White Theology and White Power Part II 

The first essay in this series argued that all theology is done somewhere, by someone, within history. If that is true, then one of the most consequential changes in Christian history occurred when the social location of Christianity itself changed.

For its first three centuries, Christianity existed without control of the Roman state. Christians could persuade, preach, organize communities, care for the poor, argue about doctrine and sometimes confront political authority. What they could not do was command the resources of the Roman Empire.

Then came Constantine.

It is tempting to begin the history of “white theology” here. That would be a mistake. Constantine lived in the fourth century, more than a thousand years before the modern racial category of whiteness developed. The Roman Empire was ethnically and geographically diverse, and many of Christianity’s most influential theologians came from North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean.

The importance of Constantine is different.

Constantine did not create white Christianity. He helped create the conditions under which Christianity learned what it meant to possess imperial power.

That distinction matters for everything that follows in this series.

Christians had experienced periods of Roman persecution before Constantine. The Great Persecution initiated under Diocletian in 303 was particularly severe in parts of the empire. Yet within little more than a decade, Christianity’s circumstances changed dramatically.

Constantine and Licinius agreed on a policy of religious toleration in 313, commonly associated with the Edict of Milan. Constantine subsequently favored Christianity through imperial patronage, supported the construction of churches, granted privileges to clergy and involved himself increasingly in disputes within the church.[1]

One popular version of the story says Constantine made Christianity the official religion of Rome.

That development occurred later. What Constantine did was still revolutionary: imperial hostility gave way to imperial favor. A religious movement that had periodically experienced the coercive power of Rome now had extraordinary access to it.

The theological problem changed with the political circumstances.

Christians had long asked: How should followers of Jesus live under Caesar?

Increasingly they would have to ask another question: What should followers of Jesus do when Caesar wants to help them?

And eventually: What happens when Caesar calls himself one of them?

The transformation can be seen at the Council of Nicaea in 325.

The theological dispute associated with Arius did not originate with Constantine, and Constantine did not invent the doctrine ultimately affirmed at Nicaea. Bishops and theologians were already engaged in intense arguments about the relationship between the Father and the Son.

What was new was the emperor’s role.

Constantine summoned bishops from across the empire and brought imperial resources and authority into........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)