If a religion is a community with shared beliefs and practices, and the center of a religion is social unity, then the story of Constantine and the subsequent biblical inconsistencies with his conversion and the mainstreaming of the Christian religion is center to the overall history of the group. All the following wars and hypocrisies, genocides and atrocities, can be tracked back to this genesis of Christianity’s conversion from separatist Jewish cult to major organizational institution.
The story still held as fact in many scholarly circles of Constantine’s first spiritual interaction with “Christ” dates back to the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 BCE. Constantine claimed to have seen a crucifix, then dreamt that Christ explained to him the meaning. He had crosses painted on his soldiers shield and they crossed a bridge to slaughter their enemies. After this, Constantine was said to have converted and gradually raised Christianity up to be the dominant religion in his empire. However, Christian symbolism was only seen in his personal effects. He still used the symbolism of gods such as Apollo and Diana on the public monument, which celebrated the victory at Milivan Bridge that Christ allegedly delivered unto Constantine. When Constantine, now a “Christian”, dedicated Constantinople, he did so in full Apollonian garb. 
Not only are his mixture of traditional Roman polytheisms with Christianity an obvious inconsistency (“You shall have no other gods before me”) but his allegation of divine appointment is inconsistent with the Jesus of the Bible. In the New Testament, Jesus teachings are often split up into parables, questions, and edicts. Christ would often to fictional stories to illustrate a point and speculatively to allow for some interpretation. When faced with an ensnaring question (usually from political figures of the day) Christ would often answer with a conundrum and thus stump his attackers. On a more rare occasion, Christ would actually say things outright, making declarations or edicts. In Matthew chapter 5, Jesus says “You have heard that it was said, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” This seems to be a command with the start of the paragraph saying “I tell you”. This is in stark contrast with the idea that Christ would, like the G-d of the Old Testament, appear to a military leader and tell him how to strike back and kill his enemies.
This is important to the understanding of the Christians as a faith and as a people because it clearly indicts the forming and violent maintenance of any “Christian” nation, which was a product of Constantine’s reign. We’ve seen in our course that a major conflict is the separating of the actual beliefs from the non-religious activities carried out in the name of those beliefs, especially in Western religion. From the forming of the Nation of Israel to the church’s horrendous blind eye to the holocaust and the oppression occurring in Muslim nations world wide. The fact is that these monikers, as stated by post-modern Christian writer Rob Bell, “make excellent nouns and poor adjectives”. To be a Jew or Muslim or Christian is a good and decent thing, but to label something as Muslim, Jewish, or Christian inherently brings problems, especially when power is involved in teachings that call for humble servitude.
