The Dividing of Christendom

Christopher Dawson, the renowned historian of culture, offered an overarching narrative in two volumes of the rise and fall of Christian unity within Western Civilization in lectures he delivered at Harvard University between 1958 and 1962. Volume 1, The Formation of Christendom, laid out Dawson’s anthropological approach to culture in general and to the formation of Christian culture in particular. Volume 2, The Dividing of Christendom, examines the forces that led to the dissolution of European unity and the rise of a new secular vision of humanity with its hopes set on material progress.

Dawson begins the tale of dissolution in the Middle Ages, examining its spiritual, intellectual, and social causes. A Church in desperate need of reform, divided in its allegiance during the Great Western Schism, could not muster the collective will to overcome laxity and corruption. Nominalism and voluntarism unraveled the great intellectual synthesis of scholasticism. Political and economic forces, burdened by feudal restraints, needed only a catalyst to overturn the old order.

The Dividing of Christendom highlights the social and cultural forces that shaped the Age of Reformations and its aftermath. While not neglecting the importance of theological claims, Dawson explains how political ambition and consolidation of power played a role just as significant. Furthermore, the distinct theological vision of the different reformations of the sixteenth century created a new culture, focused much more on the individual and an emphasis on industry. The mystical extravagance of the Baroque period, which characterized the Catholic renewal of southern Europe and spread throughout the world, eventually gave way to the more utilitarian values of the ascendant European north.

Religious wars resulted in a secularism that prioritized science and economics in the shaping of modern culture. The Enlightenment, in particular, initiated a campaign against throne and altar that paved the way for political revolutions. Successful movements of religious revival occurred simultaneously, as Dawson traces their influence on the American colonies, particularly Puritanism and Methodism. Nevertheless, those bent on material progress as a kind of new religion undermined the spiritual foundations of Christian culture so completely that we must seek to rediscover a new source of internal vigor and unity to overcome our cultural crisis.

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