Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

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Over the centuries, European Christianity was mostly faithful to share Christ with the
nations, pushing the faith to the peripheries where had not been before. In so doing, new
centres of the faith were established. Professor Walls calls this the serial, or periodic,
movement of Christianity (Walls, 2000:792f). At the same time Christianity was growing
in the non-West, the “Christian West” has increasingly become a misnomer and a nonreality.
How did one of the most significant incubators of the faith -- principally Western
Europe and the UK -- become so devoid of vigour Further, what is the nature of
Christian disestablishment in the West, and how has postmodernity contributed
The decline of the faith in the West has been a (a) political and (b) socio-cultural
disestablishment. Both ‘disestablishment’ and ‘post-Christendom’ are the terms now
commonly used to describe the decline and cultural marginalisation of the church in
Western societies. “Disestablishment is the process by which the organized church loses
it special legal privileges within a state and becomes a private association in some sense”
(Guder, 2000:7). Post-Christendom refers to the fading presence of religio-political
relationships between historical Christianity and state powers. Christendom was the
imperial stage of European Christianity “when the church became a domain of the state,
and Christian profession a matter of political enforcement” (Sanneh, 2003:23).
It is now indisputable that the Christian faith in Europe has long been more social
veneer than the true faith. Driving the marginalisation of Christianity in the West is a
great scepticism about the claims of orthodox Christianity, even inside the church and
amongst its own leaders. As we have already discussed, modernity, postmodernity and
the growth of religious and other pluralisms has literally brought Western Christianity to
its knees in many places where it once thrived. Challenges to the faith are routine and to
be expected; but where the church in the West has so failed Christ, is in its surrender to
the prevailing culture. In Europe, the Roman Catholic Church has more effectively
resisted cultural compromise than Protestant groups -- some of which may soon disappear
(cf., Church of Scotland). The Enlightenment has worked for many decades to weaken
the church, challenging especially trust in the Bible, but also in the historical Jesus. Now
in addition, postmodernity has worked like a virulent cancer, spreading relativistic doubts
and confusion en masse`.
University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa