Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

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Territorial Christianity
Significant to Christendom was the inherent notion that Western Christianity was
superior to all others -- an arrogance the postmoderns are right to challenge. In fact,
Western Christianity has never been the ‘paramount’ expression of the faith. The
Orthodox streams of the faith have always been vibrant, but have habitually been less
important to Western historians, whose works are always more widely read. Western
Christianity became the primary religion of the Occidental world, while Eastern, or
Orthodox Christianity, made a huge impact within Oriental cultures, but never seemed
able to make lasting inroads where other major religions were well established. As
Western Christianity expanded, it rarely had to contend with major religions, more often
challenged by tribal [animistic] cultures, which have traditionally been more receptive to
Christianity than the higher ordered religions.
Along with the Western Christian sense of supposed superiority, came the notion of
territoriality. “The Christendom idea, the territorial principle of Christianity, latched to
the idea of a single inherited civilization, was brought into Christian history by the
‘barbarian’ model of Christianity, much as the Hellenistic model of Christianity had
introduced the principle of orthodoxy. Both were the natural outcome of the interaction
of Christian faith and tradition with the dominant cultural norms” (Walls, 2002:36). The
Roman Catholic Church embraced the territorial nature of Christendom and consequently
remained resilient to external cultural challenges. “To be Christian was also to belong to
a specific territory -- Christian lands, the entire continuous lands from Ireland to the
Carpathians, states and peoples subject to Christ, hearing the voice of Christ’s Apostle
from the Eternal City that attenuated them all” (Walls, 2002:37). Thus, the world was
divided into ‘Christendom’ and ‘heathendom.’ This reached a misguided and ugly
pinnacle during the Crusades.
As Bosch (1991) discusses in various places, Christian mission was often entangled
with the notion of spreading Western culture, and in the fulfilment of manifest destiny.
‘Mission’ has also for years been inter-twined with the modernist notion of ‘progress.’
University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa