Christianity, Roman Empire Descent, Athens, Philosophy & Politics

December 11, 2020
fall of Roman Empire
Image Source: Stanford News

By Nneka Okumazie

There is always something to blame on Christianity, historic or contemporary. People often have a lot to say on how the faith went wrong or was applied with bias, etc.

But what stage of the ladder of Christianity is to blame, from nominal to truly, genuine submission?

Yes, accepting Christ is the beginning of true Christianity, but some accept in name only – without the heart.

In this fake set, actions and doings abound that may seem representative of Christianity but unaligned with the scriptures.

There are lots of resources about the end of the Roman Empire and the role of Christianity. Some note the places that were destroyed and those that went with them.

Some blamed believers for their character and connected the fall of the Empire to the faith.

But, from the resurrection of Christ to when Christianity became dominant in the Empire was at least more than two centuries.

In that time, foundations for the future domination of the Empire and strengths should have been established deeply enough to avoid that eventuality or make it temporal, but there wasn’t.

The Roman Empire was also not known to be rigorously academic, or fiercely innovative – by the book, like the Greeks before them.

They didn’t seem to invest much to build on what the Greeks did, though they adopted their language to learn.

The Romans were given to war – and that, a part of their cultural evolution of violence became default on how disputes were settled and how leadership ascent often went.

Christianity is as responsible for the fall of the Roman Empire as a one-time leading corporation falling off, the responsibility of a non-competing start-up.

Christianity, faith in Jesus, the Saviour, in its fresh years wasn’t seeking power or Emperor. It wasn’t also about destruction.

Life, at any point, is empty enough, troubling enough and without meaning to not find the way in Christ.

Those who accepted were not ready to renounce, hence persecution, not that they wanted to die because it was cute.

Christianity had another aim. The Roman Empire had another. It fell but was not by the action of Christianity. Christianity is not to steal, kill and destroy. The faith is for salvation, pure in heart, sanctification and consecration.

Christianity, assuming it came in the time of peak Athens, could have also thrived, because while the academy was buzzing, Christianity would have had its centre elsewhere with answers, faith and hope, beyond philosophical or mathematical perspectives.

True Christianity is not an ideology, and not in competition with others.

There are ideologies that see Christianity as the enemy, but they’re wrong.

The scriptures say something is a sin isn’t an ideological war – with others.

Politics is a servant of ideology, not Christianity.

Ideology determines the direction in situations, but the Christian faith: to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

[Acts 17:18, Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, what will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection.]

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