Challenge: Militaristic early Christianity

I would like to start this thread by saying that I do not mean to offend anyone and that it is not my intention to slam anyone's faith.

With that in mind . . .

I think we're all fairly familiar with the rise of Islam and the Crusades. The whole concept of the first few generations of Muslims conquering new territories in order to expand their faith so rapidly and in such a short period is one that has always fascinated me. Christianity never really did anything like that until much later in its history, i.e the Crusades, and certainly not on the scale that Islam did.

So the challenge is: With a POD no later than the reign of Theodosius, create a militaristic Christianity where its followers believe that they must expand their faith through force of arms.
 
The biggest problem is that Islam was effectively the state religion of Medina (and later Mecca) under the Prophet, with a functional military and control of its territory.

Christianity, for the first several centuries of its existence, was a minority religion with no nation or army of its own. It's a lot more difficult to preach militaristic expansion as an imperative when you have no actual military.

Eventually it became the state religion of Rome (and Armenia, Abyssinia, etc.), at which point it began to develop militaristic trappings, but that's towards the end of the period you've given us.
 
The biggest problem is that Islam was effectively the state religion of Medina (and later Mecca) under the Prophet, with a functional military and control of its territory.

Christianity, for the first several centuries of its existence, was a minority religion with no nation or army of its own. It's a lot more difficult to preach militaristic expansion as an imperative when you have no actual military.

Eventually it became the state religion of Rome (and Armenia, Abyssinia, etc.), at which point it began to develop militaristic trappings, but that's towards the end of the period you've given us.

Exactly, it is near ASB. We are talking about what was a tiny Jewish cult in a small province of the Roman Empire for most of that period.
 
If the early Christians are persecuted more viciously, it wouldn't be hard for them to develop a militant streak. It's not a huge leap from "martyrs" to "holy warriors".
 
It's not a huge leap from "martyrs" to "holy warriors".
Really? Considering how much OTL Christianity glorified martyrdom, and how long it took to make the jump to holy war, I'd think otherwise.

Besides, wouldn't you say there's a huge difference between meekly suffering yourself, and causing others to suffer?
 
More importantly what is to stop the Roman authorities from squashing it like a bug? If Christianity turns violent during this period there were a lot of pagans that preferred minding their own business that would start pointing out Christians to Roman authorities.
 
If the early Christians are persecuted more viciously, it wouldn't be hard for them to develop a militant streak. It's not a huge leap from "martyrs" to "holy warriors".

In general, maybe not. In the specific circumstances of Early Christianity, it would be very hard, both in practical and ideological terms.
Responding in kind to Roman persecution was hardly feasible.
Going the terrorist/guerrilla way would have been physically possible, BUT. other than being extremely impractical and of little military import, that would defeat the whole purpose of being Christian, not just in acting quite contrary to what Jesus taught and did but more critically in getting converts.
A bunch of fanatics that seek to overthrow social order through force of arms in the name of a pretty exotic stranger cult is not something that gains much of traction in the Roman Empire. And the Roman Empire has much more force of arms than any likely sect like that, exactly in order to crush such kind of things with extreme prejudice and maximal bloodshed.
The best case scenario for Christians with these premises is a fate like the one of Bar-Kochba, and even that is probably optimistic.
 
By the time of Constantine the Christians were only like 10%. After him it was like the minority had seized control of the state through an armed minority. Only after Theodosius' Law Banning all other Relgion and the associated physical restrictions did the Christians gain traction.
 
Well, its pretty unlikely and extremely unchristian, but say if one of the Herods converted early on they might create a Messianic Jewish state in the Levant, kinda like Palmyra and just a s short-lived before Rome crushes it like a worm. I really don't think there were any Herodians with the necessary chutzpah (not to mention zealous idiocy) to do this, though. OTL though, Herod Antipas is supposed to have shown a relatively benign interest before the whole crown of thorns thing. But he was too effeminate (he's described in the Bible as a vixen) to lead aJEwish Revolt or something.
 
Hm, well Rome was pretty militaristic, so could a Roman Emperor decide to "militarize" Christianity for a war against say Persia? IDK of who would be the best bet, but I can see an Emperor trying to use religion as a way to boost an attempted conquest of parts of the Sassanid Empire. Declaring it a Holy war to spread Christianity would appeal to the lower classes, though to be honest not much to the upper ones. Again not to sure how likely this is.
 
There is another way of doing it. As has already been mentioned, it's borderline ASB to get a (successful) militant Christianity in the Roman Empire - it may be only a short step from martyrdom to holy war, but it's also only a short step from holy war to crucifixes lining the Appian Way. However, by the time of Theodosius there were already two countries outside the empire where Christianity had been the state religion for almost half a century - Armenia and Ethiopia. It would probably be a lot more plausible to picture an Ethiopian king who adopts conversion by the sword as a tactic of dealing with recalcitrant pagans in the area and imparts a distinct holy war ethos into his armies.
 
So the challenge is: With a POD no later than the reign of Theodosius, create a militaristic Christianity where its followers believe that they must expand their faith through force of arms.

Well, militaristic early Christianity is like pacifist hitlerism.
It is possible, but that would not have been Christianity as we know it.

For example Jesus Christ was born into the family of a hereditary Jewish warrior, a mercenary or something like that. After serving in the Roman auxiliary unit he retired as he was crippled in some battle for the glory of Rome. His disciples, apostles were mostly veterans or young eager warlike Jews who were pleased with his preaching about warriors' ethic, "die with honor for your God and Caesar" and that shit. Of course all of them were Jews, and so far it looked like one of those weird Jewish sects, but Christ kind of mentioned that all the people were equal before God: Jews, Greeks, Romans, Ethiopians etc.
And consequently some time later apostle Paul, a retired Roman centurion, started to convert Gentiles into new religion: mostly soldiers. That was how the militaristic Christianity started - a religion of the military of the Roman Empire. This religion spread quite successfully among the Germanic tribes as it's warriors ethics was close to the hearts of these fierce Barbarians.
 
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