Part 5: When It Was Illegal to Be a Kingdom Christian. Chapter 28: The Underground Kingdom. In the previous section of this book, we looked at the Constantinian hybrid in detail, what the hybridized church believed, and how it acted. We also looked at how the Christianized state acted. In this final section of the book, we're going to look at how the Kingdom of God continued on despite the spiritual fall of the institutional church.
Earlier, I discussed the origins of the Donatists, and we saw that their beginnings weren't particularly heroic. They wanted the new perks that Constantine was offering to the institutional church, and they didn't hesitate to ask the emperor to intervene in their ecclesiastical disputes. However, it proved to be a blessing that all of the traditional decisions went against the Donatists, for it forced them to step back and reevaluate what the institutional church had become.
It opened their eyes to the fact that the church was no longer a holy body; rather, it had quickly become a worldly institution that now promoted the rich and the powerful. As a result, the Donatists completely dropped their original desire to win the emperor's acceptance. As Donatus himself said, "What does the emperor have to do with the church?" So the Donatists now began to refocus their attention on the Kingdom of God. Donatism was limited almost exclusively to North Africa.
There, it existed side by side with the institutional or Catholic church. However, there was a noticeable difference between the two. The Catholics tended to be urban, better educated, and wealthier. The Donatists were primarily made up of the poor. In this, they were quite typical of nearly all of the Kingdom movements from the time of Constantine until modern times. However, it would be a mistake to think that the only Kingdom Christians after the time of Constantine were the ones in groups like the Donatists.
To be sure, there were other Kingdom churches, such as the Novatianists, but many Kingdom Christians remained within the Catholic Church. Although the Roman Catholic Church followed Augustine and most of his teachings, it did not accept his teachings on predestination. As a result, in many places, it still taught the need to live obediently to Christ. But rather than completely upholding Jesus' Kingdom teachings, the Catholic Church relegated them to the sphere of perfectionism.
The Church taught that only those who wanted to be perfect had to literally live by Christ's teaching. To its credit, the Church encouraged such Christian perfectionism, so long as it remained under the control of the Church. As a result, there were tens of thousands of medieval Christians who lived out Jesus' teachings quite literally. Many of these Christians, such as Francis of Assisi and Thomas à Kempis, followed a Kingdom lifestyle under the auspices of some type of spiritual order or community.
They lived out quiet lives of prayer, service, and love. Other Kingdom Christians were illiterate, rural peasants, far removed from the centers of power and worldly sophistication. Others were urban housewives, living out Jesus' teachings in a family setting. Of course, there were many persons whose outward life resembled that of Kingdom Christians, but who had no genuine relationship with Christ. Some hoped to earn their way to heaven by living an ascetic life. Many were hypocrites and frauds.
Still, there was no shortage of genuine Kingdom Christians. As I have said, the Catholic Church usually had no objections to someone living a Kingdom life, so long as they did nothing to upset the existing religious system. However, when Kingdom Christians began preaching the Kingdom message, or when they tried to reform the Church, the hammer of the Church came down on them hard. One example is Arnold of Brescia, an Italian cleric who tried to reform the worldly church of the 12th century.
He argued that all of the clergy, from the pope down to the village priest, should live like the apostles. He labeled some of the clergy as money-changers and dens of thieves. He condemned the papal system for having lost total sight of the true apostolic mission. Arnold preached that the Church should divest itself of all secular power and devote itself exclusively to the Gospel of Christ. The Church's response? The pope had Arnold hung and then burned.
His ashes were dumped into the Tiber River that flows through Rome. About the same time that Arnold was preaching in Italy, a poor village priest was traveling barefoot throughout the towns and villages of southern France, preaching the Kingdom of God. His name was Pierre de Bruys, and he attracted a fairly large following among the poor. He taught that church buildings were an extravagant waste. The Church, he said, is a spiritual community that does not need buildings to exist.
He taught that works done for the benefit of the dead are worthless. He also preached against the Roman Mass and repetitive prayers. He told his hearers that they should not venerate or worship the cross or images. In fact, he encouraged them to destroy any articles of idolatry. Pierre read the four Gospels to his listeners and preached the authentic Kingdom of God. Unfortunately, some of his followers did not completely embrace non-resistance.
They smashed altars and images, burned crucifixes, and destroyed church buildings. Like most of the Kingdom teachers of the Middle Ages, Pierre was eventually burned by his Catholic opponents. One final example of a medieval Kingdom preacher was Henry of Lausanne, who traveled throughout northern France during the early 12th century preaching the Kingdom of God. He not only preached the Kingdom message, but he strongly attacked the wealthy clergy. He told his listeners not to attend the Catholic churches.
His fiery preaching and condemnations attracted a considerable following among the poor. Finally, however, the Church used the power of the nobility to drive Henry out of northern France. Henry then traveled throughout southern France and northern Italy, encouraging Christians everywhere to return to the simplicity of the apostles and the early church. Instead of relying on the authority of the Church, Henry quoted the New Testament as his only authority.
He told Christians that they should confess their sins to one another. It was not necessary to obtain penance and absolution from a priest. Thousands and thousands of the poor responded to Henry's message and focused their lives on Jesus and his Kingdom. Around the middle of the 12th century, Henry of Lausanne disappeared from the historical record. Whether he was able to keep one step ahead of the heresy hunters and continue preaching, we don't know.
We do know, however, that his preaching bore considerable fruits. Whether they were quiet individuals or members of one of the medieval Kingdom movements, Kingdom Christians of the Middle Ages generally had two traits in common. First, by far, the majority of them came from the poor and uneducated classes. No wonder Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor." They had little stake in this world, so there was little they had to leave behind. Indeed, the Kingdom of Heaven did belong to them.
Removed from all theological sophistry and minutia, they could see the simple Kingdom message that is recorded so clearly in the Gospels. As Jesus said, "You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes." Secondly, they took their authority only from the New Testament, particularly from the direct teachings of Jesus. Some Kingdom Christians had formal theological training, but most did not.
Typically, these Kingdom Christians had read or heard Jesus' teachings over and over, and they applied them quite literally. And that's what Kingdom Christianity has always been about.