The Fall of Rome - Christianity to Blame?
Abstract: Did the spread of Christianity lead to the downfall of Rome, and the corresponding "Dark Ages" that lasted for the next thousand years? Bruce and I exchange a few thoughts on this frequently heard claim. Throughout the dialogue, I flesh out two reasons to conclude that the Christian religion, whatever else it might have given to Rome, did not lead to its destruction: (1) the Byzantine empire was predominately Christian, and yet endured for a thousand years, and (2) Christianity is a missionary religion. My friend Louis and I engage in a few final remarks.
Written: July 2015.
Donahue - Let's discuss this. If you had to play Devil's advocate and make a case that Christianity led to the downfall of Rome, what would you say?
Donahue - What values are you thinking of here?
Bruce - In roman culture "traditional values" were a big deal. Basically I think it's the ideals of patriotism/courage/devotion to the state. That sorta thing
Bruce - I don't think it's really possible to say that Christianity itself directly lead to the decline of the empire. I'm just saying one could argue (not that I agree) that the shift to Christianity is indicative of the "loss" of old roman values. The actual content of the religion is irrelevant.
Bruce - What I'm trying to say is I doubt it was even a contributing factor. If you're going with the argument that the decline of Rome was caused by a loss of old morals, the new religion really doesn't matter. The Romans could've all become Buddhists and had the same result. The point is that Rome had been motivated by a very specific set of beliefs, and those eventually disappeared. Anyway I don't think that's a very good argument myself personally.
Bruce - I don't think you'll find many people arguing that Christianity is the actual direct reason that the empire fell. Anyone who argues that is trying to hard to paint religion in a bad light.
Donahue - That's exactly right. In popular secular/atheist circles, a common argument is that Christianity led to a 1,000 year period of intellectual stagnation by contributing to the fall of Rome. This argument fails, of course, because (1) Christianity didn't cause the fall of Rome, and (2) there were intellectual advancements during the so called "Middle Ages".
Bruce - I would shy away from saying that's common in "popular secular/athiest circles." I think that's similar to saying that young earth creationism is "popular is Christian scholarly circles"
Donahue - My mistake for not clarifying. I'm not talking about academic atheists at all; they know better. I mean internet atheists (the younger generation that lacks any scholarly training) and people like scientist Victor Stenger, who actually argued just the above in a popular blog post. It's the people who patrol the YouTube comments section, and write blogs about their thoughts on religion. In essence, the misinformed popular level atheists. And of course, there exists the misinformed popular level Christians; atheists have no monopoly.
Donahue - The idea is that the spread of Christianity, with its focus on Heaven and the afterlife, caused Romans to lose focus on earthly affairs (like running an empire). In this way, Christianity led to the fall of Rome. However, it seems to me that the missionary aspect of the Christian faith serves to ground intense interest in every day, earthly affairs. We send missionaries to native peoples, raise money for the government and for our churches, and even invent written scripts (e.g., Cyrillic was invented by a missionary so that Russians could read the Bible) just for the purpose of spreading the gospel. So Christians by their very nature are intently focused on the earthy, here and now. In short, Christian faith did not undermine the Roman Empire; at least, not in this alleged way.
Louis - I can see that, I get what you meant by the afterlife part now. When I read it, I fully didn't understand. The only part I don't understand is: you said "Christian faith didn't undermine the Roman Empire; at least, not in this alleged way" what's the alleged way?
Donahue - The allegation is this: Christianity led Romans to focus on Heaven instead of on Earth. That is to say, the Christian faith led Romans to think more about the afterlife than the here and now. An empire full of such people will quickly crumble. My point, however, was that Christianity, with its intense missionary focus, actually serves to strengthen interest in the earthly, day-to-day world. In short, if Christianity led to the fall of Rome, it must have been in some other way.
Louis - Okay, I understand you now. I thought you were saying that the alleged case was that the loss of tradition wasn't the cause of the fall of Rome, but that the focus on Earth was their downfall. My mistake.
Donahue - Ah! No, that would be quite the opposite!
Written: July 2015.
Donahue - Let's discuss this. If you had to play Devil's advocate and make a case that Christianity led to the downfall of Rome, what would you say?
Bruce - I don't know if I could argue that Christianity itself led to to downfall of Rome, but I could say that the shift to this new, eastern religion was indicative of the loss of the traditional values and culture that helped Rome become so powerful in the first place
Donahue - What values are you thinking of here?
Bruce - In roman culture "traditional values" were a big deal. Basically I think it's the ideals of patriotism/courage/devotion to the state. That sorta thing
Donahue - I see. Might you say that Christianity caused Romans to focus more on the afterlife and less on the here and now? Other than that, it just isn't clear to me how Christian values undercut Roman ones.
Bruce - I don't think it's really possible to say that Christianity itself directly lead to the decline of the empire. I'm just saying one could argue (not that I agree) that the shift to Christianity is indicative of the "loss" of old roman values. The actual content of the religion is irrelevant.
Donahue - Right, but even from viewing Christianity as a mere contributing factor to the fall of Rome, I'm trying to understand exactly what the new religion contributed. It does seem plausible that focus on the afterlife decreased the everyday Roman's interest in the Empire, furthering its decline. Beyond that, however, I do not see any deleterious effects in the Christian ethic on the well-being of Rome. Do you?
Bruce - What I'm trying to say is I doubt it was even a contributing factor. If you're going with the argument that the decline of Rome was caused by a loss of old morals, the new religion really doesn't matter. The Romans could've all become Buddhists and had the same result. The point is that Rome had been motivated by a very specific set of beliefs, and those eventually disappeared. Anyway I don't think that's a very good argument myself personally.
Donahue - Ah. I think you make a good point here. Christianity per se wasn't the contributing factor; it was a decline in traditional values, a decline that could have been caused by Buddhism, Confucianism, or what have you. Nevertheless, Bruce, it was Christianity, not these other religions, that dominated Rome. So we still have to ask, did the spread of the Christian religion lead to a decline in traditional Roman values? If so, how? If not, then what did? When you think about it, the Byzantine Empire endured for a thousand years past the fall of Rome, and yet was Christian through and through. This makes me think that the spread of Christianity merely coincided with decline in Roman culture/values, but did not cause it.
Bruce - I don't think you'll find many people arguing that Christianity is the actual direct reason that the empire fell. Anyone who argues that is trying to hard to paint religion in a bad light.
Donahue - That's exactly right. In popular secular/atheist circles, a common argument is that Christianity led to a 1,000 year period of intellectual stagnation by contributing to the fall of Rome. This argument fails, of course, because (1) Christianity didn't cause the fall of Rome, and (2) there were intellectual advancements during the so called "Middle Ages".
Bruce - I would shy away from saying that's common in "popular secular/athiest circles." I think that's similar to saying that young earth creationism is "popular is Christian scholarly circles"
Donahue - My mistake for not clarifying. I'm not talking about academic atheists at all; they know better. I mean internet atheists (the younger generation that lacks any scholarly training) and people like scientist Victor Stenger, who actually argued just the above in a popular blog post. It's the people who patrol the YouTube comments section, and write blogs about their thoughts on religion. In essence, the misinformed popular level atheists. And of course, there exists the misinformed popular level Christians; atheists have no monopoly.
Bruce - Yeah I guess. Even then though, I think you'd find most atheists aren't that deluded. I think that sadly, the most radical people are usually the loudest. I would feel safe in saying most Christians probably don't believe the earth is 7000 years old, but you usually only hear from the ones who do. Usually the atheists who decided to go out of their way to whine about religion on YouTube comments or whatever are the small, vocal minority with a bone to pick.
Donahue - The fact is, any evidence we actually bring here will be purely anecdotal, based on our personal experience of the demographics of atheists/Christians. For a proper survey, we'd need to look at sociological studies, and this neither of us have done. But as a general point, Bruce, the mere fact that most people lack academic training in areas like philosophy and history automatically suggests that a great deal of misinformation is going to be spread at the popular level, particularly on the Internet. Surely you wouldn't deny this? In any case, you're taking issue with a single phrase I used. We must not miss the forest for the trees, and my point was only to give a response to this "Christianity-Roman decline" association.
Louis - First, I will start off by saying that this is a great topic. And then, I will say that I agree with Bruce. It wasn't Christianity that brought the fall of Rome, but the loss of traditional values. Because if you recall, the Romans were big on tradition, and without that tradition they were not able to keep going as strongly as they were is the past. Furthermore, the loss of tradition wasn't the only factor in the fall of Rome - even if a huge factor. To comment on what you said about the afterlife: that was a huge focus of the Romans, but it wasn't the main focus; some would go as far to say that it was only a small topic of the Roman ideals. The main one, I think, was conquest and prosperity. And when the confusion of losing their tradition happened, it was hard for the Romans to focus on their main concerns.
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Louis - First, I will start off by saying that this is a great topic. And then, I will say that I agree with Bruce. It wasn't Christianity that brought the fall of Rome, but the loss of traditional values. Because if you recall, the Romans were big on tradition, and without that tradition they were not able to keep going as strongly as they were is the past. Furthermore, the loss of tradition wasn't the only factor in the fall of Rome - even if a huge factor. To comment on what you said about the afterlife: that was a huge focus of the Romans, but it wasn't the main focus; some would go as far to say that it was only a small topic of the Roman ideals. The main one, I think, was conquest and prosperity. And when the confusion of losing their tradition happened, it was hard for the Romans to focus on their main concerns.
Donahue - The idea is that the spread of Christianity, with its focus on Heaven and the afterlife, caused Romans to lose focus on earthly affairs (like running an empire). In this way, Christianity led to the fall of Rome. However, it seems to me that the missionary aspect of the Christian faith serves to ground intense interest in every day, earthly affairs. We send missionaries to native peoples, raise money for the government and for our churches, and even invent written scripts (e.g., Cyrillic was invented by a missionary so that Russians could read the Bible) just for the purpose of spreading the gospel. So Christians by their very nature are intently focused on the earthy, here and now. In short, Christian faith did not undermine the Roman Empire; at least, not in this alleged way.
Louis - I can see that, I get what you meant by the afterlife part now. When I read it, I fully didn't understand. The only part I don't understand is: you said "Christian faith didn't undermine the Roman Empire; at least, not in this alleged way" what's the alleged way?
Donahue - The allegation is this: Christianity led Romans to focus on Heaven instead of on Earth. That is to say, the Christian faith led Romans to think more about the afterlife than the here and now. An empire full of such people will quickly crumble. My point, however, was that Christianity, with its intense missionary focus, actually serves to strengthen interest in the earthly, day-to-day world. In short, if Christianity led to the fall of Rome, it must have been in some other way.
Louis - Okay, I understand you now. I thought you were saying that the alleged case was that the loss of tradition wasn't the cause of the fall of Rome, but that the focus on Earth was their downfall. My mistake.
Donahue - Ah! No, that would be quite the opposite!
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