Bass - A peoples history of Christianity : the other side of the story

After Jesus

The Way

Early Christianity, 100500

Christianity as a Way of Life

Devotion: The Love of God

Ethics: The Love of Neighbor

The Cathedral

Medieval Christianity, 5001450

Christianity as Spiritual Architecture

Devotion: Paradise Restored

Ethics: Who Is My Neighbor?

The Word

Reformation Christianity, 14501650

Christianity as Living Words

Devotion: Speaking of Faith

Ethics: Walking the Talk

The Quest

Modern Christianity, 16501945

Christianity as a Quest for Truth

Devotion: The Quest for Light

Ethics: Kingdom Quest

The River

Contemporary Christianity, 1945Now

The River

After Jesus

In the mid1990s I was having dinner with a friend. Although she studies religion professionally, she claims no personal faith. Somehow the conversation turned to my Christian commitment, part of my life that has perplexed her.

I dont understand how you still can be a Christian, she stated.

I know, it isnt the easiest thing to be these days, I lamented, feeling a little foolish. But I just cant get away from Jesus. I actually love Jesus and his teachings.

Jesus? she questioned. I dont have any trouble with Jesus. Its all the stuff that happened after Jesus that makes me mad.

For more than a decade now her comment has remained with me, mostly because I have heard many others say similar things. Jesus fascinates millions, but Christianity, the religion that began with Jesus, leaves countless people cold. What happened after Jesusoppression, heresy trials, schisms, inquisitions, witch hunts, pogroms, and religious warswitnesses to much human ambition and cruelty. The things people do in Jesuss name often contradict his teachings. From Constantine to Christendom to the Christian Right, after Jesus can be remarkably depressing for thoughtful and sensitive souls. This dismal historical record surely was not what Jesus intended as he preached a merciful kingdom based on the transformative power of Gods love.

Although I tried to deflect her criticism that night, I share my friends concerns. She was asking moral and theological questions of history. Where is God in the midst of this? Shouldnt a faith be judged on the actions of its followers? Does God act in human history? She had concluded, as many people do, that if God is in the Christian story, then God must be indifferent or evil. If God is not in the story, then why bother? For spiritual searchers and secular people alike, the Christian God is not worth the trouble of the questions that history raises.

Christians, of course, have engaged with these questions, hoping to win over doubters and justify their faith. Not wanting to reject God on the basis of these criticisms, liberal Christians claim that human history is not Gods fault. People in the past failed to live up to Jesuss ideals; therefore history is essentially a litany of Christian mistakes. So they reject tradition in favor of the hope of doing better in the future. Other, more conservative, Christians see God everywhere. From their perspective, God controls history, with a divine finger moving every actor and action. Natural and human evils are then Gods judgments on sin. History serves as a moral lesson for individuals to submit to the saving work of Jesus or face the consequences in this life and beyond.

I accept none of these conclusions regarding the history of Christianity. Since I was eighteen, during my first year in college, the history of Christianity has fascinated me. Amid the chronicle of popes, schisms, and doctrinal fights, I discovered stories of interesting people whose lives were transformed through faithpeople like John Newton (17251807), the author of the hymn Amazing Grace, a slave trader who repented and became a minister, or Monica (331387), the faithful Roman mother who prayed without ceasing that her brilliant but pagan son, Augustine, might convert to Christianity. I loved the stories of the unexpected mercy of God in their lives; they were people who were to be admired and whose experiences held insights for living faithfully today. Encountering them led me to the academic study of church history in seminary and graduate school. For a decade I worked as a college professor, introducing undergraduates to two thousand years of Christian history in fourteen weeks or lessa challenging pedagogical task if ever there was one.

Delving into the story of what happened after Jesus involved more, however, than intellectual curiosity. The Christian past raises meaningful contemporary issues. In the classroom I discovered that this crucible of questions resonated with my students and brought history to life. Exploring the past, we understood our actions anew; we discovered unexpected spiritual possibilities for our lives. As Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams says, History will not tell us then what to do, but will at least start us on the road to action of a different and more self-aware kind, action that is moral in a way it cant be if we have no points of reference beyond what we have come to take for granted. I found this to be true.

Embarking on a spiritual journey through history is unsettling as it opens us up to stories we may not knowfor many Christian stories have been overlooked or misunderstood by even the faithful themselves. By discovering the other side of the story, Gods spirit might be discerned in Christian history. What happened after Jesus may well surprise us.

Christians assume they know their story, but in reality they have only vague notions of what happened after Jesus. Over the years student papers revealed a popular understanding of church history, admittedly not very sophisticated, but a story that still possesses some cultural resonance. The usual story is that of Big-C ChristianityChrist, Constantine, Christendom, Calvin, and Christian America.

The tale runs thus:

Jesus came to the earth to save us, but he founded the church instead. That church suffered under Roman persecution until the emperor Constantine made Christianity legal. With its new status, the Christian religion spread throughout Europe, where popes and kings formed a society they called Christendom, which was run by the Catholic Church and was constantly threatened by Muslims, witches, and heretics. There were wars and inquisitions. When people had had enough, they rebelled and became Protestants, their main leader being John Calvin, who was a great theologian but a killjoy. Eventually Calvins heirs, the Puritans, left Europe to set up a Christian society in the New World. The United States of America then became the most important Christian nation in the world, a beacon of faith and democracy.

Big-C Christianity is militant Christianity. It is not necessary conservative religion, for there exist liberal versions of it as well. Rather, it is a theological disposition that interprets Christianity as an us-against-them morality tale of a suffering church that is vindicated by God through its global victory over other worldviews, religions, or political systems. Militant Christianity tolerates (and often encourages) schisms, crusades, inquisitions, and warfare as meansmetaphorical if not actualto the righteous end of establishing Gods will on earth.

Elements of this story form American public discourse; politicians and preachers regularly refer to it. It is, of course, a bastardization of an old story line, a triumphal tale of Protestant superiority and Christian manifest destiny. Journalist Jeff Sharlet refers to this story as providential history. As far as I can discover, Cotton Mather composed the first version of it in 1702 as the Magnalia Christi Americana, or The Great Deeds of Christ in America. From then until now some form of this church history has informed American culture. Atheist Sam Harris and evangelical activist James Dobson both believe it, and they attack or defend Christianity on the basis of it. Many people have doubted and rejected Christianity on the basis of this story. In a very real way, the Big-C story has been Christian history.