Perspective: The Subjugation of the Christian Church

“Persecution can be avoided. All you have to do is compromise.” - Voddie Baucham

In the year 711 AD, an army of Arab and Berber soldiers under the Umayyad Caliphate started taking over the Iberian Peninsula.

The Visigoth Christian ruler at the time, Roderick, had usurped the throne from the previous King, Wittiza, at the behest of some dissatisfied nobles.

Wittiza’s heir, Achila, contested Roderick’s rule.

The Vascones and Aquitanes (modern Basques) also contested his rule, although this was nothing new.

Around the same time, according to legend, Rodrick either seduced or raped Oliba (commonly known as Florinda La Cava), the daughter or possibly the wife of Count Julian, one of his noblemen and governor of Ceuta.

Count Julian is said to have then colluded with the Moors of the Umayyad Caliphate (who were then in the process of taking over North Africa) to rebel against Rodrick’s rule.

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More plausibly, King Achila may have colluded with the caliphate.

King Rodric then died in battle trying to fight the Umayyad invaders, as most of his army deserted, and it took only seven years of conquest for the rest of the peninsula to capitulate to the Moors.

Their rule continued to be perpetuated by an extreme minority of the population.

Between 7,000 and 12,000 soldiers took over the weak and divided continent.

The question might then be asked, how did they fall so quickly?

Even if the story of La Cava is not true, it is a reminder of the unintended consequences of civil war. Division can be dangerous, but distraction is often a greater threat.

King Roderick was an illegitimate ruler. More importantly, he was a distracted ruler, and his morality was lacking. This became a pretext for other state actors to undermine his leadership, and in the case of Count Julian, bring about occupation by a foreign army.

The Visigoth nobility had converted from Arian Christianity to Nicene Christianity in 589, giving them some semblance of unity with the remaining Hispano-Roman population in the area, as well as the plurality of Christian bishops and the distant papacy in Rome.

However, clearly their rulers were distracted by material concerns - wealth and power.

As a result, they failed to set up an effective or unifying system of government, and simply continued warring amongst themselves.

“When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.” - Matthew 12:43-45

Their constant infighting made the “peace” brought by the Muslim occupation seem preferable. They offered easy terms, and often made agreements with local rulers to quicken their conquering, which meant nobles like Count Julian could see such a betrayal as a win.

The same thing had happened in the failing Roman Empire, which had brought the Visigoths into Iberia in the first place. Following a vacuum in leadership centralized in Rome, local leaders seeking power sought the assistance of foreign actors to establish their rule.

In the case of the Moorish rulers, Christians would not be systemically persecuted, or so it was promised (some rulers were worse than others, however).

They would be free to practice their faith. But there was a cost. Their faith would have to remain a private matter.

Christians who were tired of seeing their friends and family walk the line of apostasy and assimilation and choose to speak out were martyred.

Other Christians who preferred to remain quiet and assimilate strongly criticized those Christians, much like many Christians would today to those who profess orthodox Christian views.

They did not see Islam as that different from Christianity, and certainly not something to fuss about (although the heavy taxation was frustrating).

The first polemical tract of a Christian addressing the doctrine of Islam was written by Eulogius of Cordoba in response to this. The saint decried Islam as heresy, akin to the Arianism that the Visigoths had abandoned years before, and defended those who had been murdered as martyrs. He was later martyred himself.

When political allies are made at the expense of the Christian faith, there is always an unappreciated harm.

Ancient Israel could attest to such. Whenever they depended on foreign leaders rather than God to maintain their rule, they became a vassal.

Often they too were distracted by material things including power and sex, as is especially evident in the story of Balaam and Solomon.

Replace actual colonizers with ideological colonizers, and the same thing appears to have happened to western Christianity.

This is especially evident in the mainline Protestant denominations, many of which have made allies with modernism and the political left at the expense of the Gospel in a quest to remain “relevant.”

It has backfired, of course.

They were influenced by Enlightenment thought, the idol of rationality and the political optimism which led people to look inside themselves for salvation, rather than God.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, “the great idea of the Enlightenment [was] that man, guided by the light of reason, could explain all natural phenomena and could embark on the study of his own place in a world that was no longer mysterious.”

Of course, it is now commonly recognized that man is not inherently rational. The abstractions of the mind are biased and often produce confusion and doubt.

This is one reason why it is good that God gave an objective identity to his followers by becoming flesh and dwelling among them in the person of Jesus Christ. The classical Protestant and Catholic view is that this identity is imparted to us in baptism, which involves both water and the Word of God.

Rationalizing the entirety of the Christian faith ran directly against the first tenant of the Westminster Confession (1642), a Puritan and Reformed Christian document that expressed a fairly orthodox Christian view.

“Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence, do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of His will, which is necessary unto salvation; therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His church; and afterwards for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which maketh the holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God’s revealing His will unto His people being now ceased.”

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The Book of Concord, which contains the Lutheran confessions, taught that “of Christ we could know nothing either, unless it had been revealed by the Holy Ghost,” condemning those “who think that the Holy Ghost comes to men without the external Word,” and classical Protestants traditionally affirmed monergism, which states that salvation and faith itself is a gift from God, rather than a result of human work, cooperation, or something that could be found within ourselves.

Rationality, of course, has its place, but it cannot explain God, and cannot give man an identity in and of himself.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the failures of liberal ideology, and its constant efforts to undermine almost every historic Christian teaching.

The church did not decline in the West as a result of atheistic scientists once and for all proving that Christ had never risen from the dead.

Rather, those materialists were let in the church and were given vestments and Holy Orders, and as a “roaming lion seeking whom it may devour” led the sheep to doubt the Gospel as they had received it.

“But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” - Matthew 18:6

As the serpent in the Garden of Eden, “Hath God said?” is their rallying cry, as they seek to destroy the very foundation of the traditions they claim to represent.

And, as with the Umayyad Caliphate, these men were let in without a fight, as Christians became distracted with material concerns, as King Roderick had become distracted by Florinda La Cava.

The mainline Protestant denominations, in an attempt to maintain national influence, erected big-tent structures and abandoned the Confessions that had long characterized their doctrine a little over a century and-a-half ago.

This restorationist-influenced ecumenical zeal corrupted the doctrine of Sola Scriptura to become “no creed but Christ” in the minds of many, but that Christ was necessarily an internal one, without any objective confessions to prevent the culture from having the final say on any doctrinal development that occurred.

“Peace without truth is a false peace; it is the very peace of the devil. Unity without the gospel is a worthless unity; it is the very unity of hell.” - J.C. Ryle

With a false front of Christian virtue, then, the mainline Protestant denominations permitted those whom they knew to be preaching falsehood to continue doing so on their dime in the name of Christian liberty and tolerance.

Theological liberals too offered easy terms. “Just tolerate a bit of diversity of thought. We worship the same God as you. We have the same Holy book as you. Just pay us tribute and you can have all the benefits of modern intellectualism and social influence, and we’ll leave you alone to practice your faith.”

“…All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me” - Matthew 4:9

J. Gresham Machen is an early testament to how deceitful this was, as he was defrocked for attempting to carve out a space within the PCUSA in the early 20th century to continue teaching orthodox creedal and confessional Presbyterianism.

A more recent example might be the modern Episcopalian Church, which has been largely co-opted by “progressive” activists making the primary function of the church lobbying rather than teaching the Law and Gospel, which has torn a rift in the Anglican Communion over their stance on LGBTQ+ issues.

The Church of England started down that path recently by deciding to bless same-sex couples, a move which contradicted previous agreements and directly caused the schism of the Communion.

What started out as simply tolerating some disagreement in sexual ethics or moral standards for leadership in other dioceses turned into forced compliance with a rigid set of supposedly progressive policies, including an “inclusive” marriage policy, a ban on any form of “discrimination” against clergy candidates for their sexual orientation or gender identity, and pressure to support many “progressive” political causes.

As an example, the Episcopalian Church has pressured leadership, congregants and states to oppose bills protecting minors from harmful sex-change procedures. Christ Church Cathedral Indianapolis ministers recently led an “interfaith partnership” to pray a prayer of lament in the Governor’s Office and to pressure him to veto Senate Bill 480.

Certainly this would have eventually been forced on the African bishops if they had not separated themselves from the Communion., since westerners hold the purse strings of the Communion.

Financial investment is a classic tool of ideological colonization as practiced by the United States and Western Europe.

(As a side note, it will be interesting to see if the Northern Indiana Diocese and Indianapolis Diocese merge in the future and how that will impact the few churches in the Northern Diocese that have not yet formally adopted an inclusive marriage policy.)

Congregants are powerless to stop this. They can’t withdraw from the church without losing their property, even if their church is dying out anyways (which many liberal congregations are).

Even if that doesn’t come with outright being kicked out of the church for expressing conservative or orthodox views, and while there is a minority of conservative leadership in the church, it is clear they are marginalized for the views and are uncomfortable speaking out, unlike the very vocal leftward wing of the church. Their own news bulletin outlines an example of this.

Part of this may just be a result of the principled and self-aware nature of conservatives enforced by a generally hostile culture.

Many other mainline Protestant churches tend towards theological liberalism, but typically give a greater degree of autonomy to local churches which can resist more easily or embrace such changes pushed by leadership.

While they have largely retained an outward appearance of historic practice, inwardly, many have abandoned historic doctrine and all enforcement mechanisms (church discipline, closed communion, etc.) for orthodox belief.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.” (Matthew 23:27)

It is not compassionate to affirm someone on a self-destructive path.

It is not compassionate to blindly tolerate the worst impulses in those one is supposed to be guiding rather than leading them back to safety.

It is not compassionate to lead the 99 sheep into a pit to make the one that got lost feel less lonely.

“He who spareth the rod hateth his son.” (Proverbs 13:24)

By abandoning their confessions for societal influence, and by failing to properly catechize their congregants, the ancestors of the modern mainline Protestant church paved the way for theological liberalism to take over.

It should be noted, some believe a similar failure to disciple has the potential to cause problems for conservative evangelicals in the future, as the culture will catechize where the church does not.

At the very least, a lack of understanding of some basic Christian doctrines offers evidence that going back to basics (the Nicene creed) may be necessary.

Fixing American Protestantism as a whole will not be easy.

The Reconquista, which involved Christian forces retaking the Iberian Peninsula, was not complete until 1492. That’s 781 years after Roderick was killed by the Moors.

Before anyone can talk about retaking, however, Christians need to regroup and rearm themselves, grounded in the historic faith, liturgy, and confessional traditions. They need to recognize their collective identity and international mission.

Alfonso I, the third king of Asturias, a rebel Christian kingdom which arose in northern Iberia in 718, certainly understood this.

He encouraged the urban populations of his frontier territories to flee inward to his more northern dominions, which were more strongly under his control.

This was in direct response to the policy of the Moors, which had been to encourage Christians to assimilate and move south. As mentioned before, this was a false tolerance that led many to abandon Christianity altogether. This migration created the Desert of the Duero, which made survival difficult for any invading army.

Walking the line of orthodoxy, or playing to both sides, meant certain death.

Just the same, ‘Anglican fudge’ will not cut it today if orthodox Christians want to ensure the next generation is safe from a new wave of theological liberalism.