Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
Join Global Christendom

Join Global Christendom

Last updated on: April 19, 2021 at 9:41 am by John Mark N. Reynolds

Join Global Christendom 2021-04-19T09:41:55-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The up to date are forever dated.

The parochial are endlessly shocked by history.

If you were in the Church of Holy Wisdom a few years ago, saying prayers, when it was a museum, then you know, just a bit, about the complexities of history. You were, barely, legal. You could pray, but many around you thought you should not be allowed to pray.

This great church is now a mosque, again, and that is hard for global Christians. Very few Americans will grasp the pain from this reality, this genuine torment: our interests in America as Americans are staggeringly parochial, so we miss the horror.

This is most true of our academic class that buys a coffee in Athens and feels cosmopolitan. They urge a global view which consists of the vision from international faculty lounges: the last colonial havens.

We know this because real issues that roil hearts outside academic bubbles hardly move them.

A great Christian church has become a mosque: the pain of 1453 is renewed. Meanwhile Americans natter about our own weird ideas, boundaries, and spin up products to sell on either side of divisions that make no sense in Syria or Mongolia.

Somebody will sell the most swag in America, but the Church in Armenia, Turkey, China will keep suffering. Meanwhile, Americans will keep asking irrelevant questions, answered long ago in global Christendom, that move product in the USA.

“Can’t a mother be a father?”

“Isn’t priesthood just a job?”

“Why Levi? Couldn’t other tribes kill lambs just as well?”

Those from nations with declining faith, ideas already having failed, lecture those with growing churches. The parochial Americans go on writing about things the rest of the world hardly considers, but those same North Americans force everyone to consider their views.

It would be funny if it were not deadly.

Meanwhile, as no one is looking, the great cathedrals in the West are turned into pubs or condos. The biggest issue in Christendom is not whatever problem of the moment some American sect is having in America. Christendom is vast.

If your faith is shocked by a cathedral, unable to grasp traditional cultures: get a new school or a bigger expression of Christendom. For the love of the good God, do not move from one parochial American vision on the right to one on the left. Avoid all the parochial visions!

Our Russian fellows had millions of martyrs to Communism, not one being faked or exaggerated to sell a ticket to a movie in America. Centuries of children being kidnapped to serve the Sultan and bow to the Caliph leave the Greeks unmoved by American historical revisionism, left or right. The Church of the Holy Wisdom, kept in safety for all time by the Mother of God is greater than internecine American squabbles.

Just a few years ago, the icons of Hagia Sophia were being renewed, the history could be told, and we could pray. The Patriarch, a few miles away, held firm against centuries of attempts to undermine his office. When Americans went there, we were there to learn, not to be a Western tool to undermine his office with our own parochial concerns. We prayed, did what we had power to do, learned what we could, and moved forward. Thank God we left our American issues behind us.

Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Aksum, Moscow, Oxford: nobody but a fool would think that Christendom was bounded by the Potomac.

If that is an insight to you, or to your students, repent.

I was there in the Church of the Holy Wisdom with American students prepared by reading great texts to see a global faith and nobody was tempted to rebuke the Patriarch, in danger of martyrdom, with some American bumper sticker about our particular issue of the day in the States. These student-scholars rejected moral colonialism that would torture the Ecumenical Patriarch with our own barbarian natter. Instead, we were ready to pray. We know the Pope in Rome and the Patriarch in Constantinople exist.

The sane, those who live in reality, joined the Orthodox Christian world of Kenya, Uganda, China, Ethiopia, Turkey, Greece, Romania, Japan in worship. We prayed to put a stop to immoral and theological colonialism. We asked for a bigger God. We looked globally and repented locally:

Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on us sinners.

Spiritual Reflections

Previous Post

April 17, 2021

We NEED you Larry Dexter! (On the News)

Next Post

April 19, 2021 The 4 Semester Year Is Ending: Be Kind and Carry On!

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Apologetics Art Culture Education On Books On Education Philosophy Politics Pop Culture Spiritual Reflections Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 July 2025 June 2025 September 2024 July 2024 June 2024 December 2023 June 2023 September 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What is the meaning of the word "Golgotha"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Place of the Skull River of Blood City of Bread Peaceful Garden

Books by This Author John Mark Reynolds

See All Titles »