The End of Christendom
A realistic assessment of our present situation in America would have to admit that overturning the 2015 Supreme Court’s decision legalizing gay marriage is at best improbable, and rewriting the First Amendment is nearly insurmountable. Of course, no Christian living in 312 A.D. could have imagined that a Christian empire would emerge just one year later when Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D. Regardless of the precise cause of the Christendom’s end, we would do well to remember that Christendom was born in just such a time as this.
In an article that appeared in the Aquila Report on November 8, 2021, Chris Gordon makes the argument that “Christendom has come to an end in America.” He cites Robert Godfrey who claims that something very specific “has happened in America that brought Christendom to an end”—namely, “the 2015 Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage.”
In general, this is a very good and informative article that is worth reading. I take no issue with its assertion that Christendom has come to an end in America. Nor do I disagree with the author’s claim that “everything seems to be unraveling,” and “something very demonic is at work before us in our present moment.” I would, however, like to suggest that Christendom’s end took place much further back in American history than the Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage in 2015.
Indeed, I wish Gordon and Godfrey were right in their assertion. If only the end of Christendom in America was actually the result of the 2015 Supreme Court’s decision to legalize gay marriage, then the restoration of Christendom could be accomplished simply by overturning the court’s decision. While overturning the court’s decision would be of monumental importance for the church, the country, and the common good, overall, it would do little to restore Christendom.
As Oliver O’Donovan has observed there are many competing causes for the end of Christendom, but one sticks out more than the rest: the Establishment Clause, and the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. For O’Donovan, the end of Christendom was not in 2015, but in 1791.
There is both paradox and irony here. The paradox can be seen in that the First Amendment as conceived by the founders was supposed to be the guarantor and protector of Christendom. Yet it is precisely this amendment that was used to trigger antireligious sentiment, and the weakening of the church in society. The irony is that the First Amendment is the most cherished and championed of all amendments by the majority of evangelicals. Yet it was the quintessential flaw of the founder’s political theory in that it nearly guaranteed that theology and politics would thereafter be permanently separated.
D.D. Clark correctly recognized that the founders never anticipated this outcome. They never envisioned that atheists, antitrinitarians, Roman Catholics, and Muslims would ever legally hold office. Their context was one of Christian hegemony not religious pluralism. They wished only to separate the legal tie between the Crown and the church as it existed in England. Nevertheless, in the First amendment, they provided the framework for the end of Christendom.
How different America might be at present if only our founders would have enshrined Christianity in the text of the constitution rather than asserting a vague notion of the free exercise of religion. This does not mean, as so many evangelicals presume, that other religions would be discriminated against as a necessary condition. We only need point to Hungry, Poland, and Finland as examples of the contrary. But of course, we have to disabuse ourselves of any utopian ideas on the one hand (such as the existence of a country without any discrimination at all), and to recognize the country in which we now live on the other hand (a country in which discrimination against Christians is becoming alarmingly routine).
A realistic assessment of our present situation in America would have to admit that overturning the 2015 Supreme Court’s decision legalizing gay marriage is at best improbable, and rewriting the First Amendment is nearly insurmountable. Of course, no Christian living in 312 A.D. could have imagined that a Christian empire would emerge just one year later when Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D. Regardless of the precise cause of Christendom’s end, we would do well to remember that Christendom was born in just such a time as this.
Jim Fitzgerald is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and a missionary with Equipping Pastors International.
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Encouragements from the Jubilee Assembly
God is faithfully raising up new generations of men to shepherd His people and hold the PCA to faithfulness. Let us continue to pray His blessing upon His church for her next 50 years.
One former PCA Moderator characterized the Memphis Assembly as “the most significant in a generation.” The PCA has been at a crossroads (as noted among other places here, here, and here) as she decides whether to be a confessional, Reformed Church committed to walking in the old paths of piety and discipleship or a broadly evangelical, culturally missional, reactionary communion.
In Memphis, the Assembly chose to walk in the old paths of the Reformed faith as evidenced by both the acts of the assembly and the men elected to her permanent committees, agencies, and Standing Judicial Commission (SJC). In addition to the greater manifestation of unity, a return to growth numerically and in terms of giving, increased elder participation, and unity on chastity for officers, there were other, less obvious encouragements not to be overlooked regarding the health of the PCA. God is richly blessing the PCA.
1. Rising Ministerial Standards
Wednesday’s Assembly-Wide Seminar featured reflections and aspirations from four elders from the PCA’s founding generation. In his address, former Moderator TE Charles McGowan noted his recollection that the PCA was founded as a “big tent movement,” yet he remarked how the PCA has grown stronger and more “theologically focused.” He noted how in the early days, the PCA had received pastors who would not be received today, because our communion has become more “clearly and definitely Reformed.”
This is a welcome marker of good health for the PCA. Rather than loosening standards and confessional atrophy, the PCA’s expectations for ministers have become more robust as the denomination insists on a deeper commitment to Reformed Theology.
In his address to the First General Assembly, TE O. Palmer Robertson seemed to predict this very thing as he proclaimed,
By adopting the Westminster Confession of Faith as the basis for its fellowship and ministry, the Continuing Church takes its stand unequivocally for the faith once delivered to the saints…
…No narrowing fundamentalism is to mar the vision of this church as it searches out the implications of Scripture for the totality of human life. It is to the faith of Christianity in its fulness, as it relates to the whole of creation, that the Continuing Church commits itself. In humble dependence on the Holy Spirit to enlighten and empower, the Continuing Church commits itself to the Christian faith in its wholeness…
…Knowing his body to be one, we rejoice in the oneness we now experience, with all who are committed to the same precious faith. May the Lord of his church be pleased to hasten the perfecting of that unity with himself and among us, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fulness of Christ.”
TE Robertson’s proclamation those 50 years ago has proven true. The PCA is now more robustly Reformed with both high standards for officers and a zeal for the lost: to know Him and to make Him known. These increasingly high standards manifest a faith in God to sovereignly provide for His Church as we submit to the qualifications and the truths set forth in His word.
2. Commitment to Historic PCA Polity
The Hodge-Thornwell debate on church boards of the 19th Century continues to echo in the assemblies of the PCA. Overture 7 from Southern New England Presbytery proposed a small change to the Rules of Assembly Operation that required the committees and agency boards of the General Assembly to annually give account to the Assembly regarding their faithfulness to the Assembly’s instructions as well as submit any significant policy changes to the Assembly for approval.
This reinforces the PCA’s commitment not to have true “boards” for its agencies, but committees that are subservient to the General Assembly. In the old PCUS, the boards were the strongholds of liberalism and worldliness; the late TE Harry Reeder referred to this phenomenon not as “mission creep,” but mission exchange.
To prevent this, the PCA founding fathers designed a system of government to limit the power of PCA agencies by making them committees and dependent on the Assembly rather than with authority largely independent from the Assembly. You can read more about the development of and tension within the PCA’s polity in David Hall’s new volume surveying the PCA’s first half-century.
Fittingly at our 50th Assembly, the PCA reaffirmed her commitment to her historic ecclesiology as the Assembly adopted stronger language to hold accountable the permanent committees and agencies via the committees of commissioners.
This accountability promotes the health and efficacy of our agencies and committees; the permanent committees are able to develop vision and long-term strategies, while at the same time the General Assembly is able to more fully oversee their work and ensure a robust commitment to that Reformed faith of which TE McGowan spoke in his address. In this way both the permanent committees and committees of commissioners spur one another on to the fulfillment of the Great Commission and their specific missions.
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Six Things Lament is Not
When we lament, what we long and pray and strive for is not just a resolution to the particular pain or grief we are feeling. Because of the great work of Jesus for us, in lament we stretch out for the end of all loss and brokenness.
As I continue to ruminate on Biblical lament, I want to clarify and develop what this practice is and what it is not. Lament is new for many people, including me, and this short post is intended to clear up confusion and reduce unhelpful caricatures.
Lament is Not Unusual
Judging by the Biblical record, lament is a common type of prayer for God’s people. Roughly one third of the Psalms contain aspects of lament, there is an entire book called Lamentations, and laments show up in other places in Scripture. The Israelites lamented their harsh treatment in Egypt (Exodus 2:23–25), Hannah lamented her barrenness (1 Samuel 1:10, 15), and Jesus lamented the rebellion in Jerusalem (Luke 13:34–35). Significantly, Jesus himself lamented on the cross (Matthew 27:46).
The existence of lament Psalms and the book of Lamentations show us that lament was not reserved for occasional, tragic events. Lament is appropriate in those drastic times, but it was also part of the ongoing, regular worship of God’s people. As those living under the weight of the curse, these portions of Scripture give us words for our groaning (Romans 8:22–23).
Lament is Not Natural
It doesn’t take much for humans to grumble against the Lord. From small frustrations and disappointments to large tragedies and sorrows, our impulse is to find fault.
When we meet hardship, our natural state is grumbling. But it takes faith to lament. While grief may be the trigger for lament, its foundation is the goodness and sovereignty of God. Bringing our anguish and mourning to God wouldn’t make sense if he weren’t listening, caring, powerful, and similarly grieving at the broken state of the world.
Lament is Not Grumbling
Lament is a difficult practice for some Christians because they’ve been told from their earliest days not to complain.
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Jesus’s View on Biblical Sexual Ethics Has Not Shifted
Written by Robert A. J. Gagnon |
Thursday, August 3, 2023
Your change of position will not change God’s position. It will just lead to self-deception and deception of others. Face the fact that Jesus is the very last person in the world who would have given up a male-female prerequisite as foundational for sexual ethics. There was no more rigorous applier of the standard of a sexual binary for sexual ethics in the ancient world than Jesus. Don’t mistake Jesus’ loving outreach to the lost as an embrace of their immorality.A FB friend has notified me that he is no longer in “the same theological space or belief” on the issue of homosexual practice. This is what I have written to him:
You identify yourself as “gay” (presumably self-affirming) in the Tik Tok video linked to on your FB page. There you mourn the breakup of your family that presumably resulted from this self-identification. Your self-identifier on your FB page uses the hashtag “faithfully lgbtq.” You are doubtlessly faithful to that cause, but you cannot be simultaneously faithful to Jesus.
An assured result of historical study of Jesus is that Jesus based a limitation of two persons to a marriage (and thus of any sexual union) on the God-ordained male-female binary, which he viewed as foundational for all sexual ethics. For Jesus (and for the writers of Scripture generally) God intentionally designed two, and only two, sexes to be sexual counterparts or complements.
Your shift of position is to a view that Jesus would have treated as heretical. It also treats your masculinity as only half-intact in relation to other males, which in Paul’s view was an act of self-dishonor and self-degradation (Rom 1:24-27).
I notice also your presenting FB page photo of a billboard that states “You are not going to hell” with “John 3:17” written underneath that claim. You have entirely misinterpreted John 3:17.
True, Jesus did not come into the world in order to condemn people. He could have stayed “home” if that was the purpose of his mission on earth. His atoning death on the cross and life-giving resurrection were all designed to save people, but only for those who believe in him so that Jesus can live his life in them (John 3:16, 18). Those who choose not to believe in him remain condemned and in darkness (3:18-21).
It is essential that you not “proof text” so as to hear only what you want to hear, but rather that you read in context. I recommend to you that you not treat Jesus as little more than a cipher into which you impute your own ideology irrespective of what the text of Scripture actually says.
Your change of position will not change God’s position. It will just lead to self-deception and deception of others. Face the fact that Jesus is the very last person in the world who would have given up a male-female prerequisite as foundational for sexual ethics. There was no more rigorous applier of the standard of a sexual binary for sexual ethics in the ancient world than Jesus. Don’t mistake Jesus’ loving outreach to the lost as an embrace of their immorality.
There will be people saying that their love for you is demonstrated by their approval of your decision to live a “gay” life. They will be lying, possibly to themselves, certainly to you. Love “does not rejoice in unrighteousness but rejoices together with the truth” (1 Cor 13:6).
Anything that promotes behavior contrary to God’s will is by definition unloving. For they do not love you more than the Father and the Son, and the Father and the Son are warning you not to head down a path that leads to destruction.
If you would like to discuss these matters further, with an aim to a better understanding of the Jesus of Scriptures, I would be happy to talk to you.
Robert A. J. Gagnon is Professor of Theology at Houston Christian University; copied from his Facebook post.Related Posts:
