Via National Post:
The historical judgment is that of a mixed blessing. The Constantinian settlement was better than what preceded it — the age of persecution — and enabled the rise of the Christian Europe and Western civilization. Yet it also brought to the Church the capacity to impose, rather than to propose, the gospel. In the 1,700 years since, the freedom to propose without the power to impose has been an elusive balance.
With the French Revolution, and other developments that opened the door to totalitarianism over the subsequent two centuries, the Church returned to a pre-Constantinian age of brutal persecution in many places. At the same time, the rise of liberal democracy provided space for the Church to live as an evangelizer of culture rather than as a holder of power. Whether the rise of secular fundamentalism will permit that to continue is now a pressing question.
A reflection on Christian church-society relations worth reading prior to election day in the US.
What does this have to do with technology? Christianity offers a critique of the kind of society technological progress can drive us to.
