Learning from the Ambiguous Legacy of Christendom

The previous two chapters proposed remedies for the problems besetting Vatican II’s teaching on church-state relations. The final task of Part II is to draw from Patristic and mediaeval sources the lessons that can be learnt from the period of Christendom. Four lessons to be learnt from the history of Christendom: 1. The church’s relation to political authorities is not separate from, but a key aspect of, its evangelising mission, because the church’s Gospel is to announce to the Powers their already achieved, but not-yet revealed, defeat by Christ. 2. The confrontation between the church and the Powers can lead either to martyrdom or to mutual service, in which a converted political authority welcomes the Gospel. 3. The ambiguity of Christendom derived from gradually forgetting the missionary relation between the church and the Powers, conceiving rulers and the church, now concentrated around the clergy, as twin, complementary authorities in a homogenous Christian society. 4. Christendom was also the seedbed within which the notion of a limited, constitutional government responsible to a higher and prior law was cultivated. The danger for the church today is to forget that this self-understanding of political authority has its origins in rulers welcoming the church’s Gospel and confessing Christ’s kingship.