Here is hoping you all had a safe and peaceful thanksgiving. My commitment to nonviolence was threatened only when tempted to cold-cock an LSU fan. But that’s a different story.
I have ceased numbering my nonviolent entries. The further along we go I fear the rising number of posts on this subject might discourage new readers.
The early church was wholeheartedly committed to nonviolence. Their understanding of the life, example and teachings of Jesus led them live peaceable lives and to eschew the taking up of the sword. For those of us who have grown up in a society and culture where war is hardwired into our collective psyche, that is hard for us to comprehend.
Yet, that is the example of the early church: the way of the cross rather than the sword.
That changed when Christianity began the shift from an underground movement to the Church of the Empire in 313. The Edict of Milan made Christianity a legal and recognized religion in Roman culture.
There are far greater recounts of Constantine’s impact on Christianity (or better, Christendom) than I can provide in this space. However, allow me to make a few observations about this shift and its implications:
1. The blame does not lie singly upon Constantine. Yes, he had a highly perverted view of the cross. He used the message of Jesus for his own blood-thirsty needs. However, the church had suffered these types before. False teachers and manipulators of the gospel are woven through the Pauline epistles. The difference? Power. Both for an emperor seeking to solidify his reign and expand his reach. And power for a church that had long been oppressed and marginalized.
2. Christianity, to Constantine, was tactical. There is no indication, outside of a death-bed conversion, that Constantine viewed the way of Christ as being anything other than a means to an end. Persecuting Christians was a failed policy that needed to be revised and amended. The church was still thriving. A way to solidify any power base is to appeal to the burgeoning groups. His personal life and his bloodthirsty methods belie any Christian commitment.
3. Constantine bought the church. By paying the priests Constantine assured that allegiance between the Kingdom and the nation-state would be put to the greatest test. A test that the church, ultimately, would fail again and again. We still fail this often, today.
4. Constantine made military service compulsory for the priests. Until this time, Christians had largely refused military service. It would be just a few years later that only Christians could serve in the Roman military. Thus begins the melding of Christian duty and military service.
Howard Goeringer made a fascinating parallel between the life of Constantine and the great missionary, Paul:
–After his vision, Constantine continued killing, even his own family. After his vision, Paul laid down the sword.
–To Constantine, the cross was the way to victory in battle. To Paul, the cross was the way to reconciliation with enemies.
–Constantine spent his life wielding power. Paul spent his life proclaiming Christ’s power.
–Constantine founded a city named after himself. Paul founded churches in honor of Christ.
–Paul was baptized immediately signifying his conversion. Constantine waited until his dying day.
–Constantine used the church for his own evil purposes. Paul served the church.
This underscores how Christendom was totally unrecognizable in the face of what the church was called to be: nonviolent, conciliatory, lovers of enemies.
But the way of the nation-state is selfish, it seeks its own gains and interests. That is antithetical to the way of the cross.
Goeringer states:
To be violently coercive and lovingly Christ-like at the same time is impossible. The power Constantine represents corrupts. It does not cleanse. The nature of coercive power that forces persons to yield to another’s will is evil, not only in dictatorships, but in every form of human government, including democratic republics whose legal, judicial, legislative, and military systems, are also based on coercive and dominative power inherent in every nation-state. When the state speaks, Jesus is silenced. The name “Jesus” is never mentioned when matters of state are discussed. The state’s “God in general” is popular, but “Jesus in particular”, never. The God in which the state trusts is a catch-all God who is used to support the political rhetoric of the moment. The fatal flaw in the Constantinian compromise is the illusion that the nature of God revealed in Jesus is compatible with the nature of the state that they they coalesce and become one in mission to the glory of God. They cannot. As human history shows, they do not.
Constantine thought that he could use the power of Christianity to suit his own purposes. What he failed to realize is that the power of Christianity is never through manipulation, coercion, violence or force. The power of Christianity is never contained through a nation-state. The power of Christianity is not political in nature.
Instead the power of Christianity is found in the basin and the towel, the silent prayer of an anguished saint, the loving embrace of a fallen traveler, the compassionate reconciliation of aliens and strangers. The power of Christianity is not in a worldly structure but in a Kingdom. A Kingdom not made with flesh and blood. A Kingdom not made with swords, but with a cross.
The way of peace.
