Blog Radio - Subversive Radio host Keith Giles interviews Dr. RA Baker on the life of Emperor Constantine and his impact on early Christianity

Blog Talk Radio: Subversive Radio Part II
Was the Conversion of Constantine genuine? And What was his impact on early Christian doctrine, structure, etc.

August 2014

On August 26 I appeared on Blog Talk Radio host Keith Giles' show Subversive Radio. We started a discussion on Emperor Constantine: was Constantine genuinely converted to Christ? How did Constantine influence the early Christian church? [specifically, the shift towards violence, military service, nationalism among Christians, and the shift from the priesthood of all believers towards the clergy/laity division].

Interview 1: Intro of Constantine as a topic
Interview 2: Was the conversion of Constantine genuine?
What was his impact on early Christian doctrine, structure, etc.

I met Keith Giles through a simple Google search while doing research to find out how people were searching for Constantine - I stumbled on his blog: [subversive1.blogspot.com]. Keith made some comments in a blog post about Constantine which I not only disagreed with, but contested with him were historically false. We had a running conversation for a few weeks and have had a few additional exchanges along the way. Keith worked with Vineyard Ministries for several years, served as a pastor, and eventually responded to God's call to step down from his paid position on staff as a pastor of a traditional church he had helped to plant in order to start a church in his home where 100% of the offering goes to help the poor in his community. He works as an advertising copywriter for the world's largest technology distributor and lives in Orange, CA with his wife Wendy and their two teenage sons.

Keith has written several ebooks:
This Is My Body: Ekklesia As God Intended
"The Power of Weakness" [2012]
"War is not Christian" [2012] and
"How To Start A Ministry To The Poor In Your Community".

Keith appears to align himself with Anabaptist thought in at least a few ways (pacifism and a rejection of episcopal church leadership come to the forefront fairly quickly). He is in the home church movement which basically believes that leadership hierarchy was not the New Testament norm.

It could be a good discussion as each of us have served in church leadership at various levels, both of us lean towards the Anabaptist Free Church movement, yet we strongly disagree on how to interpret the data of early church history. This is another example of my opinion that many in the Anabaptist traditions do not simply misinterpret the data - they misrepresent the data. This will come up in our discussion as some of the authors Keith cites are guilty of misrepresentation.

Questions, Comments or Criticisms:
You can send an email to directly to me Al Baker, CH101.
CH101 retains the right to edit and post comments/questions unless you specifically ask that your comments NOT be posted. Comments that are personal or private are never posted...only questions about Church History, the Bible, etc.

Blog Talk Radio: Subversive Radio Part II Was the Conversion of Constantine genuine? And What was his impact on early Christian doctrine, structure, etc.

Blog Talk Radio: Subversive Radio Part II
Was the Conversion of Constantine genuine? And What was his impact on early Christian doctrine, structure, etc.