Hilton Head Island, SC – August 3, 2014
The Chapel Without Walls
I Kings 19:1-18
A Sermon by John M. Miller
Text – “Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” – I Kings 19:18 (RSV)
Sometimes dictionaries are helpful in defining words, and sometimes they aren’t. My Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, which I have had since college and which thus isn’t very new anymore, defines the word “Christendom” with two definitions. The first is that Christendom is Christianity. The two words, this implies, are synonymous. No church historian or sociologist of religion would ever accept that as a proper definition, and I also firmly reject it. The second definition comes closer to being satisfactory, although even it does not describe what most academics would think is a valid explanation of Christendom. It says that Christendom is “the portion of the world in which Christianity prevails.”
By that definition, Europe, North America, South America, Australia and parts of Africa and Asia are included in the classification of Christendom. What that means is that in those areas, Christianity is more common than any other religion among the inhabitants. Christianity is a or the predominant factor that determines what kind of society evolves where Christianity is dominant, and what it values and mores are. As long as Christianity is dominant, the effects and influence of Christendom are also dominant.
However, since the 18th century Enlightenment, secularity has become an increasing reality in how various nations have evolved. Under the influence of secularity, neither religion in general nor any religion in particular is the primary impetus for what a culture becomes. It is culture without a major religious influence, society without a strongly discernible religious tinge.
When many of us were young children, there was still many so-called “blue laws” in most states and municipalities. Certain kinds of businesses were closed on Sundays to keep the sabbath day holy, alcohol could not be sold in certain states, counties, or cities, and sex outside marriage was punishable by law. Now almost every business is open on Sundays, alcohol is sold almost everywhere, and if extra-marital sex were still penalized by law, we might have more people inside than outside our prisons. Those changes have come about largely because of the noticeable advance of secularity and the not-so-noticeable retreat of Christendom.
But there are certainly other examples as well. The third Commandment declares that we must not take the name of the Lord in vain. But “G__d___” is very commonly heard, even among active Christians, as is “J-C.” The word “God” is heard many times every day in ways which linguistically have nothing to do with God or the divine or religion. “My G__” is one such usage. In that and similar contexts, the word God has become almost meaningless, which is an example of using the name of God in vain.
Many widely used expressions have lost their original biblical context. Many people say “Turn the other cheek,” but they have no idea it comes from the Sermon on the Mount. Most people have a general idea of what a “good Samaritan” is, but many of them are totally unaware that the term comes from a parable of Jesus, even though Jesus himself never talked about a “good Samaritan,” but only about a Samaritan. It is the words at the top of the page in Luke 15 which identifies it as the Parable of the Good Samaritan. But millions of Christians have no concept for the context of what a biblical Samaritan was. When Christendom was more widespread and culturally influential, Bible reading was more widespread and influential. Now most people, including many Christians, are virtually ignorant of many parts of the Bible.
Within the Christian tradition, probably a majority of Christians are aware of how Christendom is losing its power to sway the thinking of many Americans who have no meaningful connection to Christianity at all. But many of them do not become especially upset by it either. It is only a certain kind of personality which becomes unusually discouraged by the apparent decline of Christian or biblical values. Among the clergy, such personalities probably tend to be more prophetic than pastoral in their preaching. I admit to being such a personality.
There was another odd duck like that in the Bible. Many Jews consider him the greatest of the prophets, although he wrote no prophetic books. His name was Elijah, and he lived in the northern kingdom of Israel in the middle of the 9th century BCE. At that time, a man named Ahab was king of Israel, and his queen was Jezebel, who was not a Jew at all, but rather a Gentile Canaanite who came from what now is Lebanon on today’s map. As such, Jezebel and Ahab worshiped Baal, the god of the Canaanites.
Throughout his lifetime, Elijah strove mightily to keep the Israelites from following Baal, but it seemed to him like it was a losing battle. His greatest moment of triumph came when he single-handedly defeated 450 prophets of Baal on the crest of Mt. Carmel near what is now Haifa, Israel. When Elijah called upon God, God answered him, but when the prophets of Baal called on their god, nothing happened. Elijah derisively mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is musing, or he has gone aside, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened” (I Kings 18:27). Incidentally, when Elijah said that Baal might have “gone aside,” he was using a euphemism which meant that Baal maybe had to go to the privy. Implicit in this is the question whether a proper god needs ever to go to the privy. Then, after some prophetic theatrics which I will neither take time to describe nor upon which to comment, Elijah order all 450 of Baal’s henchmen to be killed.
Not surprisingly, Jezebel urged Ahab to have Elijah immediately killed. So the man who so recently had won a great victory for God became a fugitive for his life, and he fled to Mt. Horeb (or Mt. Sinai). There, Elijah complained to God that he only was left as a faithful devotee of God. But after some additional theatrics about which I shall say nothing, God informed the dejected prophet that he was not alone, even if he felt like it. God told Elijah, “Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him,” which means to kiss the statue of Baal, the no-god god of Canaan (I Kings 19:18).
How badly is Christendom declining? How many Christians are left in our increasingly secular society? And how committed to God are they?
According to statistics from the 2010 U.S. Religious Census data, Roman Catholics, mainline Protestants, and evangelical Protestants all ended up with fewer members in 2010 than in 2000. Only Pentecostal Christians increased their numbers during the previous decade. Astonishingly, the percentage of evangelical Christians expressing confidence in organized religion fell from 42% in 2000 to 26% in 2010. That is a 38% drop among evangelicals! What is happening to Christendom at large if that is happening? We might expect such a decline among liberal Protestants, but among evangelicals?
For six straight years, the Southern Baptists have ended up with fewer members than the year before. In one year, the number of baptisms declined 5.5%; in one year! Baptisms are at the lowest level since 1948. Is American Christendom heard only in echoes?
In 2010 67% of Latinos in the US said they were Catholic. In 2014 that figure dropped to 55% --- in just four years! But in 2010 10% of Latinos claimed no religious identity; now it is 18% --- an 80% increase in unchurched Hispanics in four years!
Millennials are defined as people who are currently age 18-33. Gen Xers are 34-49, Baby Boomers are 50-68, and the Silent Generation are 69-86. (I don’t know what they call people who are over 86. Old folks, maybe.) Among those who claim to be have no religious affiliation, Millennials are at 29%, Gen Xers at 21%, Boomers at 16%, and the Silents at 9%. If the percentage of unaffiliateds remains the same or increases, the echoes of American Christendom will become more and more difficult to detect.
In 1905 the German sociologist Max Weber wrote a very widely-discussed book called The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. In it he postulated that from the time of the Reformation, Protestantism, and especially Calvinism, led people to believe that God blessed those who worked hard and earned lots of money, because that is what God wants of us. There is much, much more to Weber’s thesis than just that, but that is a major part of its essence.
Hard work used to be promoted in American Christianity. Now, perhaps due to both secularity and the rise of the 1%, Americans have concluded that hard work may not pay off at all, either in this world or in the next. If people believe they can afford to do so, many of them retire as early as possible, apparently supposing that labor has little or no value in and of itself. Does anyone or any facet of American culture promote the wisdom and worth of human labor anymore, or have we concluded we should do as little as possible to get along as well as possible?
Are we, like Elijah, alone against a world which proudly declares itself not to need God? When Christendom is not widely recognized, can Christianity be doing its job?
The world seems more coarse and uncaring than it did a hundred or a hundred-and-fifty years ago. But then, how can any of us know what it truly was like before we were born? Were Victorian values Christian values, or were they secular values which evolved in a world strongly influenced by the British Empire more than by British Christianity? It is a sober reality to contemplate that exactly a century ago, in August, the world stumbled into a calamitous war in which ten million military personnel and seven million civilians were killed, and an additional twenty million were wounded. What part did the disappearance of Christian values contribute to that terrible conflict? When wars erupt, are they reflective of or anathema to Christendom?
Have we allowed God sufficiently to permeate who we are as a people and what we do, or is God being edged out of our society and culture by factors which intentionally do not take God into account? How many politicians try to make decisions on the basis of what they believe God wants? How many people in public or private employment see their labor as reflective of God’s purposes in the world?
Increasingly American Christendom seems like a rear-guard action which attempts to stem the slow leak in the Christian position in our culture. It is possible that Christianity has as much influence as it ever did, but it certainly doesn’t seem like it. There are too many indices which appear to refute that optimistic view. Nevertheless, there is still a higher percentage of Christians in America than anywhere else in Christendom.
Unfortunately, contemporary Christianity may be more concerned with maintaining and strengthening its own institutional viability than with seeking to help establish the kingdom of God on earth. For the past two or three centuries, the world has become more evidently secular. But is that worse than a Christendom which is institutionally-obsessed and which forgets why God brought it into being?
God did not choose Israel because He loved the Israelites more than all other peoples. He chose them because He wanted them to become a light to the nations, a beacon of hope to the Gentiles. He did not choose Elijah or Isaiah or Jeremiah because He loved them more than others who might also have become His prophets; He chose them because He knew He could inspire them to speak His word to the world. God did not send Jesus because He knew Jesus was more powerful or God-centered or loving than anyone else; He sent Jesus because He knew Jesus would be the most effective exponent of the kingdom of God, and God wanted a world which recognized Him, God, as their ultimate ruler.
Is secularity good, or bad? It depends. Does it promote justice and care for the poor and show mercy to the downtrodden? If it does, it is good. If it doesn’t, it is bad.
Is Christianity good, or bad? If it promotes justice and cares for the poor and shows mercy to the downtrodden, it is good. If it doesn’t, it is bad. Does Christendom see itself as the leaven in the loaf (which is a distinctively Christian notion), or does it believe it should be the dominant force in society, because that is what God wants? God wants Christians to be a servant people, not a superior people. He wants us to reflect His light, not to be our own idea of what light should be.
Koheleth, Ecclesiastes, the Preacher, was right; there is nothing new under the sun. The human race has been through all this before. Sometimes it looks as though the world is going to hell in a handbasket. But God is the creator and sustainer and redeemer of the world. Christendom may be in an historical trough. But history is very broad, and God’s will is broader still. If the echoes of American Christendom seem faint, they can grow louder once again. We are among those who are called to increase the volume.
Anyone who claims the world would be better off without religion, including the Christian religion, is, by self-definition, an anti-religious bigot. Christianity has made many mistakes, but all things considered, it and all other religions have contributed far more good to the world than if they had never existed. We are at an Elijah moment. We may imagine that things are far worse than they are. And in any event, we can make them far better if we devote ourselves to the task. If Christendom is in decline in America, it can increase its influence once again. All that is required is for Christians to become more committed to Christian values in God’s world. Each of us makes a difference. And all of us together make a world of difference.