The Return of Christendom

The Return of Christendom | James Kalb | Catholic World Report

Christendom may be gone as a matter of public law, but it’s still here as a substantive reality

Man
is a social being and doesn’t invent his own world. To orient
himself and understand what his life is about he has to find his
proper place, which is an order of things where he can feel at home
and to which he can give undivided allegiance.

To
deserve that allegiance the order of things must include ordinary
human connections but also transcend them, so that it supports all
things necessary for man’s well-being. Our ideal as Christians is
thus a social world that encompasses everyday life but is oriented
toward God and the good, beautiful, and true in all its aspects. In
our time the phrases “culture of life” and “civilization of
love” have been used to refer to basic aspects of such a world, but
Christendom seems the best name for it overall.

The
ideal is of course impossible to achieve perfectly in this world.
That would be the Kingdom of God on earth, which won’t be fully
with us until the Second Coming. Still, the Lord’s Prayer has to do
with the present as well as a future that may be very distant, so the
coming of the Kingdom and the realization of God’s will on earth
are with us even today. And in any event we must find some way to
live here and now. As social beings we must live with others, and as
Christians we must live with God, so the question of the connections,
loyalties, and obligations by which we should live always has some
sort of answer.

That
answer defines Christendom as it exists from time to time. It’s the
system of connections, loyalties, and obligations by which Christians
live, to the extent they are living as Christians, and to which they
owe their highest earthly allegiance. In one form or another it has
always been present in the lives of believers, in the Church, and in
social arrangements generally, in so far as they orient themselves
toward what is good, beautiful, and true.

Christendom
may be gone as a matter of public law, and perhaps in the
consciousness of most believers, but it’s still here as a
substantive reality.

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