Malcolm Muggeridge And ‘The End Of Christendom’ (1)

The Nation’s columnist, Segun Ayobolu dissects the distinction between Christianity and Christendom in the perspective of celebrated British journalist, Malcom Muggeridge.

Ever since my first encounter over a decade and a half ago with his fascinating reflective narrative on the life of the founder of Christianity titled ‘Jesus: The Man Who Lives’, I have strived to obtain as much of the writings of the 20th century British journalist, author, film maker, television personality, satirist and engaging polemicist, Malcolm Muggeridge, that I can lay my hands on. ‘Jesus: The Man Who Lives’ is a magisterial portraiture of the most enduring and impactful personality to traverse the portals of human history and coming from a most unlikely quarter. One of the blogs on the back of the book simply states that ‘This man writes like an angel’! Muggeridge is a master of the written word. He is a keen and acute observer of society and human behavior and deploys his cutting wit to effortlessly devastating effect.

Born on 24 March, 1903, Malcolm Muggeridge died on 14 November, 1990 at the age of 87. At various times, he was a school teacher before venturing into journalism, an exchange correspondent on war and peace with Mahatma Ghandi in India, a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian in Moscow in the nascent years of the communist regime, worked as Editor of the Statesman in Calcutta, India, and served in the military in various capacities during the second World War. He wrote for the Evening Standard, was appointed Deputy Editor for The Daily Telegraph and was Editor of Punch magazine from 1953 to 1957. Later, in his career, he became better known as a broadcaster and documentary film maker. Married to Katherine Dobbs (1903-1994), Malcolm Muggeridge ‘s life appeared to be sharply divided into two phases. For a substantial part of his life as an active journalist, he was an agnostic who did not appear to place much stock on Christian moral values even though he and his wife maintained a life-long relationship.

In a rather unflattering perspective on his life during this period, an online entry reports that “Muggeridge was described as having predatory behavior towards women during his BBC years. He was described as a “compulsive groper”, reportedly being nicknamed “The Pouncer” and as “a man fully deserving of the acronym NSIT – not safe in taxis”. His niece confirmed these reports, while also reflecting on the suffering he inflicted on his family and saying that he changed his behavior when he converted to Christianity”. Mother Theresa’s influence through her work with the poor in India was a key factor that motivated his inclination to Christianity and his later rejection of the Anglican communion and conversion to the Catholic Church. He wrote a book that popularized the life and work of Mother Theresa titled ‘Something Beautiful for God’s. Another of his works, ‘A Third Testament’ focused on the lives of seven spiritual writers and philosophers who influenced his conversion to the Christian faith, namely Augustine of Hippo, William Blake, Blaise Paschal, Leo Tolstoy, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Soren Kietkegàard and Fyidor Dostoevsky”.

The focus of this review derives from the second phase of Muggeridge’s life when he had become an outspoken critic of the sexual licentiousness, rampant drug use and corrosive irreligiosity that had become a defining characteristic of modern, ever increasingly secularized society. During this period, he resigned from the position of Rector of Edinburgh University to which he had been elected in protest against the Students’ Representative Council’s support for the use of “pots and pills”. His new disposition to faith and spiritual values informed the choice of Muggeridge in 1978 to deliver the inaugural addresses of the ‘Pascal Lectures on Christianity and the University’ at the University of Waterloo. As the organizers of the annual lecture series wrote, “Blaise Paschal (1632-1662) is remembered today as the forerunner of Newton in the establishment of calculus, and as the author of the Christian meditations, Les Penses”.

Continuing, they explained that “Members of the University of Waterloo, wishing to commemorate the spirit of Pascal, have established this annual lecture series to generate discourse within the University community on some aspect of its own world, its theories, its research, its leadership role in our society, challenging the University to a search for truth through personal faith and intellectual inquiry which focus on Jesus Christ”. And justifying the choice of Muggeridge to kickstart the delivery of the lecture series, Professor John North submitted that “Malcolm Muggeridge is a fitting choice to inaugurate the Pascal Lectures on Christianity and the University. During the first half of the twentieth century, he moved easily among the renowned: politicians, scientists, academics, churchmen and socialites. As a commentator in the press, then radio and television, he became increasingly caustic about the figures and movements of our time. Disillusionment mounting at times to anger began to characterize his work. Then came a transformation as wholehearted as that of Pascal, and an allegiance to the same master. The focus of his work has changed from the superstars to the meek of the earth”.

Muggeridge then went on to deliver two lectures published under the common title of ‘The End of Christendom’ published in a slim volume of 62 pages along with his responses to questions from members of the audience on the two occasions. In the first lecture, he advances the thesis that Christendom has reached a dead -end and in the very throes of its demise. But he makes a distinction between the ‘Christendom’ that is the product and derivative of the powers, mores and values of the institutions of this world and the Christianity that springs from the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, which he sees as remaining a vibrant and virile entity which is alive and well. The latter is the focus of the second lecture titled ‘But Not of Christ ‘.

Clarifying the issues, Muggeridge noted that ‘Christendom’, however, is something quite different from Christianity, being the administrative or power structure, based on the Christian religion and constructed by men….The founder of Christianity was, of course, Christ. The founder of Christendom I suppose could be named as the Emperor Constantine. You might even say that Christ himself abolished Christendom by stating that his kingdom was not of this world – one of the most far reaching and important of all his statements. Christendom, on the other hand, began when Constantine, as an act of policy, decided to tolerate, indeed, positively favour, the Church, uniting it to the secular state by the closest ties. This was at the beginning of the fourth century”. Is the contemporary Pentecostal church especially in Nigeria and the United States not making the grave mistake of seeking to derive its power no more from the risen Christ but through association with the wielders of State power hence it’s current excessive preoccupatipn with partisan politics in both countries?
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