Christianity is personal relationship with the God who created everything. Because of that, it isn’t just a belief system trying to make sense of the world around us. It’s historical events in human history where God moved in such ways as to interact with his creation, both on the macro and micro levels. He does great spectacular ocean moving events, and soft whispers on mountain tops. This is all said to be done, not in the minds, or the spiritual feelings of people, but in dates and times of history.
Out of all the religions and belief systems of the world, Christianity is one of the few that relies on historical moments as its bases for belief. The birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are all points in history, that if false, breaks the very bases for faith in the biblical account, as Paul stated in 1st Corinthians 15. That’s why history and the truth of what happened in the past, should be so important to the Christian, and why we should defend the very moments of history that solidify our faith.
This brings us back to our series on TikTok Theology, where we are are looking at short form videos that try to communicate deep theological or historical ideas, but end up twisting the truth. We talked last week about how deep ideas, take a long time to unpack and understand, and a minute or less video cannot do these ideas justice.
So we began looking at one individual’s video that addressed the idea that the Bible didn’t speak about eternal conscious torment and hell. Yet when we start at a place that the person themselves started at, we saw that their claims were not true and in fact the idea of eternal conscious torment is there and that the English word hell is actually a very good translation of the idea of a place of punishment for the wicked.
We walked away from last week with the understanding that, God calls us to breakdown arguments as to give a defense for the reason we believe in Jesus.
Today, we’re going to move away from Scriptural study, something we’ll return to next week, and look at a video that has some historical claims about Christianity. Because, not only are people attacking the Scriptures, they are attacking the very history of the Church. So like we did last week, we are going to watch the video, which is about a minute long, and then address the claims of it.
The video is a snippet of a larger interview from a podcast by Julian Dorey and features a man by the name of Matthew LeCroix. On his website, LeCroix refers to himself as a writer and ancient history researcher. He has written three books on lost ancient civilizations and discovering the secret origins of humanity. He states he is also credited with discovering the lost Ararat Civilization in Lake Van, Turkey. While researching that claim, I couldn’t find any corroborating evidence or mention of LeCroix’s name by any published documents of discovery pertaining to this Ararat Civilization. I have listened to a few interviews of LeCroix, and and it seems he believes along the lines that humanity’s ancient civilizations were influenced by a greater civilization that was more advanced and possibly alien in origin. That’s where we get these mega structures like the pyramids at Giza. In other words, LaCroix believes that there is hidden history that points us to a consciousness that we have lost in time, and he intends to rediscover this hidden history. When it comes to Christianity, he believes that there is hidden history there as well.
Let’s watch the video : https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PgIVw0juDJY?feature=share
In this snippet of video that was released by the podcaster himself, LaCroix makes four claims about the history of Christianity. In fact, his claims have been around long before he entered the scene, and today, it is a topic that can be found throughout the internet, that Constantine created or at the very least, reworked the Christian religion to control the masses (https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/comments/10e2rxw/its_highly_probable_that_christianity_was_created/?rdt=46814).
But since LeCroix has made historical claims, we can check them against the historical record. So let’s go through these one by one. On a side note, if you are listening to this, I make my references available on my blog, in my manuscript for this sermon.
Claim #1, LeCroix states that, “People don’t know is that the Roman Empire used to be a non-monotheistic civilization. Meaning they didn’t believe in a single god. Romans used to believe the planets being gods.”
There’s truth and and there’s falsity in this first claim. It is true that the Roman Empire was non-monotheistic, and in fact it was polytheistic, meaning, they believed in multiple gods and those gods had dominion over certain aspects of life. And some of those gods were also associated with the planets. Sol was represented by the sun and was the protector of emperors. Mercury was the god of travel and commerce. Venus the goddess of love, fertility, and victory. Jupiter is the head and father of the gods and has dominion over sky and thunder. And so on. But the Romans didn’t believe that the planets were gods, but rather gave the names of their gods to the planets. Mercury being the fastest rotation, received the name of a god who was the fastest. Mars appearing blood red received the name of the god who had dominion over war. Jupiter being the biggest received the name of the head of the gods (https://www.history.com/news/who-named-the-planets). Now there was stories of people becoming stars and constellations, but the reason behind the naming of the plants was not the same as these.
In fact, out of the top twelve gods that the Romans worshiped only four were given planetary names. So the connection of planetary naming and worshiping that LoCroix seems to be trying to connect isn’t even there.
And for him to say that people don’t know that Roman worship was polytheistic, it would’t be from a lack of education, because from a sixth grade U.S. text book I found this, quote, “The Romans borrowed many of their gods from the Greeks. For instance, the Roman god Jupiter, father of the gods, had many of the characteristics of the Greek god Zeus. Apollo, the Greek god of music and poetry, became a key Roman god of the same name. The chart below lists some of the gods that Rome borrowed from Greece (Student Edition, pg. 455) (https://nsms6thgradesocialstudies.weebly.com/uploads/3/7/2/4/37241339/chapter_13_-_the_rise_of_rome.pdf)." Two pages in McDougal Little’s World History: Ancient Civilizations text book for six graders, is given to the teaching of the Romans polytheistic religion.
So claim one, is overall false, with a hint of truth sprinkled in.
Claim #2 - LaCroix stated that, “When the Roman Empire was collapsing, there was a man named Constantine and Constantine ended up having this brilliant idea where they would restructure the Roman Empire in where? Istanbul, Turkey. That’s why it was called Constantinople.”
The Fall of Rome is seen as starting with the emperor Diocletian at the end of the 200s and beginning of the 300s AD. Because the empire was so massive, and due to internal civil wars and external attacks, the Roman empire was collapsing under it’s own weight. Diocletian, who was a great administrator and politician, decided that the best approach was to divide the empire into two halves, east and west (https://www.history.com/news/8-reasons-why-rome-fell).
In dividing the empire, Diocletian set out to address all the issues facing Rome. First to govern the vast empire easier, he made it so there were now two Augustus’ the main rulers or emperors, equal in status to each other and not looking to gain the whole thing for themselves. Under those Augustus’ there were two Caesars, these would be Augustus in training. Because infighting and civil wars followed an emperor’s death, Diocletian set out to fix the transition of power. So when he eventually stepped down as Augustus in the east, so did his counter part step down in the west. However this separation led to an imbalance in resources and the eastern empire began to flourish, while the western side declined.
Secondly, Diocletian believed that the reason why Rome was losing so many eternal battles, was because the gods were unhappy that the their civil worship was being challenged by the new Christian religion. See everyone was supposed to sacrifice as a public worship to the gods, but at this point the Christians were the only group that would flat out deny that worship. In addition to that, the Christians wouldn’t recognize the emperor’s status as Lord or a god on earth. So to strengthen Rome once again, Diocletian believed they must purge themselves of those that would insult the gods. This led to the Diocletian persecution of Christians in the easter empire. This is referred to as one of the most horrific persecutions of the Church, not seen until the modern era. It’s a time when a lot of our earliest manuscripts were lost to Roman destruction.
Constantine comes into the story around this time, when his father, who was the Caesar in the west, is promoted to Augusts and Constantine is passed over to replace him. Well as history goes, while helping his father in a campaign, the father dies and his army proclaims Constantine emperor in the west. This leads to a little infighting, but the emperor in the east, eventually recognizes Constantine as an Augustus. However because of politics, Constantine would then eventually take by force both parts of the empire rejoining them as one Rome. Now the story goes that as Constantine marched against the other Augustus, he had a vision of a cross and chose to follow the God of the Christians because of it.
But because Constantine was both a great solider and administrator, he realized that Diocletian was correct in repositioning the seat of power for the empire and structuring it the way he did. So Constantine built a New Rome, or what would be called Constantinople. What’s interesting about it however is that is was only a few miles away from Nicomedia on the Anatolia peninsula or Asia Minor, which is where Diocletian ruled from. So Constantine’s move wasn’t an out of left field political maneuver. There was already a precedent established by his predecessor.
However, one of the things we must remember is that, though Constantine now said he was a Christian, the Roman army at the time was still steeped in polytheism. In fact out of all the social classes and institutions, it was the army that was the most dedicated to the pantheon of gods that we talked about earlier. We need to understand this because of what LeCroix makes in this third claim.
Claim #3 - LeCoix states, “Constantine was brilliant. He was like, 'How do we control everything? If we rewrite history, we can write the future too.’ Because who controls the past controls the future too. They also, we can’t really have people, like reaching higher states of conciseness through spirituality and these teachings so let’s also take over religion. They then turned into a monotheistic religion.”
A myth that surrounds Constantine is that he made Christianity the Roman religion. On the contrary, what Constantine did was in 313 AD he sent out the Edict of Milan. This edict simply made Christianity a legal religion. Meaning a religion that was allowed to be practiced within the Roman Empire without reprisal or persecution from the state. Here’s the opening to that edict, “When I, Constantine Augustus 1, as well as I Licinius Augustus fortunately met near [Milan], and were considering everything that pertained to the public welfare and security, we thought, among other things which we saw would be for the good of many, those regulations pertaining to the reverence of the Divinity ought certainly to be made first, so that we might grant to the Christians and others full authority to observe that religion which each preferred; whence any Divinity whatsoever in the seat of the heavens may be propitious and kindly disposed to us and all who are placed under our rule. And thus by this wholesome counsel and most upright provision we thought to arrange that no one whatsoever should be denied the opportunity to give his heart to the observance of the Christian religion (https://stmaryhillsboroughnj.org/files/Adult Ed Tab/EdictOfMilan2016.pdf).”
In fact, Constantine’s nephew, Julian, who became Caesar in the west and eventually took his uncle’s throne, rejected Christianity and tried to erase his uncle’s work of allowing Christians to freely practice their beliefs. He is considered the last of the pagan rulers of Rome, with his successor being the one who is credited with making Christianity “official” with his Edict of Thessalonica in AD 380.
However if the goal was to use Christianity as a tool to fix Rome and control the masses, Constantine failed. With historians saying things like this, “One of the many factors that contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire was the rise of a new religion, Christianity. The Christian religion, which was monotheistic ran counter to the traditional Roman religion, which was polytheistic (many gods). At different times, the Romans persecuted the Christians because of their beliefs, which were popular among the poor… By approving Christianity, the Roman state directly undermined its religious traditions. Finally, by this time, Romans considered their emperor a god. But the Christian belief in one god — who was not the emperor — weakened the authority and credibility of the emperor (https://www.ushistory.org/civ/6f.asp#:~:text=In 476 C.E. Romulus, the,1000 years was no more.).”
Or this, “The decline of Rome dovetailed with the spread of Christianity, and some have argued that the rise of a new faith helped contribute to the empire’s fall. The Edict of Milan legalized Christianity in 313, and it later became the state religion in 380. These decrees ended centuries of persecution, but they may have also eroded the traditional Roman values system. Christianity displaced the polytheistic Roman religion, which viewed the emperor as having a divine status, and also shifted focus away from the glory of the state and onto a sole deity. (https://www.history.com/news/8-reasons-why-rome-fell)."
Christianity led the Roman Empire away from almost 700 years of pagan worship, and in doing so, upended the entire foundation it was built on.
One last thought on this from a population angle. Estimates put the total population of the Roman Empire at about 60 million people, with Christians at Constantine’s time at about 3 million people. That means that 5% of the population was Christian. Now the majority of Christians at this time were anti-military service, but for the sake of argument, let’s say that 5% of Constantine’s army, was Christian. It is believed that when Constantine is marching to fight his battle for the empire he has about 40,000 men (via britannica.com), to his opponent’s 100,000. That would mean 2,000 men would have been Christians. Now ask yourself, would Constantine risk the ire of the other 38,000 men for the allegiance of the 2,000? Would those 2,000 men, who already signed up under a pagan general really be important enough for Constantine to alienate the other 38,000 pagan soldiers? In a broader since, would it be better for Constantine to control the 57 million pagans by completely unending their belief system for the 3 million Christians? That doesn’t make any sense numerally, let alone historically.
If Constantine set out to use a monotheistic religion to control, what it led to was the fractioning of one of the most influential empires in history.
Claim #4 - Finally LeCroix states, “Then they started persecuting anyone that wasn’t a Christian. Then they burned the Library of Alexandria. And then what they did, was they went around the world, and systematically destroyed all the ancient groups that were pre-christian. That’s the entire reason why the Dogon end up in Mali."
So let’s put history in it’s proper place. First, Constantine officially takes over as emperor of Rome in 324 AD, eleven years after making Christianity a legal religion. In relation to this, when is the library at Alexandria burned? Well the account of it’s destruction comes from two sources. One which is by Ammianus Marcellinus (Mar-sel-a-nus) writing around 352 AD, which is twenty years after Constantine, so it could be that he is in on the conspiracy. But wait, he wasn’t a Christian, he was a pagan and he was writing under that pagan Emperor Julian, Constantine’s nephew, that was mentioned earlier (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ammianus-Marcellinus). So why would they be in on the conspiracy? But Marcellinus is actually writing off the first hand account of the philosopher and historian Starbo, who conducted an investigation into the matter, about a decade after the event. And when do you think that event took place. The way that LeCroix puts forth, it must have happened some time in the 300s, after Constantine took power, right? No, it happened in 48 BC. Three-hundred and sixty one years before the Edict of Milan. And it wasn’t Constantine, it was Julias Caesar, who’s campaign against the Egyptians, led to the burning of boats, which lead to the burning of the library’s contents. In fact the library was rebuilt and destroyed a few more times before Constantine was even born.
But one last remark LeCroix makes about the Dogon tribe in Mali who he connects with the persecution that comes from Constantine and the Christians. Here’ a quote from an African art historian, “The Dogon people of Mali are believed to have originated in ancient Egypt, though they have stories of traveling from the Mande kingdom. What is known for sure is that they settled along the sandstone cliffs by the Bandiagara Escarpment probably during the 15th or 16th century. It is thought that they ended up here while trying to escape Islamization. With bluffs reaching over 1600 feet high and 90 miles long, and the cliffs littered with hundreds of caves, it would have been the perfect place to hide from enemies (https://discoverafricanart.com/tribes/dogon-people/#:~:text=The Dogon people of Mali,th or 16th century.).” So it wasn’t the Christians that persecuted the Dogo that they might flee to the Mali, another misrepresentation of history.
Time and time again LeCroix misrepresents history to create a conspiracy about how Christianity came to be a world religion. And people take statements by people like LaCroix and use them as ammunition against Christianity. Yet, as we take our time, and look into history, we can see that not only is LeCroix overall wrong, he cannot even get simple dates correct.
Yet, his beliefs will be reiterated time and time again, and we need to have the patience and willingness to walk people through the evidence to debunk people like LaCroix.
So m challenge this week is this to do one of two things. Either pick up a copy of Max Pointer’s article on a brief overview of the history of the early Church out on the information table in the foyer (https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/ch-144-early-church-part-1
https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/ch-144-early-church-part-2) that way you can get a good handle on the first 500 years of Church history, or look up Ryan Reeves who is a seminarian historian that has a Youtube channel, which has a playlist of about 54 videos covering the ancient Greek world all the way up to the Reformation, which is bout 2,000 years of history. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzStS_NSs-s&list=PLRgREWf4NFWZEd86aVEpQ7B3YxXPhUEf-). Each of his videos are about 30 minutes long and give you a better understanding of what is happening, especially during the time of Constantine.
In addition, be praying for people like LaCroix who has traded the God of creation, for a belief that we are the product of ancient aliens. Pray also for the people that hear his false claims and regurgitate them. Also pray for the ability to speak to such people, that they might hear the Gospel and come to know Jesus as the Creator, Sustainer, and Savior of all things.
Let us be defenders of, not only the Scriptures, but the God who works in history for his glory. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment