Religious liberals need to reconsider their hostility to Christendom, remembering that the original Social Gospel, with its thirst for justice, was unabashedly Christendom-centered.  And religious conservatives, without reducing their passion for needed moral reforms, should be mindful of their blessings and position of unrealized strength. The quiet religious revival in New York City is mostly below the radar screen.  But it showcases how Christendom, although it ebbs and flows, after 1700 or so years, is not going away.

A recent Barna study confirms other data showing increased church attendance over the last decade in ostensibly secular New York City, including increased numbers of “born-again” believers.  The findings defy not only stereotypes about “godless” New Yorkers but also illustrate that, despite all the talk about secularizing America, church participation has remained remarkably unchanged nationally for most of 80 years.

The much ballyhooed religiously unaffiliated number about 15-20 percent of Americans (some of whom still report attending religious services and most of whom still profess belief in God.). About 75-80 of Americans percent say they are Christian, with Jews the next largest religious group, numbering under 2 percent.

Yet “Christendom” is reputedly over according to many Christian conservatives, who’ve declared America post-Christian.  Some have heralded this reputedly new secular age as an opportunity for the church to recover its prophetic witness.

Meanwhile, religious liberals often condemn Christian conservatives for supposedly clinging to Christendom by defending traditional morals in society or civil religion.  Some on the Religious left deride the whole project of “Christendom” as an egregious compromise of true Christianity dating back to Constantine.  For them, Christendom means centuries of theocracy, conquest, empire, slavery and hypocrisy.

Christendom indeed has included nearly all the faults alleged, but it did not invent any of them.  Theocracy, conquest, empire, slavery and hypocrisy have been intrinsic to nearly all human history.  What the critics forget is that Christendom also refined the social conscience and capacity for reform to challenge its own moral failures.  Christendom developed human rights and legal equality, social tolerance, constitutional democracy, free enterprise, technology, modern science and medicine, new levels of arts and literature, and refined notions of charity.

Typically most critics of Christendom are unknowingly relying on its assumptions and moral heritage. Some imply that Christians can never really be more than an alternative community, even as they rely on the institutional vestiges of Christendom for their influence and advocacy.  More conventional believers on the left denounce the supposed imposition of religious beliefs about marriage or abortion on society while simultaneously urging that society adopt their own religious beliefs about the environment, poverty, or peacemaking.

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