In 312 Constantine had a vision and a dream. Overnight, Christianity became accepted and expected, condoned by the authorities and governmental powers. What had been an underground, cultish group who feared for and lost their lives regularly became suddenly elevated.
Up until this time, the Church had a history of living in small pockets, meeting together and sharing communion, keeping one another strong in fellowship and grace. They were pacifist, going to the lions, the cross, or the executioner for their beliefs, never protesting but laying down their lives for the truth that changed them. Constantine would change all this, and time has done very little to alter what he chose to do.
Looking at an article from NorthPark University in Chicago, I found the following statements on Christianity's first governmental champion:
His conversion helped Christianity in many ways. Followers were safe from persecution, and Christian leaders were given many gifts by the Emperor. Constantine's adherence to Christianity ensured exposure of all his subjects to the religion, and he had no small domain. He also made Sunday an official Roman holiday so that more people could attend church, and made churches tax-exempt. However, many of the same things that helped Christianity spread subtracted from its personal significance and promoted corruption and hypocrisy. Many people were attracted to the Church because of the money and favored positions available to them from Constantine rather than from piety. The growth of the Church and its new-found public aspect prompted the building of specialized places of worship where leaders were architecturally separated from the common attendees, which stood in sharp contrast to the earlier house churches which were small and informal.
Constantine believed that the Church and the State should be as close as possible. From 312-320 Constantine was tolerant of paganism, keeping pagan gods on coins and retaining his pagan high priest title "Pontifex Maximus" in order to maintain popularity with his subjects, possibly indicating that he never understood the theology of Christianity. From 320-330 he began to attack paganism through the government but in many cases persuaded people to follow the laws by combining pagan worship with Christianity. He made December 25th, the birthday of the pagan Unconquered Sun god, the official holiday it is now--the birthday of Jesus. It is likely that he also instituted celebrating Easter and Lent based on pagan holidays. From 330-337 Constantine stepped up his destruction of paganism, and during this time his mother, Helen, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and began excavations to recover artifacts in the city. This popularized the tradition of pilgrimages in Christianity.
He funded Christian leaders and the construction of churches, some of which he dedicated to his mother. Most Christian leaders greatly admired Constantine for the works he did for the church and Christian cause.
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Does this sound familiar to anyone? Constantine's dream ended up being little more than a nightmare, one that the Church is still unwilling to wake up from. As Keith Green put so succinctly, we're asleep in the light- having been exposed to the truth, but slumbering on in the stupor of pseudo-Christian Americanism, unwilling to crack our eyes even slightly. What does the life of the Biblical, authentic Disciple look like? We had better find it. Each should work out his salvation with fear and trembling- all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Not every one who cries Lord, Lord is going to walk into the kingdom. We must be conformed to the image of Christ, not patriotism, or evangelicalism, or flags sitting off to one side on the church platform, sneakily edging into the agenda.
"Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”
John 14:21
2 comments:
This is why I always root for the German barbarians at the beginning of Gladiator. I know they'll lose every time, but eventually (beyond the scope of the movie) they get to sack Rome.
I guess my question is, what needs sacking today?
Our tendency to unify church and state, even when our constitution forbids it. The manipulation of the church by one political party to retain power regardless of the fact that this political party has no inherent interest in the church itself, just the voting numbers behind it. Our lack of concern with the American agenda sprinkled throughout our services, when we would be highly offended if we attended a church in China with Chinese governmental agenda being pushed. Our individualist, customizeable, do-it-my-way attitudes. Yukon Denalis with fish/cross decals on the back. I could continue, but is it really necessary?
Sack at will, boys... sack at will. It's time to realize we need to count this Christianity thing as worth being fed to the lions over. And then go out and find a lion.
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