What Happened When Christianity Came to Power Last Time
by Daranté Lamar Martin

They say history repeats itself, but only if we forget what it taught us the first time.

There was a moment in history when Christianity didn't just grow, it took power. Not metaphorically, not spiritually, politically, legally, and imperially. And what happened next wasn't a golden age of faith, it was the beginning of something far worse, far darker.

This wasn't revival, it was regime. This wasn't love your neighbor, it was kneel or die. When Christianity came to power in 380 CE, it didn't elevate the world, it inherited an empire, and then made sure no other worldview could compete. It rewrote the laws, outlawed the alternatives, and built a theocracy so dense it dimmed the light of inquiry for over a thousand years.

This isn't just ancient history, it's a warning. So let's go back, back to where it started, back to when Christianity came to power the first time, and the human travesty that occurred under their leadership.

Christianity's rise to political power, 380 CE.

Let's unpack it step by step, not just what happened, but why it mattered, and then why it still echoes today.

The key event is the Edict of Thessalonica. Issued by Emperor Theodosius I, this edict made Nicene Christianity, the form that upheld the contentious divinity of Jesus and the fallacious doctrine of the Trinity, the only legitimate religion of the Roman Empire. This wasn't just about religious preference, it was about power consolidation. "We authorized the followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians. The rest, we judged to be demented and insane.” That's a direct quote from the Edict of Thessalonica.

Does that language sound familiar? Before 380 CE, Christianity had gone from a persecuted sect to a tolerated faith under Constantine, but it still shared space with paganism, philosophy, and pluralism. After the Edict, pluralism died. You were either orthodox or outlawed. Christianity was no longer competing in the marketplace of ideas. It now had monopoly power backed by the emperor's sword. There's a suppression of competing ideas. With Christianity in power, Neoplatonism, a leading school of philosophical thought, was declared heretical, even though early Christian theology borrowed heavily from it.

Mystery religions, like Mithraism, Isis cults, Eleusinian rites, and all earlier forms of Christianity, which offered spiritual depth and symbolic rituals, were branded as demonic or idolatrous. Traditional Roman religions and temples were shut down or repurposed. Sacred sites were destroyed or converted into churches. This wasn't just theological warfare. It was a cultural purge.

One of the most dangerous shifts was that wrong belief equaled crime. Heresy was no longer just disagreement. It was a threat to the state. You could be exiled, imprisoned, or executed for questioning orthodoxy. Theological disputes became civil wars, Arians versus Nicenes, Donatists versus Catholics, because belief was now tied to empire. This was a new imperial model. Bishops were now government officials. Councils of the church had the weight of imperial law. Rome's administrative structure was co-opted by Christian leadership, who now had both divine authority and legal jurisdiction.

This laid the foundation for the rise of papal power in medieval Europe, the Inquisition, Crusades, and church-run courts, and the eventual belief that disobeying church doctrine was equal to rebelling against God and the state. This shift transformed Christianity from a movement on the margins into a regime at the center. What once spread in the shadows of back rooms and alleys now ruled from thrones and councils. Where emperors were once celebrated for encouraging pluralism of thought and diversity of religion, bishops now said obey or die.

Christianity didn't defeat the Roman Empire. It became the virus infecting its operating system. It didn't seize power because of truth. It seized power through deception, manipulation, and elimination of rivals. And any power born from deception will inevitably breed destruction.

Before Christianity was elevated by imperial decree, it was one voice among many in a vast, diverse, and often brilliant intellectual world. The Greco-Roman Empire, despite its brutality, was a place of philosophical pluralism, where ideas competed in forums, academies, and temples. In this ecosystem, Christianity didn't stand out for its intellectual rigor.

In fact, it struggled. Celsus, a 2nd century philosopher, critiqued Christians as hostile to reason and argument, accusing them of demanding blind faith while avoiding open debate. Porphyry, a 3rd century Neoplatonist, pointed out contradictions in Christian scripture and accused its followers of misrepresenting Jewish texts to construct false claims about prophecy and divinity. The Roman elites often saw Christianity as a danger to civic cohesion, not just because it was new, but because it refused to participate in the shared social and philosophical traditions of discourse.

In other words, Christianity wasn't persecuted because it was true. It was challenged because it was incoherent, insular, and resistant to scrutiny. Unlike competing philosophical schools that engaged in open dialogue, Christian apologists often discouraged public debate and reframed criticism as persecution. Their strategy wasn't to win in the arena of ideas, it was to undermine the arena altogether. They called rational inquiry a temptation from the devil. They taught followers that questioning was rebellion. They framed disagreement as moral failing, not intellectual challenge.

And then came the edict. In 380 CE, all of that changed. Once Christianity became the official state religion under Theodosius, it no longer needed to defend itself intellectually. It didn't have to win arguments because it criminalized disagreement. Critique became heresy. Inquiry became treason. Scholars who once challenged Christian claims were now silenced, exiled, or executed. This marked the end of the marketplace of ideas in the Roman world. No longer were beliefs tested through debate, they were imposed by decree.

This pivot, when Christianity abandoned debate and embraced dominion, is one of the most significant anti-intellectual shifts in human history. It was the moment when dogma overtook dialogue, faith replaced philosophy, and one religion's survival instinct was rewarded with total authority over truth. Christianity didn't win the argument, it outlawed the questions.

So now, the theocratic empire emerges. When Christianity entered the halls of power, it didn't dismantle the empire, it inherited it, and then it baptized it. The legal systems, governance, structures, and hierarchical bureaucracy of Rome were not abandoned. They were repurposed under the authority of bishops and church councils. Religious leaders became state officials wielding influence not just over doctrine, but over civil policy, taxation, and even law enforcement. Councils of bishops like Nicaea, Constantinople, and Chalcedon were treated with the same gravity as imperial senates. Their decisions held the weight of law.

After centuries of wrestling with the complexity of morality and ethics in societies, almost overnight we stopped wrestling with right and wrong and started worshiping authority because of Christianity. As Christianity solidified its grip, Greek philosophy once integrated even into early Christian thought was now seen as a threat to orthodoxy. Scientific inquiry, rhetorical training, and cosmological studies were undermined or demonized. Intellectuals were no longer honored, they were suspected. What couldn't be bent to serve theology was either buried, burned, or banned. Perhaps most insidious was how Christianity, once deeply influenced by Greek, Egyptian, and Ethiopian thought, systematically erased its own roots.

In Egypt, where early monasticism and theological innovation thrived, local leaders were displaced by Roman aligned orthodoxy. Coptic contributions were demonized or ignored. In Ethiopia, one of the first nations to adopt Christianity as a state religion long before Europe, indigenous practices were marginalized as backward or heretical. Even Alexandria, once a beacon of pluralistic scholarship, became a center of violent theological enforcement, most infamously seen in the murder of Hypatia, a pagan philosopher and mathematician, by a Christian mob in 415 CE. The diverse intellectual and cultural origins of Christianity weren't just forgotten, they were intentionally erased to pave the way for a more Eurocentric authoritarian faith.

This selective rewriting of history may have planted the seeds for something even darker. Racism and colonial theology may trace part of their ideological lineage to this era, when the contributions of Africa and the East were systematically erased and Christian identity was rebranded as Roman, European, and eventually, white. The demonization of African and indigenous systems didn't begin with colonization. It may have found early justification in the theological conquests of the ancient world.

The Dark Ages Begin, 476 CE

In 476 CE, the last Western Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed. Historians mark this as the symbolic beginning of the Dark Ages, a time defined by the collapse of infrastructure, fragmentation of power, and most notably, the decline of intellectual and cultural life in Western Europe. And while many factors contributed to Rome's fall, military strain, economic issues, external invasions, there is one force that directly weakened the empire's capacity to adapt, Christianity's assault on intellect, reason, and pluralism.

By the late 4th century, the church had criminalized competing ideas, purged or rebranded ancient sources of wisdom, prioritized obedience over inquiry, and reframed ethics as alignment with orthodoxy, not pursuit of good. As a result, critical thinking was replaced with creeds, philosophy was replaced with theology, pluralism was replaced with enforced belief. This wasn't just an ideological shift, it was an institutional sabotage of the very engines that sustained civilization.

So let's be clear, the version of Christianity that came to power didn't just fail to stop the collapse, it dismantled the tools that could have prevented it. The fall of Rome was a political event. The darkness that followed was a direct result of a church that made thinking itself a threat.

While the fall of Rome had many contributing factors, again, economic instability, overexpansion, and barbaric invasions, the intellectual climate under Christianity's faith-based dominance was the primary contributing factor to the conditions of decline. Why? Because the church prioritized dogma over discovery. It suppressed dissent, and in doing so, weakened the empire's adaptability. Systems of learning, governance, and cultural exchange atrophied under theological rigidity. In a world where only one answer was allowed, no new questions could be asked.

Entire disciplines suffered under this new order. Science was reduced to what could be found in scripture or justified by theology. Medicine stagnated as classical texts were banned or buried. Astronomy regressed, replaced with geocentric cosmology enforced by fear of heresy. Vast libraries, especially in places like Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople, saw their scrolls either destroyed or hidden, with many never resurfacing. And while Eastern cultures like the Islamic world and parts of Asia and Africa preserved advanced knowledge, Christian-dominated Europe languished for centuries.

So let's talk about what really happened when Christianity came to power.

When Christianity came to power, it didn't just gain influence. It monopolized truth, erased opposition, and stalled human progress. What had been a diverse, dynamic empire of ideas became a rigid theological autocracy. In less than a century, Christianity helped collapse a 1,200-year empire and plunged Europe into a millennium of darkness, where power was justified by faith and questioning that faith could cost you your life. It wasn't revival, it was regression, and history remembers it as the Dark Ages for a reason.

If Christianity returns to global power in the modern era, not as a private faith, but as a dominant political and legal force, we are not just facing a spiritual revival, we are facing the collapse of pluralism, personal freedom, scientific integrity, and social infrastructure. Here's what's truly at stake:

1. The Loss of Freedom of Thought and Belief

Secularism would be dismantled in favor of theocratic governance. Laws, education, healthcare, and media could be filtered through religious orthodoxy. A return to blasphemy laws, censorship, and even religious tests for public office become more likely. Dissent becomes heresy. Diversity becomes deviance. At stake, your right to think, believe, or disbelieve without punishment.

2. The Erasure of Minority Rights and Identities.

Non-Christians, atheists, progressive thinkers, and unbiblical communities would be targeted under claims of moral correction. Religious liberty would no longer mean the freedom to believe anything, but the power to impose one belief system on everyone else. We're already seeing Christian imperialist movements fighting to roll back civil rights, reproductive autonomy, and marriage equality, not just here in the US, but abroad.

So what's at stake?

Bodily autonomy, family rights, and the rights to simply exist outside a narrow moral framework.

3. Suppression of Science and Education

Scientific disciplines that challenge biblical literalism—evolution, climate science, cosmology, and psychology—would be undermined, defunded, or banned. Creationism could be taught as fact. Public education would be indoctrination in Christian worldview. Research funding might be limited to what aligns with godly values. Medical breakthroughs, climate solutions, artificial intelligence, and our progress as a species would all be on the line.

4. The End of Global Cooperation and Human Rights as We Know Them

Global alliances depend on human rights frameworks, not religious doctrines. A Christian-powered geopolitical agenda would prioritize dominion and conversion over diplomacy and peace. Non-Christian nations could be labeled evil, lost, or targets for missionary war. At stake here is international peace, humanitarian aid, and cross-cultural alliances.

5. The Collapse of Artistic and Intellectual Freedom

Literature, music, film, and expression that challenges religious authority or depict non-conforming ideas could be banned or criminalized. Cancel culture would no longer be social. It would be legislative. Artists, thinkers, comedians, and scholars would risk arrest for exploring taboo themes. At stake here is the culture itself, the freedom to create, to challenge, and to imagine.

6. The Return to Moral Absolutism and Strategic Ignorance

Christianity in power has historically fueled inquisitions, crusades, colonization, and slavery, all justified by divine mandate. If given power again, that same binary logic of good vs evil, saved vs damned would return. This framework leaves no room for complexity, empathy, or systemic understanding. At stake is our collective ability to grow beyond myth, embrace nuance, and solve real problems.

In summary, if Christianity regains political and legal dominance, we're not stepping into a holy utopia. We're rewinding civilization. Not to year 1, but to year 380, when truth stopped being pursued and started being decreed.

And just 100 years after that, Christianity helped collapse an empire 1,200 years in the making, and plunged Europe into nearly a millennium of darkness, from 476 to 1453. And because that history was suppressed before the fall, Christianity, the culprit, emerged from the wreckage with clean hands. It was given another shot at shaping humanity. And just 40 years after that, 40 years after Africa and Asia delivered Europe from its own dark age, Christianity returned the favor, with genocide, colonization, and slavery. Not in spite of its faith, but because of it.

When Christianity comes to power, history shows us exactly what it brings. Not truth, not peace, not progress, but obedience, erasure, and empire, by another name. We don't just lose our rights, we lose our future. Thank you for hanging out with me today. I know this conversation was a little heavier, but I think it's something that we need to be talking about. Hope the information I shared, and some of the points I made, give you something to think about, and serve as a point of reference for your personal research, and your growth, and your journey."