Christian Cliches That Need to End I: Using the Word Christendom in place of Christians or Christianity

You've probably heard this term used by a younger (or trying to seem younger; we call these people "progressive") pastor or Christian leader. The goal in using this word is to sound more intellectual or historical, but in actuality it accomplishes neither.

Christendom (pronounced with the "t" silent) is used by these individuals as a more intellectual alternative to the word Christianity. They say things like "We in Christendom need to do blah blah blah," or "if those of us in Christendom don't begin doing such and such" etc. The word was never meant to be the thinking man's synonym to Christianity, In fact the use of the word denotes different ideas all together.

Christendom, throughout history, has had two meanings that need to be distinguished so this mistake can stop being made:

1) Christendom refers to all united believers from the three religious sects that confess Christ as Lord and savior: Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, and Protestants. This really has no Spiritual connotations at all. It merely addresses the three entities as one. In the sixteenth century when the Turks were moving west into western Europe all of Christendom had to be united to defend their land. This is not a spiritual word, and it does not mean an ecumenical union, it is meant to differentiate one group of people (Europeans who grew up under Biblical teachings) from another (Muslims who posed a military threat or Jews who denied the teachings of Christ as canonical).

From my experience most speakers using this word are not considering all of Christendom when they use it. If you aren't even aware that the Greek Orthodox believers exist (much less what they believe or how they are distinct from the other branches of Christendom or why they branched off in the first place) you probably shouldn't use that word.

2) Christendom also refers to a nation specifically guided under Christian principles by professing* Christians who believe themselves to be doing the Lord's work throughout the world. It is a government institution. When speaking about Christendom you are talking about Rome under the leadership of Constantine in the fourth century, not a body of believers who are united by faith throughout generations. Christendom can also refer to the Holy Roman Empire of the middle ages, where the ruler was connected closely with the Pope, often doing the will of the Roman Catholic Church (loosely speaking the HRE provided the RCC with an unofficial military) and many European countries (such as Denmark) up until the end of the nineteenth century when Neitzsche's, Freud's, Kante's (et al) teachings dominated scholastic thinking. That's why the use of the word can be dangerous, Christendom carries with it baggage of military conquest more than it does the spirit of the teachings of Christ**.

Constantine was convinced he was helped in uniting all of Rome (through many battles with three different armies-each ruling a section of Rome at the time) by Christ. When engaging with the other potential rulers of Rome he claimed to see a sign in the sky that said "by this sign conquer" and then he saw either (I've never been sure of which one for sure, different historians have said different things) a cross or the chi-rho (the first two Greek letters in the word Christ, basically a P and an X where the P stems out of the top of the X. You can see this tattooed on a lot of "hip" kids who work at coffee shops and such, to my knowledge none of them have been too aware of what it means or the fact that it is connected with the military conquest of Rome in the early fourth century). The chi-rho became Constantine's emblem that he placed on shields and... pretty much everything. And he won! So then he claimed to become a Christian and made Christianity not only legal*** but mandatory. The number of Christians under Roman rule skyrocketed because to be Roman meant you were Christian. This decreased Christian persecution exponentially but also diluted the Christian institution, rather than being filled with sincere believers who followed Christ at the risk of death it was filled with true believers and those who followed Christ because it was the (for lack of a better word) trendy thing to do. Christendom in this sense (and Constantine's rule in general) was both positive and negative.

I won't deny it, Christendom is a cool word, it sounds cool (especially since you make the "t" silent, for some reason that just seems more intellectual) and its even fun to type out here. But that doesn't mean it can be thrown around to mean something it doesn't. For the sake of simplicity and the literary assumption that words should be used with their proper meaning in mind, just say Christianity or Christians, and stop trying to force Christendom into your daily vocabulary, unless you're an historian (or a nerd like me) it doesn't need to be there.

*I say professing because it's up for considerable debate the validity of their confession of faith.
**For more on how awful us Christians were in the crusades see Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven or Robin Hood, which do a fine job making the audience feel guilty for having ancestors who were from Europe in the middle ages.
*** up to this point you could be killed, or imprisoned, or at least moderately harassed for being a follower of Christ. This was because if you were a Christian you refused to bow to Roman gods or follow the gods' yearly celebratory/sacrificial calendar. Therefore you could greatly anger the gods and call their wrath down upon everyone around you. If there was a bad crop or no rain it was the Christian's fault. Under their religious system Christians angered the gods and put everyone else's lives at risk.