Christianity is not an ideology.  It is a universal teaching, above all forms of partisanship.  This can be seen in the New Testament, which describes the disputes of the apostles who had conflicting ideas in matters of faith and church.  Already in the 6th century, the Armenian Apostolic Church already adopted the policy of obedience to the Sasanian Empire and opposed the liberation struggle.  Then, in the 8th century, to the Arab Caliphate, and then to the other conquerors, to Russian Tsarism.

But in the 19th century, a new ordeal awaited the church, the one that was called ideology.  Ideology – the term ideology was coined by the French revolutionary and Napoleon’s contemporary Destutt de Tracy.  Destutt de Tracy was a representative of the philosophy of Enlightenment rationalism, whose theory of ideology was in fact a secular theology.  The ideology thus complements and replaces the religious worldview and has its servants-priests – the intelligentsia.

Ideology once again became the subject of discussion in Karl Marx’s book “German Ideology” (https://www.marxists.org/russkij/marx/1845/german_ideology/) (1846), in which both ideology and religion are declared forms of “false consciousness.”  But the influence of ideologies was greatest in the 20th century, especially in totalitarian regimes.  Stalinism, Nazism, Fascism, and the Armenian ethno-religion were not just ideologies, but “political religions” as described by Eric Voegelin (1939) (first edition: Eric Voegelin (1939) Die politischen Religionen.  Raymond Aron calls the same event “secular religions.”

According to Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, ideology is “a call.”  If it is the call of the class, it is a communist ideology; if it is the call of the race, it is racist; if it is the call of the tillers, then of the land, etc., but if it is the “call” of God, then it is faith.

Back in 1960 Daniel Bell stated that there are no longer any ideologies in the West.  To be more precise, then, of course, ideologies in the West did not disappear, but were transformed.  They simply moved from the realm of political philosophy to sociology, from a political “fact” to a social fact. (The nature of ideology in the modern world, for example, can be learned from the works of Slavoj Žižek:  On the Atheism of Religion -Defenders of the religion:  Livejournal.com/723.html?thread=3539).  This was due to the intensification of the secularization of the West after World War II.  Both religion and ideology require faith, and secularism undermines that foundation.

Thus, it was not only religion that influenced ideology with its theology, but also the ideology of religion.  In fact, in the Orthodox, Catholic or Armenian Apostolic Churches, ideology is more important than theology.

The German political philosopher Carl Schmidt, in his “Political Theology” (1922, second edition, 1933), which is based on the ideology of the idea of ​​human nature, considers that human nature is sinful, and in order to suppress the destructive instincts of man, one needs authority and strong power.  Liberals consider human nature either good or at least neutral; they believe that evil comes from the abuse of authority or power.

If we apply this approach to theology, we will see that in the early Middle Ages, in disputes between monogamists were conservative because they subordinated human nature to Christ, and dualists emphasized human nature.  For example, at that time, Theodoros Mopsestuatsi (350 – 428), cursed by the Armenian Apostolic Church for his dualism, believed that man was capable of moral self-improvement without divine intervention.  But those Christian debates were not ideology yet.

They became ideologies during the reign of Justinian the Great, who began to use theological debate as a tool of power to strengthen the empire.  Almost at the same time, in 554 the Second Congregation of Dvin decided to oppose an extreme sect of monotheism, the aphthardocetism, which claimed that the sufferings of Christ seemed human.  Of course, this step was taken for political reasons, before that there were no aphthardocetists in Armenia.

Ideologies are differentiated into open and closed.  Closed ideologies are excluded, conservative, open ideologies are inclusive, they accept innovations.  The apostles debated whether Christianity should be confined to the Jewish community or preached to all peoples.  The second, the view of the apostle Paul, prevailed because Christianity was an open teaching, and the first Christians were newcomers who called themselves new people.  Note that the most conservative in those disputes was the Jerusalem community of St. Jacobs, and the Armenian Apostolic Church has considered the Church of Jerusalem exemplary since the 6th century.  This does not apply at all to the Armenian people, a significant part of which in the Middle Ages belonged to the Paulician sect, which considered itself the bearer and disseminator of the ideas of the Apostle Paul.

Another example.  At the beginning of the VI century a debate took place in the Armenian Church whether a woman who had sex before marriage should be considered immoral?  Most of the clergy thought that yes, it was prostitution, but Ghazar Parpetsi thought that if it was love, it was not prostitution.  S.  Malkhasyants and many other prominent Armenologists mentioned the existence of conservative-liberal parties in the Armenian Church.

The Church, according to Christian universalism, must embrace “conservatism” and “liberalism” and avoid making choices between them, which means falling into the trap of ideology.  The presence of the Church in the political space has always distorted its purpose and mission.  Darryl Hart writes:  “Where Christians have used their faith for political purposes, they have usually distorted Christianity.” ((Hart, Darryl (2006) A Secular Faith: Why Christianity Favors the Separation of Church and State, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee.)):

The anti-modern teachings of the Catholic Church can serve as a classic example.  The Catholic Church waged a long struggle against the ideas of the Enlightenment, which resembled a war.  Roman anti-modernism is an example of a classical conservative ideology opposed to the modernization of society, the principles of which were formulated at the First Vatican Conference.  Roman anti-modernism, through Gabriel Aivazovsky and the Mekhitarists, had a profound effect on the Armenian Apostolic Church as well.

The Roman Catholic Church reconciled with modernization at the Second Vatican Council, which was in the midst of an era in which the Church cooperated and supported various authoritarian regimes.

At the end of the 19th century, the Armenian Apostolic Church slowly freed itself from conservative ideology in order to fall into the bondage of nationalist ideology.  1920-1990  The Armenian Apostolic Church was subject to communist rule in the Soviet Union, and in the Diaspora it was divided between the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) and the Ramkavar-Azatakan Party.  And like the Communists, the ARF Dashnaktsutyun did not shy away from killing even the clergy for their party purposes.  Now, in the XXI century, the Republican Party oligarchs are sitting on the throat of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Armenia.

The ideology divides the church, pits traditionalist-progressive believers, conservatives-liberals, nationalists-cosmopolitans, feminists-anti-feminists, etc.  The Church in Armenia identifies itself with conservative ideologies; the liberal clergy is seen as a sect, treated in the same way as the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, but without lighting fires.  Conversely, if a conservative propagates ideas incompatible with Christianity or acts incompatible with Christianity, he is forgiven.

But the opposite is also true.  Some Protestant churches adopted liberal ideas, which found themselves in the same situation.

The Armenian Apostolic Church, like many churches, is in danger, but not because of secularization and modernization, but because of the temptations of politics and ideology.