Churches Compromise with World

The early Christians never compromised with the ancient pagan world. But from the time of Constantine in particular professed Christians were quick to sanction or adopt pagan practices for whatever advantage might be derived from the compromise. Thus Henry Dwight Sedgwick, writing in In Praise of Gentlemen, makes the comment: “Christianity, as we have it, did not overcome the world, but compromised by letting the world continue as it had been, on condition that the world should call itself Christian, turn temples into churches, put saints in the niches in place of the demigods, and don a cassock over the pagan tunic.”