![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/55\/2011\/05\/Constantine_Musei_Capitolini.jpg\" "\\"Constantine_Musei_Capitolini\\"")
<\/a> In this last post we need to do some house keeping and summing up.\u00a0 You will have already deduced that I think Leithart\u2019s book is first rate, though of course there is a good deal I don\u2019t agree with him on, and especially that is true about his last ten pages or so, which I will address in a moment.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Since it\u2019s too much like piling on,\u00a0 I will allow you to read the many more pages of critique of Yoder which show up in the last 50 or so pages in the book itself.<\/p>\nFirst of all,\u00a0 I think Leithart is right to stress that perhaps the most significant thing Constantine did besides stopping persecution and allowing Christianity to exist as a legal religion was his ending of sacrifice as a central religious ritual in the Empire.\u00a0 When Leithart talks about Constantine baptizing Rome what he means is this: \u201cwhen a people, nation, or empire receives the gospel of the victory of Jesus and is blown by the Spirit from the world of sacrifice, purity, temples and sacred space and is transferred into a new religio-socio-political world. It is a baptism out of the world of the stoicheia, which at least for Gentiles involved the worship of not-gods, into a world without sacrifice, a world after the end of sacrifice. \u201d\u00a0 (pp. 326-27). \u00a0 It would be a mistake to under-estimate the importance of this shift, since\u00a0 sacrifice was right at the heart of Roman civilization and it was believed that sacrifice secured favor with the gods and survival of the empire. \u00a0 Constantine did not create a secular state, he just created a different sort of religious one. \u00a0\u00a0 One could say Constantine stopped the sacrificing of animals,\u00a0 of Christians, of gladiators in the arena and he refused to sacrifice when he had his Roman triumph entering Rome as a conquering hero.\u00a0 All of this was a momentous religious shift, but it was not the one Yoder thought happened.\u00a0 Leithart calls it the establishment of a desacrificial society.<\/p>\n
The Achilles heel of Leithart\u2019s analysis shows up at several places in the book, and nowhere more than at the end of the book when he attempts to do exegesis and hermeneutics with various Biblical texts.\u00a0 I would encourage you to read pp. 333ff for yourself and see what you think.\u00a0\u00a0 Here are some of the problems: 1) his exegesis of the creation order mandate is atrocious.\u00a0 Adam was not called upon the guard the garden!\u00a0 2) the fact that God is called a warrior in the OT tells us absolutely nothing about whether and when God\u2019s people should be.\u00a0 It is irrelevant;\u00a0 3) the enmity set between humans and \u2018the serpent\u2019\u00a0 has nothing to do with an endorsement of war,\u00a0 it has to do with a spiritual battle against evil and the Evil One more particularly, or, if you prefer literalism enmity between Eve\u2019s offspring and those of snakes!!\u00a0 Either way, the text has nothing to do with human wars.\u00a0 And indeed killing is what happens as a result of the Fall, almost immediately once outside the garden.\u00a0\u00a0 Killing is not God\u2019s creation order mandate for humans,\u00a0 it is a reprehensible act for which God places a mark on Cain.\u00a0 Adam\u2019s fall was not a renunciation of war and so a capitulation to the enemy, as Leithart would have it (p. 334).\u00a0 Adam\u2019s fall was caused by failure to avoid eating from a tree God prohibited!!\u00a0 4)\u00a0 Gen. 3.15 is not in any way shape or form a messianic prophecy about a warrior messiah.\u00a0 The \u2018he\u2019 in question is the descendants of Eve of course and in any case, even if it were a reference to Christ, Christ solved the Satan problem not by being a warrior messiah and thus by killing but by dying on a cross!!\u00a0\u00a0 Jesus was the antithesis of a warrior messiah when he came.\u00a0 5)\u00a0 it is not Marcionism to recognize that the OT tells the story of covenants that Christians are no longer under, and which the NT says quite clearly reflects God dealing with the hardness of human hearts problem,\u00a0 God dealing with fallen humans where they are.\u00a0 God\u2019s perfect will is not revealed in the blood and guts narratives of the OT and they provide no basis for Christian praxis.\u00a0 Christians are under the new covenant, not any of the old ones.\u00a0\u00a0 What is most stunning about Leithart\u2019s analysis is his complete failure to have any kind of sense of progressive revelation in the Scriptures,\u00a0 despite the fact that texts like Hebrews 1.1-4 tells us very clearly that the revelation in previous days was partial and piecemeal, but in Christ the will and character of God is fully revealed and evident.\u00a0\u00a0 6) Heb. 11.34 tells us certainly that OT kings conquered kingdoms and administered justice through faith clearly enough but the focus is on their faith,\u00a0 and the reference is to OT rulers,\u00a0 not to Christians.\u00a0 There is nothing here that implies an endorsement of such activities by ordinary Christians.\u00a0 At most you could argue such a text might be applicable to a Constantine perhaps. 7)\u00a0 Doubtless the Jews didn\u2019t stone Stephen for mentioning Moses\u2019 murdering of Egyptians an action which not incidentally Moses knew was wrong and fled the country for. \u00a0 But in any case Stephen\u2019s critique is given to Jews who would evaluate it on the basis of the old covenant.\u00a0 He is not exhorting Christians here! \u00a0\u00a0 8) the attempt to minimize Jesus\u2019 call to non-violence in Mt. 5 is weak.\u00a0 How exactly is killing a fulfillment of \u2018love your enemies\u2019\u00a0 do them no harm, or turn the other cheek,\u00a0 or overcome evil with good? \u00a0 It isn\u2019t. \u00a0\u00a0 I could carry on for a while,\u00a0 but I will stop here.<\/p>\n
It is the measure of an excellent book that it produces strong responses.\u00a0 This is indeed an excellent book despite its near total failure to do exegesis and hermeneutics in a Christian way in the last 10 pages. \u00a0 I would suggest it was perhaps the book of the year last year. \u00a0 But it is not without its flaws,\u00a0 which can also be said of Constantine.\u00a0 There are plenty of things the man did wrong, and on occasion he abused his power. \u00a0 It is not a surprise that he waited until the very end of life to be baptized.\u00a0 He was, to use an OT phrase\u00a0 \u2018a man of bloods\u2019. \u00a0 But just as the Christian way to evaluate a person is to seek to evaluate them at their best first, \u00a0 so also I will apply this standard to Leithart\u2019s book. \u00a0 At its best, when it is doing top drawer historical analysis. \u00a0 It is very good indeed. \u00a0 Something all of us should read and reflect on, perhaps especially my Anabaptist friends.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In this last post we need to do some house keeping and summing up.\u00a0 You will have already deduced that I think Leithart\u2019s book is first rate, though of course there is a good deal I don\u2019t agree with him on, and especially that is true about his last ten pages or so, which I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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