A Loss for the Home Team… Or Was It?

Since January I’ve been working through a Church history course as part of my M. Div. program at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. Up until now in the course, it has been fascinating and exciting to watch Christianity spread from Jerusalem to places as far away as Spain in the far west and China in the far east. It’s kind of like watching the home team advance in big ways. This past week, however, the home team took a major hit.

Or did it?

The Surge

I’m referring to a series of events that started in A.D. 610 when a certain Arab in Mecca began having visions of an angel who would recite to him the words of a holy book from heaven. A mere 22 years later, in 632, Muhammad would die with almost all the Arabian peninsula in the firm grip of a new religion called Islam.

A rival team had just stepped onto the world stage, and what they were about to do was nothing short of jaw-dropping. By 636 the Arabs had defeated the both the Eastern Roman Empire and the Persians in Syria. In 638 they took Jerusalem. Egypt fell in 640. By 661 they had reached both Tripoli on the coast of Northern Africa and what we today call Afghanistan in the East.

In 711 Tariq Ibn Zayid led an Arab invasion across the Strait of Gibraltar and into Hispania, melting the Visigoths before them like ice cream in the Andalusian sun. By 719, all but the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula had fallen to Arab control. Back on the far eastern front, in 751 the Arabs faced off against the Chinese and dealt them a decisive blow in a place called Talas, a place that would one day be enclosed within the borders of a now former Soviet republic called Kyrgyzstan.

Less than 150 years after Muhammad received his first visit from an angel from heaven (see Galatians 1:8), the empire he founded stretched from Spain, across Northern Africa and the Middle East, through Central Asia, and all the way to China and India.

The home team might try to comfort itself by pointing out the victories at Constantinople in 718 (which kept the Arab armies from entering Europe from the east) and at Tours in 732 (which ensured they remained confined to the Iberian Peninsula and unable to enter Europe from the west). But facts are facts. This was a game changer for the history of the Church.

Or was it?

With a Little Perspective

Ever since the days of ol’ king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and his dream of a statue, which Daniel interpreted as representing four successive kingdoms of this earth that would one day all be smashed to pieces and replaced by a fifth kingdom that would last forever and be ruled by a Son of Man (see Daniel 2 and 7), the world has been hurtling toward the day when the kingdom of God would finally be established on the earth. It would be a kingdom alright, complete with King and citizens. But it turned out that it would be completely different than all other kingdoms that had come before it.

For starters its King would be none less than the eternal Son of God, and he would establish his rule by dying in the most humiliating way possible for the rebel citizens he had stepped down to save. This would not be a kingdom made by human hands. God himself would establish it, and he wouldn’t need the pathetic help of any mere mortal man. In his kingdom, the greatest would be those who were the humblest servants, the first would be last and the last first, and those who were poor in Spirit would be called blessed.

The King would demonstrate his unimaginable might not by demanding to be served but instead by serving and by giving his life as a ransom for others. His kingdom would not be made up of grand cities and majestic buildings. It would be hidden within the unseen places of human hearts, like leaven in a lump of dough and like a treasure buried in a field. It would grow slowly, be a mixed kingdom of both good wheat and bad weeds, and only at the end of the ages will it reach its fullest height and purity. This kingdom would not be marked by geopolitical boundaries but would include men and women and children redeemed from all nations, speaking all sorts of languages, from all locations on the planet, and from all points of human history.

The kingdom would most definitely be at war but not against flesh and blood. Instead it would assault the much greater unseen powers of the spirits of this world. The King of the kingdom would conquer, but he would do so only after putting himself at the end of a Roman spear and dying on a cross. Not a single one of his subjects would enter his kingdom by his coercion. His citizens would be selling all their possessions and giving up their very lives that they might have the unimaginable privilege of entering the kingdom of this King and kissing his ring. The King would not be on a power trip, selfishly accumulating fame and wealth for himself. This King would win it all that he might share it with coheirs and glorify his Father in heaven.

This is the upside down kingdom Jesus of Nazareth inaugurated some 2000 years ago in stark opposition to all other kingdoms that have come before or after.

Still Straining to See

Yet, as wise and sanctified as I imagine myself to be at times, I must admit that I default to thinking in terms of the earthly kingdoms of this world, meaning that when I see a mere manmade kingdom rearing its head and exerting dominance over other mere manmade kingdoms—especially manmade kingdoms that have for centuries characterized themselves as “Christian”—I do start to feel a little uneasy. As if the fall of Spain to the Muslims was any sort of actual setback to the advance of the kingdom of God. As if Tariq Ibn Ziyad’s entrance into Spain in A.D. 711 posed any real threat to the sovereignty of King Jesus. Were not the souls of the citizens of Jesus’ kingdom as securely held come A.D. 719, the year the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula was complete, as they had been back in 710, a year before the Berber attacks began? As if the Arab domination of Central Asia meant the kingdom of God had somehow lost ground. Do we really think a change in the flag that flies over a given nation (or the political party that happens to hold the majority number of seats in that nation) also indicates an actual change in the heart-loyalties of the souls living there?

Why do the risings and fallings of the insignificant kingdoms of this world get me all worked up? In the end it turns out that if I’m honest I really do like to see my team—the earthly kingdom with which I associate—on top politically, socially, and economically, and it’s especially painful to watch the fall of my team from their former heights of glory.

What does that say about my heart? It appears I value the very same things that the citizens of this world value much more than I realized. I value a visible kingdom made by human hands. I’ve bought the very same lie that Roman Emperor Justinian had bought when he began to “[view] his empire as a Christian society and his role as the ruling of a Christian society” and saw his reconquering the lands of the western empire then under the control of various Germanic tribes as “a religious act” (Logan 30). No, Emperor Justinian. Your earthly kingdom is other than the kingdom of God. Yet I, just like him, often lose sight of the true nature of the heavenly kingdom, so like him my heart sinks when the worldly kingdom that just so happens to be flying my team colors and wearing my team jersey takes a hit. Truly my view is much too small and shortsighted and earthly when all I think about are elections, or in Justinian’s case, the reconquering of Italy.

My spiritual eyes remain far short of 20/20 vision. Oh for clearer sight! Oh for a heart more in love with the unseen kingdom of God that securely rests beneath the rule of the risen King than with any insignificant kingdom of this world! Oh for more confidence that no rise or fall of any inconsequential and irrelevant kingdom of this world like the Roman empire or the Arab empire or modern-day Europe or communist China or the United States of America will ever subvert the eternal kingdom of our God and of the Lamb! When all these petty kingdoms fall—and fall they will; God through Daniel promised—may my heart rest secure and unafraid because the kingdom of God will endure forever.

In other words, may I be truly obedient to these words: “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28–29).

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Logan, F. Donald. A History of the Church in the Middle Ages, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.dtl.idm.oclc.org/lib/dtl/detail.action?docID=987845.