The Reign of Constantine: "You Get a Church, and You Get a Church!"

"Nice pagan temple. Be a shame if someone...Christianized it."

-Constantine, probably

The conversion of Emperor Constantine to Christianity was one of the most groundbreaking events to occur in the history of Rome. The single most influential political figure in the world had official changed divine allegiances. 

But as we'll talk about today, the implications for this change would be felt in the religious spheres of the Empire as well. Across territories, Constantine would go about building some of the most ornate churches the world has ever seen. 

Join the boys as they get back into arguing about Constantine and whether the movie was any good or not. Also Taylor is in ketosis, and Thomas is pretty uncomfortable about it. 

(Banter ends 9:15) 

IG: @churchhistory4chumps 

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Episode Transcript

UNKNOWN (00:00):
Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 (00:10):
Hey everybody, welcome to Church History for
Chumps.
My name is Johnny the Jet,Simon, and I'm here with my two
best pals.
We got Taylor, Terabyte,Treadway, and Tommy, the Who's
Dat Boy Duel.
What's good?
Who's dat boy?
I like that.
Yeah, you like that?

(00:34):
Classic Terabyte.
Classic.
How we doing, boys?
How's the evening treating you?

SPEAKER_04 (00:41):
I went to Lazy Dog for dinner.

SPEAKER_02 (00:45):
Don't they sell furniture there?
Chinese restaurant?

SPEAKER_04 (00:49):
Oh

SPEAKER_02 (00:51):
my.
Alright, Chump Nation.
Whose joke was funnier just now?

SPEAKER_03 (00:56):
Definitely

SPEAKER_02 (00:57):
Tommy's.
Mine was dumb.
Thomas' was racist.
I know it was.
It wasn't bad though.
What kind of restaurant is LazyDog?

SPEAKER_04 (01:06):
Lazy Dog is pretty popular out here in SoCal.
I want you to think if TexasRoadhouse I want you to think if
Texas Roadhouse met like if thatdad met some like vegan lady and
then they had a kid.

SPEAKER_01 (01:25):
Okay.
And then that kid grew up andbought a restaurant.

SPEAKER_02 (01:32):
Right.

SPEAKER_04 (01:33):
So

SPEAKER_02 (01:33):
it's like steak, but they have a lot of...
Yeah,

SPEAKER_04 (01:37):
they got like health options.

SPEAKER_02 (01:39):
Like jicama.

SPEAKER_04 (01:40):
That's part

SPEAKER_02 (01:41):
of the reason.

SPEAKER_04 (01:42):
No, I want you to think like I'm doing keto right
now because I was...

SPEAKER_01 (01:49):
So it's like the steaks are like seared in like
grass-fed butter.
Yeah.
You guys want to know why I'mdoing keto?

SPEAKER_04 (01:58):
Nope, don't care.
What are you

SPEAKER_02 (02:01):
doing keto for, Taylor?

UNKNOWN (02:03):
Why?

SPEAKER_04 (02:03):
One of the pastors in Africa, he didn't realize, he
said I was fat.
I

SPEAKER_01 (02:10):
feel like it was like a compliment for him, but
for you it just kind of, oh, youare very,

SPEAKER_02 (02:18):
very fat.
And then he proceeded to

SPEAKER_04 (02:21):
say, and maybe in heaven, my skin would be white
like his.
Oh, my.

SPEAKER_02 (02:31):
No, no, no.
This is a very interesting valuesystem change.
And I

SPEAKER_04 (02:37):
said, no, no, in heaven, my skin will be dark
like yours.
And then they all went, oh.
And I'm like, dude, I'm out ofmy element here, man.
They

SPEAKER_01 (02:50):
all hand him$5 in imperfect English.
He just says, I told you I couldget him to say it.
Oh, that's good.
Oh,

SPEAKER_02 (02:58):
man.
So you feel like you need tolose some weight because a
couple African pastors calledyou big boned?

SPEAKER_04 (03:07):
Yeah, pretty much.
So I had

SPEAKER_02 (03:09):
keto.
I

SPEAKER_04 (03:10):
had lettuce wraps for dinner.

SPEAKER_02 (03:13):
Are you in ketosis right now?
I

SPEAKER_04 (03:15):
sure am.

SPEAKER_02 (03:16):
Could you put the ketosis up to the microphone

SPEAKER_01 (03:23):
so we can

SPEAKER_02 (03:23):
hear

SPEAKER_01 (03:23):
it for some reason?

UNKNOWN (03:25):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (03:25):
Are you in ketosis right now?
Sounds like such a violating

SPEAKER_03 (03:32):
question.
I don't know why.
I'm like trying to think of it.
What does ketosis sound

SPEAKER_00 (03:37):
like?

SPEAKER_04 (03:39):
It's like, hey guys, I'm ketosis.

SPEAKER_03 (03:45):
It sounds like Lucas in those music.
Don't feed me no sugar.
We're talking jerky.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (03:59):
Oh, man.
That's good.
That's good.
I have avocados and

SPEAKER_03 (04:02):
eggs for breakfast.

SPEAKER_04 (04:04):
I don't know.
My favorite part is when peopleare like, yeah, I'm on keto, and
they call it dirty keto, andyou're like, oh, what'd you have
for breakfast?
It's keto voice, right?
Six pieces of bacon, an avocado,and six eggs.
I'm like, well, you just ateyour calorie limit.

(04:26):
Good job.

SPEAKER_02 (04:28):
Actually, we were just talking about that health
food junkie culture thing.
I feel like Dirty Keto would bea great hippie punk rock band
name.
Yeah.
Dirty Keto.
I don't know.
We could start it.
But I don't think the ukulelefits well in most punk music.

(04:51):
Or

SPEAKER_01 (04:53):
POC music for that matter.
Or any music for that

SPEAKER_02 (04:57):
matter.
How about Hawaii, pal?
Where's that?
I almost said country.
There's a whole island full ofukulele players.
Thank you.
You step off the airport andeveryone's just singing
somewhere over the rainbow.

SPEAKER_04 (05:12):
Shout out Spam Musubi.

SPEAKER_02 (05:15):
Speaking of shoutouts, Malta, dead to us.
We fell off their rankings.
Ireland, also dead.
You know who we popped off forthis week?
If only.
Germany.
Bro.
Germany is once again in theheadlines.

(05:36):
This time, for all good.
Well, couldn't talk, Germany.
Couldn't talk.

SPEAKER_03 (05:41):
Couldn't talk, my friends.
My friend.
We gotta be like the onlypodcast that as soon as they
start trending anywhere, we justroast them.
We just bully them into notlistening to us anymore.
You want to know,

SPEAKER_04 (05:59):
when we had our layover in Germany, and I got to
say, guys, your country, man,it's like we're going through
customs, and there's juststraight-up guys with MP5s and
extra ammo, bulletproof vestsjust staring you down.
You're just like, here's mybackpack.

(06:21):
Please scan it.
I have a Nintendo DS.

SPEAKER_02 (06:24):
That just shows they take security very important.
And I'm sure they were...
I can't say it.
No,

SPEAKER_00 (06:31):
I can't.

SPEAKER_02 (06:33):
I was going to say, I'm sure that guy was just
following orders.
Oh my gosh!

SPEAKER_03 (06:41):
Man, that feels awful.
I didn't like that.

SPEAKER_01 (06:45):
You just fell off in Germany.
No,

SPEAKER_02 (06:47):
stop.
Don't say that.
Yeah.
Or I'm gonna taste that joke inpurgatory for a couple decades.
Alright, well, gang, should we,uh, who's on deck tonight?
Tommy, is it you?
I got one ready.
Okay, well, let's hop in.
Are we recording two tonight?

(07:10):
If we can.
I mean, Taylor's pretty cynical.
I think we can.

SPEAKER_01 (07:16):
Cool.

SPEAKER_04 (07:17):
Let's rip it.

SPEAKER_01 (07:18):
Well, this episode is titled Constantine II
Electric Boogaloo.
Ooh, alright.
Does this one also have KeanuReeves?
You can if you want.
Keanu is always available toshow up wherever you need him.

SPEAKER_02 (07:34):
I am disappointed, though, that we didn't make any
jokes about how the filmConstantine was a really, really
accurate depiction of the lifeof Constantine.
Because I think it was about avampire hunter.

SPEAKER_04 (07:49):
Oh, let me see.

SPEAKER_02 (07:52):
Oh, okay.
He's an exorcist.
Oh, thank you, Taylor.
Yeah.
I should have known this wasright up your alley.

SPEAKER_01 (07:58):
Has there been any good movies made about
Constantine?
I don't think so.

SPEAKER_02 (08:04):
It's called Constantine.
No, they, uh, what's that onethey made about?
No, that's about the crusades.
That's about a thousand yearslater.
Come on, John.
Uh, no, the answer

SPEAKER_01 (08:13):
should be kingdom of heaven.

SPEAKER_02 (08:15):
Yes, the one with Legolas.

SPEAKER_04 (08:18):
Hey, chat,

SPEAKER_02 (08:18):
you want to know something?
I

SPEAKER_04 (08:20):
really want to watch that.
You want to know something,chat?
John Simon and I watchedConstantine together many, many
years ago, and he doesn't evenremember.
I

SPEAKER_02 (08:29):
don't think that's true.

SPEAKER_04 (08:30):
It is true! I watched it at your house!

SPEAKER_02 (08:36):
Just because you watched it at my house does not
mean I was there.

SPEAKER_04 (08:40):
It was the young man's game where we would all...
Load up like seven unnecessaryhookahs and we would sit around
the TV and just watch and

SPEAKER_02 (08:51):
enjoy.
Oh, we did do that.
Maybe, are you sure it wasConstantine?
Positive.
Dang, and I was there.
I probably packed the hookahs.
Probably.
Rats.
Okay.
Shia LaBeouf is in this movie?

SPEAKER_04 (09:09):
Oh my gosh, we need to start.

SPEAKER_02 (09:10):
Bro, I'm in a terrible spot.
Okay, alright, this is the endof the banter section now.
Alright, Tommy, run with it.

SPEAKER_01 (09:18):
Alright, so this time we're going to talk a lot
about Constantine's buildingprojects.
There's still a whole otheraspect of Constantine's life
that we're not going to reallycover, which...
I mean, we could do probablythree or four more episodes.
Maybe we'll mix them in over thenext couple years.

(09:39):
Constantine can be like an oldfaithful.
But if you didn't listen to thefirst Constantine episode, you
might want to go back and listento that one.
I think the three of us did apretty good job kind of chopping
up some of the myth versus fact.
So after he kind of rises topower and is controlling the

(10:01):
empire, He's made Christianitybe in favor.
One thing I'm not sure if wetalked a whole lot about in the
last episode was he didn't makepaganism or other religions
illegal.
He just made it not popular.

(10:23):
He made it hard.
It seems like there was timeswhen he would possibly persecute
religions, if they were...
I think it was like...
I think when he found out thatin Jerusalem, which we might
talk a little bit about this,but in Jerusalem and some other

(10:45):
holy sites like in Palestinewere being kind of overrun by
pagans, I think he wouldactually stop them.
But for the most part in theempire, he just wanted to favor
Christianity.
And the biggest way that he didthat was by building...
And he built some of the mostimportant churches known to

(11:07):
history, churches that are stillthere to this day that are very,
very important historical sites.
Like Saddleback?
Dude, that reminds me.
There is an Instagram accountout there that blames
Constantine for everything.

(11:29):
Absolutely everything.
Red lights are red for way toolong.
Thanks, Constantine.
But yes, Saddleback.
I wonder if we dig underneath.
You never know.
Maybe there's a portal to Romethere.

(11:51):
That'd be pretty cool.
We're going to talk about threedifferent areas.
We're going to talk about whathe did in Rome.
Then we're going to talk aboutJerusalem.
Then we're going to talk aboutConstantinople.
So let's start with Rome.

(12:14):
Before Constantine, otheremperors were prone to building
temples.
But his building of churches wasa way of communicating that
Christ was God of the RomanEmpire at this time.
Okay.
I want to note before we reallydive in, again, I'm relying

(12:35):
really heavily on thescholarship of Peter Lightheart
and his book DefendingConstantine.
And I'm going to be quoting fromthat fairly extensively.
But where, here's a little popquiz.
What is the name of the, well,other than the Vatican, where

(12:56):
does the Pope live?
Or what's the name of the churchthat's there?
You guys know?
St.
Peter's Basilica?
That's right.
Yay, let's go.
All right.
So if you were to go to Rome andgo to Vatican City, which is
actually its own nation, by theway, if you were to go to the

(13:17):
Vatican City, you would find, Ibelieve you would actually find
two basilicas there.
So there's what's called Old St.
Peter's Basilica, And thenthere's St.
Peter's, which is the enormousbasilica where, you know, you
can, I think they can put like50,000 people in there.

(13:39):
Oh my gosh.
Crowd into that outdoor areaoutside of the church.
But old St.
Peter's Basilica was the churchbuildings, and I'm reading from
Wikipedia right now, the churchbuildings that stood from the
4th to the 16th century, so along, long, long time.

(14:00):
And it's where St.
Peter's Basilica stands today inVatican City.
So it is, I think, incorporatedwith and sometimes under
portions of the new St.
Peter's.
Actually, you know what I wasgoing to do?
Just for you guys, just for fun,I'm going to share my screen.

(14:23):
Oh, no, it's not going to let mewithout doing some...
crazy system setting stuff nevermind

SPEAKER_04 (14:28):
Jamie pull up the tape

SPEAKER_01 (14:30):
yeah you guys can look it up on your own if you
want so it was built over thehistorical site of the circus of
Nero so that was another thingthat I think is kind of
fascinating historically is thatConstantine built this I'm not
sure if he had to demolish thecircus of Nero to do it or if it

(14:51):
had already been broken downsome But the Circus of Nero
would have been a place whereChristians would have died.
And he's putting this new churchon the same exact site.
So he ordered it to be built andthe construction began sometime

(15:12):
between 318 and 322.
And it took about 40 years forthem to finish it.
And then over the next 12centuries, I mean, this really
became like the hub of WesternChristianity to the point that
obviously it became the home ofthe Bishop of Rome.
And yeah, very important site.

(15:36):
They tried to build it over whatthey believed to be St.
Peter's grave.
And there's some Roman Catholicswho actually, I think a lot of
them believe that it'sTheologically significant that
the, the Vatican is basicallyover his grave and they, they

(16:00):
point back to the hole on thisrock.
Um, I will build my church.

SPEAKER_02 (16:06):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (16:06):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (16:06):
I could totally see that,

SPEAKER_01 (16:08):
which I don't know if you guys saw this, but last
week, the, the new Popebasically came out and said,
what we Protestants have beensaying for forever, which is,
that's not what that meant.
And, uh, he, he's, He basically,I think he made the statement
that he's talking about Peter'sfaith and that Christ is also

(16:31):
speaking about himself, but he'snot talking about Peter himself,
which was hilarious for me tosee.
And I haven't got the chance totalk with any Roman Catholics
about that yet, but prettyinteresting development,
actually.

SPEAKER_02 (16:45):
yeah yeah that's interesting I feel like we're
always like you know looking forthese one liners that popes drop
to like catch themselves kind ofcontradicting themselves too so
I always get kind of suspiciouswhen someone's like oh did you
hear the pope said that you knowgay people are going to be in
heaven next to the martyrs andit's like I don't know if maybe

(17:08):
but I don't know I haven't heardabout this one there could be
some sauce behind

SPEAKER_01 (17:13):
this one it was part of a larger article that I read
with several things that he hadsaid, I think in the same day.
It's kind of like a continuingin the Vatican II direction of
basically trying to bring morepeople into communion with Rome.
I think bringing the East intocommunion with Rome is actually

(17:34):
really what he's going for.
I don't think he's thinkingabout Pastor Bob's First Baptist

SPEAKER_02 (17:40):
Church.
Sorry, Taylor.
I

SPEAKER_04 (17:42):
know.

SPEAKER_01 (17:42):
We are

SPEAKER_04 (17:43):
irrelevant.
You

SPEAKER_02 (17:45):
guys might be the last ones ever brought into
communion with the Catholics,which I think most Baptists
would be pretty psyched about.

SPEAKER_04 (17:52):
No, they would.
That's the thing that drives menuts about Baptists.
And I love all my Baptists,obviously.
I've in a way dedicated my lifeto serving Baptists.
So I speak with love.
They're like, you're like, whatdo you know about Catholics?
And your average Baptist islike, do they just worship Mary?

(18:14):
They just worship her.
You're like, okay, maybe we canhave a more ecumenical
understanding.

SPEAKER_02 (18:20):
Not quite.
So, so that's, so, okay.
So back to the churchconversation.
So I have a question about thepractical side of it.
Because like, I can imagine thatgoing to church is, in this time

(18:40):
period, which this would stillbe fourth century.
Like, like I, I mean, Idefinitely understand like the
optics of building a giganticchurch, especially in like
relevant city areas to be like,this is the place.
And this is what we are kind ofcentering our, our public square

(19:04):
around.
But like on a practical level oflike, would this be a place that
would have the liturgy practicedevery Sunday?
Is this a place that peoplewould be, I don't know if member
is the right word to use in thistime in history, but yeah, how
did that work?

SPEAKER_01 (19:24):
So this building could house between 3,000 and
4,000 worshipers at once.

SPEAKER_02 (19:30):
Wow.

SPEAKER_01 (19:31):
It was, I'm going to quote Lightheart, Now, it says
that it was the largest of allChristian churches of the time.
So, one thing that Constantinestarted doing around Rome and in
other places, which is now kindof the...
If you go into older churches,more traditional churches,

(19:51):
especially cathedrals, you'llfind this pattern.
It's actually made in a crosspattern where there will be a
really long nave and then...
Like the floor plan basically isin the shape of a cross with the
altar kind of being in themiddle.
So the nave alone was 295 feetlong and the entire interior was

(20:17):
390 feet long and 210 feet wide.
It had a transept as tall as thenave itself that separated the
nave from the large apse.
Don't ask me to define all ofthese.
Before the apse was the tomb ofPeter, marking the transept as
the martyrium proper.
After St.
Peter's, the cruciform shapebecame the standard cathedral

(20:41):
form.
Constantine's conversion was aresponse to the sign of the
victorious cross, and the crosshad been painted on military
gear and impressed on coins.
Fittingly, the cross also becamethe shape of sacred space.
So when you make a building in across shape like this, it helps
you get more people close to theaction of what's going on.

(21:05):
I mean, you have to really askthe question.
If you just look up, I've seenvideos of Westminster Cathedral
where the queen will come in fora special liturgy And she'll
walk up that thing, and it takesthem freaking five minutes to
get to the front of the room asthey walk.

(21:27):
And you kind of have to ask thequestion, how far away can a
worshiper be before they're notreally there, especially without
amplification?
Ask the back

SPEAKER_04 (21:39):
row Baptists.

SPEAKER_02 (21:42):
Yeah.
Yeah.
well but like even you know inthis time and in modern
Catholicism like the front ofthe church is relevant because
it's not just where the preacheris it's where the host is so to
be half a mile back like thatdoes kind of represent this
significant distance from thewhole point of the worship

(22:05):
service right right

SPEAKER_01 (22:07):
the cruciform pattern helps but they also were
just trying to deal with likeHonestly, something that had
never, I think, really inhistory been needed before,
which was dedicated worshipspace for a lot of people all at
once.
So this was really fascinatingto me.
This is Lightheart again.
He says,"...the very form ofChristian church buildings
communicated the triumph ofChristianity in the Roman world

(22:30):
and Christ's victory over theRoman gods.
The choice of the basilica formfor church buildings was
virtually forced onConstantine." and other church
builders.
And this was answering yourquestion a minute ago, John.
Domestic spaces could no longerhouse the crowds that now
crammed into meeting places forworship.
Ancient temples were designed tohouse an image of the God, not

(22:53):
to accommodate mobs ofworshipers.
In the Roman world, only onestyle met all the needs of the
church, the basilica.
Oh, wow.
I see.
They had basilicas before, butthey were always used for civic
purposes.
They needed to...
Have an election or this iswhere politicians could address
people.

(23:14):
Like a city

SPEAKER_02 (23:14):
hall kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 (23:16):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (23:17):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (23:17):
They needed it for worship space.

SPEAKER_02 (23:19):
Oh, that's really interesting.
Okay.
So they had these temples, but Iguess two things.
One is that Christian worshipand Roman worship were very
different.
And basically these Roman pagantemples were not...
were not constructed toaccommodate a bunch of people

(23:41):
coming for mass, essentially, iswhat you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 (23:43):
That

SPEAKER_02 (23:44):
is really interesting.
Okay, so they kind of had toco-opt these, like you said,
these public centers into, it'dbe the equivalent of taking a
city town hall and convertingthat into a church, basically.

SPEAKER_04 (23:58):
Or a basketball arena.
Stop

SPEAKER_02 (24:01):
it.

SPEAKER_03 (24:02):
What?
Okay, Lakewood, I

SPEAKER_04 (24:04):
didn't look.
Yeah, okay, there's problemswith Joel Osteen, but it's what
they did.
It's the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 (24:09):
Yeah.
Till it starts to rain outside,big dog.
That

SPEAKER_04 (24:16):
was a deep cut to explain to Thomas, because
Thomas clearly didn't get thatjoke.
When Houston was flooded, theydidn't want to let people

SPEAKER_01 (24:29):
in.
Oh, they didn't let people in.

SPEAKER_02 (24:30):
I think they only didn't until...
They eventually let people in.
And you could say it's becauseof bad press or maybe there was
a communicate.
Honestly, I could see a churchjust having a big communication
issue of being like, I don'tknow.
We've got worship practice onSaturday and we're not supposed
to open up the doors for anyoneon Friday

SPEAKER_01 (24:52):
to dirty up the carpet.
Probably what happened issomebody was like, well, we
usually charge people money tocome in here on Sunday.
So do we need to do that today?
Oh, I wish I knew the answer.

SPEAKER_02 (25:04):
Can we get like a PayPal or something first?
I don't know.
Scan the QR.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 (25:09):
But it's super, it's super interesting that the, the,
basically the, the building thatthey knew how to build that
facilitated the most people justbecame the standard practice
for.

SPEAKER_02 (25:22):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now that is a good point,Taylor.
I'm sorry for giving you a hardtime.

SPEAKER_04 (25:26):
Yeah.
That's fair.
I forgive you.
I forgive

SPEAKER_02 (25:28):
you, Simon.
Reconciled.

SPEAKER_01 (25:31):
All

SPEAKER_04 (25:31):
right.

UNKNOWN (25:31):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (25:33):
All right, so let's talk about Jerusalem now.
Ooh.
Jerusalem becomes a reallyfascinating place because
basically from in between thetime of the destruction of
Jerusalem all the way up to thetime of Constantine, Jerusalem
had really lost its Jewishflavor.

(25:53):
I mean, it had really becomesuch a Roman city at that point
that Lightheart says that...
romans when they would hearchristians talking about their
home being jerusalem they werelike well they can't be talking
about jerusalem jerusalem sothere must be some secret
military base somewhere in theeast they're referring to um but

(26:17):
uh so what ended up happening isconstantine's mom um her name
was helena she made a pilgrimageto palestine um one thing that
we talked about um in the lastepisode is a chance that she may
have actually been a christianeven from constantine's uh birth

(26:40):
we don't know for sure but sheuh probably definitely was by
this point and she goes topalestine much like people like
to do today to go find umreligious sites and she found it
uh really overrun uh bypaganism.

(27:01):
There was what looked likeEusebius actually thinks that
there was a deliberate ploy bypagans in the area to kind of
cover up some of these religioussites in order to obscure them.
I'm going to read you some moreLightheart here.

(27:25):
Eusebius tells the story of thesepulcher, so the site of the
tomb of Jesus, and ofConstantine's decision to erect
a magnificent church on thesite.
Eusebius' description of thechurch is breathless and not
altogether clear, but theoverall impression is

(27:46):
unmistakable.
It had the same massive size andluxurious ornamentation as the
other structures Constantinebuilt.
Though the original churchfocused more on Golgotha than on
the site of the resurrection,eusebius was obsessed with the
cave and then this is eusebiushe says for at the side opposite
to the cave which is this is thecave where jesus his body was

(28:08):
which by the way that theyabsolutely knew what cave his
body was in and they still do tothis day i mean you can go see
it this is a pretty welldocumented historical fact going
all the way back to the firstcentury i can't remember what
was the episode where we weretalking about the um the
practice.
Oh, it was during the catechumenprocess episode.

(28:33):
We were talking about how theywould spend a lot of time
outside of this cave duringLent.
But at the opposite side of thecave, which is the eastern side,
the church itself was erected.
A noble work rising to a vastheight and of great extent both
in length and breadth.
The interior of this structurewas floored with marble slabs of

(28:54):
various colors while theexternal surfaces The surface of
the walls, which shone withpolished stones exactly fitted
together, exhibited a degree ofsplendor in no respect inferior
to that of marble.
With regard to the roof, it wascovered on the outside with lead
as a protection against therains of winter.
But the inner part of the roof,which was finished with

(29:15):
sculptured panel work, extendedin a series of connected
compartments like a vast seaover the whole church, and being
overlaid throughout with thepurest gold, caused the entire
building to glitter, Hmm.
Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 (29:30):
Yeah, dude, I just had to take a little trip down
memory lane because I'veactually been to the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre back when Ilived in Israel for a few
months.
Man, they really do say that,what is it, strength is wasted
on the young.
Well, I think travelopportunities are also wasted on

(29:51):
the young because I did not givea rip about the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre when I was there.
I was like, oh, cool, a bunch ofCatholics come here to worship
Satan.
satan wow fun because i was theygo there to

SPEAKER_04 (30:04):
worship mary oh

SPEAKER_02 (30:06):
sorry yeah because i was a kg calvinist loser when i
went to israel and this was theend of my tenure so i had almost
come out of my cocoon and i ishowed myself as a butterfly but
i just i just didn't care um buti i still i remember i went
there by myself it was one ofthe few places that i traveled
alone uh because the old citywas about a 20 minute bus ride

(30:29):
from where i was living Really,the only word that comes to mind
is remarkable because when yougo to the old city...
they essentially section it offinto different little squares.
I mean, they call them thequarters where there's like the
Muslim quarters, the Jewishquarters, I think the Catholic

(30:52):
quarters and the Armenianquarters, which I think are just
Orthodox because there's aninteresting relationship between
Armenian Orthodox and the Sea ofJerusalem.
But when you go there, it'sliterally like the three most
significant sites in of threedifferent religions.
You've got the Wailing Wall,which is the surviving wall of

(31:14):
the temple, of David's temple.
And then you've got, Daviddidn't build a freaking temple,
Solomon's temple, sorry.
So you've got that, which is ofcourse a huge site.
You've got the Dome of the Rock,which is this big, you know,
incredible thing for theMuslims.

(31:37):
And then you've got the Churchof the Holy Sepulchre.
So you go inside and it feelsvery rustic and historic and
lots of marble, like you said.
And I mean, it's an incredibleplace.
Even just looking at some ofthese pictures that I took over
10 years ago I'm still like,dang, this place was sick.
So yeah, love this place.
Probably the best church I wentto when I was in Israel.

SPEAKER_04 (31:58):
I didn't realize Dome of the Rock was there at
the grave of Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 (32:07):
Yeah, I'm going to make sure I didn't just talk out
of my neck.
Oh yeah, there we go.
Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
Yes, I was correct.
And the Dome of the Rock is...
Yeah, because it's where Muslimsbelieve that Abraham something,
something, something.

SPEAKER_01 (32:28):
I thought the Dome of the Rock was on the site of
the Second Temple.

SPEAKER_04 (32:33):
That's what I thought.

SPEAKER_01 (32:35):
You might be right.
Hold on, hold on.
That's why thedispensationalists want to blow
it up so that they can

SPEAKER_04 (32:41):
build the Third Temple.
Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 (32:44):
Yes, it was built on the site of the second Jewish
temple, which was destroyed bythe Romans in 70 CE.
Yes, that's right.
That's right.
You don't even know where you

SPEAKER_04 (32:58):
went when you were in Jerusalem.

SPEAKER_02 (33:00):
Here's the thing.
I was really just afraid that Iaccidentally said that big place
that's in Saudi Arabia in Mecca.
I was really afraid I was goingto see that instead.
Again, we're not smart, and I amleast of the not smarts.
So carry on, Thomas.
You can say that again.

SPEAKER_04 (33:19):
So

SPEAKER_01 (33:21):
if you remember from the last episode on Constantine,
we talked about how somethingreally big that's happening
right now, theologically and inthe civic space, is this
movement from blood...
being the main way to connectwith the gods, that is going

(33:45):
away now through the bloodlesssacrifice of Christian worship.
Because of Christ's perpetualatonement, there is not a need
to continually sacrifice inorder to communicate or appease
the gods if Yahweh is the God ofyour life.

(34:05):
And so what's going on here inJerusalem is really significant.
Here's another Lightheart quote.
Set in Jerusalem, however, thechurch was more than...
Do I still have you guys?
Can you still hear me?
Yeah, you're good.
Okay.
Sorry, for some reason, I can'tsee you anymore, but that's

(34:27):
okay.
Set in Jerusalem, however, thechurch was more than the center
of the city...
It was conceived of as the newtemple, the Umbilicus Mundi.
The 12 columns in the hemisphereof the apse symbolized the 12
disciples and the 12 tribes ofIsrael, and perhaps the columns
and pillars of the HolySepulchre were echoes of the
sacred forest of religiousmythology, just as the inner

(34:50):
atrium was in fact understood asa sacred garden or paradise.
Jerusalem was, in imagination,if not in administration, the
hub of Constantine's EasternEmpire, so much so that he
celebrated his tricenalia inJerusalem rather than in
Constantinople.
Medieval maps that showJerusalem as the center of the

(35:11):
world perpetuated theConstantinian vision.
With the Christianization of thearchitecture of Jerusalem, the
baptism of public space wascomplete.
At the place where ancientsacrifices had been offered, in
a building that rivaled thesplendor of Solomon, Christians
now gathered to offer theirbloodless sacrifice of praise.

SPEAKER_02 (35:33):
Yeah.
Yeah, that is cool.
They're kind of like, you know,they're Christianizing not just
where their paganism was, but Imean, I think there is
definitely something reallypowerful about taking the site
of Christ's crucifixion and,yeah, kind of setting it apart,

(35:54):
kind of like...
Making it sacred in a way.
I mean, more sacred to say.

SPEAKER_04 (36:01):
I'm really conflicted because he's using
government funds to pay

SPEAKER_02 (36:06):
for all this.
Taxpayer money, big dog.
I know,

SPEAKER_04 (36:09):
dude.
I just have to tell myself thiswas a completely different
world.
But then that little...
Theonomist that lives in theback of my soul is like
shouting.
He's shouting.
And he's like, what have wereplaced Planned Parenthood with
churches?
What if?
What if, Taylor?
And

SPEAKER_02 (36:28):
I'm

SPEAKER_04 (36:29):
like, oh, what are you doing back there, little
guy?

SPEAKER_02 (36:32):
It makes me wonder, though, all the Christian
hardcore libertarians that weknow, would they be like, this
taxation is theft?
Is

SPEAKER_04 (36:41):
it?
You have to be consistent.
Shouldn't you steal

SPEAKER_02 (36:45):
from pagans?
It's like Christian Robin Hood.
You steal from the pagan and yougive to the church.
I'd watch that movie.

SPEAKER_01 (36:55):
Ew, man.
If we ever have a Christianemperor again, you guys are
going to be really excited aboutthe churches.
We do have

SPEAKER_04 (37:00):
a Christian emperor right now.

SPEAKER_02 (37:02):
Yeah, that's the problem.
Is that if we ever have aChristian emperor again, they're
going to suck.
Because mainstream Christianityis not good.
I

SPEAKER_04 (37:12):
mean, that really just goes to show, obviously the
Lord works in church incountries where Christianity is
completely outlawed.
The Lord works in countrieswhere it's...
Right.
Which hadn't happened just yet.

SPEAKER_02 (37:46):
Constantine's just making the pagans kind of
squirm, but it's not illegal forthem to do what they do.

SPEAKER_04 (37:54):
No, but he did kick them out of these places.
He

SPEAKER_00 (37:58):
said, this is ours now.
That's probably

SPEAKER_04 (38:03):
true.
There was a Reddit thread thatwas very upset.

SPEAKER_01 (38:08):
Constantine is hashtag concerning for Reddit
homies.
Lightheart spends a good bit oftime thinking through that
question in his book, and henotes at one point, he says,
this might be evidence thatConstantine was trying to rope
Christ into service to theimperial cult, but it seems more

(38:29):
likely that it was a confessionof his subordination to the
greater Lord.
He had baptized public space.
Paganism still had its place,but temples were increasingly
overshadowed by large andnumerous churches.
And if you think about, like,for the emperors of this time,
what their role of the gods werefor them.

(38:52):
Constantine building churcheswasn't just showing religious
preference as much as it was himacknowledging where he fit into
the authority structure of thecosmos, which is pretty novel
idea for emperors who otherwiseclaimed.
I mean, if you remember at thetime of when Jesus was born,

(39:13):
augustus is making claims to begod i mean right right the
euangelion the the gospel ofcaesar augustus the son of god
um mark is directly conflictingthat at the beginning of his his
gospel so i think this is animportant turn theologically for
sure

SPEAKER_02 (39:32):
i think that's where context

SPEAKER_04 (39:34):
Go ahead, John Simon.

SPEAKER_02 (39:36):
Oh, thank you.
Sorry, I don't know why I was sorude about that.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Again, I'm sorry.
I think that's also, yeah,context I think is important too
because the emperor was seen notjust as a civil role, but also
as a religious role.
He was the god.

(39:57):
He was the ambassador of thegods of Rome, which means that
he was always going to be seenin a religious light.
So all he was doing was saying,well, I actually don't affirm
the gods of the Pantheon thatyou are associating me to, that
the former emperors wereassociated to.

(40:18):
I'm actually on board with thisChristian God.
And so it would make sense inthat context, again, that a
quote-unquote baptism of thepublic square would involve
actually...
changing the...
religious centers to representthe actual faith of the emperor

(40:40):
because Julian the apostate isgoing to do that too pretty soon
where he's going to be like nahforget this we're not Christians
we can still be pagan he's goingto try to pull the uno reverse
card and Theodosius is going tofollow him and do the exact same
thing so I mean yeah when you'rein a state like Rome when you're
the emperor of an empire itwould make logical sense that

(41:03):
you would have some influenceover what public religious
spaces looked like

SPEAKER_04 (41:09):
dude that's why i 100 believe constantine's
intentions were pure with this

SPEAKER_02 (41:14):
yeah i don't i don't think he was a pragmatist

SPEAKER_04 (41:17):
you have to think like you know people people are
the same throughout time roughlycultures change all that but
like at the end of the day we'reall people and i know we're like
poking fun at theonymous butlike this is the same line of
thought that they have Like,well, what if we were in charge?
And what if we were, like, ableto just say, no, we're doing

(41:39):
Christian stuff now.
We're Christian.
That's what we do.
And you're like, you know, thatdoes feel pretty good.
And then, you know, you get intothe ramifications of that.
And I think the next 1,500 yearsof church history proves that
you really don't want to mendthe two or blend the two.

SPEAKER_01 (42:02):
Well, there's different ways of going about
this, right?
So like it's possible toacknowledge that if there is no
God above the state, then thestate is God without placing
undue religious restrictions oneverything other than
Christianity, which this is oneof the biggest things was
eye-opening for me reading aboutConstantine is the religious

(42:28):
tolerance that he exhibited wasactually pretty, profound and i
think that a lot of a lot of theum a lot of the way that america
was structured as far asreligious liberty um is actually
rooted in kind of furtherworking out of what constantine
was kind of like playing with idon't know how much actual

(42:51):
theory he had here but

SPEAKER_02 (42:53):
yeah well he inherited he inherited roman
political theory essentiallywhich

SPEAKER_04 (42:59):
was a religious state

SPEAKER_02 (43:02):
Right, right.
That's a very important thing toknow.
And you're talking aboutAmerica.
The founding of America wasdefinitely affected by
liberalism, but they were comingfrom very religious states also.
So we're always kind ofco-opting the culture that
formed us.
That's kind of a big part of howwe see this stuff.

(43:23):
Which is

SPEAKER_04 (43:23):
why we need to have grace when interacting with
people that are from differentcultures than us.

SPEAKER_02 (43:31):
I think the opposite is true.

SPEAKER_04 (43:32):
Okay.

SPEAKER_02 (43:34):
Wow.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (43:39):
Well, before you guys get into another little cat
fight, let's jump intoConstantinople.
Again, Lightheart had such agreat description of
Constantinople.
I'm just going to read it toyou.
It's a little bit of a longsection, so if you guys want to
jump in at any point, I'll justmark my spot and we can chop it

(44:01):
up.
Inspired by a dream, Constantinefounded the city.

SPEAKER_04 (44:06):
Mark your spot.
I'm jumping in.
Go for it.
I just wanted to say that I loveJohn Simon.
Oh, nice.
Very good.
He just got so excited.
I'm just a big fan of JohnSimon.
He's adorable.
Okay, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 (44:21):
Constantine founded the city shortly after his
victory over Licinius anddedicated it on May 11, 330.
Eusebius found no hint ofambiguity.
In celebration of his victoryover the tyrant Licinius,
Constantine established the cityas an explicitly and thoroughly
Christian civic space, havingfirst cleansed it of idols.

(44:44):
Thereafter, he embellished itwith numerous sacred edifices,
both memorials of martyrs on thelargest scale and other
buildings of the most splendidkind, not only within the city
itself, but in its vicinity.
um i don't know if it's in thissection or if i just remember
reading it from somewhere butapparently he filled uh

(45:06):
constantinople with so much artthat he had pulled from other
parts of the empire that otherpeople were like at the time
were writing and like dang itman like he like took all of our
stuff like just like packed itall into constantinople it was
literally like he was playingsim city over there in the east
just like doing whatever.

(45:26):
He had all the hacks on and hewas just building whatever he
wanted.

SPEAKER_04 (45:31):
And he took some random town and Gaul took the
one statue of Saint so-and-sothey have.

SPEAKER_02 (45:38):
They're like, no, no, please.

SPEAKER_04 (45:41):
It's

SPEAKER_02 (45:41):
all we have.

SPEAKER_01 (45:43):
Let's go to

SPEAKER_04 (45:44):
Constantinople.

SPEAKER_01 (45:45):
You can come see it in Constantinople for$5.99.

SPEAKER_02 (45:50):
If you guys had to name a town, your new favorite
town in the empire after you,like Constantine did, what would
you call it?
I think Taylor Town's got a nicering to it.

SPEAKER_01 (46:06):
My initials are T-E-D, so I think it'd have to
be Tedland.
Tedland.
I'm

SPEAKER_04 (46:12):
going like old English, like the origins of
Treadway is like Trethaway.
I'm going with Trethaway.
Not Taylor Town.
Taylor Town sounds like there'slike giant plastic dinosaurs
that are faded in the sun andthey're like on the edge of the
freeway smiling at

SPEAKER_02 (46:33):
you.
Oh man, Taylor Town does soundlike an exhibit at a Disneyland
knockoff.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (46:43):
Sounds like a cult commune is what it sounds like.

SPEAKER_03 (46:47):
Johnstown.
Oh, man.
John...
Johnstown.
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (46:53):
Oh, no.
That is the cult.
Yeah.
Dang it, man.
Oh, shoot.
Okay, well.
What about, like,

SPEAKER_04 (47:00):
Simon's Reach?

SPEAKER_02 (47:03):
Ooh.
I like something possessive,like Simon's Landing.

SPEAKER_04 (47:09):
Simon's Landing.

UNKNOWN (47:12):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (47:12):
I like that.
All right.
All right.
So Constantinople, I mean, andthis was before the new Rome
stuff had been started.
It's so he's kind of plantingthe seeds for the future
endeavors.
Yep.
He's

SPEAKER_01 (47:25):
just going crazy.
So back to our description byhonoring the martyrs, the
emperor was simultaneouslyconsecrating the city to the
martyrs.
God, the emperor insisted thatthe city be free of idolatry.
So, uh, Even though he was verytolerant to paganism and
idolatry throughout the empire,there were specific spaces where

(47:47):
he was not about it at all.
And then he wrote thathenceforth no statues might be
worshipped there in the templesof those falsely reputed to be
gods, nor any altars defiled bythe pollution of blood.
It's so metal.

SPEAKER_04 (48:02):
Oh

SPEAKER_01 (48:02):
my gosh.
Above all, he prohibitedsacrifices consumed by fire, as
well as, quote, demonfestivals...
and all other, quote, otherceremonies usually observed by
the superstitious, end quote.
On the positive side,Constantine filled the city with
Christian symbols.
One might see the fountains inthe midst of the marketplace

(48:24):
graced with figures representingthe good shepherd, well known to
those who studied the sacredoracles, and that of Daniel also
with the lions forged in brassand resplendent with plates of
gold.
Indeed, so large a measure ofdivine love possessed the
emperor's soul.
I think that might have beenEusebius.
Eusebius was most impressed witha vast, sorry, with a, quote,

(48:47):
vast tablet displayed in thecenter of its gold-covered
paneled ceiling in the palace,end quote, where Constantine
ordered, quote, the symbol ofour savior's passion to be
fixed, composed of a variety ofprecious stones richly enwrought
with gold.

(49:08):
For Eusebius, this symbol heseemed to have intended to be,
as it were, the safeguard of theempire itself.
I'll pause there for a minute.
That

SPEAKER_04 (49:19):
sounds so good.
You just got to think, though,you got to think everything that
sounds so good.
He's like, I'm going to just bea little rude here.
Like, for every one of thesethings that he's doing, there's,
like, Thomas is wondering whatI'm about to say.
There's, like, an equivalent of,like, a blue-haired,
septum-pierced, like, screecher,like, angry about it.

(49:43):
Like, I can't believe you'retaking away my pagan festivals.
And then, like, the nice familyis, like, walking in behind as
they're being dragged away bythe police to, like, enjoy their
now Christian space iseffectively what's happening.

SPEAKER_01 (50:01):
Taylor's really upset for blue-haired screechers
2,000 years ago for some reason.

SPEAKER_04 (50:07):
I'm not upset for them.
I'm conflicted because thissounds great.
But I don't think it's a goodidea.

SPEAKER_02 (50:15):
Well, maybe it's a good reminder that a blue-haired
creature is still a human beingmade in the image of God.
I know.
And they can have some lousyviews and still have a lot of
value.
And maybe they weren'tblue-haired creatures.
Maybe they were just Jewishpeople, pagans, heretics, all
types of people who wouldn't fitin Orthodox Christianity, but

(50:37):
who maybe didn't need to be...
forcibly relocated.
I don't know! There's a littlequestion mark to throw out

SPEAKER_01 (50:44):
there.
Maybe they were sacrificinganimals to demons and having sex
magic in temples and Constantinewas like, how about no?

SPEAKER_02 (50:53):
Extremes exist, so do moderates.

SPEAKER_04 (50:56):
It's really important that we make the
connection here that theequivalent of this is the
government walking into PlannedParenthood and saying, well,
we're not going to do this nomore.
and saying, kick all the doctorsout, maybe even put them in
jail, and we're going to buildourselves a nice little

(51:18):
Christian park here with a nicelittle crucifix.

SPEAKER_01 (51:22):
So this takes an interesting turn because he was
still building a Roman city andthere was not, it wasn't like it
was, I don't know, we see somecracks here.
So let's listen to this.
From what we can tell at thisdistance, Constantinople's break
with the pagan past was not soself-evident.

(51:45):
Constantine included noColosseum, but built a
hippodrome for racing thatmimicked the Circus Maximus at
Rome.

SPEAKER_04 (51:51):
Did they race hippopotamuses?

SPEAKER_01 (51:54):
Dude, that would be epic.
Terrible.
Notable churches dotted thecity, including the first form
of the Church of Holy Wisdom andthe Church of the Apostles,
where for a time the emperor wasburied.
Christian imagery was evidentthroughout.
Yet, he also treated the city asa project continuous with the
Roman past.

(52:14):
As a celebration of his victoryover the tyrant, Constantinople
was the city of Rome's victory,not merely of Constantine's
personal triumph.
Further, he erected a statue toTisci, the goddess of good
fortune.
And at the top of a...
I don't know how to say thatcolumn.
It still stands in the center ofthe old square of

(52:34):
Constantinople.
He placed a golden statue ofApollo looking toward the rising
sun, whose face was remade intothe face of Constantine with an
inscription that, quote,intended to signify that instead
of being a sun god, Constantinegave his allegiance to God who
made the sun, end quote.
And then here you go.
He moved so much existing artinto his new city that Jerome

(52:57):
said, complained that all thecities of the east have been
stripped bare oh poor jerome

SPEAKER_04 (53:04):
jerome's hometown's got nothing pretty to look at
okay so thomas you're sayingthat he like did all these
extreme things and then stillwas like well let me give you a
few pagan things to look at likehe's okay i'm not a monster yeah
i don't know if you're gonna dosomething have some tishy If

(53:24):
you're going to do it, do it allthe way, Constantine.

SPEAKER_02 (53:28):
He also, I mean, he repurposed an Apollo statue to
look like him.
That's amazing.
And I mean, that's just, I don'tknow.
Here's the thing.
I didn't think of a

SPEAKER_04 (53:41):
certain president that would do that.

SPEAKER_01 (53:44):
Can you imagine if the Apollo statue had been taken
from your town and then you goto...
Constantinople and you're likelooking closely and you've got
like your little primitivebinoculars and you're like

SPEAKER_03 (53:57):
that's his face he put his face on it

SPEAKER_02 (54:02):
I would love it even more if it wasn't even well done
if it was just like a sheet ofpaper that had like some
scribbly eyebrows scribbled overit that's like what that's not
Apollo that's not my Apollo yeahI mean like I said all of this
makes sense It makes sensewithin the context of an empire

(54:25):
where there was no line betweenreligious expression and
government.
I don't know if we can quitelearn things for that and
necessarily apply them to today.
Because, I mean, we don't...
Like, there's no Christian parksthat we have.

(54:45):
Like, they're just parks.
A park is a park.

UNKNOWN (54:48):
Right.

SPEAKER_04 (54:48):
Well, here's the deceiving thing.
It sounds nice to have aChristian park.
It sounds nice to have Christianthings.
But then what happens is thesecond when you have a state
church and they get somethingwrong, the second you say, well,
me and my church and our eldersbelieve something else, like

(55:09):
you're now labeled as the enemy,even just

SPEAKER_02 (55:12):
treason.

SPEAKER_04 (55:12):
Yeah, you're trying to follow the scriptures in good
conscience.
That's why all of this doesn'twork.
Even if it sounds nice to havethe Christian park.
So no, you just, you havereligious freedom and then you
have a nice park.
I, I feel like, I feel like I'mlike convincing myself.

(55:35):
I'm like reminding myself ofwhat I believe.
I feel like that's what'shappening.

SPEAKER_01 (55:40):
Cause it sounds so nice.
Yeah.
I mean, uh, I don't think, Imean, yeah, I'm going to argue
with you a little bit.
I think it's possible to havesacred space.
When we're talking about theconversion of Ireland and Irish

(56:02):
Christianity, we really lovetalking about how there's so
much sacred space there thatalso was public space.
It wasn't just like they hadprivate land that they were
making into...
sacred space so I don't I feellike we have a an unfair rubric

(56:26):
that we pass these thingsthrough where we really want to
like if somebody has a lot ofpower in their enacting these
things then we it seems like atleast maybe the American
tendency is to want to likeshirk away from it But if they
happen organically, then it'sreally cool.

(56:47):
And I think my position is justthat, hey, man, anytime we have
space that is dedicated toglorifying God, I'm not mad
about it.

SPEAKER_02 (57:00):
But who has the power to designate what space is
sacred or not?

SPEAKER_01 (57:06):
If you're the emperor, you can do it.
I mean, we're talking about theRoman Empire here, not America.

SPEAKER_02 (57:11):
Right.
But yeah, no, I mean, I knowthat in Constantine's case, that
makes sense.
But I mean, I mean, we don't Idon't know if there's a lot of
historical record of this, butif Constantine built a church
and the church didn't like.
Right.
Right.

(57:53):
I just think the dangling in thebalance of orthodoxy is such a
hard thing.
And the scriptures give us a wayto hold the church accountable
for orthodoxy, but not the statefor orthodoxy, the state for
justice and for righteousness.
But orthodoxy, I don't know ifwe see that in the same way.

SPEAKER_04 (58:14):
I'm going to read a quote from Roger Williams, who
is a big advocate for separationof church and state.
This is in the Bloody Tenet ofPersecution, 1644.
God needeth not the help of amaterial sword of steel to
assist the sword of the spiritin the affairs of conscience.

SPEAKER_00 (58:38):
I'm not even

SPEAKER_02 (58:38):
sure I can jump on board with that one, big dog.
The government is a sword.
That's the one thing it's calledin the Bible.
To

SPEAKER_04 (58:47):
assist the spirit in the affairs of the conscience.

SPEAKER_02 (58:54):
Yeah.
You just pulled me right backinto the middle here.

SPEAKER_01 (58:57):
I'm not sure if that's fully relevant to
Constantine's project.

SPEAKER_02 (59:05):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (59:06):
He's definitely using the sword, the power, I
don't think he really did,though, to that extent.
I mean, he allowed paganism toexist, but he did create
specific space where he said,this is Christian land.

UNKNOWN (59:24):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (59:24):
Yes.
You just contradicted yourself,

SPEAKER_02 (59:29):
Big Doc.
How do you remove somebody froma land?
I didn't say...
I just said only Christians canlive here.
And if you happen to live herecurrently...
You know what, Thomas, though?

SPEAKER_04 (59:39):
Thomas, I appreciate you having a side.
How's the fence post feel onyour butt, John Simon?

SPEAKER_02 (59:45):
It's great.
The spirit is making it more andmore comfortable every day,
brother.
Very

SPEAKER_01 (59:51):
convenient.
Let's...
Let's bring it down to a veryrelevant local issue.
I'm just curious where you guyswould land on this.
Sure.
Although I think I know howyou're going to answer.
So let's say you've got a smalltown in Iowa that has a town
council that is 100% populatedby evangelical Christians.

(01:00:17):
Can they be Southern Baptists?
Sure.
They're Southern Baptist.
And then you got the one randomRCA guy, gal, RCA gal.
There we go.
Pastor Christine.

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:30):
Something didn't sound right.
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (01:00:32):
Now I'm on board.
And Pastor Christine, whilebeing pro-women's ordination, is
very anti-Satanists doing aSatanic worship service in the
town park.
And the representativegovernment of this little town

(01:00:55):
in Iowa makes a unanimousdecision to not allow Satan
worship in the town square inlittle town Iowa.

UNKNOWN (01:01:11):
Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 (01:01:13):
What's your

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:14):
question?
I mean, isn't, isn't that anopposition to the, to the bill
of rights, freedom of religion?
Um,

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:20):
I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:24):
Yeah.
I mean, I, I would, I would say,you know, I, I think that as
Christians, they have, uh,they're obligated to their
Christian conscience, but ascity council members, they have
an obligation to the limits andboundaries set by their role
and, And if what they ordain issomething that opposes the basic

(01:01:47):
principles of Americanliberties, then yeah, they,
they, they probably should berestricted.
Cause I think when you say that,I think of the opposite scenario
in, uh, wherever Taylor'sliving, where a bunch of
Satanist city council membersare going to say that Christians
can't hold a worship service ona Saturday night where some big

(01:02:13):
megachurch has rented out apublic park to have a worship
night for the whole city.
If they restrict that...
then I'd say boo on both ofthem.
Sean

SPEAKER_04 (01:02:24):
Fwaik is going to have his lawyer sue the pants
off of him.
Okay, I got a good answer.
I got a good answer.
First off, I'm going to assumethat in this home we don't call
the cops.
It's one of those situations, soI don't care what the Bill of
Rights says.
So that's my assumption that I'moperating from.
If I was on that city counciland a couple edgy Satanists came

(01:02:47):
up and were like, we're going tohave a worship service, and
we're going to worship Satan,and everyone's going to be
offended by it, I would say,okay, look, whatever they do is
going to be dumb, and it's goingto have no power, because we're
going to take all our littlechurches, and Pastor Christine,
I want you to bring your church,and we're all going to go and

(01:03:08):
sit outside the park and prayagainst everything that's
happening, and all seven peoplethat go to their cringy little
worship service are allowed todo it, and they're going to feel
real silly.
And we're going to show love andbe kind, but we're going to let
it happen.
Because if you outlaw something,you're making it bigger.

(01:03:28):
It's

SPEAKER_02 (01:03:29):
martyrs.
You're making martyrs.
You're

SPEAKER_04 (01:03:31):
making martyrs out of them and giving them talking
points.
So the people that don't likeyour church because, you know,
whatever happened, they're goingto see, oh, well, Satan church
is sticking it to them.
I like that.
I don't know.
That's

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:44):
my practical off-the-cuff thought.
I think that's a good answer.

SPEAKER_04 (01:04:17):
If you're going to say no, then you have to allow
no worship in a public space.
Why?
Because, once again, it allcomes back down to the second
the state takes a position andsays, this is what the Bible
says.
Local congregations are now nolonger allowed to discern the

(01:04:40):
truth for themselves.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:43):
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.

SPEAKER_04 (01:04:46):
Oh my gosh.
We don't have time to get intothat.
We should have a special Trumpdebate.
Not a Trump debate.
We don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:53):
Trump

SPEAKER_04 (01:04:54):
debate.
Have a Trump debate.
There

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:56):
might be some Venn diagrams.
I don't

SPEAKER_04 (01:04:58):
know.
Guess what side old Don is onfor you, Tommy.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:04):
Yeah.
He's not a Christian, but he'dlove to be the Pope.

SPEAKER_04 (01:05:10):
Tommy's the greatest.
We love Tommy.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:15):
We should have AI Trump talk about us and put it
on the Instagram.

SPEAKER_04 (01:05:20):
Oh, that's actually a really good idea.
I

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:23):
think it's a good question you're asking, Tom,
because it's essentially saying,do we as Christians esteem
Christianity with the sameweight that we do other
religions?
And I think that's a valuablequestion to ask.
I do think that...
there are a long slew ofhistorical evidences that have

(01:05:45):
shown that when christianity isshown universal prevalence it's
not often orthodoxy that thrivesor even it's not even like good
Christian ideals that happen.
I mean, there were some darktimes throughout Europe and
medieval history that were notgood for a lot of people,

(01:06:08):
whether they were vulnerable,foreigners, exiles, all kinds of
things.
So I don't know.
I mean, like, does the thoughtexperiments of a good Christian
emperor sound appealing?
Yes.
Do I think that will even comeclose to happening short of
literal King Jesus?

(01:06:29):
No.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:30):
Well, I don't think you have to argue for, and I'm
not arguing for Christianemperor here.
What I am trying to point out isthat if we're going to take our
modern, we're going to try toput our modern lens on
Constantine, then we should atleast examine our modern lens.
And we should do an episodesometime about how church

(01:06:54):
history in America is affectedby freedom of religion,
separation of church and state,because I'm curious where,
Taylor, in particular, you and Imay have a different perception
of things, because I amabsolutely convinced that what
our founders meant by freedom ofreligion was freedom to be
Anglican or Roman Catholic orLutheran or whatever, and they

(01:07:20):
absolutely did not have Satanismand Islam in mind.
Now, obviously, that isabsolutely not where our court
system...
has gone since then but i i'mpretty convinced okay

SPEAKER_04 (01:07:31):
well now you have christians that say the pope is
the antichrist so that is thechurch there's christians that
say the pope is the church ofsatan so look man as we land the
plane i just want you to knowwhen jesus returns for his
millennial reign which i knowyou believe in 100 nope

SPEAKER_02 (01:07:55):
Are we all three flavors of eschatology right
here?
I'm assuming you're pre, and I'massuming Tommy's backslid into
post.
Yeah, see, this is eschatologymatters.
This is why John Simon's just

SPEAKER_04 (01:08:11):
a fence sitter, because he's an oboleal.

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:13):
I'm literally not.
I just don't agree with eitherof your garbage takes.
Unfortunately, the truth issomewhere in the middle, bro.
Thomas

SPEAKER_04 (01:08:21):
thinks that through the state...
The church will usher the worldinto it.
We don't have time.
I reject that.
I

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:29):
just believe, I just believe that.
I don't know.
Maybe, maybe Christ will have arole in this story of
redemption.
That's, that's my only thought.

SPEAKER_04 (01:08:38):
When he comes back and read,

SPEAKER_01 (01:08:39):
we're going to have a couple of talks to reach, get
to just say whatever we want.
So Taylor can do one about howseparation of church and state.
Jesus is going to come back andgo, wow, I'm so glad that's how
you did it.
I'll do one on ecclesiocentrismand how it's the, how it's the
future and how it's not theenemy.

(01:09:01):
It's you guys got to

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:02):
stop making up new theological terms, bro.
That's really, it's, it's, it'sgrading on me, man.
It's got a, there's enough,

SPEAKER_01 (01:09:10):
there's enough terminology out here.
I think, uh, I think ourlisteners are going to love
this, this heavy banter that wehad at the end.
No.
And listen, Hey,

SPEAKER_04 (01:09:19):
if you're listening, make sure you check out Friday.
We're having a bonus episodedrop of Chuck.
Chomp

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:25):
Talk.
They'll get a notification.
They'll find out.
Chomp

SPEAKER_04 (01:09:27):
Talk 2 is going to drop.
And it's Taylor's.
I love that guy.
It's his Ethiopia stories.
What's

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:34):
your name again?
Taylor Terabyte?

SPEAKER_04 (01:09:35):
Yes.
Beep boop.

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:37):
Beep boop.
All right.
Let's wrap it up.
You guys good?

SPEAKER_04 (01:09:43):
Yes, sir.
Walmart.

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:46):
Love you guys.
Bye.

UNKNOWN (01:09:54):
so so