Actually,
the defense of Constantine implicitly supports the notion of the Inquisition
but that's for another discussion. In the meantime not a few admirers of this
book also support modern day versions of the Inquisition like the McCarthy
hearings and blacklist. Some even call for a return to such measures.
While
Constantine isn't always praised in Evangelical circles... he certainly wasn't
when I was growing up, even though I was raised to embrace the Christian Right...
nevertheless the basic assumptions of the Constantinian project are accepted.
Leithart is
to be praised because he consistently follows through on the implications,
doesn't shy away from them and recognizes that political leadership means
warfare and that a "Christian Leader" if we grant him the term for
the sake of argument, means a Christian War Leader.
Leithart's
Christ is not the Christ of Scripture. I say that not as a theological liberal
who views Christ as a type of Gandhi and finds the idea of a coming Judgment to
be abhorrent. I say this as a follower of Christ who understands the nature of
the Spiritual Kingdom and our call to suffer as martyr-witnesses in This Age.
The Triumphalism of Leithart is only to be understood in light of the Second
Coming and in a context in which sin has been eradicated. A Postmillennialist
like Leithart looks for the Church to bring in a millennial golden age, a
Church through the force of cultural transformation to all but eradicate sin.
Through culture and legislation (and presumably the Spirit) the reign of Christ
will be brought to bear on This Age. Christ returns after the world has been
Christianized... again a term and concept I would argue is the result of
abstract philosophical commitment and speculation, not the fruit of New
Testament exegesis.
I've always
found it ironic that Calvinists, believers in Total Depravity would embrace
such a vision of Christianization. I too embrace Total Depravity and believe
there's no Scriptural warrant for this view. They would argue the Spirit will
effect this change. The same Spirit inspired the New Testament and provides a
very different interpretation of the Old Testament than they will grant or
receive and nowhere is there any suggestion that sin will in any way be
diminished before Christ's return or through the cultural efforts and/or
political expressions of the Church.
Like the
Dispensationalists they prioritize the Old Testament and its prophetic visions over
and against the New Testament and its interpretation of them. In their systems
The Old Testament interprets the New rather than vice versa. Rejecting the
Apostolic hermeneutic they insist (like the Dispensationalists) that a future
chiliastic kingdom is the destiny of the Church. The Dispensationalists believe
this promise to be centered on Israel of the Old Covenant. The Postmillennialists
rightly believe The Church is the New Israel and the inheritor of its promises
but it wrongly believes that not only will the Church conquer Palestine, it
will politically and culturally conquer the whole world. One camp believes the
political millennium will be based on the Jews, the other on the Church but
their basic assumptions are the same. They both embrace a politico-cultural
doctrine of the Kingdom.
Both schools
seek prophetic fulfillment apart from the Christocentric teachings of the New
Testament. Both reject the New Testament's teaching that all the Old Testament
promises, types and symbols point to and find their fulfillment in Christ (2
Cor 1.20).
Both camps
insist that prophecies such as are found in Isaiah 2 and Psalm 2 find
fulfillment prior to the Eschaton, and are not pictures, promises and
exhortations of the Heavenly Reign but an earthly kingdom and political order.
While Dispensationalism
separates the Church from Israel it at least has a way of categorizing
Scripture and relegating 'problem' passages. Leithart's Postmillennialism is
forced to resort to Preterism which effectively renders much of Revelation and
many other "pessimistic" New Testament passages to be obsolete. With
this comes sweeping reinterpretations of passages such as John 18.36 where
Christ declares His Kingdom is not of this world. Apparently what Christ meant
was that his cultural-political Kingdom would not be formed in a worldly
manner? The fighting that Christ rejected in the passage was apparently meant
to be later embraced and doctrinally enshrined. The Sermon on the Mount wholly
incompatible with the social ethics of this system is all but explained away,
sometimes in outrageous fashion.
The
Postmillennial (and almost always Dominionist) system, is very closely related
to the implicit assumptions that have always governed Roman Catholic cultural
theology... the theology of Christendom has been forced to philosophically
speculate and develop such extra- (and thus un-) Biblical concepts such as Just
War Theory and the complex of ideas that form the notion of Christian
Statesmanship. To this extent much of Leithart's exposition and
historiographical work is an exercise in question begging. The paradigm is
assumed and viewed as vindicated by history.
Dissident
groups such as the Waldensians, authors such as Chelcicky and others in the
Middle Ages argued the Church had fallen with the ascendancy of Constantine and
his new order. Even though the forged Donation of Constantine was not proved
spurious for many centuries, the theology was a reality and put into practice
and merely reflected what had already become a reality since the time of
Theodosius. The Christians of the Middle Ages rejected this power paradigm and
rightly identified the Pope as antichrist and many recognized Rome as the false
harlot church prophesied in Revelation. The false Church had synthesized itself
with the Roman state and its attempted medieval reconstitution.
Leithart
wishes to defend Constantine but also spends a great amount of time attacking
modern day critics of Constantine, the contemporary voices which advocate the
idea of the Constantinian Shift and The Fall of the Church, especially that of
the Mennonite John Yoder.
Yoder argued
the Church fundamentally changed with what happened at the time of Constantine.
Constantine was the beginning of a long trend that resulted in the Roman
Catholic Church of the Middle Ages and the cultural paradigm known as Western
Christendom. The Reformation in no way abandoned this but inadvertently planted
the seeds which lead to its downfall.
Yoder argues
the early Church was largely pacifistic and the embrace of the state changed
the Church's attitude toward violence and warfare, power and money and just
about every other area of ethics. Yoder who died in the 1990's was deeply
affected by the Vietnam War and the response of the Church to this great
tragedy that not only led to millions of deaths in Indochina but ripped apart
American society. He was critical of the war and the theology which led many
Christians to support it.
The
implications of the Church embracing the state were stark to the Medieval
Dissenters and in the post-Reformational era groups like the Anabaptists and
Quakers have maintained the critique though not always as purely as what we
find in some of the earlier Hussite and Waldensian groups.
The history
of the Early Church is sloppy and often confusing and not a few liberal and
unbelieving historians have sought to exploit this in our own day. While we
reject the notion of "Christianities" we will accept there was a
great deal of diversity. Those of us who hold to the notion of a
"Shift" believe it happened in stages and there was a significant
downgrade during the roughly fifty year period between the Decian and
Diocletian persecutions. There were Christians in the army, some church
buildings were appearing, bad forms of worship and doctrine were becoming
widespread, viz., the world was entering the Church. Christianity was spreading
rapidly and becoming popular and while growth is to be celebrated, to those of
a Remnant mindset a superabundance and cultural popularity can also be a sign
of trouble on the horizon and a warning of compromise at work.
And then the
final and perhaps greatest persecution broke out in 303 and raged until the
Edict of Milan in 313. Constantine ended the persecutions and no doubt it was a
glorious day, but with it came great danger. His subsequent actions opened the
floodgates, the world entered the Church and the by the end of the century Rome
was persecuting non-Christians and the Roman Empire was being confused with the
Kingdom of God. In its joy and triumph the Church let down its guard, forgot
its mission, largely began to abandon its identity, and for the sake of gaining
and maintaining cultural ascendancy substituted Christ's Kingdom of the Cross,
the Spiritual Kingdom for the might and glory of Rome. It was broadly speaking
an apostasy. The Church was deluged with pagan rites and superstitions,
governed by worldly wisdom and pragmatism and transformed into something that
had a form of godliness but denied the power thereof.
Leithart
argues from history, (often using rather dubious court historians like Eusebius)
that Yoder paints an inaccurate picture of the Early Church. It was not
pacifistic and no significant shift took place during the time of Constantine.
He's right,
the picture of the Early Church is mixed and this is especially true as we draw
nearer to the time of Constantine. In addition there are always exceptions to
what was generally the rule. Pacifism wasn't universal, but some of Leithart's
arguments are in bad form and under examination seem manipulative and
dismissive of what was a prevalent testimony and nearly general consensus.
The argument
against the shift is rooted in the fact that there weren't that many voices
protesting it. While also true, it in no way diminishes the argument for the
Shift or Fall of the Church.
In fact
that's the whole point. Advocates of the Shift believe a massive apostasy took
place, not an out-and-out denial of Jesus Christ but a practical denial of Him
and the Kingdom. The Church embraced a new kingdom, that of Rome and a new
messiah in the personage of the Emperor and later on in the West, the person of
the Pope. We can use the same kind of arguments as Leithart and suggest such
voices were largely silenced and erased from the historical record. But in
truth it is likely that the vast majority of Christians blindly and even
joyfully went along with the changes.
Leithart
argues that all he has to do is cast doubt on Yoder's reading of history and
the entire notion of the Constantinian Shift will fall.
This is dubious
to say the least, and at its worst it can be labeled as deceitful.
Leithart is
enough of a historian to know that history cannot be read like a mathematical
formula. It's highly subjective, difficult, complicated and must be
contextualized. Context is deeply difficult because there are many facets to
that issue alone. The whole question is one wherein it's difficult to make any
kind of absolute case one way or another. There's always a different read.
History does not stand alone but must always be interpreted and the questions
of interpretation (historiography and prolegomena) are paramount. How do we
interpret history? And more poignantly, how do we interpret Church History?
Yoder's
argument which echoes the arguments of those who had gone before was not rooted
in historical narrative. It's theological and a case of Biblical theology
interpreting history and historical theology. That's the issue and it is the
one Leithart mostly avoids. When he does treat it he does so in a superficial
manner and engages in a good deal of question begging.
Within a few
pages of his work it was quite obvious what direction he was going to take. The
theology would be set aside or assumed and Leithart would focus on trying to
win the historical argument.
The problem
is it's not a historical issue, or at least history doesn't determine the right
or wrong of it. Inconsistencies and diversities in the Early Church do not
negate that fact that in 313 something new happened and before Constantine was
dead the Church was on a different trajectory.
Leithart
like many Roman Catholics and liberals believes in development, progress and
elaboration. The New Testament is but a starting point, not a theological norm
for the Church throughout the age.
While he
still might adhere to Sola Scriptura he is in fact quite hostile to it and this
was the fundamental difference between the Medieval Dissidents and Rome and
some are beginning to realize despite the slogans, the Protestant Reformation
was less than faithful in this regard either. Protestantism took a reactionary
turn before the first generation had expired.
Those
interested in these issues would do well to pick up "Constantine Revisited:
Leithart, Yoder, and the Constantinian Debate" edited by John Roth.
I was quite
pleased to see that right from the start some of the contributors recognize the
nature of the problem behind Leithart's defense of Constantine and criticism of
Anti-Constantinianism. By focusing on history Leithart in many ways misses the
real issue at stake.
That said
the book was in other aspects disappointing. There was much that was missed,
many unhelpful tangential arguments, and several essays that I found to be
erroneous in their assumptions and arguments. Many of the authors argued from
the standpoint of Anabaptist ecclesiology and only added to the confusion. One
does not need to be Baptistic to question the Constantinian model and I would
argue the introduction of Baptistic theology only clouds and confounds the
issues.
Nevertheless
I was glad to have purchased the book and glad to see there are those who would
question (in whatever capacity) the assumptions of one such as Leithart.
As some
readers will already know I actually sympathize in many respects with the
theology of Federal Vision with which Leithart is often associated. I
appreciate their Biblicism when it comes to questions of ecclesiology and
soteriology. At that point my concurrence ends. They are all committed
Constantinians, Postmillennialists and not a few envision this paradigm coming
to fruition through the framework of Theonomic Reconstructionism.
Essentially
they are good and zealous Calvinistic Anglicans, or at least ought to be.
However of all of the names associated with the movement Leithart is the one I
have least appreciated. Many would express the exact opposite sentiment, even
those who don't appreciate Federal Vision. He is the one figure in the movement
they find intriguing.
I am
interested in reading his later work on America as something between Babel and
Beast but based on the reviews I am pretty sure where he's going with that. Probably
more profound than the ill-informed and inept approaches of popular teachers
like Grudem and Mohler, and rightly critical of confusing America with the
Kingdom, Leithart still looks for political Christendom as the means of Kingdom
advancement. Despite offending many with his critique of Americanism, his
criticism doesn't go near far enough. Just reading the reviews I can already
tell his view of American history is something of a whitewash.
While he may
have moderated from earlier positions and in fact appear moderate when compared
with some of his fellows there is an overarching Monism to his thought that I
would argue is fundamentally at odds with New Testament Christianity.