I always encourage my young parishioners in Word and in Sacrament that the world is Christ’s. Everything is His, and not one square inch can be taken. I am always delighted to have our young parishioners articulate these ideas in their classes and in their lives. Here is a paper by Kanaan Trotter defending these ideas, and painting a picture of this cosmic gospel:
It is no secret that Christianity in modern Europe and North America finds itself struggling. The Church is under attack not from outside persecution, but from within. Congregations are growing increasingly willing to admit feminine and homosexual leadership. Many give ground in crucial debates like abortion, and even entertain assaults against the reliability of the Bible itself. What is not so apparent is the geographical shift occurring in modern Christianity. While the Church from Western Europe to the United States finds itself questioning its very identity, the Church elsewhere is not. In the Southern Hemisphere it is growing by the day. Many claim that the Church in the Global South is the new center of gravity for worldwide Christianity. What then does this say of the Church in the North? Why does the American Church grow weaker by the day? What has caused this deterioration?
The situation before American Christians, like any characteristic of a nation, is the result of the culture that has shaped our Christianity. That culture is the social arrangement and religious disposition of American democracy. This democracy has affected how Americans, as primarily political citizens, understand the Gospel and its claims. Alexis de Tocqueville offers an insightful interpretation of American democracy, contrasting it with the traditional monarchies that preceded it. His analysis allows a better understanding of the expression of Christianity that has grown from the ground of this unique democracy.
Political and social structure in Europe up to the 18th century was arranged in a hierarchy. Power descended from the monarch and made its way down the social structure. Classes were distinct and immutable. A member of one class improved only insofar as the class allowed improvement. The baker was a man of little power, born into his profession, trained into it by his father and grandfather. He may become the greatest of bakers, but no more than that. He cannot become a man of science or a lord, not even a blacksmith. The baker is bound to his job. Monarchies mean determined structure and dependence. Medieval England, for example, was associated with and subject to the Church of Rome until the reign of Henry VIII who established the Church of England. Only a few years later Mary I would move the kingdom back to Catholicism, but immediately after her Queen Elizabeth I would rename England as Protestant. And while the people might oppose the sovereigns’ monarchical declarations, their protests could never be voiced in keeping with the political system. Opposition to the crown’s religious affiliation, and thus the nation’s religious affiliation, meant rebellion, which was criminal, often punished by execution. Freedom in the monarchy did not mean citizens held the right to counsel their government. That was never their place (Tocqueville 522).
But a new social structure is born with the birth of democracy. In a democratic system there is no central source of power, and there is no hierarchy to divide and maintain separation between classes. Democracy allows individual freedom in an altogether new way. Men are not constrained by their social position. The cobbler may be so by birth or his own will. He has every right to begin a career as a cobbler and then become a soldier, a lawyer, or a politician. The uniquely democratic idea of equality creates this social liberty. Every man has the same right to any job and any lifestyle. He must only be willing to dedicate himself to the role he desires (Tocqueville 522).
In the religious sphere, the democratic impulses of liberty and equality claim that there is no single power to guide the people. There is no monarch to determine what the cobbler will believe. Instead, only the cobbler has this freedom, this independence. He is the caretaker of his own soul. He is his own priest. To exist in a democracy a religion must be willing to coexist with other religions because no man can impose his beliefs upon another. The cobbler has every right to choose the religion that he believes to be true, but he is in no position to force the blacksmith into the same belief. How dare he place himself above his fellow citizen? Continue reading “Chrysostom Papers”
