And yet you don't see anyone whining about him, do you? All the codswallop hoopla is continually directed at Constantine and all of his so-called tyrannies. Christians today gripe and grumble about his legalization of Christianity before waxing eloquent about the beautious condition of the church prior to his political ascendancy. Those ungrateful folk are more than welcome to get fuzzy, nostalgic feelings about the days when Roman Emperors scarcely batted their eyelids at setting up Christians as human torches for their garden festivals.
Anyways, in honor of their ungratefulness I would like to remind them of the political exploits of King David. No one seems to bear a grudge against David, even though he:
-had intercourse with another mans wife (2 Sam.11:4)
-killed said man to cover it up (2 Sam.11:15)
-Attacked and decimated unsuspecting towns, killing both men and women and taking their goods (1 Sam.27:9)
-Culled the population of Moab down to a third of its size in one bloody sweep (2 Sam.8:2)
-Nearly wiped out the entire male population of Edomites (2 Kgs.11:15-16)
-Commanded a census which was directly responsible for the death of 70,000 people (2 Sam.24:15)
There is, of course, much more. But I think these suffice to balance the scales a little.
2 comments:
David most assuredly took his knocks for his violent ways. Not only was he told off by the prophet Nathan (2 Sam. 12:1-15) and recorded his abject prayer of repentance for posterity (Psalm 51), but his history as a man of war disqualified him from building God's temple, in favour of his son, a man of peace (1 Chron. 22:8-9). If even David was censured for his violent ways, we have no grounds for treating Constantine better than the "man after God's own heart."
Nor necessarily worse.
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