I was reading some more of The Tangible Kingdom the other night and I came across an interesting viewpoint. The author suggested that we are overcoming a difficulty we've been struggling with for 1700 years! The culprit: Constantine! (I always knew that guy was no good!) If our goal is to become an incarnational community like we see described in Acts, one of the biggest hurdles for us to overcome is the acceptance of our faith into the core of the culture. .....what?? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense until we see where the author is taking it.
The early church was not accepted by the culture. They were on the fringe. They were struggling for acceptance. They didn't have buildings or paid leaders. They were martyred and persecuted which caused them to scatter.
Then, 300 AD, along comes Constantine who converts to Christianity. All of a sudden, the state is sponsoring the construction of meeting places, there are paid leaders for the church (Constantine appointed the first pope), the Edict of Milan comes down and nobody is getting killed for their faith anymore (officially anyway).
Result: The desperation disappears. On one hand we've got a bunch of people living on the edge. They are trying to survive. Their faith is real for them because it could mean their lives - that is nothing you really want to fool around with. People could look at these Christians and see folk who really lived what they preached. They were looking after the widows, the orphans, and each other. This was a community where, once you belonged, you had a purpose. These guys were meeting regularly to discuss the apostles teaching, fellowshipping with each other, eating together and praying together. This was attractive.
On the other hand you have a bunch of people joining up to the cause because it is the official religion of the state. Well, the emperor is a Christian, I want to kiss his ass so, yeah, I'm a Christian too. Are the pews comfy? Then yeah, I could come sit there for a while on Sunday morning. No big deal. Easy to join, easy to not-join. This was apathy.
The other hand is how the world sees us today.
With the acceptance of Christianity it is far too easy to be a part time Christian. You don’t need to be making radical decisions. You don’t need to be relying on God daily to keep your family safe. You don’t need to support widows or orphans – the state has programs for that stuff – you don’t even need to think about them at all really - in fact, we recommend that you don't, it'll just bring you down. Now all of a sudden you've got a chasm between the paid staff in the church and the lay people. Back in the early church it was your neighbour the plumber that was the church leader, and he was only the leader because last week the officials caught the previous leader and knocked him off! Next week you might be the leader!
So, what do you think? Can we blame Constantine for all of this? Should we get a posse together and round him up, ask him a few questions, rough him up a bit maybe? Or should we applaud his efforts in giving Christianity legitimacy? After all, how could he possibly have foreseen that a by-product of legitimizing Christianity would be increased apathy? It is a good question and an interesting perspective…
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