We’re leaving continental Europe to travel to Britain and Ireland. These two islands experienced less interaction with the Roman Empire and so their path to Christianity looks different than places inside the empire’s boundaries.

In this bonus episode, a re-run from season 1, we talk about civil religion and how it expresses itself in the United States.

While the Roman empire continued on in the East, in the Byzantine empire, Late Antiquity was a time of tremendous change for the western Roman Empire and Europe. Germanic tribes, Roman culture, and Christianity blended, clashed, and intertwined, creating the medieval period and the foundation of the Europe we know today.

The story of iconoclasm, and its reversal, makes us ask ourselves how much majority rule plays in establishing the norms of the church. It challenges us to think critically about the “why” behind what we believe and to contemplate the diversity of church and its many threads.

Constantine marks an important turning point for Christianity. Under his reign, Christianity was no longer a small, grass-roots, mystery cult. It moved into the spotlight, and with that, its questions, debates, and internal squabbles became matters of imperial concern.

Among the Christian emperors of Late Antiquity, Justinian stands out along with Constantine as one of the greats. In this episode, we’ll explore the story of Justinian and his wife Theodora and and Divinely Appointed Royalty. Justinian wanted nothing more than to restore the Roman empire to its glory, and creating a unified Christian empire was critical to that vision.