The pursuit of earthly kingdoms and power in the Name of Christ was on full display across the medieval world presided over by Rome
The more familiar one becomes with today’s Christian nationalists, the more apparent is the tendentiousness of their version of the history of the Crusades, but also of the whole medieval world. To them the Crusaders’ slaughter of Jews, Hussites, Albigensians, Greek Orthodox, and Muslims at the command of Roman popes—all done in the name of Christ—is righteous, while the slaughter of Rome’s warriors in the name of Allah is evil.
Most tellingly, though, one has to search far and wide to find these men criticizing the Popes’ “Holy” Roman Empire, even at the time of the Reformation.
As this political machine pursuing national power in the Name of Christ continues to gain fans within Christ’s Church, it is imperative pastors who prefer not to oppose the juggernaut remember that the pulpit leads the world; and more specifically, that it is the pastor’s duty to protect his sheep even at the expense of losing popularity within his congregation or among his ecclesiastical peers.
Reformed Christians grasping for political power in the Name of Christ today seem intent on restoring some modern version of the Holy Roman Empire. Not knowing better, they will reproduce their own quirky and romantic view of medieval “Christendom” likely to lead to the return of that sacramental nominalism which was the cement holding it all together across the centuries of the medieval world.
If they are warned, these men throw off the warning with the response that the sacramental nominalism of Roman Catholicism would be better than what we have today.
We understand, then, that these men don’t understand, or understand and reject, any work opposing, the great wickedness of medieval Roman Catholicism, the Crusades, and the Council of Trent; also the heresies of Rome’s doctrine down to this very day. More deeply, these men have lost the faith to oppose Rome. Notice how they refuse to name or fight against the heresy of sacramentalism growing across our Reformed churches.
These men seem not to have any comprehension of the soul-deadening fruit of the hypocrisy of nominalism. Despite the record of these evils uniting the Jews who crucified our Lord, they don’t see or expose them in their own associations or presbyteries. Why would we expect them to beware of these errors in their political work toward restoring another Holy Roman Empire?
Throughout decades of ministry preaching within the Reformed and Presbyterian church, the most consistent pushback has been when I preach against Roman Catholicism’s heresies and “idolatry” (the most frequent word the Reformers used to condemn Rome).
If you read Marsden’s classic Fundamentalism and American Culture, you’ll find a footnote quoting my father. From a letter to the editor, Dad states his own opposition to Billy Graham’s habit of sending his converts back to Roman Catholic priests to disciple them as baby Christians (Graham was a classmate of Dad). Dad warned that sending converts back to Rome to be discipled was similar to the Jews sending their children over to the Canaanites for religious instruction.
Whenever the officers of Christ’s Church lose faith in the Gospel and the Church; whenever they tire of the humble drudgery of the work of sanctification through preaching, pastoral care, prayer, and discipleship; it’s inevitable that they seek a firm grip upon some more immediate kingdom they can claim they are pursuing in the Name of Christ for the true building of His glorious Kingdom.
The goal is to do the marketing of the pursuit of political power on a national level in a way, and with words transcendent enough, to provide their pursuit of political power with the requisite degree of religious gravitas, using “Christian” words that will guarantee the continued support of the sheep.
It seems somewhat highhanded, but necessary, to make the point that the entire New Testament condemns the Church turning from the foolishness of preaching and the building of the Church to the pursuit, instead, of political and military power.
It’s embarrassing to give this warning today to fellow reformed pastors when, across most of the previous century, this same warning was given by previous generations of reformed pastors to pre-tribulation and pre-millennium dispensationalists. They were the ones writing bestsellers about Israel and the Jews and Arab oil and Islam and eschatology, and they filled their books and conferences with millennarian prognositications in pursuit of Christian political power (also, of course, royalties).
Will we return to the pursuit of the “better country” God has promised us?
By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.
…All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11:8-11; 13-16)
