‘Yes, I know what a mangle is,’ said Humpty. ‘I’ve even turned the handle in my time.’
So, I thought, have I.
I should have known better. Humpty knows all about oil-lamps, shoeing horses and picking oakum. He’s a bit of a Rip Van Winkle in having a previous life. I guess he knows what it is to load up a canal-boat or thresh corn with a flail.
So let’s see what he knows about some bigger topics, say the Holy Roman Empire or Christendom.
Humpty had a glint in his eye. ‘Let me see,’ he said. ‘The Holy Roman Empire was a kind of afterbirth of the Roman empire of Julius Caesar and co. Charlemagne was its first emperor, 800 A.D. and it lasted until WW1. Charlemagne had its headquarters in Aachen. As for Christendom, that was Christian Europe. You could say it was the HRE plus national protestant churches like the C of E.’
Yes, indeed. Humpty had spent his time usefully on that wall. Like the rest of us he knew that Christianity was for centuries an institutional feature. Individual faith was not of the essence. What was significant was the country you belonged to. If it had a Christian monarch, then his subjects were Christian. ‘Christian’ and ‘citizen’ were words meaning more or less the same thing.
As for the word ‘Christendom’, we know that it has dropped out of our vocabulary because the thing itself no longer exists. It was a useful, even an unavoidable, term to describe Europe and its civilisation from the days of Constantine, Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire. The Christian Church (or Churches) and the secular power (or powers east and west) were in double harness.
Then it all changed. A secular understanding took over. Countries no longer found it essential to retain their link with the Christian faith. A level playing-field in which all faiths have equal opportunities became the norm. Folk religion persisted. Respect for the Bible and for the Sermon on the Mount, particularly the Golden Rule, gave a tinge of what used to be a way of thought and to some extent a way of life to a generation displaying no allegiance to what were seen as outmoded ideas like Christendom.
I was tempted to ask Humpty if we have lost the word ‘Christianity’ as well as the word ‘Christendom’. They used to be, more or less, the same thing. But although ‘Christianity’ is scarcely a New Testament term, we are right to think in terms of personal faith, right, also, to ask whether society should have any remaining Christian allegiance.
Humpty was looking a bit menacing, as he sometimes does. I thought it best to drop the subject.
INNOVATION
St John’s church Westwood, Coventry has a terminology of its own. Featured in its programme are Breakfast Breakout Church, Open Air Church and Communities of Mission. Its website has superior graphics. David Hammond and Ann Peachey keep discipleship on the agenda.
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