Against the Post-Constantinian Agenda

I find myself growing increasingly bored of the post-Constantian agenda not because I believe it is inherently wrong it’s just poorly advocated. I agree that the church must be prepared to forgo some of the privileges it received as a sponsor of the state but that isn’t the churches job to tell the state to disinvest in the church. It is the churches role to be critical of the areas in which the state has distorted its ministry and forced it to act in the interests of earthly citizenship.

In the future we may lose funding for Christian schools but the church should work to create communities that can sponsor Christian education of the highest standard that is not dependent on state funding. It seems to me that the state may design chapels in hospitals as inter-faith environments or even remove places of worship from state hospitals altogether but the church must subvert these decisions by creating Christian hospitals that provide a different quality of care for ill, elderly, and dying. This must involve investing in prayer and healing centres, with a focus on palliative care rather than sanctioning assisted dying (as pressure is put on the state to legalise euthanasia).

Indeed let the church arise with a positive post-Constantian agenda rather than a pathetic capitulation to the secular status quo. It is for us to teach the world how to live as God intended, not for us to sacrifice our influence on the altar of secular politics. Although, we may only recover the identity and shape of a viable Christian community for the twenty-first century when the nations we are find ourselves dispersed amongst are so decadent and corrupt that the Christian legacy is no longer remembered.