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But, the lives of the early Christians were radically different and provided a much greater contrast to the lives of those around them. They were counter-cultural in the extreme.
They did so by loving them, serving them, and sharing the love of Christ with them—even when they were persecuted, arrested, beaten, or put to death in the process. But at no time in those first three centuries did those same Christians ever look to gain power within the Roman government as a means to change the world, spread the Gospel, or lessen their own sufferings.
One compelling reason was undoubtedly because when Satan offered Jesus the opportunity to advance the Kingdom of God by wielding political power over the nations, he refused. Such a temptation was from the Evil one.
What we see when we look back at the Christian church in the first 300 years of history is a uniformity of conviction that the Church and the State were opposite realms, and that to be a citizen of Christ’s Kingdom was to be uninvolved in the affairs of the kingdom of this world.
“When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” – SINCLAIR LEWIS
The Christian church endured nearly three hundred years’ worth of such persecution and cruelty. We can hardly imagine it today. But for millions of our brothers and sisters in Christ, this was all they knew of the faith.
For many in the Christian Church, Constantine’s announcement was seen as an answer to their prayers. No longer would they have to live in fear. The Emperor was now on their side! What could be better than this?
These skeptical Christians, while in the minority, felt that the Empire had not become their friend as much as it had simply altered its strategy against them.
the Empire now sought to assimilate Christianity into a melting pot of religions and win them over with extravagant kindnesses.
Constantine saw the cross more as an emblem of military power than as a symbol of Christ’s suffering or death.
Yet, in spite of all of this, many Christians embraced Constantine and his self-pronounced Christian faith. Why? Partially because—whether legitimate or not—his conversion meant for them the end to hundreds of years of horrific persecution. But that wasn’t the only reason for their willingness to accept Constantine’s olive branch. Along with the ceasing of persecutions, Constantine offered the Christian church—and especially their leaders—a place of great honor and respectability within the Empire.
So, in exchange for a place of honor and acceptability within the public square, the Christian Church sold her birthright and bowed her knees to the State.
Even more insidious was Constantine’s redefining of the Christian faith from within.
But now, under Constantine, the definition of a Christian was about to be redefined as one who accepted the basic doctrines of the faith, regardless of how one might live their life day-to-day.
Once Constantine had won the admiration and trust of many Christian leaders in the Church, he used that influence to oversee the codification of Christian theology into a set of doctrines that would now define who was truly “Christian” and who was not. Armed with these documents, the Church very quickly began to persecute their own brothers and sisters who disagreed with these new official statements of faith.
Hierarchy wasn’t tolerated in the early church due to Christ’s strong admonition to his disciples against such behavior. Jesus points to both a secular and a religious hierarchy and says, “not so with you.”
Even worse, the Christian Church, once entangled with the State, would cease to carry the cross of Christ and begin to wield the sword of Rome. The oppressed would become the oppressor, not only of the weak and the marginalized, but even of other Christians.
When the Anabaptists stood up and defied the State Church—the Reformed State Church of Calvin and Luther— they were arrested, beaten, tortured, and put to death by other Christians because they wanted a Church that wasn’t aligned with the State.
If we truly understand that the Church went off the rails by aligning herself with Constantine, then it shouldn’t be too hard to see that anyone who maintains political entanglements is still emulating that same Constantinian form of Church.
Of course, politics were never designed to “change the world.” Politics are essentially about writing, passing, and enforcing laws. But we know from Scripture that even God’s Law wasn’t capable of transforming the hearts of men and women. Why do we still believe that we can do any better?
(Galatians. 2:21).
Even if you don’t agree with me on this point, let’s at least come together on this one thing: It’s not the goal that Jesus has in mind for His people.
In fact, it was Satan who offered Jesus that same opportunity during those 40 days in the desert, and Jesus refused to advance His Kingdom by political means.
This is what Martin Luther King Jr. and Wilberforce understood. They worked to move the hearts of people around them so that the hand of politics might also be moved to act justly.
Clearly, Wilberforce understood that the role of Christians in society was primarily one of transformative moral influence from within the culture, not as the wielder of political power or influence over the culture.
In contrast, Christians today are using political power and influence to protect themselves—not to protect an oppressed group of people who have no defense against tyranny and abuse. American Christians are seeking to impact their culture through the legislative power of the State, rather than by actually loving, living, and serving the way Jesus commanded.
Out of love for his fellow man, he boldly opposed evil and refused to hate his enemy. Is that what you call politics? I believe we would call that Justice.
According to the Pew Research Center, 76% of the 91 million Evangelicals in America are White. This means that Evangelical Christians represent a majority demographic which wields more privilege and political power than the marginalized in our culture.
Yet many Christians today seek to change the world through politics, as if Jesus had no other plan of his own. But Jesus does have a plan to change the world. It’s a good one. It involves our drawing near to Him on a daily basis and being transformed into people who are like Him.
It involves helping people change, one at a time, into the kinds of people who will love God and love others no matter what laws are on the books or what the penalties for breaking them happen to be.
They had already seen the negative effects of State religion upon the liberty and freedoms of men and women back in England and elsewhere around the world. They took great pains to ensure that no such religious controls were introduced into the nation they were founding.
Is patriotism as currently practiced a form of religion?
Oddly enough, our New Testament agrees with this idea. Paul the Apostle wrote that the Church should carry the cross and live out the example of Christ in Romans 12, and then in Romans 13 he described the function and purpose of the State. These two entities are never intertwined. They are purposely contrasted from one another.
And thus the church has the moral authority to call out the state when it does something wrong.
“It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it”(Billy Graham).4
As C.S. Lewis so expertly noted in The Screwtape Letters, the demonic strategy to manipulate us is exactly this:
“Let him begin by treating patriotism…as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely a part of the ‘cause,’ in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce…
The primary function of the Church is to facilitate spiritual transformation, one person at a time. The primary function of the State is to facilitate an ordered society.
The irony is, we in the Church have been bamboozled to accept the lie that the State has the greater power. We believe that Christ’s ability to transform hearts and minds is weaker than the power of the State to pass laws and enforce them with intimidation.
Would you rather write and enforce a new law, or would you rather see God change someone’s heart to reflect His own love and kindness?
The truth is this: We’ll never shape the world if we are not first shaped by Christ. Only the transformed can inspire transformation.
“Did the Moral Majority really make a difference?
Even a casual observation of the current moral climate suggests that despite all the time, money and energy—despite the political power—we failed. Things have not gotten better; they have gotten worse.”6
“We don’t have a shortage of leaders, but a shortage of followers of the one Leader who can transform lives and nations. We don’t need to enlarge our vision, but make it smaller and more focused…Religious conservatives, no matter how well organized, can’t save America. Only God can. But He will only consider doing it if God’s people get out of the way and give Him room. That’s the better way. It is also the only way.”
Jesus entered this world as a subversive agent of change, intending to transform reality from the inside out.
Jesus came to restore sanity to mankind. He showed us another way to live and a better way to be human beings.
If only those who are called by His name could awaken to His voice. If only we could follow His example and not only call Him our “Lord,” but actually do what He says.
G.K. Chesterton once said, “It’s not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting; it’s that it has been found difficult and left untried.”2
In other words, the way we stop mass murderers and terrorists is to show them the love of Christ before they pick up their weapons, not after. Christ’s plan involves preemptive love and proactive agape.
Quite often, Christians who favor the use of violence will say that we should protect the innocent. The assumption being that protecting the innocent must involve the use of force. But that is not necessarily so.
Why not capitalize on that? Why not infiltrate the military command and turn the sword away from the throats of their martyred brothers and sisters? Why? Because they saw clearly that political entanglement was a snare and a distraction from their main mission. Furthermore, they were unwavering in their devotion to Jesus and to His Kingdom. They stayed the course. They kept the faith.
As my friend Ross Rohde has pointed out, when the Religious Right aligned itself with the Republican party to help elect Ronald Reagan, that foolish compromise started a snowball effect that we are still suffering from today.
