The Christendom Shift - Part 1

Today and next week, we’re going to talk about a seismic shift that took place in early Christianity, beginning in the early fourth century AD (300s) that changed the way churches functioned from then on, and not necessarily for the better. Scholars call this the Christendom Shift.

It is a shift that took place from the period of pre-Christiandom (the early church of the first three centuries), to Christendom (everything after the early AD 300s). And like most societal changes, this didn’t happen overnight; it actually took about 100 years, but if we were going to try to put a pivot point on it, it’d probably be when Constantine became emperor.

Before Constantine, Christianity was subversive and counter-cultural and so much outside of the mainstream culture that it was, at times, regarded as a threat punishable by death. And within a century of Constantine, it’s punishable by death to NOT be a Christian.

Most of my understanding of all this rests on the work of Alan Kreider, who was an Anabaptist Menonite scholar. He passed away just a few years ago, but he wrote a number of books and articles about early Christianity and the Christendom shift. And I did a fair amount of work in graduate school interacting with his work (see resources below).

This stuff is really important, I think, and there are a lot of implications in all this for today's church. This is Part 1 of a two-part look at the Christendom Shift.

Join me today as we discuss:

1. The role of Constantine the Great in starting the Christendom Shift

2. The first four of eight ways in which Christianity was changed as a result of the Christendom Shift, many of which remain to this day: Vantage Point, Attraction, Power, and Sanctions.

3. How laws, monks, and landowners worked together to make Christianity compulsory.

4. Why these things are so important to us today.

 

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And remember, you are greatly loved.

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Resources for Today’s Show:

1. Alan Kreider, The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom (2007).