The Church’s big break

For us to understand the kind of Church we are today, we must have an understanding of our past. For us to build the foundations of a strong and vibrant Church for future generations, we must have a good understanding of both our past and our present. It is for this reason that in the last two columns we dealt with the early Church and the African giants of the early Church.

In this column we examine some of the dynamics of a very important stage in the history of Christianity: the first time when the Christian Church was given a status by the state.

When Christianity first emerged, its adherents were despised by both Jews and Romans. By the beginning of the 4th century, all this was to change because this despised religion was so influential that the Roman Empire succumbed and was converted to the new faith.

In 313 AD Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in terms of which Christianity was recognised as a religion that could be openly practised in the empire.

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In 380 Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the one and only official religion of the state. Christianity was consequently elevated from the status of a forbidden cult to stardom. Henceforth to be a Roman was to be a Christian; to be a minister of the Church was to be a person of standing in society.

The new relationship between Church and state had some advantages. The first obvious advantage was for Christians to have the freedom to worship and evangelise without fear of being persecuted. This must have helped the Church to grow by leaps and bounds.

The second advantage was perhaps unity. Previous to the reign of Constantine, the Church did not have a strong unifying structure. Christians scattered all over the empire were united by faith and forms of worship. They professed one faith—centred in their common belief in the risen Christ and their faithfulness to the values of the gospel. Now Rome became the obvious headquarters and the Church benefitted from the governance structure of the empire.

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The peaceful environment of the Roman Empire also meant that questions that Christians had about their faith could be raised and debated freely. Indeed many questions were raised, some of which centred round the nature of Christ. These and other questions had the potential to divide the Church.

It was in Constantine’s interest as emperor to have a united Church. Consequently he called the Council of Nicea in 325, and there the first part of what we call the Nicene Creed was formulated. The Creed was finalised at the Council of Constantinople in 381. Thus the Roman emperor and the Roman state played a major role in the development of the articles of faith shared by the majority of Christians today.

The new relationship between state and Church gave rise to some problems, however. Firstly, the fact that the emperor himself could call a council of the universal Church created a precedent for future rulers to interfere with the affairs of the Church. An example of this was when King Henry VIII declared himself the Head of the Church in England centuries later.

Secondly, Christianity lost something of its soul as a result of its elevation to stardom: An unfortunate development is that the Church appears to have adopted the leadership of domination which might have been natural for a state at the time, but contradicted the teachings of Jesus who emphasised servant leadership as the way for Christian leaders to follow.

Furthermore, with the professionalisation of the clergy, a class structure was introduced in the Christian community in terms of which the clergy became the only active spokespersons of the Church with lay people becoming audiences and spectators. This gave rise to the mentality that many lay people still have today—of thinking that it is only the clergy who have the responsibility to evangelise.

This column raises three issues that we need to come back to at some point as we consider how best to build a strong Church for tomorrow: the ideal relationship that should exist between Church and state; the leadership style of the Church; and the priesthood of all believers.