Constantine I, also known as Constantine the Great, served as the Emperor of Rome from AD 306 to AD 337. In AD 313 Constantine proclaimed the Edict of Milan, which tolerated Christianity in the Roman Empire. As a result of this edict, Christians, who had been despised and persecuted by the Roman Empire, could no longer be persecuted and were now granted legal status. This opened the doorway for a partnership between Christianity and the Roman Empire that eventually led to the Edict of Thessalonica, issued in AD 380, which made Nicene Christianity (Christians who agreed with the Nicene Creed) the official religion of the Roman Empire. This led to 1,700 years of what I like to think of as a “dance” between Church and State that we today sometimes refer to as “Constantinianism”. Constantinianism did not end with the fall of the Roman Empire. It continued, in a different form, in the various state churches of Europe, in Catholic, Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox countries, both before and after the Protestant Reformation. Here are the rules of Constantinianism:
In other words, the Church and the State say to each other “We allow you to exist. We accept that your power is legitimate. We will not turn against you. We agree not criticize or challenge you. You agree not to criticize or challenge us. You help us to stay in power, and we will help you to stay in power”. It was a handshake between the Church and the State, for the mutual benefit of both. Constantinianism turned Christianity from a group of despised followers of Jesus into a respected world religion. In my opinion, this was not a good development for Christianity, for several reasons:
A form of Constantinianism came to the New World with the colonists. When the thirteen colonies were settled, the Puritans controlled Massachusetts Bay Colony and the Anglicans controlled Virginia. (The Baptists established Rhode Island and the Quakers established Pennsylvania, but those two groups were strongly in favor of the separation of church and state). When the thirteen colonies came together to form “a more perfect Union”, what would be the state religion? Would the new Union be controlled by the Puritans or the Anglicans? What about the smaller pockets of Dutch Reformed, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Mennonites, Moravians, Lutherans, Baptists and Quakers who populated the other colonies? The Founding Fathers wisely decided that there would be no state religion in the new Union. They attempted to form a Union that would be godly but Anti-constantinian. How would Jesus feel about Constantinianism? Is there a subtle form of Constantinianism at work in America today? If so, is that a good thing or a bad thing? I leave that for you to decide.
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