Episode Description
A key pressure point from Conservative Christians is a seeming call for “Christian Nationalism.” That idea suggests some version of domination and control by Christianity and Christian concepts. Or, another way to say this is a call for a version of “Christendom.”
The concept of Christendom emerges in full force during the Middle Ages, after the Roman Empire collapsed in the West. So…we can say “its been done before.” I urge us not to try this again. In a careful examination of what Christendom was, the evidence from history demonstrates that the Christian faith became a warped or devolved version of the faith that Jesus described and was lived out by adherents in the first 300 years after Jesus.
We will examine and describe the Christian faith in its original structure. Then we will look at the impact of both Diocletian and Constantine, impact both on the Roman Empire and on Christianity.