{"id":4464,"date":"2025-03-10T08:55:44","date_gmt":"2025-03-10T12:55:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4464"},"modified":"2025-03-10T08:55:44","modified_gmt":"2025-03-10T12:55:44","slug":"the-christian-emperor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/10\/the-christian-emperor\/","title":{"rendered":"The Christian Emperor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Each day this Lent we\u2019re looking at major \u201cturning points\u201d in Christian history \u2013 moments or seasons in which the story of God\u2019s people took an important and often unexpected turn. \u00a0<\/em>

Each day this Lent we\u2019re looking at major \u201cturning points\u201d in Christian history \u2013 moments or seasons in which the story of God\u2019s people took an important, often unexpected turn. \u00a0<\/em>

If you lived in the Roman Empire about 300 years after Christ, you would have every reason to believe that Christianity was on the Endangered Religions List.

A succession\u00a0of emperors had decided that the empire needed the same language, the same court system, and the same faith in order to sustain unity. Christianity did not make the cut.\u00a0Jesus’ ragtag followers were\u00a0seen as a counter-cultural movement that needed to be stamped out. Thousands of them died in the arena as a form of public entertainment.

Almost overnight, everything changed.\u00a0

Christianity was suddenly granted\u00a0official status and protection from one end of the empire to the other.\u00a0Christ-followers came out of the shadows and began to meet openly.\u00a0For the first time in church history, Christians were free to build buildings specifically designed for worship. What in the world had happened?

A young Roman general\u00a0had had a conversion experience.

In October A.D. 312, Constantine was marching toward Rome at the head of an army of rabid supporters.\u00a0His goal was to become emperor.\u00a0Standing in his way was Maxentius, another claimant to the throne.\u00a0According to one of his biographers, as Constantine neared the hour when he and his troops would plunge into a life-or-death battle, he\u00a0looked up and saw a blazing cross of light in the sky.\u00a0Alongside it were these words: \u201cConquer by this.”

Constantine later reported that Jesus came to him\u00a0in a dream.\u00a0The Lord told him to put the sign of the cross on all of his warriors’ shields as a way of guaranteeing victory.\u00a0Obedient to these two visions, Constantine won the Battle of the Milvian\u00a0Bridge and became the empire’s supreme leader.\u00a0In a rush of gratitude, he extended official protection to Christianity.\u00a0The Christians’\u00a0days of running for their lives were finally over.\u00a0

It’s an oft-told story about\u00a0a watershed moment in the history of the Church.

It’s also a story that has left historians wrestling with some\u00a0important\u00a0questions:

Did Constantine really see that vision and have that dream? It\u2019s impossible to say. Did he truly believe what he professed to believe, or was he simply being politically expedient? Since God alone knows the heart, we can\u2019t answer that one, either. \u00a0

Should a \u201cChristian emperor\u201d use his authority to resolve doctrinal issues when pastors, bishops, and theologians become paralyzed by disagreements? We\u2019ll tackle that interesting question tomorrow.

Overall, was this one of the best things that ever happened to Christianity or one of the worst? Historians agree that Constantine’s conversion was a mixed bag.\u00a0Even though followers of Jesus could now feel safe, church leaders suddenly had a new challenge:\u00a0how to utilize immense power.

Over the centuries, the Church has all too often grievously fumbled that responsibility.\u00a0

One of the saddest developments from the era of Constantine was\u00a0an idea that had almost certainly never occurred to Christians\u00a0prior to A.D. 312 \u2013 that “holy warriors” with swords in their hands and crosses\u00a0on their shields should go into battle and fight for Jesus.

That had already been tried once before.\u00a0And Jesus had made it dramatically clear it was a terrible idea.

As the disciples watched Jesus’ enemies move forward to arrest him in the Garden of Gethsemane, they felt a sudden surge of righteous adrenaline. “Lord, should we strike with our swords?” Luke’s Gospel account confirms they had at least two swords at hand.\u00a0Was this the moment to use force to set things right?\u00a0Peter didn’t wait for Jesus’ reply. He lunged with his sword and cut off the right ear of the high priest’s servant, a man named Malchus.

Jesus’ response was immediate.\u00a0“No more of this!” he shouted.\u00a0“Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword.”\u00a0Whereupon\u00a0he himself reached out to make things right, but in a very different way:\u00a0He\u00a0healed Malchus’ ear (Luke 22:49-51).

For centuries, Christians have gone to war for Jesus.\u00a0But not because Jesus\u00a0ever told them to do so.\u00a0If we learn one thing from the accounts of his last week on earth, it’s that violence never<\/em> serves the cause of Christ.\u00a0

Bible scholar Dale Bruner points out that whenever followers of Jesus resort to physical force, all they end up doing is\u00a0cutting off the ears of other people, making it harder than ever for them to hear the\u00a0Good News.\u00a0

The Crusades have poisoned Islamic-Christian relations\u00a0for more than 900 years.\u00a0The Inquisition and the Salem witch trials have left a legacy of fanaticism.\u00a0The Thirty Years’ War between Catholics and Protestants left Europe\u00a0disillusioned about the validity of Christian truth. The\u00a0willingness\u00a0of many clerics to turn a blind eye to slavery and the purging of indigenous peoples during the colonial era must remain a blight on the Church’s conscience.

We are walking on dangerous ground whenever we conclude, “God is on our side in this war” \u2013 for the simple reason that it is impossible to imagine Jesus launching a war.\u00a0It’s hard to overstate the irony of transforming his cross \u2013 the very place where God was making peace with the world \u2013 into a rallying cry for killing people\u00a0(“conquer by this”).

Author Brian McLaren wonders what might have happened if the story of Constantine’s conversion had been reported\u00a0in a different way:\u00a0

\u201cImagine that Constantine had seen a vision of a basin and towel with the words, \u2018Serve by this,\u2019 or a vision of a simple table with bread and wine with, \u2018Reconcile around this,\u2019 or a vision of Christ\u2019s outstretched arms with \u2018Embrace like\u00a0this,\u2019 or a vision of the birds of the air and the flowers of the field with \u2018Trust like this,\u2019 or a vision of a mother hen gathering her chicks with \u2018Love like this,\u2019 or a vision of a dove descending from heaven with the words, \u2018Be as kind as this.\u2019\u00a0But it was not so.”

The opening line of St. Francis’ famous prayer is always a safe place for us to land:\u00a0“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.”

Does God\u00a0want us to bet our lives that violence will make the world a better place?

No.\u00a0Enough of this.<\/em>

There are so many better ways to conquer the world.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here Each day this Lent we\u2019re looking at major \u201cturning points\u201d in Christian history \u2013 moments or seasons in which the story of God\u2019s people took an important and often unexpected turn. \u00a0 Each day this Lent we\u2019re looking at major \u201cturning points\u201d in Christian history \u2013 moments or seasons in which… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[758,425,412],"class_list":["post-4464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-roman-empire","tag-violence","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4464"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4466,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4464\/revisions\/4466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}