Church and Political Favor: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The largly unhappy intermingling between Church and State began in earnest under the Roman emperor Constantine.

Constantine

Constantine, like his father, worshiped the pagan sun god of the Sol Invictus (Invincible or Unconquered Sun) cult.  While  Constantine regarded the Unconquered Sun as his patron deity, there was already Christian influence in his household (he had a half-sister named Anastasia, which means “resurrection”).

Constantine attributed his most significant military victory to the intervention of the Christian God. In 312, with an inferior force, he attacked Italy and his rival Maxentius in Rome. Inexplicably forfeiting the advantage offered by Aurelian’s walls (6 m high, 3.5 m thick), Maxentius came out to meet Constantine and was defeated at the Milvian Bridge, an outcome so surprising that it was easy for many to accept that Constantine had indeed been the recipient of divine favor. The Roman Senate erected an arch in Constantine’s honor that still stands by the Coliseum, depicting the drowning of Maxentius’ troops and with the inscription describing Constantine’s victory ‘by the prompting of the deity’. The deity to whom they referred was the Unconquered Sun. But the Christians believed the one god whom they worshipped had given Constantine victory.

Before marching into battle, Constantine, by his own testimony, and that of Eusebius: "a most incredible sign appeared to [Constantine] from heaven" had a vision of a cross in the sky. On the night before the battle at the Milvian Bridge, he was commanded to mark his soldier’s shields and his standards with the monogram of Christ, using an overlay of the two first (Greek) letters from Christ’s name, chi and rho, as a talisman. So Constantine is the first to engage in battle and, in effect, claim that his army would prevail because “God is on our side.” This is a troubling line of reasoning given passages such as:

“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. (Matt. 26:52)

Nevertheless, it has continued to this day, and to present-day conflicts.

To the modern Christian, it is surprising that neither Constantine nor many others of his era thought there was any tension or mutual-exclusiveness between Christianity and the pagan worship of the Unconquered Sun. The transition from solar monotheism, the most popular form of paganism of Constantine’s time, to Christianity was not difficult. Consider the following (as enumerated by Chadwick, The Early Church, Penguin, 1967).

• In Old Testament prophecy, Christ was not only the “son” but also the "sun" of righteousness
  

  But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. (Mal. 4:2)

• Clement of Alexandria speaks of Christ driving his chariot across the sky like the sun god.
• The mosaic in a tomb, recently found at Rome, probably made early in the fourth century, depicts Christ as the sun god mounting the heavens with his chariot.
• Tertulian says that many pagans imagined the Christians worshiped the sun because they met on Sundays and prayed towards the east.
• Moreover in the fourth century, there began in the West the celebration of December 25, the birthday of the sun god at the winter solstice as the date for the nativity of Christ. 

Chadwick also writes:

How easy it was for Christianity and the solar religion to become entangled at the popular level is strikingly illustrated by a fifth century sermon of Pope Leo the Great rebuking his over-cautious flock for paying reverence to the sun on the steps of St. Peter’s before turning their back on it to worship inside the westward-facing basilica. Conversely under Julian (the Apostate), some found it easy to revert from Christianity to solar monotheism. The Bishop of Troy apostatized without fear for his integrity for even as a bishop he had secretly continued to pray to the sun. (Chadwick, The Early Church)

So pagan sun worshippers found it easy to become “nominal” Christians, and add pieces of Christianity to their cult.

F.F. Bruce writes (some paraphrasing):

Constantine went well beyond “tolerating” Christianity. He acknowledged his debt to the Christian God, and long before he committed himself to the Christian faith he showed in a variety of ways that Christians enjoyed his special favor. Christianity thus became fashionable, which was not really a good thing. It meant a considerable ingress of Christianized pagans into the church—pagans who had learned the rudiments of Christian doctrine and had been baptized, but who remained largely pagan in their thoughts and ways. The mob in great cities such as Rome, Antioch, and Alexandria became Christian in name, but in fact it remained an unruly mob. There was a great temptation for ambitious ecclesiastical statesmen to use the mob for their own ends.

Bruce also discusses the “good side” of the Christian ascendancy to the mainstream within the empire:

Christian humanitarianism began to have an effect on imperial legislation. The doctrine of man as the image of God let to the restriction of branding in an edict of 316; it must not be performed on the face. An attempt was made to discourage the practice of exposing (abandoning) unwanted children by making family allowances from the imperial treasury—and by the less Christian device of legalizing the sale of children by their parents. Laws were passed to safeguard the sanctity of marriage, and greater protection was extended to slaves.

Summary in Modern Terms

The Good. The church has been and can be an influence for good in the culture. Christian abolitionists are perhaps the best examples, as are the (it is sad to see) rapidly disappearing prohibitions on abortion.

The Bad. The prominence of cultural Christianity, which was and would again be unavoidable  if Christianity were to regain special political privilege, was not a good thing. While God alone decrees the numbers in the Invisible Church, culture controls the numbers in the Visible Church. The greater the disparity of these two populations, as in the days not long ago when well over 90% of Americans identified as Christian, the more PR nightmares for the church.  In ancient "Christian" Alexandria, it was a "Christian" mob that tore Hypatia into pieces. In more modern times, it was the "Christian" antebellum south that enslaved a people, supported in no small part by a "Christian" Baptist Convention. It was a "Christian" who orchestrated the bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

The Ugly. Here we encounter abominations that cannot be attributed to scare-quote "Christians." There are in-the-family  offenses enabled by that universal corrupter: power.

If you ask me the most ignored lesson of scripture, I would answer that it is Christ's High Priestly Prayer recorded in John, chapter the 17th. That prayer is, in large part, a plea for Christian unity. We ignore it.

On a small scale, we see local churches that profess unity, but only among those who  accept not just the gospel or a minimalist historic creed, but an entire systematic theology replete with doctrines that are esoteric, often reasonable, perhaps correct, but absolutely impossible to prove from scripture.¹

This kind of prescription "unity" can be a form of bullying and  is unlike anything found or commanded in the New Testament. On a petty scale, it leads to things like the repulsive (for what it implies) #reformeddowngrade hashtag on twitter where the "defenders of the faith" brand those who do not measure up.

On a medium scale you churches and para-church organizations, often in the name of "greater good" unity (but in reality to preserve power, prestige, and privilege)  covering up sexual abuse scandals and engaging in victim-blaming. Here is one example. Here is another.

On a larger scale, we find military conflicts (consider Northern Ireland of the not too distant past as a somewhat imperfect example) between combatants each of which was convinced that God was on their side. But to really see it on a large scale you need a Christian Theocracy. That is where, if history is any guide,  the Christians in power (be they Catholic, Anglican, or Reformed) cannot resist the temptation to "unify" the church through the auxiliary power of the magistrate. Long for a Christian Nation? You had better hope that those in power agree with not nuts and bolts of your views.

Final Word

The more we care about political power, the more we care about being on the front lines of the culture wars, the more we demand an oath of agreement in extra-gospel doctrine, the less we look like the church Jesus prayed for.

---

¹ Some, to cheers, will simply redefine (and greatly expand) the gospel to include their systematic theology, and then make a sky-is-falling claim against anyone who disagrees. A neat solution.