Nadya, this is so fascinating for me to read. Growing up, I was taught that Constantine was a big reason for "everything that's wrong" with the church today. That his adoption of the faith merged church and state in a way that was detrimental, caused pagan priests to simply flip their clerical collars around to keep their jobs, and renamed a bunch of pagan holidays with Christian names. Not surprising, it meant that as a naive college student traveling abroad, I questioned all the historical sites in Israel Constantine's mom identified as Christian holy sites which made our secular Jewish Israeli tour guide give me a side eye: what kind of strange hole did you crawl out of? He'd never met a Christian who didn't put much stock in all the major Christian sites there.
As an adult, I've seen the error in this understanding of Constantine and have tried to come up with a more nuanced view of him. All that to say, I'm looking forward to reading this specific chapter in your book. :)
It really does seem like he inspires strong feelings in many Christians--people want to love him or hate him (for reasons you described with merging church and state). But there are some who work hard to make him the model Christian, and there's a lot of imagination that this interpretation requires--e.g., there is a theory (built on wishful thinking and no evidence) that his father was a closet Christian and that his mother converted earlier than our evidence suggests, which means that he grew up in a Christian home.
I mainly studied Christian division in a different part of the world (Visigothic Spain) so a lot of this information about Northern Africa is new to me. I'm very intrigued by your characterization of this as "Christian on Christian" violence as opposed to "Christian on Heretic" violence, which is how these conflicts were considered through most if not all of early church history (some Church fathers like Isidore did consider heretics/schismatics Christians, but that didn't make violence against them a problem). I think there are definitely benefits to both perspectives, but I'm curious as to what other early Christian break-off sects you would consider "Christian" or purely heretical (or do you think there's a spectrum, with Donatists and their re-baptism on the more mild end and extreme gnosticism on the other?)
This is a really good question, Carolyn--and this is an important dimension that we see repeatedly in Late Antiquity, that those that one group doesn't approve of become characterized as heretics first and foremost, and this makes the violence against them justified. By the way, if you want to go more in-depth on the Donatists, Brent Shaw's book is fantastic: https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Violence-Christians-Sectarian-Augustine/dp/0521127254
But to get back to my point: I would consider Donatists heretics (and same for Arians, for instance, among various other groups), but my point is also that it's a cultural Christian response to say that their heretic status makes them fair game for targeted violence. When dealing with heretics, we can't ignore that they also are Christians.
Because in my book I'm interested in modern applications, the question I'm getting at is how to handle divisions in the church in a way that is Christ-like and productive. I think that most of us have encountered (whether in person or in reading) Christians today whom we may consider heretics. So how do we handle these divisions lovingly? How might we confront heresy without violence as a solution. For one thing, today that's obviously illegal :-) But there is much more here to consider from the spiritual perspective, and unfortunately, the strife that arises in some churches that attempt to identify and eliminate heresy today, while not violent, can still be sinful. But also, heresy is real, and we can't ignore it.
Race has informed much of American history between black and white Americans(including many who are Christians). White Christians protected Jim Crow by violence against impoverished blacks in both the south and north. There was a race riots in Springfield Illinois during the early 20th century. We have divisions today between conservative white Christians and black Christians over politics, Presidential elections and care for others. Although these disputes don't usually involve violence they do harm the unity of all Christians who want to carry out the Great Commission. I see the issue of race, violence, and violence between Christians as clarified by the parallel historical violence discussed in Chapter 7.
Chapter 7 helped me to to also understand the role of the Donatists whom I studied both in undergraduate and graduate courses. I thank Dr. Williams for bringing clarity to my thinking.
I laughed out loud at "We go to school for a long time to get this annoying. It’s a special skill." :D
Nadya, this is so fascinating for me to read. Growing up, I was taught that Constantine was a big reason for "everything that's wrong" with the church today. That his adoption of the faith merged church and state in a way that was detrimental, caused pagan priests to simply flip their clerical collars around to keep their jobs, and renamed a bunch of pagan holidays with Christian names. Not surprising, it meant that as a naive college student traveling abroad, I questioned all the historical sites in Israel Constantine's mom identified as Christian holy sites which made our secular Jewish Israeli tour guide give me a side eye: what kind of strange hole did you crawl out of? He'd never met a Christian who didn't put much stock in all the major Christian sites there.
As an adult, I've seen the error in this understanding of Constantine and have tried to come up with a more nuanced view of him. All that to say, I'm looking forward to reading this specific chapter in your book. :)
It really does seem like he inspires strong feelings in many Christians--people want to love him or hate him (for reasons you described with merging church and state). But there are some who work hard to make him the model Christian, and there's a lot of imagination that this interpretation requires--e.g., there is a theory (built on wishful thinking and no evidence) that his father was a closet Christian and that his mother converted earlier than our evidence suggests, which means that he grew up in a Christian home.
I mainly studied Christian division in a different part of the world (Visigothic Spain) so a lot of this information about Northern Africa is new to me. I'm very intrigued by your characterization of this as "Christian on Christian" violence as opposed to "Christian on Heretic" violence, which is how these conflicts were considered through most if not all of early church history (some Church fathers like Isidore did consider heretics/schismatics Christians, but that didn't make violence against them a problem). I think there are definitely benefits to both perspectives, but I'm curious as to what other early Christian break-off sects you would consider "Christian" or purely heretical (or do you think there's a spectrum, with Donatists and their re-baptism on the more mild end and extreme gnosticism on the other?)
This is a really good question, Carolyn--and this is an important dimension that we see repeatedly in Late Antiquity, that those that one group doesn't approve of become characterized as heretics first and foremost, and this makes the violence against them justified. By the way, if you want to go more in-depth on the Donatists, Brent Shaw's book is fantastic: https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Violence-Christians-Sectarian-Augustine/dp/0521127254
But to get back to my point: I would consider Donatists heretics (and same for Arians, for instance, among various other groups), but my point is also that it's a cultural Christian response to say that their heretic status makes them fair game for targeted violence. When dealing with heretics, we can't ignore that they also are Christians.
Because in my book I'm interested in modern applications, the question I'm getting at is how to handle divisions in the church in a way that is Christ-like and productive. I think that most of us have encountered (whether in person or in reading) Christians today whom we may consider heretics. So how do we handle these divisions lovingly? How might we confront heresy without violence as a solution. For one thing, today that's obviously illegal :-) But there is much more here to consider from the spiritual perspective, and unfortunately, the strife that arises in some churches that attempt to identify and eliminate heresy today, while not violent, can still be sinful. But also, heresy is real, and we can't ignore it.
Race has informed much of American history between black and white Americans(including many who are Christians). White Christians protected Jim Crow by violence against impoverished blacks in both the south and north. There was a race riots in Springfield Illinois during the early 20th century. We have divisions today between conservative white Christians and black Christians over politics, Presidential elections and care for others. Although these disputes don't usually involve violence they do harm the unity of all Christians who want to carry out the Great Commission. I see the issue of race, violence, and violence between Christians as clarified by the parallel historical violence discussed in Chapter 7.
Chapter 7 helped me to to also understand the role of the Donatists whom I studied both in undergraduate and graduate courses. I thank Dr. Williams for bringing clarity to my thinking.