern Asia, Africa, and Oceania: a new fulfillment of Christ's command to carry the gospel to all the nations on earth. When the Catholic author Hilaire Belloc intoned in 1920 that "The Church is Europe, and Europe is the Church," he was in this respect already off by at least several centuries.
However, another aspect of this disappearance of Christendom was tragic. Religious wars between Catholic and Protestant princes and their subjects, culminating in the disastrous Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), shook the moral authority of the faith. Instead of reconciliation, indifference began to creep in. The Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and the twentieth century's sexual revolution all followed.
And now, pressure from Islam on Europe grows again. This time, Muslims need no soldiers to assist in a massive migration from the Middle East and Africa into the heart of Europe. Rather, these still-fruitful peoples arrive now by auto, train, plane, and leaky ship. With some exceptions, the secularized, denatured, and shrinking peoples of Europe can think of no reason not to let them in and—in places such as Sweden and Germany—actually subsidize them lavishly.
Where Protestants Stand
In this new century and millennium, facing foes both old and new, where do the three great Christian communions stand? Among Protestants celebrating their 500th birthday, one clear (and ironic) line is the accelerating decline of the historic "Reformation churches": Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anglican. The former and current "state" churches of Germany, Scandinavia, and England—all direct products of reforming zeal tied to political interests—are the most exhausted, in terms of theology, evangelism, and numbers. For their part, the institutional offshoots of these churches in North America have merged themselves into insignificance, joined by the Calvinist denominations that once made up the "Mainline." These are the church bodies that have bought most completely into the modernist agenda: biblical relativism first, followed by contraception, then female ordination, abortion, homosexuality, and—the latest cause—transgenderism. Since Luther put forward the Christian family as "the highest order on Earth" and deemed the command to "be fruitful and multiply" as obligatory, even he—a man rarely without an opinion or words—would be rendered speechless.
While a few conservative Lutheran and Presbyterian bodies, joined by the far more numerous Baptists in their great variety, seem to be holding their own, and while some of the "daughter" churches of the original Reformation bodies thrive in Africa, the growth sector of Protestantism is found among the Pentecostals. Distinguished by their emphasis on gifts of the spirit, speaking in tongues, and divine healing, the contemporary movement dates from the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, 1906–1909. (For reasons I won't elaborate, I own a plaque declaring me a full member of the Azusa Street Centennial Ministry Team, 2006!) Reliable estimates place their worldwide numbers today at between 300 and 500 million, with growth particularly strong in South America, South Asia, and Africa. Until recently, at least, their engagement on the social issues has been amorphous. Relative to theology, the systematic intellect of John Calvin would reel.
The Catholics & Orthodox
Allan C. Carlson is the author of numerous books, including Family Questions: Reflections on the American Social Crisis and The American Way: Family and Community in the Shaping of the American Identity. He attends St. Paul Lutheran Church in Rockford, Illinois. He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
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