So what’s a “good Christian” to do when his Head of State, whom he had supported for his righteousness, turns out to be an adulterer and a user-and-discarder of women? It’d be politically advantageous to make excuses for the Head of State, and, after all, many of the religious leaders of the day were counseling this good Christian layman to mute any criticism–after all, the leader was, nominally, a Christian–and he was “the right kind of leader”!

Such was the situation facing a man named Plato (not that Plato, but one who lived in the 8th century). He was actually quite popular until he refused to look the other way regarding Constantine VI’s use of women. And when Plato began agitating for the Church to go on the record disavowing this Constantine’s pussy grabbing, and declaring it to be antithetical to Christianity, Plato found himself in a minority of two (he and another man named Tarasius) and found himself thrown into prison until the death of that particular emperor.

After his release, Plato was “respected” but treated much like a pariah by fellow Christians. He was damaged goods and who knows but what they feared he would call them out on their hypocrisies?! He “happily expired” at age 78, Butler tell us.

History remembers this man now as a saint. How will history regard American evangelicals of 2018?