Talk:Constantinian shift

message: Lovemonkey, I am confused why you insisted I post references regarding the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, and even more so regarding Theodosius' decree. Using this logic, shouldn't someone have to post a reference proving that Constatine issued the Edict of Milan? The sentence on this Edict was located right above the one you asked me to reference, but does not have a "citation needed" tag. Obviously I do not believe this needs to be referenced, but it shows a lack of consistency on the page.
Mattf123 5:22pm 2 Nov 2008.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattf123 (talk • contribs) 22:27, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I am just making sure I have "clean hands". I have gotten a lot of guff on calling this POV of an article what it is- a conspiracy theory. So I apologize but the last thing I need to have to defend myself from why did you ask me and not -so and so- for sources. PS I dont think I even added the original citations tags.. But I have to be even handed. 
LoveMonkey (talk) 23:27, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I can understand that. I didn't mean to be too critical, it's just that it become too much to cite everything in an article. And it can lead people who are not aquainted with the history to believe that some information is unreliable, or unproven when it is not really a controversial piece of info.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.242.249.133 (talk) 00:21, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Citations

message: I noticed the following phrase when looking at this article: "... standard with the first two Greek letters of Christ's name." Of course, the word Christ is not a name, it is a title (e.g., Mahatma is a title, not part of Ghandi's name). So this phrase should be re-worded slightly.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.87.255.132 (talk) 04:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Newer Comments

message: Just came from the Constantinianism article, which (as I saw it) had POV problems. I would appreciate if someone from here, hopefully knowing more about the topic, could look at it. Should it be a separate article at all? Kevinsam 07:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Constantinianism]]

message: Why is this article separate from Constantine I and Christianity, and why is the term alleged to be used by "Anabaptist and Post-Christendom theologians" (whatever these are)? dab (ᛏ) 10:50, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The term Constantinian Shift is a specific theological term used to describe the effect Constantine had on Christianity. It is used by those (like Anabaptists) who are skeptical of the path in which Constantine took the church. Constantine I and Christianity is a more historically focused article which compliments this article, but does not duplicate it. Constantine I and Christianity does not deal in any significant way with the theological ramifications of the Constantinian shift. Constantinian shift should deal not only with the definition of the term, but also how, when and why it is used. A look at the Constantinians shift: what links here page shows how it is referenced differently (and more frequently) than the Constantine and Christianity article. mennonot 22:34, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

text: This concept is of ongoing importance in the U.S. among progressive Christians. See Joe Loconte does the twist for an example. The author does not mention the Constantinian shift by name, but discusses the concept as the beginning of "Constantinianism." I plan to add more on contemporary relevance to the article in the future. mennonot 12:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, keep both articles separate, do not merge. "Constantinian Shift" is a specific view held by some  Christians, including Christian anarchists and many peace churches.  The article will grow over time. --nirvana2013 21:16, 13 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see -- this appears to be an US issue; I see no reason why "Constantine and Christianity" should not also deal with theological issues. Of course "progressive Christians" have tried to go back before Constantine's time since the 1500s. But it will be satisfactory to mark this article clearly as the theological sub-article of the Constantine and Christianity one. dab (ᛏ) 11:41, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

text: This is by no means exclusively a US issue, indeed I think that the British Lion History of Christianity employs a version of what I know as the "Constantinian Hypothesis," namely that the descent of the church into nominalism came with Constantine's reign, and this is a view that is very common among both Evangelicals and Liberals. It was also behind the symbol of the Restoration house church movement in 1980s Britain. It had support from political theologians like Alistair Kee in England and James Bulloch in Scotland, but its most articulate opponent from a historical perspective was an American, Ramsay MacMullan. Some go as far (I think Alistair Kee is one) to deny that Constantine ever became a Christian. MnJWalker 23:51, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for all these details on the British angle. By all means add this information to the article. It sounds like the beginnings of a "Impact on the modern church" section that lays out how the Constantinian shift has affected churches in more recent history. mennonot 08:51, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Older comments

message: Please explain how and what names I got wrong and information I have that is incorrect?
Str1977 the Constantinian shift is at best a theory if not entirely POV. 
LoveMonkey 13:39, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is where you get facts and names totally wrong, which makes me feel uneasy about the entire thing. It's like reading about US President Phil Clinton. I suggest you follow the red link in the text and work it out for yourself. As for the facts - the Apostate's rule did not create "a brief unity" but rather the opposite - he recalled the exiled bishops to create trouble among the Christians. Apart from the fact that the sentence misses words, it is wrong to make Constantine an Arian, just because he recalled Arius and banished Athanasius. (And Marcellus is and remains a heretic no less). All in all, I do not know what this is trying to say anyway. It certainly doesn't come across.
*These are the main points with your first edit. It is beyond me why in your second edit you also reinstated the following stuff:
**"As for the matter of state religion. None of the major world historical religious traditions have ever functioned within the framework of not being a state religion at some point in their history." is just silly and factually wrong (is this a typo?) - no major religion has ever functioned as a state religion? 
**"With pre-Christian pagan empires being run by the emperor as a designated pagan god." grammatically incomplete and actually off-topic.
**"This can be seen in India even in its "Republic of India" referring to itself as Hindustan which reflects in the name of the nation through the religion to which its people adhere though at times not its leaders." nonsense (Hinduism takes its name from the country) and off-topic.
**"Also with the Buddhist traditions such as the theocracy of Tibet that was only brought to an end by the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959." - what has Tibet 1959 (the invasion was BTW 1950) to do with the Constantinian shift?
**"In the Hebrew tradition this practice can be seen in starting in the Tora with Abraham and then followed by the Levite continuing through to the Sadducees." -what can be seen? Again of topic.
**"The case with Islam and its relationship to the state would be exemplified by the monarchy of Saudi Arabia and its governing power coming from the monarchy and the Quran and Shari'a being literally Saudi Arabia's constitution." - also off-topic 
**"After the Reformation, many European state churches themselves were and remain Protestant (see Church of Denmark, Church of Norway, Church of Iceland (Protestant churches being outside the Roman catholic and Eastern orthodox communion,) and also the Anglican state churches of the Church of England and the Anglican Church of Canada." - is off topic and why did you reinstate this substandard version and my corrected one?
As for theory and POV. Yes, the Constantinian shift is a theory, or rather a name for apparently a whole bunch of theories (I do not know whether it is identical with the German term "Konstantinische Wende", which is not restricted to fringe views). There are POV problems in the article. But the main problem is at the moment that it is just babbling, substandard collection of words, especially in the Criticism section. If I could tell what this section wanted to say I had tried to improve it. But I cannot tell. Str1977 (smile back) 16:58, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Names wrong and date? 

message: Please abstain from editing my comments. You have made this completely unreadable. I now am beginning to doubt your sincerity.
LoveMonkey 02:51, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Horrible 

message: The text for the picture is: "Battle of the Milvian Bridge, Raphael, Vatican Rooms. The artist depicted the troops of Constantine bearing the labarum.""
I see a cross on the standards, but I don't see the chi-rho: Px.
*MartinGugino 22:41, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I still see nothing wrong with the term "Constantinian shift", but it seems evident that the article belongs merged into Constantine I and Christianity. dab (𒁳) 10:01, 26 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  bearing the labarum - where? 

message: This article or section may contain an unpublished synthesis of published material that conveys ideas not attributable to the original sources.
Please help Wikipedia by adding sources whose main topic is "Constantinian shift".
Well lets cover each part of the section and I can source the comments here as well.
Please post your objections.
LoveMonkey 03:15, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: OR label

message: The Criticisms section is incoherent and appears largely irrelevant to the topic.  Much of it is devoted to discussing the relationship of Constantine to Arianism, or rebutting Constantine's personal contribution to church theology.  These topics are irrelevant; the Athanasian/Arian conflict has nothing to do with the "Shift", as it's quite clear that a Church with Arian theology (of whatever sort) was going to be (and was) just as much driven by concerns of state as one with Athanasian theology.  And Constantine's personal contribution to the theology isn't at issue -- rather it's the fact of making one branch of the Church licit and indeed dominant within the Empire, and how the Church responded to the changed state of affairs, that constitutes the "Shift".  Let the content of the Shift be driven by individual Church hierarchs as much as may be -- that doesn't change the fact that they now found themselves in a radically different relationship to the State, and had to change their outlook to cope with the new relationship. 
RandomCritic (talk) 21:22, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "Criticisms"

message: :"A departure from authentic Christianity
:The disaster of which Gunton speaks is the Constantinian reversal in the fortunes of the church, that watershed in the fourth century when emperor Constantine and the Roman imperial government embraced Christianity as a state religion. I take the view that Constantine represents a huge departure from authentic Christianity. From that time on Christianity was pressed into service to provide a religious justification for the exercise of power. By speaking of a "land polluted", Gunton means the church we have received is profoundly defective, polluted by Constantinianism, and stands in need of extensive reform. Gunton goes on to argue that we will not understand correctly the nature of the church unless we first develop a satisfactory theology of the church."
http://www.anabaptistnetwork.com/node/172
I understand that people are entitled to their opinion. Yes people are free to all kinds of stupid and terrible things. But being ignorant, though a right does not make something above being called into question. As for the allegations this set of theories Constantinian shift, Constantinian heresy and Constantinianism they are wrong.
They are historically inaccurate. These theories are at their core skeptical fallacy which is that nothing is to ultimately be trusted or believed or that there is no possible answer to this Constantinian conspiracy theory. But I am sorry there is.
http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/patrology/heroes_of_4th_century_pt2.htm
LoveMonkey (talk) 15:05, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Fine, Get a secular historian to cite for that, and put it in. Mangoe (talk) 04:06, 3 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  What the Anabaptist actually state 

message: It appears that this theory which is of European origin plays on the idea that the Christianity of Pre Constantine was radically different. That the Christianity of the first 300 years was a different Christianity then the Christianity that established the Ecumenical Councils. That the multitude of Christians during this time had become proselytes of the state over their own religion, a religion that they had been practicing illegally. A religion that many of them had died for at the hands of the Roman Pagan state.
This also right after the worse persecution the Christian faith had experienced so far from the Roman state via Diocletianus. Also this conspiracy theory implies that many early saints who suffered for the church after Constantine where not valid that they knew that the Christianity that they practiced before Constantine was now not the Christianity that this theory claims Constantine made. A Christianity that they had embraced that was corrupted or different then the one they originally practiced. To understand just how completely inaccurate such a concept is historically it is important to clarify first the degree of corruption that is being supposed. Second it is important to then use historical evidence to see which type of idea holds to be truest ethnic and church history from the region in question and a European history that seems to be more a matter of interruption then fact. 
LoveMonkey (talk) 17:56, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Pre Constantinian Christianity

message: Constantine's Sword is a book about constantinian shift and related controversies about historical antisemitism. It could maybe be mentioned in this article. ADM (talk) 08:22, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Constantine's Sword

message: I think this article needs a lot of work.  I intend on making the following changes when I get around to it unless anyone objects:
1. The article says, "In 380 Emperor Theodosius I made Christianity the Roman Empire's official religion (see State church of the Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire and the Goths) and did enforce the edict."--did enforce what edict?  The only edict mentioned is the Edict of Milan, a so called edict which provided for the freedom of all religions, which Theo obviously did not enforce, since he made all religions but orthodox Christianity illegal.  I will say something about the Edict of Thessalonica in place of the quoted sentence.
2. The article then goes on to speak of the suppression of what would become "orthodoxy" by "Arian" emperors as somehow inconsistent with the unity between church and state.  On the contrary, it illustrates just how bound up imperial and ecclesiastical affairs were at this time.  It merely shows that the church at this time was divided, and that certain eastern emperors attempted to enforce an "Arian" unanimity which ultimately failed.  So I think the two paragraphs ending that section need to be rewritten or eliminated.
3.  In the Theological Implications section the article says, " Before him, Athanasius believed that violence was justified in weeding out heresies that could damn all future Christians.[9] This continued a line of thought started by Athanasius who felt that any means was justified in repressing the Arian belief.[10]"--This is poorly written and I do not think that the second sentence is justified given the Barnes citation, though Barnes can be cited to illustrate the point that is trying to be made...that Athanasius was not opposed to using violence (according to Barnes).  The second sentence should be edited to accurately reflect the citation.
4.  The article would be improved by the addition of a criticism section.  Evidently there had been such a section that was removed b/c it was poorly written by someone with an ax to grind.  But there are plenty of scholarly articles and at least one book (that I know of) which are critical of Yoder's thesis.Ocyril (talk) 15:35, 31 October 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed Edits 

message: What does this image have to do with this page? It's obviously a cartoon of German Kaiser Wilhelm, drawn at the start of the first world war, as an anti-German propaganda cartoon.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.12.16.113 (talk) 00:30, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: I've deleted it, thanks. Dougweller (talk) 09:50, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  (pic) I believe in the sword.... 

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message: This entire article is junk. It contains nothing that may not be found in a dozen other articles. It's pointless. Laurel Lodged (talk) 13:43, 24 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Junk