Berkley Center

The past four months have granted me the opportunity to engage with numerous cultures all over Europe and the Mediterranean world. Travels ranging from Dublin in Ireland to the Northern Sahara Desert in Tunisia have provided an unprecedented opportunity to engage with the gamut of the Christian, or what once was the ancient Christian, world. From the fourth century onward, Christianity was the king religion throughout the known civilized Western world. Covering an area stretching from the northern European isles, west to the Iberian Peninsula, south to the Sahara Desert, and east to Jerusalem and onward, Christianity spread quickly from its 33 CE origins. Over the decades the early Christian church was aided in its proliferation by association with the Roman Empire thanks to the efforts of Constantine, as I wrote about in my first letter. Yet following its rise under the Roman Empire, the main center of Christianity shifted to the north. Celtic Christianity took over as the main theological and evangelistic center of the world. While Christianity most certainly remained present throughout the dying and former Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, it took on a new form, one might argue a dying form.

Today, if you look at the area which once comprised the Roman Empire in terms of a Christian religious or rather, Christian faith experience in the modern day, in some ways you see a disappointing view. Without doubt Italy and Spain and the places in Europe that were once absorbed by the Roman Empire remain thoroughly Catholic countries. But over the past few decades, more and more has been written about the secularization of Europe. The reality is that only 48 percent of Europeans, according to a recent Eurostat poll, believe in a higher power. In addition to the state of European areas which once were held as part of the Roman Empire, a look at the status of North Africa, the Middle East, Turkey, and the Balkan region, all key centers of Christian Rome in the third and fourth centuries, is again surprising. Nowhere in these places is Christianity any longer a prevailing force.

Following the period of Late Antiquity, or rather the heyday of Christianity’'s conversing throughout the Roman world, the center of Christianity shifted to what was the outskirts of Europe. These outskirts of Europe, the Celtic northern territories soon became the center of the Christian world. Celtic Christianity, largely through the Reformation, came to be pitted against Roman Catholic Christianity. While Roman Catholic Christianity had spread through an institutional framework, that being the Roman Empire, this new Celtic Christianity, in many cases devoid of large structural oversight, became very missions focused.

A look at the modern world with regards to Christian missions reveals the clear divide between this Celtic Christianity and Roman Catholic Christianity. This divide is different than the Protestant-Catholic divide, culturally and in some ways, politically. The divide between Celtic and Roman Christianity has to do with a style of life and a style of administrative handling of faith. Celtic Christianity became characterized by two prevailing trends: monasticism and evangelism. From the Celtic regions of Europe sprung forth missionaries and monks alike. Such is seen in the legacy of the Celtic churches which now are prevalent in church congregations throughout North America, China, and parts of Africa today. These congregations often lack the central organizational structure which still exists in the Roman Catholic Church, yet are very outward in their scope in terms of growth.

Differently, the legacy of the Roman Catholic church, seen strongest in places such as Latin America, is characterized by a continuation of rigid church structure and spread of the church through the planting of priests, rather than individualized evangelism. Through this model the fervor for the church seen in some cases from Celtic origins, is not present. And as seen with recent events and perpetuation of violence and societal distress in Latin America, the church as an institution for defining life may be fading away into a cultural backdrop, as it did in the case areas of the Roman Empire.

Unquestionably, and readily apparent through the scattered and varied nature of this letter, the study of Christian church history takes on a dynamic, ever changing character. This institution of Christian religion has had such sway on human beliefs, culture, and events and it has been a privilege to study it for the past four months.