{"id":2337,"date":"2009-05-21T06:00:24","date_gmt":"2009-05-21T10:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geneveith.com\/?p=2337"},"modified":"2009-05-21T06:00:24","modified_gmt":"2009-05-21T10:00:24","slug":"losing-christendom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2009\/05\/losing-christendom\/","title":{"rendered":"Losing Christendom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I was asked to review a book entitled The Future of Christian Learning<\/a>, which contains an essay by the well-regarded historian Mark Noll, an evangelical Christian now on the faculty at Notre Dame. Tying in to yesterday\u2019s discussion on the post \u201cAliens in a Strange Land,\u201d Noll says that Western Civilization once was termed \u201cChristendom.\u201d It was a culture in which the church had considerable intellectual influence, with the society deferring to its moral authority. <\/p>\n

Christendom appeared to break up with the advent of the Reformation. But the major Protestant confessional groups\u2013the Lutherans, the Reformed, and the Anglicans\u2013did not completely reject the older concept of Christendom and, when established as state churches, soon presided over Christendoms of their own. But then the pietists came, reacting against these institutionalized churches in favor of individual personal experience. Noll says that the various kinds of pietists had a greater impact than the Reformation and were largely reponsible for the collapse of Christendom, as Christianity withdrew from the culture into the individual heart. Noll notes a special example of this phenomenon in America. Mainline liberal Protestantism assumed a proprietary leadership role in the United States, until it became so liberal and culture-bound that fundamentalists reacted against it and withdrew from the mainstream American culture to pursue spiritual purity. Evangelicals have emerged out of that fundamentalist tradition and are trying to re-engage the culture, with mixed success.<\/p>\n

\nRecovering Christian learning and cultural influence, Noll says, will require reconstructing a new kind of Christendom, which will require evangelicals to learn from the church\u2019s older traditions.\n

I find Dr. Noll to be persuasive. I don\u2019t quite understand why evangelicals\u2013the heirs of pietists and fundamentalists\u2013are first blamed for withdrawing from the culture, but are currently blamed for trying to be too active. Nor do I understand why the heirs of the \u201cChristendom\u201d churches are now saying that Christians need to be less concerned with the culture and to be instead more spiritual. Shouldn\u2019t the roles be reversed? <\/p>\n

Is there any serious prospect for rebuilding a Christendom? If not, were the pietists and fundamentalists right, after all?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was asked to review a book entitled The Future of Christian Learning, which contains an essay by the well-regarded historian Mark Noll, an evangelical Christian now on the faculty at Notre Dame. Tying in to yesterday\u2019s discussion on the post \u201cAliens in a Strange Land,\u201d Noll says that Western Civilization once was termed \u201cChristendom.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-history"],"yoast_head":"\nLosing Christendom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I was asked to review a book entitled The Future of Christian Learning, which contains an essay by the well-regarded historian Mark Noll, an evangelical\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2009\/05\/losing-christendom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Losing Christendom\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was asked to review a book entitled The Future of Christian Learning, which contains an essay by the well-regarded historian Mark Noll, an evangelical\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2009\/05\/losing-christendom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cranach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-05-21T10:00:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2009\/05\/losing-christendom\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2009\/05\/losing-christendom\/\",\"name\":\"Losing Christendom\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-05-21T10:00:24+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-05-21T10:00:24+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\"},\"description\":\"I was asked to review a book entitled The Future of Christian Learning, which contains an essay by the well-regarded historian Mark Noll, an evangelical\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2009\/05\/losing-christendom\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2009\/05\/losing-christendom\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2009\/05\/losing-christendom\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Losing Christendom\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\",\"name\":\"Cranach\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\",\"name\":\"Gene Veith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gene Veith\"},\"description\":\"Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a writer and retired literature professor, serving as Provost Emeritus at Patrick Henry College. 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