Kurt,

In light of some of your recent posts that cast what you call “Imperial Christianity” or “Christendom” in a negative light, I thought it was necessary to offer a different view on Civic Christianity in Christian history. To that end, I would like to unpack a particular passage in your article, “Why Singing Our God is Greater Might Make Our God Seem Less Great. (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/2012/06/18/our-god/).

In this passage you assert that you “welcome the transition that is happening. Christendom (as described above) resulted from the marriage of Empire to faith. In a world where Christians are placed back into the margins, it will force us to move into a more authentically Christ-centered mode of humility, enemy-love, and justice.” You seem to set up a proposition where Christendom (i.e. state churches, the Holy Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, Holy Russia, etc…) equates bad, inauthentic, oppressive, overly religious Christianity while marginalized Christianity equates, good, authentic, socially responsible and progressive Christianity. Forgive me if I am reading too much into one article, but I believe your proposition is wrong. In fact, it smacks of what I call “golden-ageism; a Christian quasi-heresy that states that there was a golden age of Christianity before the movement was corrupted by the empire or outside, pagan influences. My suspicions of this way of thinking are further aroused a couple of paragraphs down when you posit that “we must avoid any such perspective and find our voice from the margins, just as the earliest Christians did when they refused to bow down to the emperor or to carry the sword of nationalism.” While there can be no doubt that during the years of Christian marginalization and persecution under the pagan Romans many believers earned their crowns of glory through martyrdom. However, this does not mean that the message of the Gospel was not authentically lived or spread under Imperial Christianity. In fact, the legalization of the Faith was one of the greatest boons to believers and the world.

During Christianity’s marginalized period, serious heresies began to foment and threaten to tear the Church and Empire apart. One of Constantine’s earliest mandates was to call the First Ecumenical Council of Nicea so that the Church’s bishops could stamp out heresies (notably, Arianism) and begin to set down laws for doctrine, worship an order. For the first time, the Church was able to travel and come together openly and meet as a catholic body to defend the Faith and to strengthen the faithful. Rome had a wonderful infrastructure (thank goodness for their roads for use by missionaries) and it began to let the Christians use it to propagate the Gospel. This was the Empire’s first gift to Christianity.

God’s use of the Roman Empire did not stop there, however. Now, since the Church was a legal and patronized entity, art and architecture could flourish. Constantine and subsequent emperors made donations of land and civic buildings in which to participate in the Holy Liturgy. These were marvelous, beautiful churches that reclaimed man’s labor and the earth’s material to glorify God. It was a place that all could gather, no matter what their social standing and be apart of the communal worship of God. (As a side note, one of the greatest gifts we can give to God and the poor is religious beauty. In the first place, beauty is an offering back to God of the divine He put in us. In the second place, the poor, who rarely enjoy beauty, may beseech God for mercy in an environment that can’t help but raise even the humblest soul to the heights of heaven). Furthermore, Constantine commissioned 50 Bibles to be scribed and sent to the various churches at an enormous cost to the Empire. In this way the public (mostly illiterate) could hear the sacred scriptures chanted in the churches.

Perhaps the most shocking change to the pagan culture was the growth of Christian hospitality. Church and government officials built hospitals and orphanages to take care of the “least of these.” It is often forgot that right next to the Great Church of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople there was a hospital.

All of these blessings took place under early Christendom. Of course, the Roman Empire isn’t the only example of the efficacy of the marriage of Christianity and empire; it isn’t even the best. I submit to you Holy Mother Russia.

If you have never read about the conversion of the Russian people under St. Prince Vladimir I highly recommend you do. Prince Vladimir was an inveterate pagan who finally united the Russian people in the late 10th century. Aside from being a savvy politician and ferocious warrior, he was an absolute horror of a human being. Before his conversion, his reign was marked by constant warfare, fratricide, polygamy and rape. His first wife he raped in front of her parents (then proceeded to murder them) and his second wife was a ravaged Christian nun. Get the picture? By God’s grace, this pagan among pagans began a personal and empire wide religious inquiry (he was, at that time, a very superstitious polytheist). His quest took him to Byzantium to ask for Baptism and the princess’ hand in marriage. This was no mere political alliance; it was the culminating act of a heart that yearned for God. Vladimir’s conversion rocked the Russians.

Before he arrived back in Kiev, Prince Vladimir sent heralds ahead of him to say to his people, “I am coming with great power. I am coming with a power far greater than that in which we used to trust in axes and swords, because I come in the power of Christ.” And that power was certainly made manifest. On his return, his nation was Baptized and his style of governance changed. Capital punishment was outlawed for most crimes, wars of aggression were stopped, and hospitals and charitable houses were built along with thousands of churches and monasteries. He also made sure his people had schools so they could learn to read and write. St. Vladimir went to his grave extolling the virtues of piety and charity and ensured that the Russians would have a faith to sustain them through years of oppression, poverty and persecution under the Communists. One need only look to St. Vladimir and the Russian people to find true examples of enemy-love, humility and charity in an imperial context.

Furthermore, Russia (over the last 100 years) gives us a good example of Christianity shoved to the far margins of society and government. After one reads Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn or any of the accounts of persecuted Russian Christians, one could hardly conclude that they were thrilled about marginalization. We just assume that the Church will come out stronger after being persecuted, but this has not always been the case. Sure, many saints were made under the Communists, but it has taken years to build back the Christian culture in Russia and Eastern Europe. The truth is that most Christians (myself included) do not have the faith for marginalization or persecution. In fact, during our Liturgy, Orthodox Christians pray for a peaceful death and a good defense before the judgment seat of Christ. In reality, this prayer is a plea for a death free from persecution; a death where our faith is not tested, because we know we are weak. It is very prideful to ask for marginalization. We might not be able, as individuals or as a community, to bear such a thing.

I’d like you to consider one final point; when Christianity is pushed to the margins something else takes its place. Nature abhors a vacuum and when the dominant political or cultural narrative is not a Judeo-Christian narrative, things have rarely gone well. In fact, when Christianity has been thrust into the center of culture and politics it usually is replacing something loathsome. In one of your recent “retweets”, you seem to admire the courage it took to be a pagan after Constantine. These are the same pagans who occasionally practiced human sacrifice, regarded revenge and selfishness as a virtue (read The Iliad) and treated sex as an act done with anything. In fact, before Christianity, women were treated like breeding cattle. Early Christianity saw so many women converts because it offered them a chance to be treated with dignity, as sharing an equal humanity. Pagans just saw them as warm bodies. This was the “culture” that was stamped out under Christian emperors and dominant Christian culture. Conversely, when Christianity is pushed to the margins, the rest of the nation/empire/community is hurt. One need only look at the Communist take-over of Russia, the 500 years of Islamic oppression in the Middle East or, most recently the rise of secularism in Europe. I was surprised to see you hold up England as an example of Christian marginalization and then welcome its rise in the USA. Have you seen England? Whole neighborhoods are under repressive, anti-Christian, anti-progressive, anti-women Sharia law. Churches stand empty and church attendance is minimal. What is more, the country is broke and students protest that they must pay more for tuition; demanding handouts is not a Christ-like trait. No, if that is what marginalized Christianity looks like then I will pray against it.

I don’t hope to change your opinions on any of these matters, but I do want you to take a broader look at Christian culture and “empire.” It built Europe, gave the disenfranchised a voice in society, raised women’s social standing and continues to be a common bond in the West. Christianity can thrive in the catacombs or in the capitol. However, the world is better off when Christianity occupies a place of prominence.

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