What About Constantine, Martyrs, and Persecution?

Much credit is given to Constantine for his role in calling together the church at Nicea and helping facilitate the foundational creed of the Christian church. But did you know that a mere 10 years later in 335, at the council of Tyre, Constantine exiled one of the fiercest defenders of the faith at the time: Athanasius? Athanasius remained in exile until Constantine’s death, and was only welcomed back by his son who restored him as a bishop, who then went on to exile him again a year later. Constantine the great also continued to permit the continuation of pagan temples and rituals, and retained the title Pontifex Maximus meaning “great priest of the Roman cults.” Sounds alot like America’s principled pluralism today.

Now at first glance these facts are pretty inconvenient for someone who just recently argued that the state has a normative role in correcting the church. If, after all, one of the greatest supposed examples was an emperor who exiled faithful bishops and continued to permit pagan worship then the batting average doesn’t look great. This is to say nothing of the countless martyrs of the Catholic Church, the supposedly terrible Spanish Inquisition and even Martin Luther and other zealous reformers. If the State really is supposed to correct the church in certain matters, why all of the errors and excesses?

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So today we are going to answer those questions. We’ve made the claim, right alongside the Westminster confession of faith and the Belgic confession, that the State has a role to play in suppressing heresies, protecting true religion, and safeguarding the Christian faith. Now, we are going to defend this view against the most common objections we’ve heard.

Let’s get into it.

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