Haase_UZ_x007E_DTh (2).pdf - South African Theological Seminary

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Christendom West. For example in Christendom, the (1) clergy played an important
social function, marrying and burying family members and were widely respected
throughout society. That has changed drastically, where today clergy are far less
important and central. In Christendom (2) one’s religion had to do with where one was
born, its territorial nature. The (3) ‘sacral society’ developed a social environment where
there was little difference between the sacred and secular. Orthodoxy was (4) determined
by socially powerful clerics, who were (5) state supported. So-called Christian moral
standards were (6) imposed upon society at large, even though some of these standards
were nowhere to be found in Scripture, or were rooted in the harshness of Old Testament
Law.
Further, Christianity was (7) defended by state powers, where immorality, heresy and
schism were common crimes against the church-state. The Inquisition is an example of
how this relationship can so quickly go astray. Warfare (8) often extended the rule of
Christ, as it were, to disobedient regions, or to extend Christian territories. Church
hierarchy (9) was modelled after Roman government, was state supported and state
protected. The (10) division of clergy and laity eventually went far beyond the
prescriptions of Scripture, giving clergy an enormously over-elevated stature and far too
much unchecked power. The period of the Reform Popes (1049-1085) is a classic
example of this. Church attendance (11) was compulsory, with penalties for noncompliance.
Infant baptism (12) was obligatory, an ordinance of entrance into the faith
and Christian society, and (13) tithes were obligatory as well.
By contrast, the post-Christendom Christian churches are comprised of voluntary
membership. Baptism, by whatever form, signifies coming into the church alone, not the
state, as was always the custom in pre-Constantinian Christianity. There is also an
ideological and praxiological differentiation between ‘world’ and ‘church,’ where secular
and sacred are more practically maintained. Mission and evangelism are no longer
matters of military conquest, but of participating in Missio Dei, God’s mission to redeem
the lost (cf., 2Co. 5:17-21).
Gradually the notion that other religions could exist within Christian lands was
accepted. No longer were there harsh penalties, and/or violence toward those of other
University of Zululand, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa