Whose Brand of Christian Witness?
For a while now I’ve argued that the Christianity proclaimed by the Church has more to do with the Apostle Paul and Constantine than it does with Jesus of Nazareth. Paul’s organizing of “the Way” broke from his Jewish heritage and was secularized Gentile communities. Constantine legitimized Christianity as a system of domination, blessed its further organization, and the thinking that became the orthodoxy of “substitutionary atonement.” Is there no other way to understand Jesus of Nazareth? Is there no other reason that he is an important teacher or leader in his time and ours?
Ross Douthat recently wrote an article in the New York Times, “Can Liberal Christianity be Saved?” He is arguing that conservative Christian theology is superior to liberal Christian theology or the social gospel movement. I’ve read several good responses to his thoughts, convictions, and read of attendance numbers. This piece by Bryon Williams on the Huffington Post is the best I’ve read so far, but of course it confirms what I’ve thought and believed for a long time. A few paragraphs. Click the article title to read more.
Constantine Christianity or the Teachings of Jesus?
by Bryon Willimas | The Blog | Huffington Post | 07/24/2012
Early Christianity was a rebellious underground movement until Roman Emperor Constantine made it his religious practice in A.D. 312. Constantine’s conversion was based on what he viewed as a victorious sign from God prior to going into battle. His successor, Theodosius I, made it the official religion of Rome in A.D. 380. These events did more for the spread of Christianity than any proselytizing efforts conducted by the Apostle Paul.
We should disabuse ourselves of the notion that there was at one time a liberal theology that served as the dominant ethos for the church as a whole. From the ministry of Jesus into the present day, liberal theology has found itself on the outskirts against a conservative theology that offered the perceived security of predictability.
But strident claims of vaunted superiority of the theology we embrace ultimately serves to obfuscate what’s really at the core of those beliefs. Is it a Roman Emperor whose faith is based on war and domination that we subscribe or that of a Mediterranean peasant from Nazareth who places the radical notion of inconvenient love at the core of his movement?