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conservative with theocratic tendencies). In a fallen world, only so much can be expected from
the power of the sword. A rough balance of power, order in the streets, a check on the worst
excesses of the exploitation of the weak by the powerful these are the things we can
realistically expect from the sword. To expect more than these minimal goods from the power of
the sword is to fall prey to rose-colored, romantic idealism and to open ourselves to disastrous
violence on a grand scale. What is within our control as Christians, however, is the degree to
which the church identifies itself with the state and whether or not the church actually justifies,
endorses or joins in state-sponsored violence. This seems to me to be the crucial point in
determining whether the church will maintain its witness to the Gospel or allow its witness to the
Gospel to be obscured. The church must reject the sword if it wishes to remain the church.
The bishops of the fourth century compromised the unique identity of the church when
they allowed it to be co-opted by the emperor for his own political purposes and absorbed into
the empire as the religious arm of the empire. The state persecution of heretics led to a false
ecclesial unity based on state coercion and political considerations. The church of the martyrs
became the church of the persecutors, which compromised the holiness of the church. The
catholicity of the church was compromised by the provincialism of the church becoming the
court religion of the Roman emperors. The bishops' failure to preach the gospel to Constantine
represented a failure of the church to be truly apostolic. A new typology of Christ and culture
should aid us in the task of discerning how the church can engage culture without compromising
its unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity.
I have come to believe that the core issue is the temptation to join the state in violent
coercion. This is always a central temptation and when the church endorses, requests or joins in
violent coercion with the state, it is utilizing a Christendom strategy it is presupposing