What can you conclude from Constantine’s dream?
Answers
Explanation:
We should take care as we try to interpret one of the defining moments of Western civilisation, writes Clive Pearson.
It sounds like an impossible question: what’s the connection between Constantine’s dream on the Milvian Bridge so long ago and the situation now facing our Synod?
How can our talk of “new and risky paths”, “a missional church” and report after report on how “the world has changed” possibly have anything to do with the nocturnal imaginings of a Roman emperor about to go to battle?
It is, of course, now known that dreams (and visions) have always played a pivotal role in the life of the Christian faith.
Barbara Holmes has reminded us of how dreams play a part in our ordinary, everyday living as well permeate the biblical text.
Time and time again they are the conduit for an encounter with the divine: they slip in between the cracks of routine patters of organising the world and how we “manage” God.
The prophetic literature presupposes dreams and vision are essential to the faithful community; they propose an alternate reality to what is in place or seemingly soon will be. The birth narratives to do with Jesus abound in their disruptive presence.
Holmes doesn’t deal with Constantine’s dream, though. It occurred on the night of the October 27-28, 312.
The 1,700th anniversary of one of the most important dreams in Christian history has thus slipped by us almost unnoticed.
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