It had been years since I had
the actual flu with the aches and pains and range of symptoms like but yet
unlike the cold I get about once a year. It wasn’t fun.
After two days of misery I spent
the next couple of days just recovering. I don’t have a desk job and my work
can at times be quite physically demanding. So it’s not as easy for me to go
back to work when I’m running at about 50%. What ends up happening is that by
lunchtime I’m a wreck and beginning to regress. I’ve done this before and so this
time I decided to just take one more day and properly rest.
On the last day I dug out some
photo albums I purchased about a year ago and started a project I’ve been
putting off for the better part of a decade… re-arranging my Europe photos.
Up until now they’ve been a
hodge-podge of poorly arranged albums and stacks in boxes. I’ve begun to clean
them up and put them into a better order and one that will help them last a bit
longer.
I’m always quite content to put
on a good piece of music, imbibe a good cup of tea and venture through my
pictures. Lots of memories. It’s also a time for reflection regarding how much
I’ve changed since when many of them were taken.
Looking at the photos of Geneva
or many in Scotland I recalled how these trips were virtually Calvinistic Pilgrimages.
Even in places like Budapest my concern was often greatest for Reformed
heritage. I was a thorough going partisan for a tradition I believed
represented the Truth.
And yet when encumbered with
such a mindset how alien other places feel! As gorgeous as the Tyrol is or as
stunning as you might find Slovenia to be there’s precious little in the way of
Reformed Calvinistic heritage. You certainly enjoy yourself but you feel
differently about it.
Of course it’s all rather absurd
because with the exception of some places in the British Isles you’re hard
pressed to find anyone at these places today who cares on whit for the
heritage. Many are disappointed when visiting American sites associated with
the Pilgrims and Puritans to find the locals couldn’t care less, and how many
Calvinists have visited the famous Whitefield statue at the University of
Pennsylvania[i]
to find the local college students think his upraised exhorting hand looks best
when holding a can of beer.
A lot of this stuff is
Romanticism regarding the past. It certainly was for me. I was willfully blind
about much of it and yet deep down, though I didn’t want to admit it, doubt
gnawed at me.
We all so badly want to ‘claim’
to ‘belong’ to tribe or heritage. As Americans we’re often frustrated because
we’re mostly of mixed ancestry and in most cases no matter what we claim, we
can’t really participate in another culture unless we share the language.
Being in Christ is actually
quite liberating. We are part of the Heavenly Body and our earthly
associations, even our bloodlines matter little. In truth we have more in
common with Christians meeting in Africa or China than we do with those who
share our race or culture but lack our faith.
Trying to find a denomination or
niche to latch on to is just that same old tribal instinct. The curse of Babel
keeps the nations apart and keeps them from forming into a Universal Beast. In
that sense, vive la difference! We
ought to celebrate the diversity on Earth. And yet as believers, that ‘wall of
separation’ if I can use that term in this context, is torn down and no longer
does it matter if we are Jew, Greek, Scythian etc… We’re all one. But that’s
only ‘in’ Christ.
Building new denominational
walls (rooted in contrived narrative) is a denial of this principle.
In terms of the Church I always think
about the 19th century Tractarian movement and how John Henry Newman
(later Cardinal Newman) said that he felt like he’d come ‘home’ when he
converted to Romanism. At last the Patristic Fathers and the great figures from
the early Church were something that belonged to him. Joining the Roman
communion made him feel like his claims were legitimate in a way the Anglican
Church (born of a tyrant’s desire for a male heir) could not. The buildings and
history were something that he was legitimately part of.
Of course I don’t believe Clement,
Irenaeus or Tertullian would find much in common with Newman. Perhaps Leo or
Gregory (both wrongly called ‘Great’) would.
This was Newman’s Romanticising
of Church History.
Perhaps I’m still guilty of it.
I’ve come to realize that the lives and deeds of many of the great saints are
not recorded in Church History volumes. Many so-called Church Histories are
really chronicles of Christendom. How many were burned or died in obscurity who
will inhabit the halls of heaven? How many of the so-called ‘greats’ were not
great at all or in many cases not even believers. How many of them were the
false prophets we were warned of who think of godliness as an occasion for
gain?
As I look at my pictures of
Venice and Rome, though they play little or no part in the history of the
Reformed, I am reminded that many Christians lived in these places and in some
cases died there.
I’m not talking about Roman
Catholics from the Middle Ages. I’m speaking of Waldensian and other Dissenter
haunts.
Northern Italy crawled with
Dissenters. Austria, Hungary, Bohemia and of course Germany were all dense with
Christians meeting underground and long before Luther.
Sometimes the years from the
Fall of the Western Empire to the rise of the Middle Ages Proper (500-1000) is called
the Dark Ages. This is due to the chaos of invasion….Huns, Lombards, Saracens,
Vikings, Magyars etc….
Sometimes the entire Medieval
Period (c.500-1500) is referred to as the Dark Ages. Sometimes it is in
reference to the lack of learning and cultural sophistication, but often for
Christians it refers to a time when the Gospel seemed to be lost.
This was always something of an
oversimplification. The Middle Ages were anything but simple. They were a time
of instability and that (and we should pay attention!) leads to social
breakdown, insularity and severe provincialism.
Modern Dominionism is revising
this thinking that I grew up with. The Middle Ages are becoming a new Sacral
Golden Age.
In that sense (in light of
Sacralism) I would indeed consider it a ‘dark’ period.
But in other ways the
Underground Church was quite extensive and the years 1000-1500 may have
actually been something of a Golden Age…but an age described in no history
books.
I think in heaven we will learn
the true history of the Church and we’ll find it to be quite different than
what is presently available to us.
Abandoning Protestantism for the
Third Order of Christianity, viz., the non-violent Free/Anti-Sacral witness has
liberated me. No longer do I care for the Protestant/Catholic cultural divide
in Europe. No longer am I bound by their histories. I see Europe for what it
is. I see Christians in many places but rarely do ‘great’ names shine forth
from the annals.
In fact in some cases I find
myself appreciating much more with regard to Catholic culture (for example in
Italy or Ireland) vs. the Protestant cultures found in places like Germany,
Holland, or Scotland.
Looking through my photos proved
both interesting and liberating. It was nothing new but good to revisit the
issues.
But aren’t I just signing on to
a new ‘tribe’ like everyone else? I guess I could be accused of that but one
key difference is that anti-confessional and anti-political nature of Third
Order or what can sometimes be called Proto-Protestant Christianity. Its unity
is rooted not in adherence to tradition, or cultural norms, or a political
entity….fellowship is rooted in a common adherence to Scripture.
That’s a little too tidy to be
sure. It’s more complicated than that especially when you get into what
happened with some of the Hussite and Lollard groups. But thinking in terms of
Congregation v. Denomination, and certainly rejecting Sacralism and
Confessionalism (which is different than merely writing a Confession)….these distinctives
allow us to think differently about the world and the Church. We can much more
free in our charity and in our sense of fellowship. We don’t need to cut people
off in our minds and hearts because they don’t belong to the ‘proper’
tradition. I don’t have to hate someone because they’re Lutheran. I don’t have
to hate the Irish because they resisted a Protestant country seeking to rule
them and force them into Protestantism. I don’t have to despise Africans or
Asians because they resisted Christendom.
Someone might say we should
never be hating or despising anyway. Very true. But I can’t think of anything
more hateful than to subjugate people through violence…for their own good right?
Right.
That’s the end logic, the telos
of Sacralism….war, conquest and subjugation become altruistic ‘acts of love’…
‘It’s for their own good,’ the
voice whispers in the Sacralist ear.
It’s the voice of Satan.
[i]
The picture on the spine of the Banner of Truth books.