Thinking Anew: A day to remember

It is coronation day today, in case you hadn’t noticed! A terrific excitement has been building up in the UK. The supermarkets are awash with all kind of products in Union Jack packaging. An extra bank holiday has even been declared, and what’s not to love about that? Yet I find myself in Ireland this weekend, as it happens, and that’s the way I like it.

The monarchy elicits a variety of responses. For many in the Church of England (though not all) it is an occasion of the most solemn significance. For other pockets of the church the very existence of the monarchy is problematic, an idolatrous celebration of inequality and unearned privilege which should have no place in the Kingdom of God. Even the phrase Kingdom of God is disputed, some suggesting that using the term “Kindom” of God’ sits more easily with us at this point in history.

We know from early writings that the early Christians were seen as enemies of empire. Tertullian wrote: “Christians are considered to be enemies of the State ... we do not celebrate the festivals of the Caesars ... Emperors could only believe in Christ if they were not emperors – as if Christians could ever be emperors!”

Christians (“followers of the Way”) were forbidden to bear arms. Justin, martyred in 165 AD, wrote ‘All of us ... have traded in our weapons of war. We have exchanged our swords for plough-shares, our spears for farm tools ... now we cultivate the fear of God, justice, kindness, faith, and the expectation of the future given us through the crucified one.”

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When General Constantine had a vision of Christ before battle and went on to become emperor of Rome, he passed an edict granting tolerance for all religions, especially Christianity. Fifty years on, Emperor Theodosius proclaimed Christianity as the state religion, now making it a crime not to be Christian. Thousands joined the church, every Roman soldier was now required to be Christian, and, devastatingly, we read the first recorded incidents of Christians killing pagans. The persecuted were now literally the persecutors. The empire had been baptised.

Fast-forward 2,000 years and Christianity is the largest religion in the world. The wreaths of empire and the institutional church – Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Protestant – have a lot to answer for. We can only grieve when we think of all that has been wreaked upon the world in the name of Christ: hatred of the Jews, the Crusades, the transatlantic slave trade, the degradations of colonialism, the peddling of God as a white man, the burning of witches and heretics.

Yet down through the millennia, there has been a faithful stream of radical Christians – both within and without the institutional church – who have refused to submit to the propaganda of the Christian Empire, holding themselves apart from the temptations of money and power, refusing to bear arms or swear oaths, keeping themselves distinct from the corruption of their culture, even unto death. Their witness is to be honoured.

It is no longer possible or helpful (not that it ever was) to divide the church into the pure and the impure. Too much has happened, and there are two banks to the river of grace. Much that is precious in mainstream culture we owe to territorial Christianity. Each part of the church family has its own temptations to withstand and its own gifts to offer to the whole. Perhaps the worst is over. Perhaps the institutional church is now an ex-oppressor. Perhaps the unravelling of the pernicious legacy of Christendom is the task required of those who still find themselves in its ranks.

I will be watching the service, and I know that the music will be glorious. Please God it will be a joyous day for millions! But it is indeed good to be in Ireland this weekend.