Just a quick note on Christ and Christendom, and some of our current political snarls. In my political writing, I have made no secret of my yearning for a Christendom 2.0. This means that I believe the conversion of Constantine was a decided improvement over what had been going on before. This does not mean approval of everything that came after — just approval of the direction. The conversion of Constantine affected the West the same way a powerful Salvation Army sermon affects a wino in extremis at the soup kitchen. Great first step, but still a long way to go.
I say this because it is de rigueur among many political theorists to lament the Edict of Milan as a grade-A disaster what comes from seeing crosses in the sky. Because so many subsequent steps in sanctification were handled badly, it is important, as they think, not to have taken the first one. So in this climate I am reluctant to sound at all critical of Constantine — but I think we have to now. This is because in my view we are in grave danger of making the same mistake again. Constantine really did have some problems, but they were problems that came from not going far enough. They were not because he professed faith in Christ, but rather because he appeared to think that Christ could be brought in to prop up what was about to collapse.
Pagan Rome was on its last legs, and desperately needed a principle of unity that the old forms of worship could no longer provide. And so Constantine turned to Christ, in much the same way that a wino might turn to Christ in order to “kick this habit.” He has one great problem he knows about, but has not thought through the implications beyond that. But once the booze is put away, is Christ then done? It was shortsighted in the extreme to think that Christ would take the old Roman Empire, shine it up a bit, and then wait for the Last Trump.
The same kind of situation applies to us. Secular western liberalism is on its last legs. The integrating principle of coherence is clean gone, and as one wit put it in the languishing days of the British Empire — “everything at sea except for the fleet.” In these disintegrating days, there will be a temptation to appeal to the Lordship of Christ in order to prop up the western liberal tradition. And if the appeal is to Christ, I’ll take it, just like I think the wino at the soup kitchen ought to pray the prayer. This is why I appreciate men like N.T. Wright and Oliver O’Donovan so much. We need Jesus in a very public way, and we need men who will say so. But I also suspect that with these gentlemen, and with others who are like-minded, the desire is to “patch” what we have now — instead of radically transforming what we have now. This is particularly evident on issues of sexual egalitarianism, but it comes out in other ways as well. This becomes evident when it is suggested that Christ might overthrow some of the basic practices of our decadent liberalism. No, no, the assumption is that Christ will somehow make it all “work.” And that was Constantine’s mistake.