In the Middle Ages this
was expressed as 'Christianization'. It's tough to explain this to your kids,
how on the one hand we speak of Medieval Europe as being 'Christianized' but in
no way does that mean it was Christian. It's a Social and Cultural concept that
hijacks the word 'Christian' and recasts it in a social mold. You'll be hard
pressed to even find a Church history that will deal with this topic in an
honest and Biblical fashion.
Everything in society has
to fit into this power structure. It must be transformed and given 'christian'
value and interpretation or it must be burned at the stake as it were.
With the advent of the
Culture War in the United States, this idea has been reborn and with great
vigour. Many Christians believe the Social Consensus was lost in the 1960's. I
would argue it was lost more than a generation earlier and the seeds of its
destruction were planted at least a century earlier. The Church had become the
world and only when a serious line was crossed, did the people in the pews begin
to wake up.
Unfortunately the
American Church has viewed the problem through the wrong lens and has spent
more than thirty years on a path of harmful futility.
Today I meet many
Christians who come alive at the mention of politics, but shut down when you
bring up theology or discuss a book in the Bible. That's the real satanic
element to this. It has created soldiers who are little more than manipulated
sheep led by the wolves who want to use them.
By the 1980's new
movements were afoot seeking to provide a theological impetus and justification
for the fight. The cluster of
Dominionist concepts coming out of Dutch Reformed Theology were re-worked for
an American context by such figures as Rushdoony and Schaeffer. These ideas
provided the ideological foundation of the Christian Right. A simple and
traditional Patriotism wasn't going to be enough. The Culture War had to be
turned into an act of devotion and considered in terms of moral imperative.
By the 1990's, the
movement expanded and sought to bring in Roman Catholicism and the Charismatic
movements. Major shifts were taking place in the thinking of American
Evangelical and Fundamentalist circles. History was re-written.
In the 1970's and 80's Fundamentalists
and Evangelicals looked at historical and social movements from the Middle Ages
to the Civil Rights movement with a degree of scepticism. They weren't thought
of as representing Christian teachings or values.
Roman Catholicism and
Liberal Christianity were the great enemies. By the 1990's the Middle Ages were
being re-cast as an inspiring Christian culture and the Civil Rights movement
suddenly became something to be 'claimed' and identified with.
This completely ignored
the fact that just a few years earlier the Middle Ages had been denounced as a
Catholic Totalitarian nightmare and Martin Luther King Jr. was called a Marxist
and not reckoned a Christian at all.
I'm not saying I agree or
disagree with these sentiments. My own views on someone like King are a bit
more nuanced. The point is a shift took place and it wasn't because everyone's
heart was softened and suddenly former racists now embraced minorities. It
wasn't because suddenly everyone realized that Protestant and Catholics had no
differences.
The motivation was
political. The goal was to unify diverse political forces into a new movement.
They wanted to combat the
growing influence of secularism and re-infuse American society with 'christian'
symbolism and meaning. But none of it was Christian of course. It's merely
Christianization.
It's ironic. For years
there was a great fear of the Ecumenical movement and yet many of these
conservatives helped to provide the very framework for the Ecumenicism they
once feared. In recent years we're even seeing Mormons embraced. I knew
something had changed when Fundamentalist Christians I know began to entertain
the possibility that Mormons like Glenn Beck and Mitt Romney were perhaps
Christian brethren. The political alliance has trumped all theological
sensibility.
By the 1990's the
Christmas Wars were on and all the associated battles over school prayer,
crosses and other things which most Biblically minded Christians reject anyway.
The courts would be used. Everything would be politicized from Bible study and
devotion to worship and the family. Eventually this thinking would trickle down
to the minutiae.
Even silly attempts to
Christianize Halloween and Labour Day would be attempted. Undoubtedly the
realization that you weren't going to change the culture on these points led to
a re-thinking. If you can't beat them, join them and redefine what you're
doing. Halloween once again became the Catholic superstition of All Hallow's
Eve. Labour Day, that wasn't about Leftist Labour movements or the Pullman
Strike. No, that was now about celebrating the value of work and the doctrine
of Vocation.
'St. Valentine's Day' is
no exception.
I keep hearing Christians
argue this is some kind of holy day. Twenty years ago no one in Protestant
circles argued this. People celebrated it but viewed it as a cultural holiday,
basically secular in nature. It's really just a marketing trick if anyone would
bother to look.
Why the shift?
If it really is just a
secular holiday, that has to be challenged. Sacralists (believers in the
sanctification of culture) don't believe secular culture or any non-Christian form
or expression is culturally valid. It either has to be transformed or defeated.
They're not going to
eliminate Valentine's Day. Not a chance. So they claim it instead. This has
become much easier as Medieval Catholicism has been re-embraced as a sort of
Sacral Parent...a Christian culture they wish to emulate and improve on. Now we
hear Evangelicals speaking of 'saints', sacred music, art, architecture and
other such superstitious nonsense.
Of course there are no
Christian holidays to begin with. Most of our 'Christian' holidays stem from
pagan accommodation and the impulse of Christianization which in itself is
often a form Judaizing. The Church refuses to accept the Spiritual Kingdom of
Heaven. They want the tangible forms that come with a 'holy' land and state and
certainly the trappings of the temple even though Christ rent the veil.
As the Jews lived in
Babylon, we too live in a pagan culture. The Jews didn't worry about what holidays
the Babylonians celebrated. If a Babylonian was saved, he became a Jew and
turned his back on Babylon. They lived as pilgrims and exiles. Babylon could
never become Zion. They had no desire to build a temple in the plains of Shinar
or plant a Star of David atop the Ziggurat.
Sacralism confuses and
eliminates the antithesis. It believes this world has to be transformed into
the Kingdom. The Common becomes the Holy. The Kingdom is not understood as
Redemptive....saved. It redefines salvation in terms of culture and
civilization. It seeks to create a heavenly utopia in the present. Some will
admit this will never fully succeed but they believe we are to work toward this
end.
Keep this in mind as you
hear Christians argue that Valentine's Day is somehow Christian.
I know, 'Saint
Valentine'. Yes, as I said, it's a pagan holiday and always has been.
Don't be brought into
bondage either by a false church or an evil culture which is just trying to
manipulate you into embracing values that are contrary to the Kingdom of
Christ. Love your spouse every day. Make your own special times. Don't be an
automaton, a sheep following the herds of the lost.
Your wife will appreciate
a genuine surprise... not mere adherence to social ritual. If not, then perhaps
it would be a good time to re-think our relationship to the world.
Our culture worships 'romantic'
love...the erotic. Many are in love with the idea of falling in love. Love is
viewed as butterflies in the stomach, anticipation and unsatisfied possibility.
While certainly exciting
it's pretty shallow.
Real romance and intimacy
occur within the confines of marriage and has little to do with ritual. It's
the joy of companionship, the deep intimacy in daily life that makes the
special occasions and the flowers more meaningful.
A husband bringing home
flowers to a shoddy marriage in order to fulfill a social obligation is scene
to be pitied. My wife knows I love her when I demonstrate that I think about
her throughout the day and when I listen to her at the end of it. We'll have
the special occasions when it's convenient for us, not when we're told to by a
culture that wants us to spend money or a deluded Church that's trying to score
a political point.