The Church and the Empire

“Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great whore who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have engaged in sexual immorality and with the wine of whose prostitution the inhabitants of the earth have become drunk.” So he carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her prostitution, and on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations.” And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses to Jesus.

When I saw her, I was greatly amazed. But the angel said to me, “Why are you so amazed? I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her. The beast that you saw was and is not and is about to ascend from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the inhabitants of the earth, whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will be amazed when they see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come.”
- Revelation 17:1-8

If the Kingdom of God was inaugurated on the cross and vivified by the resurrection of Christ, how has the Church worked toward it between then and now? Obviously, I do not have the skill to condense 2,000 years of history into a single devotion, and I would not abuse your attention span in such a way. So, I’ll paint two periods in the broadest strokes possible–the early church period and the church after Constantine’s conversion.  

For the first three hundred years after the resurrection, from the time of Paul to the early Church fathers, the burgeoning Church saw the Kingdom of God as a subversive witness against the abuses of the Roman Empire. At this time, it was dangerous to identify with the Church because to proclaim “Jesus is Lord” implicitly meant that Caesar is not. The Church’s commitment to a common life across class lines, its refusal to take part in the temple system, and its focus on the weak and vulnerable (in other words, their building toward the Kingdom) made them a source of ridicule and suspicion. The Romans of the time vacillated between disdaining but largely ignoring this small Jewish sect and periods of state-sponsored persecution. Persecution was usually localized, but two particularly widespread and bloody persecutions against Christians for their refusal to make sacrifices to the Emperor were declared by Emperors Decian (250 AD) and Diocletian (303 AD). 

The book of Revelation is one of the greatest witnesses to this period. In the scripture that leads today’s devotion, John of Patmos personifies Rome as a royal woman who has seduced the world with her wealth and violence. John then reveals that, contrary to appearances, this personified Rome is doomed to fall. Rome may be powerful, but Revelation reveals it to be a vainglorious fusion of greed, arrogance, and violence. Rome would be judged, promised John, by the true King whose Kingdom will end all earthly kingdoms. The message of Revelation is for the Church to continue subverting Rome by building for the Kingdom of God.

All of this changed with the Edict of Milan (313 AD), wherein a newly converted Emperor Constantine made Christianity legal. Sixty-seven years later, the Church would find itself as the official state religion of the Roman Empire when Emperor Theodosius I issued the Edict of Thessalonica. This was a massive shift in the Church’s understanding of itself and how it was to live out its mission to work toward the Kingdom of God. Where once they were a persecuted minority, now they found themselves completely intertwined with the most powerful empire the Western world had ever known. While that brought an end to persecution, it also brought all the trappings and temptations of power that came with being a state religion. 

There is a common thought among both Christians and non-Christians that once the Church became the official Roman state religion and the age of Christendom began, it became nothing more than a political tool of the various empires of the West. Thus, the argument goes, many historical evils–crusades, inquisitions, the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and so on–can be placed at the feet of the Church. As with anything else, the truth is far more complicated. It is undeniable that many leaders of the churches were either enthusiastic participants (at worst) or unquestioning accomplices (at best) of these historical ills…and yet to see Christendom through only this lens is to ignore the millions of ordinary believers who lived out their faith as best they could. Those who modeled their lives around the Sermon on the Mount, the parables of the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Good Shepherd, and so on. Abuses abounded, but so too did the faith of everyday people working in their own small ways toward the Kingdom of God.

While it is undeniably true that the Church was far too complicit in historical wrongs, I think it is equally true that these wrongs would have occurred completely independent of the Church, as they are the natural impulse of empires. Furthermore, I believe that it was ultimately the generations of Christian witness of ordinary faithful believers that brought these wrongs to an end. Movements to bring about the abolition of slavery, grant women the self-determination rights of voting and working, establish societies for the welfare of orphans, end segregation in the US and South Africa, and resist the extermination of the Jewish people by the German Reich…all of these found their birth and their greatest support in churches, Sunday classes, and Christian societies building toward the Kingdom of God. Moreover, I believe that the success of these movements is due to the shared moral language of the gospel, which has seeped into the collective consciousness through Christianity’s precarious role within the empires of the world.

Building toward the Kingdom of God is slow and often messy. It faces challenges and setbacks. There is often disagreement among faithful Christians about how best to undertake this work. But we are called to try, to stumble faithfully forward together, trusting that the God who began this work in us will bring it to completion in the fullness of time.

Looking back at history, where do you think the Church has been successful in building toward the Kingdom of God? Where do you think it has failed, and what can we learn from our past failures?

Rev. Ryan Young