Let's Get Medieval*

*Some restrictions apply.

“O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You understand my thought afar off” Psalm 139:1–2. The Lord has never abandoned His people—not in the wilderness of Sinai, not in the exile of Babylon, and not in the long centuries of what we now call the Middle Ages.

Modern Christians often approach this period with suspicion, thinking of darkness, superstition, crusades, or papal power struggles. We imagine a thousand lost years between the apostles and the Reformers. But God’s providence was at work then no less than now. Christ was building His kingdom and the Spirit was guiding His church. If we have the humility to look, we will find lessons for today’s church from those who lived, labored, and prayed in medieval Christendom. And some restrictions apply: you can appreciate and grow from the lessons of medieval Christendom without running into the arms of Rome.

Rethinking “Dark Ages”

When today's Christians hear “medieval,” we think of knights, castles, or Monty Python’s peasants covered in mud. Petrarch, the Renaissance poet, coined the term “Middle Ages” as a kind of insult, suggesting a dark valley between the glory of Rome and the light of his own age. But this presupposition of darkness obscures the reality.

Far from being a void, the medieval era was one of the most integrated systems of Christian thought and practice the world has ever seen.

It is GOAT Christendom, in many ways. Some restrictions apply. The Medieval world was not a time when God abandoned his church; it was a time when Christians—though imperfect—sought to order society under Christ’s reign. For today’s Christians, the lesson is clear: we must be careful not to let cultural caricatures shape our understanding of the church’s story. God’s providence does not skip centuries.

Authority and Organization

Two words sum up much of the medieval world: authority and organization.
Medieval man loved to obsessively sort, codify, and order. Nothing was left without a place. The cosmos itself was viewed as a great chain of being, ordered from God down to angels, kings, lords, and commoners—even to rocks and trees. Within the church, theology was footnoted, with ideas carefully linked–rightly or wrongly--to Aristotle, Augustine, or Aquinas. In society, the feudal system organized people into the categories of rulers, workers, and prayers. Even war had heraldry and chivalry; love had codes of courtship; literature had rules of rhetoric.

We, by contrast, live in an age allergic to authority and suspicious of order. Ours is a culture that prizes self-expression over submission, disruption over discipline. Yet the medieval instinct to seek order reminds us that our God is not a God of confusion but of peace (1 Corinthians 14:33). Families, churches, and societies function best when Christ’s authority is recognized and His order honored.

Medievals erred when they placed too much power in papal hands or bound consciences with human traditions. But they understood something we too easily forget: that life is lived rightly when it is lived under authority—ultimately, the authority of King Jesus.

Christendom & the Kingship of Christ

One of the great medieval experiments was Christendom—the attempt to order whole societies under the kingship of Christ. Popes and emperors often clashed, and corruption abounded, but the vision itself was clear: empires and nations should bend the knee to Christ, not just individuals. (Can you imagine whole kingdoms being baptized together?)

Modern evangelicals recoil at this. We are children of pluralism and secularism; the idea of a Christian nation sounds to us like a dangerous dream. Yet the Middle Ages remind us that Christ is not merely Lord of our private hearts but King of kings and Lord of lords. His reign extends over parliaments and presidents, over economies and schools.

We need not reproduce medieval Christendom with all its flaws, but we can recover its confidence in Christ’s cosmic kingship. In our own fractured and secularized moment, we need a renewed vision of Christ’s authority over every sphere of life.

A Bookish, Clerkly Age

C.S. Lewis described the Middle Ages as a “bookish and clerkly” culture. Far from being ignorant, it was saturated with manuscripts and authorities. Medieval scholars treasured the wisdom of the past, citing their auctors—those who gave them warrant to build and extend ideas; the authority behind their sources.

We live in a shallow, Google-search age. Our attention spans are short, our reading thin, our roots shallow. The medieval respect for authorities can remind us of the value of sitting under teachers, learning from the past, and building on received wisdom rather than imagining we can start fresh every generation.

Of course, Scripture alone is our final authority. Yet the humility to footnote, to cite, to acknowledge those who came before us—this is something medieval Christians did instinctively. It would serve us well in a time when each new voice online imagines itself infallible.

Ordered Worldview, Ordered Lives

The medieval worldview was geocentric, placing earth at the center of the cosmos. Scientifically, it was wrong (as far as I understand). But theologically, it reflected a truth: man is not an accident of cosmic dust; creation is ordered with purpose under God’s design. Dante wrote that the "cosmos was ordered with divine harmony, each part shining with the Creator’s glory."

Today, our children are told they are the products of chance, cosmic sludge without meaning. The medieval mind, though mistaken in astronomy, was truer in etiology, philosophy, and theology. It knew the universe was purposeful and Christ’s kingdom was central.

For modern Christians, the lesson is to recover this sense of God’s ordered world. We are not accidents. Every vocation, every creature, every corner of creation has its place under Christ’s reign.

Community over Individualism

Another feature of medieval thought was its communal focus. The glory was in the whole, not the part. Thomas Aquinas (some restrictions apply) wrote that the universe together manifests God’s goodness more perfectly than any single creature. Our modern world elevates the individual above all. My rights, my truth, my story—this is our creed. Medieval Christians, by contrast, found identity in their place within Christ’s kingdom, their village, their guild, their family.

The lesson is not to erase individuality but to recover community. We are members of one body (1 Corinthians 12:12). Our worth is not diminished by belonging to a larger whole; it is enriched by it. The medieval instinct to see the forest as more glorious than the tree can teach us to cherish the church as Christ’s body, not merely our private faith.

Lasting Institutions

One way we know the Middle Ages were not “dark” is that their institutions remain with us. Our universities, with their regalia, and traditions, and Latin diplomas, are medieval. Our hospitals, our legal structures, even aspects of our family life bear their imprint. The world we inhabit is haunted by the medieval world.

For the church, this is a reminder of the power of faithful institution-building. The medievals built monasteries, universities, and guilds that lasted centuries. We, by contrast, often build ministries that last as long as a personality’s career. How many modern ministries are named after the person who founded them--focusing on personality and individuality rather than longevity.

If we would learn from the medievals, we must invest not merely in events or movements but in institutions—churches, schools, missions—that can endure for generations, rooted in Christ’s Word and committed to His kingdom.

Great Stories and Great Books

Church historian Robert Godfrey said the medieval world was a time of “great persons and great stories and great books.” Indeed, it was an age of Augustine’s heirs, of Anselm’s prayers, of Aquinas’ Summa, of Bernard’s hymns, of Dante’s vision. It was also an age of reformers before the Reformation—men like Wycliffe and Hus, who pointed back to Scripture.

To ignore this thousand years is to rob ourselves of treasures. The Middle Ages offer us not only warnings—of papal corruption or misguided crusades—but also encouragements: men and women who loved Christ, sought His truth, and built institutions that shaped civilization.

Conclusion: Humility to Learn

C.S. Lewis, in one of his most wonderful books, The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, confessed that the old medieval model "delighted him." It was imaginative, orderly, meaningful. We may not share its geocentric cosmos, but we can share its instinct to see the universe as purposeful, Christ as King, and every human life as ordered under Him.

Today’s Christians should approach the Middle Ages with humility. There we will find errors to avoid, yes, but also virtues to recover: reverence for authority, love of order, vision for Christ’s kingdom, commitment to community, and dedication to building institutions that last.

Psalm 139 reminds us that God was present in those centuries no less than in ours. “Even the darkness shall not hide from You; the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You.” What we haughtily call “dark ages” were not dark to Him. He was searching, knowing, guiding, and holding.
Christ's kingdom is unshakable--and I don't mean Rome.