Jenn, Consider Dethroning Constantine Instead of Jesus

This piece by Alan Hirsch was posted on Saturday, February 10th, 2007 at 2:04 pm and is filed under the forgotten ways. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

We have been discussing the idea of cultural distance, systems stories/paradigms, and now we get to take a look at mega-paradigm of the Christendom idea of church (The Patrix??). So then, how do these ideas relate to Christendom and our situation now? Well, the transformation of the church from marginal movement to central institution started with the Edict of Milan (313AD) whereby Constantine, the newly crowned Emperor who had claimed a conversion to Christianity, declared Christianity to be the official state religion thereby eventually delegitimizing all others. But Constantine went beyond eventually proclaiming Christianity as the top-dog official religion: In order to bolster his political regime, he sought to bond church and state in a kind of sacral embrace, and so he brought all the Christian theologians together and demanded that they come up with a common theology that would unite the Christians in the Empire and so secure the political link between church and state. Not surprisingly he also instituted a centralized church organization based in Rome to ‘rule’ the churches and to unite all Christians everywhere under one institution with direct links to the State. And so, everything changed and what is thereafter called ‘Christendom’ was instituted.
Stuart Murray (Post-Christendom) comments on this bond…
“The foundation of the Christendom system was a close, though sometimes fraught, partnership between church and state, the two main pillars of society. Through the centuries, power struggles between popes and emperors resulted in one or other holding sway for a time. But the Christendom system assumed that the church was associated with a status quo that was understood as Christian and had vested interests in its maintenance. The church provided religious legitimation for state activities, and the state provided secular force to back up ecclesiastical decisions.”
What is clear is that a number of very significant shifts took place after Constantine’s deal with the church. In order to see our own experience of Christendom in a clearer light, it is necessary to outline the major shifts that took place after its imposition. According to Stuart Murray, the Christendom shift meant:
The adoption of Christianity as the official religion of a city, state or empire.
The movement of the church from the margins of society to its centre.
The creation and progressive development of a Christian culture or civilisation.
The assumption that all citizens (except for the Jews) were Christian by birth.
The development of a ‘sacral society’, the corpus Christianum, where there was no freedom of religion and where political power was regarded as divinely authenticated.
Infant baptism as the symbol of obligatory incorporation into this Christian society.
Sunday as an official day of rest and obligatory church attendance, with penalties for non-compliance.
The definition of ‘orthodoxy’ as the common belief shared by all, which was determined by powerful church leaders supported by the state.
The imposition of a supposedly Christian morality on the entire society (although normally Old Testament moral standards were applied).
A hierarchical ecclesiastical system, based on a diocesan and parish arrangement, which was analogous to the state hierarchy and was buttressed by state support.
The construction of massive and ornate church buildings and the formation of huge congregations.
A generic distinction between clergy and laity, and the relegation of the laity to a largely passive role.
The increased wealth of the church and the imposition of obligatory tithes to fund this system.
The defence of Christianity by legal sanctions to restrain heresy, immorality and schism.
The division of the globe into ‘Christendom’ or ‘heathendom’ and the waging of war in the name of Christ and the church.
The use of political and military force to impose the Christian faith.
The use of the Old Testament, rather than the New, to support and justify many of these changes.
This shift to Christendom was thoroughly paradigmatic and the implications were absolutely disastrous for the Jesus movement that was incrementally transforming the Roman world from the bottom up. Rodney Stark, widely considered to be the prevailing expert on the church in this period, summed it up in these dramatic terms.
Far too long, historians have accepted the claim that the conversion of the Emperor Constantine (ca.285-337) caused the triumph of Christianity. To the contrary, he destroyed its most attractive and dynamic aspects, turning a high-intensity, grassroots movement into an arrogant institution controlled by an elite who often managed to be both brutal and lax.
Clearly something fundamental had happened to the church in the Constantinian deal. And it is my belief that the imagination or conception of the church that was initiated in this shift still prevails to this day. Its not the same in every way, but the predominatly institutional idea of the church that was initiated here, still dominates our imaginations.
The missional issue arising from this is critical for us to grapple with and it goes something like this. That whilst Christendom as a religious-political-cultural force is finished (it was basically taken out in the Enlightenment period) it is still the overwhlemingly predominant idea of the church that we operate from. It appears that Constantine is still the emperor of our imaginations.


We should consider re-enthroning Jesus in the heart of our imaginations so we can rediscover the Forgotten Way, the Forgotten Truth, and the Forgotten Life.