Christian Statesmen Open the Door for the Great Commission
In the 1830s, the Church of Scotland needed to build new churches. Existing parishes served only a portion of Scotland’s population, and the poor were especially neglected. Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847), Moderator of the Church’s General Assembly in 1832 and a key leader in the evangelical faction, spearheaded the efforts to raise sufficient funds for this purpose. Chalmers was a mighty intellect and fine scholar, and his 1838 Lectures on the Establishment and Extension of National Churches stands as a testament to this. The Lectures were delivered in London as part of a support-raising tour for the ambitious extension program.
The argument of the Lectures ranges over the issues of church establishment, the duty of the civil magistrate in promoting true religion, the voluntary system of supporting churches, and the virtues of the parish system of organisation. In the fourth lecture, Chalmers says the following about Constantine the Great:
[It is] doubtful whether it was the piety of Constantine, or the policy of Constantine, which led to his espousal of Christianity, and determined him to throw the shield, not only of his imperial protection, but of his imperial patronage over it. If the former explanation be the true one – if the change of his profession originated in the power of truth and principle, then he but did upon his throne what a Christian parent does in his family. The one carried into effect the wishes of a christianised heart over a larger, as the other does over a smaller sphere of operation. Each, by the arrangements of Providence, obtained a certain measure of ascendancy over other minds and other consciences than their own; and gifted as the one was with influence over an empire, and the other with influence over a household, we behold in each the example of a gift consecrated to the honour of Him who is the Universal Giver; and whom they now believed to be the author of that Christianity sent down from heaven on purpose to rule and to regenerate the world.
In compliance with this great duty, and as fellow-workers with God, the one did for his subjects what the other does for his children – provides them with a Christian education, as the best boon which a religious monarch can confer upon his people – on the supposition of the monarch being himself a Christian. Such is the account, and such also we deem to be the vindication of that procedure by which he awards a maintenance to the teachers of the gospel, and bids them, in return, carry the lessons and services of the gospel throughout his population.
But he may have been no Christian; and policy, not principle, may after all be the key for the explanation of his conduct. He must then be tried by a different standard; and if he cannot be vindicated as a religious, he may at least be vindicated as a wise governor; and that, not because he conceded to the religion of the majority, but because he consented to place his subjects under the best moral regimen, for the formation of a virtuous and well-ordered commonwealth. If even the heathen of these days could say of Christians, Behold how they love each other! if so palpable was the exhibition of their superiority, that, by general acknowledgment, they made the best citizens and the best soldiers in the empire – Constantine may have seen that, by the establishment of a universal Christian education, he best consulted both for the economic well-being of his people, and for the prosperous administration of his own civil and political affairs.
If we cannot speak to the sincerity of his principle as a man, we may at least speak to the soundness of his policy as a monarch; and although this vindication leaves the blemish of ungodliness and of political hypocrisy on the memory of Constantine, it lays no blemish on the compliance of the other party in this great transaction – we mean of the Church, in having complied with the overtures which he made to them.1
Criticisms of Chalmers’ sentiments here are fairly predictable. He lived in the Constantinian age, where civil governments supported national churches as a matter of course, whereas our age is different. Chalmers also displays a level of naiveté in his understanding of the relationship between the state and the church. History, some would argue, proves that formal or informal establishment only leads to the dilution of the gospel and the weakening of the church.
Chalmers’ reasoning is more careful than these criticisms might allow for. Interestingly, he acknowledges the possibility that Constantine was perhaps cynical or pragmatic in his decision to embrace Christianity. This seems implausible, in my view, given that Christianity was likely not the majority religion in the Roman Empire in 312. Nevertheless, Chalmers admits this is one explanation for what happened on the road to the Milvian Bridge.
In admitting this, Chalmers shows what is often forgotten: the establishment of Christianity cuts both ways. Certainly, the state can influence the church. Chalmers argues in the Lectures that this ought to be exclusively a fiscal influence, along with a loan of public legitimacy. The church should maintain her spiritual independence, including in the operation of her courts. So, while it is clearly possible for a church to exist without either of these, money and legitimacy are a benefit.
But the blade of establishment also cuts the other way. The church influences civil government and society as well. What is often forgotten in contemporary discussions about establishment and “Constantinianism” is how these might be prudent public policy for the civil magistrate. The influence of the church, of Christianity, and the role of sound moral formation through preaching and religious schools improve the commonwealth. Chalmers argues that, whatever Constantine’s true motives, the church was right to accept this help because it assisted them in fulfilling the Great Commission. And even if Constantine converted merely because he believed such a conversion and subsequent establishment of Christianity made good civic sense, he was wise.
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