Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1359 | From Constantine to Miss Kay: Faithful Mothers Shape the History of the World

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

Al, Zach, John Luke, and Christian connect the hidden influence of faithful mothers from Constantine’s mom to Miss Kay with the way one unknown believer can change history through a single faithful conversation. The guys look at Constantine’s complicated legacy, from the Nicene Creed and the spread of Christianity to his violent family history and deathbed baptism. They also connect ancient Rome’s struggle over faith, power, and paganism to modern America’s temptation to make Jesus smaller than politics, party loyalty, personal peace, or cultural identity. In this episode: 1 John 4, verse 8; 1 John 4, verse 10; John 1, verses 1–14; Philippians 2, verses 5–11; 1 John 2, verses 18–23; 2 John 1, verse 7; John 17, verse 3; Acts 17, verse 24 Today’s conversation is about Lesson 10 of Ancient Christianity taught by visiting Hillsdale Professor of History Kenneth Calvert. Take the course with us at no cost to you! Sign up at http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/. More about Ancient Christianity: Christ entered the world during the reign of Caesar Augustus. The tensions between Christianity and the Roman Empire shaped the daily practice of the Christian faith and led many Romans to distrust and persecute the early Christians. But Christianity also benefitted from the Roman world. And when Rome collapsed in the West, Christianity provided the hope for preserving civilization. In this free, eleven-lecture course, Professor Kenneth Calvert will explore: How the Jewish, Greek, and Roman cultures all contributed to preparing the world to hear the Gospel. Why many Romans distrusted and persecuted the early Christians. The inspiring stories of Christ, His apostles, and faithful ones throughout the first four centuries of Christianity. The arguments of key early Christian apologists—Ignatius, Irenaeus, Justin, Athanasius, and more—who defended and defined the Christian faith amidst the animosity of the Roman world. The conversion of Constantine and how he brought stability to Rome, and how the rivalry between his sons almost returned Rome to paganism. How Augustine’s writings helped preserve the message of Christianity during the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West. You will discover the uncertainties, trials, and triumphs of the earliest Christians as they confronted controversies within the faith and persecutions from outside it. Join us today to discover the improbable and miraculous story of Christianity. Sign up at ⁠http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-home-with-phil-robertson/id1835224621 Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Chapters 00:00 Constantine’s Mom & the Holy Sites 06:07 Unknown Christians Who Changed History 12:09  Constantine’s Deathbed Baptism 16:57 A Violent Empire After Constantine 23:20 Arianism, Paganism & the Fight over Jesus 28:17 Politics without God Turns Tyrannical 34:04 America’s Debt to the Nicene Creed 39:14 Athanasius Stands for the Incarnation 44:10 Jesus Is Bigger Than Any Government — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? All right, welcome back to the Unashamed podcast. We are back in our Hillsdale study, Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. You can take the courses free with us. We are on lecture number 10 in ancient Christianity. We've been talking about Constantine, and now we're going to talk about some of his kids and how things really get hairy in the early part of the church. but you guys can take the course with us. Got an Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. It's good to be back. Good to see you guys again.

Great to see you again. I will say, I will give a quick disclaimer that I thought this was the hardest lecture we've taken. So far. Number 10? Yes. Yeah. Well,

the kids are a little confusing. The kids name, it was really just the names. It was the Constantine the second and then Constantinianus and then Constanus. And then Constance. So, and you mentioned after we wrapped the last podcast that we, neglected to mention Constantine's mom.

Helena. Helena. Helena. She had a pretty big role. I was trying to find my notes. Yeah, she identified and restored Bethlehem, Golgatha, and the tomb of Jesus. Right. Because in the lecture, they talked about how it had been buried, which actually ended up preserving it. The attempt was to cover it up for nobody to know, but again, you talk about the power of God. through situations and people. The idea was, yeah, we're going to make sure

nobody knows about this stuff, you know, to try to hide it, but it actually preserved it because she comes along as a believer, goes back to Israel and basically just charts the biblical course to go back and find everything, unearthed, and then we get to find all these great places that are still there to this day. Yeah, you know, about it.

Yeah, said she was converted when she was 56, and then I actually mentioned that he had a sister named Anastasia, which means resurrection. So he actually had Christian influences in his life, which was interesting. But yeah, I thought his mom being converted and then going to Israel and discovering and re-identifying those places. I thought that was pretty crazy. Well, and I'm so glad you brought it back up because I wanted to mention it because of the importance there of a mom anyway. So last night we watched our movie, at least the Faith and Forgiveness movie.

And Zach, we got to watch it with mom. But she not seen it yet? No, she hadn't seen it yet. And she, with mom, where she is now with the, she has dementia, but it's, we call it fun dementia because she's having fun with it. She laughs. She, she realizes she didn't, I don't know, click all the time. But she's not like mad or upset about it. And she's great.

But we, so she had a little bit of a hard time following the story, even though she's in the story. You know, she doesn't know, who is that? I said, well, that's you, mom. And, but so we, so I had to explain a lot of things as we were going through the movie. but there are a couple of scenes in the movie that are very pivotal for me personally that is me and mom it's actors playing us obviously in the movie about forgiveness and because you know in the movie Lisa has been unfaithful to me and so you know I'm wrestling with that and just like I did you know 25 years ago and so I'm trying to figure out what we're going to do and so there's

there scene where mom and I are having this conversation and but her wisdom from what she had lived was so evident. It's like she totally understood. So she was the only one in my family that really understood what I was going through, you know, and to have that experience herself. And so we're having that conversation. And I'm emotional in the movie,

which means I'm emotional watching the movie as well. And I kept looking at mom, and she wasn't emotional. But I was like, Mom, that was really important to me. And she said, well, you know, I'm the reason you're here. I said, well, I know. I thank you every day because, you know, you chose life when she was 16 years old for me. But even all those years later, here I was a grown man with my own kids,

but her influence or forgiveness and her capacity to forgive dad was now impacting me to have some hope for Lisa and I. And now, of course, we get to do marriage ministry together. So I was so glad you brought that out because I was going to mention that, that either the relationship with your mom and Zach, I think about your mom, even though she's already crossed over, just the impact that she had, not just with you and Melissa and Grant, but my dad and everything,

and me. I mean, like, she was the North Star for me whenever mom and dad weren't Christians. It was Jane, ain't Jan. And so she gave me my first Camp Chowke experience,

you know, because of her working out there. So the influence of a mom is huge. And the fact that Constantine did what he did for the kingdom, And it's so important, all the stuff we discussed, there was that mom, you know. And if I'm not mistaken, did it say that he was baptized and then before she died or was it right after she? I can't remember the sequence. He was baptized right before his death.

Yeah. I think it just said he. Or no, she was. He became a Christian right before she died. Right, right. That's it. Yeah. I knew there was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the idea of knowing that, you know, I just thought it was a neat thing. So moms are obviously a great influence, you know, and John Luke, you have a really good one as well. Just the idea of strength that they provide. And of course, we're all men, but there's something about moms to sons that's very impactful and influential. So I certainly thank God for mine. It's so interesting when you think about the way that the ripples of the kingdom work, that there was somebody, I don't think we know who, somebody had an interaction with his mom and led her to Christ.

Yeah. And I mean, like, it's like how this works. It's just, that's what it is. You don't know, like there was a figure. There was a person that we don't even know their name who led his mother to Christ, who then essentially led Constantine to Christ and think about the global implications of that, of that. And we don't even know the name of that person.

And I think that is encouraging for me, because it's like some of the, some people who have the biggest impact in history, you'll never know their name. We'll never know who they are until we get to the other side of this life. And then we'll say, oh, you are that person. And then we'll start to see that. Zach, that's exactly what happened to me. There's a guy that like in the movie, it's an EMT, but in real life, it was a police officer in New Orleans.

But, I mean, he was there for me at the pivotal moment of my decision. literally a life or death decision for me as a prodigal son. And I don't know his name. You know, I don't know who he is. Like, I can't go back and thank him. So I've got to wait until we get into eternity to find this guy just to say, you're not going to believe what happened. He could have been an angel, too.

He could have been. And in the movie, it almost, in our movie, it almost projects it because I look up and, of course, I've been beaten, bloodied, and I look up and, like, there's a light around him, and it's almost like he's angelic, you know. And, but the line is so good because he asked me about, and this is really happy, he asked me about my family and I'm telling him. And in the movie, I love the dialogue. It's not exactly what I said, but it's better than what I said. Sometimes writers are better than you, right?

He said, he says, well, what's your family doing? I said, well, you know, they're talking about the sermon. And then I said, and they're probably eating sweet potato pie and fighting over the last piece. And the guy says, your piece, right? You know, that was your piece of pie, right? And he's like, and I'm like, yeah, because I'm not there to eat. It was so good, though, it was like, yeah, you're missing that. And he's like, you know, it's such a good line.

And it was, but it is. He, a conversation, to your point, Zach, a godly conversation. And when I'm doing my testimony, I say, this is a man who believe the verse that says, make the most of every opportunity. Because you never know, a conversation, something. place in a convenience store, at a camp, you know, at some place, it may be the one that leads somebody to eternal life that then you never know who they're going to lead to eternal life. It's a powerful, you know. And then that conversion is like a, it's the beginning of a,

life that grows into maturity. And that is the kingdom, right? The kingdom, the main thing I've been arguing is that the kingdom is growing into maturity. And so Constantine was growing into maturity as well. I mean, you read his life story. You're like, eh, it's kind of a lot of brutal stuff going on. He killed what, two of his sons. He killed the mother of these three sons that will survive him. So he's not this guy that you think, wow, man, he really understood and got all this together, although he did a ton of good. He built churches. He made Christianity legal.

He gave us to Nicene Creed. I mean, you just look at his contribution. And you're like, wow, like he did a lot of good. But at the end of his life, he still had been baptized. And I thought that was an interesting thought on the baptism, which is how you, this is what took me so long to get baptized too, is I thought you, once you got baptized, you couldn't sin anymore. And that was apparently the thought of the day in his time. And once you get baptized, then you can't sin past that. And I remember when I did get baptized the first time at 13.

I got baptized twice, just to make sure. But at 13, I got baptized. And I got in the car. And my sister was like, you know you're going to sin again. And like, just like the devil, like Satan himself was over there, like tempting me. and taunting me and she literally was trying to get me to sin and get

mad so that she could prove that I really wasn't saved. I mean, just pure evil. I hope she's listening to... Poor motherless. She was just that accuser in the wilderness. She's just tried to make sure you were from your own sister.

You know, Constantine at least had a sister that was trying to leave him to Christ and I was trying to leave me astray. And to say he's like, I don't want to get baptized until like, right, I know I'm going to be perfect the rest of my life. So I guess he's at the end, but he's looking for that purification at the end,

which I think that's such an interesting, and test, no, it is a powerful testimony to say, done all these things for the kingdom in a big way, but at the end, like, I'm just a sinner in need of purification.

Yeah. I mean, that's quite the way to go out. You know what I mean? In my opinion. Was that right that Constantine killed, who you just said? I thought that was one of his sons.

that did that because then Julian was the only one that he kind of spared which ended up becoming emperor. No, he killed a son. Constantine did? Yeah. Constantine did. It was... From his, from another wife. And then he killed the mother of the three boys. Yeah. You're thinking of Constantine. Constance is the second. This is the confusing. This is why this lesson was confusing. One of the sons did. Consentius the second ordered all but two of his relative killed because he wanted to eliminate the threat to the throne. Right. Right. Yeah. which he spared his cousin, Julian.

And then Julian later becomes... The irony of that is he killed everybody but the wrong one. And that guy winds up coming back to home. That's the problem when you go to kill all your family. You got to make sure you get everything. He died from it. I think he was the only son that died from a natural cause. Yeah.

He was the son that died from the fever. Right, right? Yeah. Yeah, it got a little confusing there for a second. No, but Luke, you said in the last podcast, I thought you made a good point. that I think Constantine saw his role as large. And so it's almost like part of his mindset was,

I just need to wait because I got a lot of bad things I got to do for the better good. That's the way you put it. And I think he did think that way. But he still was in surrender mode because at the end, to your point, it's a beautiful thought, really. It's a little bit flawed, but it's a beautiful thought, the idea that I want to surrender. I know I'm getting at the end, but I've really lived my life

for this purpose. And so to give him the benefit of the doubt, I think the idea of surrender was always there. He just, you know, he just thought of himself as doing something larger. It kind of reminds me biblically of the life of David. Yeah. David recognized early that he had something special from God and the bold moves that he did. I mean, the whole Goliath thing was so out of the element for everybody there. There's all kind of standing around watching this kid come in and just do things that are bigger than life. And yet at the end,

he has these moral corruption and issues. And man, he just destroyed his family, you know, in a big way. But then always had that heart that was right. Because then you read Psalm 51, you're like,

oh, man, yeah, that's why he was special. A lot of ambiguity in his life. A lot of ambiguity was like, Because you got like political violence, you got politics, you got violence, you got church building, you got preservation of doctrinal purity, you got killing your own sons. I mean, it's like, wait, what? Who is this guy, right?

And then, and he's powerful. I mean, he's the most powerful man in the world. And you think about the way he even was dressed when he died in the white robe of baptism, you know, that, you said that word surrender. You know what I mean? And I love that. Like, he's laying down the purple, you know, royal. robe and he's putting on the garment of surrender. And so, you know, that to me is kind of the story entering in is that, you know,

emperors can, you know, can wear the Christian symbols like he did on the, you know, had all the shields with the, with the cross on. And emperors can do that. But it's only the sinners that can be baptized. And I think that's what he embodies at the end. I'm a sinner. Yeah. I need to be purified.

You know, that's the, That's what it is. Yeah. That's what it takes. And sometimes it's over the course of life. You know, and I know I'm telling a lot about our movie, but I keep watching it. Lisa's baptized in the movie when she and I get married and she says, I wanted to be a part of this family. And that really was her purpose in being baptized the first time.

It wasn't really a surrender to Christ. It was a surrender to our family because she knew we were big-time believers and she wanted to belong. But ultimately that wasn't enough because it wasn't a full surrender. And so later in the film, once she comes to this place of surrender in the backyard at her house, Paula, you know, who walked with her through this real dark period, she asked her to baptize her and she did. And that was the one. That was the time, you know, of the full surrender. And that was the life change. And so I see that same picture here with him.

Obviously he has this moment from the vision, which is the big grandma. moment and then it goes to the next. But unfortunately, as in most times, the bad stuff seemed to kind of leak down to some of the sun. You know what I'm saying? It's like, because they all were splintered. The very thing he tried to bring together, remember one's this and one's that. They all had a different twist. You said in the previous podcast that when you used to read about Constantine, you had a negative view of him and that he corrupted the church. I think what this lecture helps with is that it is ambiguous. He didn't, you can't just say that he corrupted the church and that was his only role, but you also can't say that his only role was that he saved

the church. Yeah. I mean, you're seeing, you're seeing the complication of this. And so in his death, even his burial, the way it was buried, I mean, he was buried, one of the documents that were in the, that we read was that he was buried, he wanted to be. He wanted to be buried in the area with all the apostles, which is interesting in a way because I want to be near the apostles, but I also want the imperial invasion into the church. And so you see this kind of like, wait, what is this? And then that presents a new problem that we're moving into with his own kids. And so post-death, I mean, it's not like, and this is the nature of the not yet now kingdom,

in my opinion, is that it is very complicated. it's mixed and it's not very easy to just say this is what it is i mean it is a it's a process of unfolding and purification but it is it is a new problem and it winds up being uh when you get through the three sons then you get to this cousin julian that a christian brought up then we're now we're swinging back to paganism you know we're doing the full swing back and so now like it just shows you over the course of human human history how the pendulum swings, right? And now it's like, well, okay, we get Christianity a chance is like the major thing. And now we're going to swing back the other way. All it takes

is three or four different leaders to get us back to that point. I want you to sign up and take the course with us for free at unashamed for Hillsdale.com. I was kind of confused why, which he could have had many, many attempts, but they could have just been unsuccessful. But because Constantine was not assassinated. Obviously he died. We just talked about that. But two of his sons were assassinated. by troops and then the other one by someone else. But they were trying to kind of bring Rome back to sort of to the way it was before. So I feel like if anyone would have been assassinated,

somebody would have tried to assassinate Constantine for trying to change the whole fabric of Rome. I thought that was interesting, that two of his sons were assassinated, and they actually aligned with more typical. style of what Rome had been. Well, it certainly showed you the ancient idea of how you dealt with potential threats to power.

He just killed everybody. But you're right. I think it also shows you, I think, to Zach's point earlier, Constantine had a, he had an an anointing of things to do that I think would establish things that we're still appreciating to this very day. And that's part of the reason why he probably lived. his whole life. I mean, it was probably because God protected him

because he had a lot of good things to do, you know, even as a flawed man. And I mean, the Nicene Creed alone and the idea of recognizing scripture were things that to this day I'm a preached to him, you know? Well, just on that note, on the assassination part,

because I think what Constantine did is he didn't, he actually really didn't, change Rome that much. Like he established Christianity as an as a religion and he felt I mean I think loosely we can say he followed it. You know what I mean? Like he didn't follow it as much as a religion. He declared crisis as Lord, but he wasn't like the cultural Christian that we would think of or that they would think of at the time. But he did do a lot of work to like establish Christianity. And it like kind of what I said earlier like when they were blaming Christianity later, like, like,

like in the next hundred years for the downfall of Rome, they were saying that because Rome was so, was established with that hierarchy and with there's different levels and with this idea of like, those who have power should be on the top. Like might is right, power rules, the lower you go down, the chain,

the latter, the less power you have, the less rights you have, the less human you're seen as all the way down. And Christianity, Totally disrupted that, but Constantine really didn't disrupt that. He still was doing all the things of Roman Empire. Romans, the rest of the emperors were doing, and his sons, like, were Christians-ish, but they still were trying to consolidate power, and then you go one more generation,

and they're back to that hierarchy of Papers. But what percentage of Rome was Christian before Constantine was emperor, you know? I think that's what, I think that was a 40-year-old. I thought the 40% was he had gotten it to 40%. No, I think it was probably there. 40% was there before he became imperial. That was my understanding. No, no, no, no.

I would say after. Oh, before. You think 40% of Rome was Christian before Constantine? Oh, I don't know. I thought that's what it said. I don't know. I'm saying, yeah, I think it got to 40% because of Constantine. So I'm saying, yes.

That's probably true. So I'm saying. Oh, yeah, yeah. So I think he had clearly, whether it's evangelism or something, I think he did change the fabric of Rome because I don't think it was probably anywhere close to 40% of over. I also think it says,

I mean... By the time of Constantine, it was according to Hillsdale the study guy that was roughly 40%. Yeah. By the time of Constantine, Christianity had spread roughly 40%. That's crazy. That's actually wild. Yeah.

Well, that was a, on our earlier thing, what was it, Origin who said that, who had that line that sent y'all that no one understood. The line of like, Like, we are in every building. Christians are in every building. Yeah. Every work of life, every, all the way from the lowest to the highest.

Like, if Christians rose up, we could conquer hope. And that was right before this or right around this time. But it also was the apologetic for Christianity that that's never been the purpose anyway. Yeah. It's always been. It happened. Yeah. It happened with not top down, but bottom up. It was bottom up.

That's it. Well, I think when you ask the question, Christian, about like the assassinations and things like that, when Constantine takes his position, you got to keep in mind that, like, that is a radical departure from the way Rome has always been, which has always been, you last a couple years and then someone takes you out. I mean, that's been the history of the Roman Empire, is that there's, I mean, that's why you don't want to be in position of power because you're not going to last long. Someone's going to kill you. Yeah, I did. I did look at it. I said this before when we were doing this. and I just looked it up again.

Yeah, the being a Roman Empire, a Roman emperor, 62% of Roman emperors died of violent death, either by assassination, murder, suicides, battle. So they're just returning back to what was always true.

So the sons inherit, they inherit their father's empire. The problem is they don't have the stabilizing presence of their father. And so they go, then the rivalries come back in, the political ambitions come back in. It just is like,

oh, let's just go back to what we always knew. And so they start killing each other. And then Constanius, the second, you know, he's the one that kind of emerges as the real power broker. But I think it is interesting that he was an Aryan.

And so this heresy, I think, is pure evil because it actually, you could kind of trace the, how it's direct. directly tied to the pagan culture as well. So it's like the entry point where I can say I'm a Christian, you know, I can pretend like I'm a Christian when really my ultimate allegiance

is to the pagan gods. And I want to reestablish the pagan culture under the guise of Aryan, which is why he attacked the Nicene Creed. And he wanted to go back and try to undo what his father had done with the Nicene Creed because it was such an important statement about who God is. and I think there's a theologically I think by this matters if there's a term called the one and the many

kind of in Christian circles and a lot has been written on this but if God is as many God is just like he's just like a thousand gods like you know then once you have is the way that that would play out in your world if that's who God is it would just be complete anarchy because he's just it's everything right

He's just everywhere, your truth, my truth. It's just complete anarchy. It's Mad Max. That's what that looks like downstream. If God is one, like he's one person, well, then it's tyranny. Because you got a king. He's running the show. Everything is under him, and it's just tyrant rule and authoritarianism.

But what the Bible teaches is that God is one and many, but he's three. So God's three persons in one being. And why that matters is because how does that play out? And the way that plays out, if you understand the nature of God, to be three, is to say God is a lover. The father is a lover. The son, if you're going to have a lover, then you have to have what? You have to have one that is loved. He's the beloved.

So the father is the lover. The son is the beloved. And I don't think we're going to get to Augustine in this lecture. But Augustine said that the love between them is the spirit. maybe an even better way of seeing it, maybe the way I see the Trinity, is that you guys, did you all remember any relationship,

like when you were in high school where you had like, they were a couple in love, and everybody else was like excluded, and they just always kept it themselves, and it was kind of weird. Have you ever known anybody like that? So it's me.

Oh, yeah. That was just you with your girl in Pocahanna. Well, Oh, no. We know. Yes, we know what you're talking about. So that's not a Trinitarian relationship. Like, it's not an exclusive love.

They need to have a child. You got to have a child. Yeah, right. But it is a love. You're right. The family kind of shows that. But it's a love that overflows. And so the reason why God, the very,

because that's the foundation of reality is who God is. And so you have, you have a lover. You have the beloved. And then you have the love that pours out of that relationship, which is the spirit. And so that is the framework, right? 1 John 4.8 and 1 John 410, the Bible says that God is love. God cannot be love unless God is triune.

And so that's the anchor to the whole thing. So the Nicae and Creed, I mean, really for the foundation of the church, like this is a biblical doctrine that sits at the dead center of all of reality. Is the God who is there? Who is he? And what's he like? And that's why I think that, that's why I think that, the evil one wants to come in, and he wants to take that down.

And so he does it through Arianism, which happens to also be a very close cousin of paganism. And Constanius, I think, is the engine of the second is the engine in which he implements this. And then it was picked up with Julian, the cousin. Right. Because then he goes full board pagan, but he noticed he out, I mean, he legalizes these other, schisms that had remember Constance who tried to bring together and said look we can't have all this division

well he legalized them again why because he hates Christianity he's trying to make it go away what's the best way to do that get him fighting again get him arguing again right it said he was nice to the Jews that didn't it he had a good relationship they call him Julian the Helene because he was interesting

yeah it is interesting the exact like what you said about just bringing to the point that God is love and agreeing this that Julian started persecuting Christians and blamed the downfall of Rome on Christianity. Like, I think that's true. Because I think that whenever you cannot have, you can't be a Christian in the sense that, like, you can't follow the God of love and follow the teachings of Jesus and have your country

or be the leader of a country that, or even be a part of a country in a community that is based on conquering, exploitation, dehumanization. Like, we as Christians, we believe God is we should help the poor. All men are created equal. We're supposed to

take care of the earth and like, you know, allow, build people up. Like, all of those things were antithetical to the Roman Empire. It was literally built on conquering. Like, one of the downfalls, when they ran out of the people to conquer and they started,

to fall because they couldn't produce all their own stuff. Then they wanted to create venues and arenas for their old battles and then kill people. Or kill people. Yes. As if they were people they were conquering, but these are people that are part of the Roman Empire. Exactly. I mean, then now they were killed them for sport. The culture of Rome that, in the culture of Romans, that is what led to the height of Rome,

was built on this, like, base of conquering, exploitation and violence. and Christianity rejected all of that, which then I think was one of the big downfalls of Rome. It's one of people, like, from the lower people all the way up to the top, once people started having a new lord, a new way of thinking about the world and about what goodness was and what love is, the system of Rome could not sustain that. That's any, well, yeah.

That's any system. Yes. So it's not just, yeah, I think that, plays in where we are now in the United States is too is like thinking like what what are we as a people like what is our country built on are we going to be built on exportation are we going built on our military conquest or like are we going to be built on our love for community or individualism building each other up sign up take the course with us for free at unashamed for hillsdale dot com yeah that's such a good point i think that and that's a controversial thing there because

I mean, you start talking about politics and people get really upset really quick because there are some very strong allegiances to political parties and things like that. Or a particular administration or president. And I think there's a lot of wisdom in what John Lee just said. And even our benefactors, Hillsdale University, shows wisdom. They don't, they're one of only two. I don't know who the other one is. Universities in America that don't take money from the government.

And it's so smart. If you're going to, if you're going to be Christian and be boldly Christian and yet teach history, if you take the money from the government, then all you're waiting is one administration that disagrees with you and you're in trouble. And I say this all the time to pro-life groups. I'm like, look, we have to do, we're believers. We believe in life. We believe in protecting life. We should not take money from the government. It's up to us to do that.

The church's responsibility is to take care of each other. So it because look, all it takes is one power shift. And the one thing about this course has taught us, all we need is the next generation coming in. And the whole thing gets flipped. And you can get there pragmatically, right? So you can be winning pragmatically. And then, but you're actually at the same time, like you're eroding the very foundation of what this thing is built on. It's one of the reasons why I wrote Torch Bear actually, ironically, there's a whole lot of ironies in that.

I wrote that story, the point and the reason why I wrote it was because I saw movement in the conservative movement, within the conservative movement, that sought to establish conservatism based on its own and not anchored in the God who is there. And the point was of that whole film was that, like Francis Schaefer said this best, that conservative humanism is still humanism. It doesn't matter the variation or the coloration of the, of the humanization. humanism in all of its variations. It's not of God. And so you have to anchor your, your politics in this very simple truth that we are made in the image of God. Like,

that's like that's it. And if you don't anchor it in that, then the argument of the film, and I think of history is it will end in tyranny every single time. You can be right on policy, but wrong on why. And if you're wrong on the why, then the policy will eventually become tyrannical every single time. That's why I don't have allegiance to certain political leaders because I'm looking at my like, you might be writing on some policies, but like, I'm not with that. That's not, that's not, that's not, that's not, that's not, we have to anchor this in truth.

And so when you get to, and you see this in the Roman Empire. I mean, that's the reason why when Constanius came into power, you know, what he wanted to erode and Julius as well, Julian as well, is that. Christ is king. So you diminish Christ, you make Christ smaller so that the state can then come in and have the power that the state wants. And in this case, it was these guys. And so, you know, we may not be under full-blown persecution in the West right now. But they, but when Julian came into power, his goal was not to persecute or martyr, make martyrs in the church. All he wanted to do was to confuse everybody. He wanted to create divisions. He wanted to exploit it. He wanted to

legitimize these heretical movements. His whole thing was, let's just get truth out of the hands of God's kingdom, and let's put it back into the hands of the state. That's what he was trying to accomplish, and I think that's a lot more like, I mean, that looks very similar to John Luke's point about what we see in America today. We're not making our case anymore. I say that a lot of people are. But the threat will always be that when you take the case for liberty or the case for

whatever, fill in the blank. If you remove it from the truth of who God is and Christ being the king of all the universe and we're all under his dominion and authority, when you remove it from that, then you just end up with some kind of, in the end, arbitrary, you know, whoever's got the most power. And you start fighting that battle. Well, then you end up, you know, back right where we started. I do have a quick question because we talk a lot about consolidation of power and indeed control addition to power and things like that. So if history, if you look at things historical, if the Nicene Creed had not become a thing through Constantine, how would that have impacted, you know, life from there? And then even things like, you know, we just finished colonial America.

Like how much of the founding of America and the Declaration of Independence and these things were, like, inspired from things like the Nicene Creed and even like life today like what our life today look different if the Nicene Creed would never have happened and the consolidation of that had ever been established good question dr. Cowork said uh somewhere in one of the lectures that the United States owed a huge debt of gratitude the the idea of America especially the religious freedom part to that very thing that you just said so and I agree with that. I mean, I think whatever our role is, because, you know, we're never sure how much more time, you know, when's the Lord coming back? We don't know. But the idea of what we're trying to do,

I think under the idea of all men created equal and freedom in the American experiment, and again, it's so tiny compared to what we're reading here because it's only 250 years. I mean, we're looking at 250 years, and it's like, yeah, that's a baby compared to what we're doing here. It's humbling. It's very humbling. And we talked about that, Zach, we were doing the movie because we were looking at all those long stretches of power. But, I mean, obviously, God was working through all that to continue to do his will. And it's interesting me.

And I wanted to mention this, because you led to it perfectly, this last guy that's mentioned because he's so important. Athanasia. Yeah, Athanasius. I want to meet him in heaven. Oh, man. Because this guy, what a guy. I mean, this guy of Alexandria. And so he was there and a defender of the Nicene Creed.

But then his thing about the incarnation, again, a return back to that. Zach, to your point, it keeps coming back to that, right? I mean, it keeps coming back to that recognition of who Jesus is. And it's the same thing we're talking about. It's the theme of our podcast. Well, what he did. Yeah, and what he did, was Athanasius. So the Nicene Creed gave the church the right words, right? It gave us the right

doctrine. Athanasius gave us basically the answer, what is it going to cost to keep it? And so this was a man who, I think what he saw in this creed was he said, you know, if Christ is not fully God, then the incarnation doesn't save us. And that was the basis of kind of this whole worldview. that the incarnation does save us, the incarnation of Christ. And he anchors that in the fact that the incarnation of what or the incarnation of who. I mean, that is the whole heart of the gospel, right? The whole heart of the entire thing. It's why when you read the scriptures, I don't think you should primarily read the scriptures

through the lens of atonement, although it's part of it. I think the primary lens to which we read the scripture is God's presence among his people. So when we think about the incarnation in the beginning of what, the word, the word was with God, the word was God, and then what? The word became flesh. God incarnates, Emmanuel, God with us. Like that statement, when we talk about incarnation, incarnation of who, incarnation of what, incarnate, meet God taking on flesh, Philippians 2. It's the center of the whole thing. And I think that's why, and I run into this a lot with the New Age community,

because I was just always backing up against this. Like this is the thing that separates the whole deal. Is Jesus for you an idea? Is he floating? Or is Jesus incarnate? Does he have meat and bones? Because that is the central teaching of who he was. And so when you get to like 1st, 2nd John, 3rd John, it talks about the Antichrist.

I don't think it's an accident that he talks about the Antichrist being anyone who doesn't acknowledge it. Jesus came in flesh. that he didn't incarnate. You see what I'm saying? It is the central teaching. And obviously, Athanasius was someone who,

I think, embodied this in the church early, very early. Well, he said, yeah, he was exiled five times under all the different emperors.

And you would think at some point, which we just talked about God sparing Constantine, maybe God was sparing Athanasius. Oh, there's no doubt. Yeah. You would, as brutal as these people were

after about the third or fourth exile, you thought that would have been like, all right, just, just do it. And it also shows you that even people in power, there's a fear of people with strong conviction to anything, but especially to God. They're not sure what to do with that. And so while they were, they kept exiled him. There was obvious, I mean, they killed all their own family. That's what I'm saying.

Exactly. So obviously, there's a fear there. It's the same thing that the Jewish leadership was having issues with John the Baptist and Jesus during that era. It was like, we'd like to kill him. I mean, what's going to happen if we do? Because, I mean, this is a person of conviction, and all these people are listening to what they're saying. So it shows you there's also a power of protection by just being strong and what you believe in.

And look, if you're willing to give your life because you know there's no way to kill me because I'm going to be resurrected, that's a powerful force. It was a powerful force for Jesus, and it's still a powerful way. I'll say this, too, that if you go back to Constantine and how he died on his deathbed and even the prolonging of the baptism, think about that view of baptism that was prominent

in the early church was that, or I say early in Constantine's days, that I'm going to prolong this because once I'm baptized, I can't sin again. I mean, just think of that view of salvation. That's a very, very limited view of salvation, by the way. And it sounds like not very appealing to me. I'm just being honest. That's like, like, right, that it's all about, like, I got to do the thing, get right, and then I get to go to heaven.

Like, that's such a limited view of salvation. And what Athanasius brought into the church or brought back into the church or maybe into the pop culture of the church or the bigger view of the church is that true salvation is not a one-time event. It's actually a participation in the life of God. I think about John 17, 3, which is a big. our church is, that's our primary text of the church that we have here and we're part of in North Carolina, is that eternal life, as Jesus defined it, as we says, John 173, eternal life is this, to know, to know the one true God and Jesus Christ, the incarnation of that God, his son whom he sent. That is what eternal life is. And Athanasius, this is what

he embodied is that salvation is much broader. It's actually participation. It's knowing God being restored back into reality. It's participatory. You know, it's, it's ongoing. It's union with Christ. It's all these, all these ideas that it's not a one-time deal. Like, you're being invited into a relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit through the incarnation of the Son, Jesus Christ. And that's the thing. I think when you see it, John Luke, you earlier made an intimation to this point that it's the best reality I see that's a result of that is marriage. Like, I love what the way you framed is that is it a thought or is it real flesh and bone? When you make a decision to marry somebody, it's not just, well, it's a thought and an idea,

although people do and then they get divorced because there's no real intimacy there. But when you have spiritual, emotional, physical intimacy with another real person and then you create life together, that then you get to raise and grow and be a part of and shape, I mean, that's when we're the most like the Almighty, because that's what he does for us. It's more than just an eth real idea. It's a reality. And that's why everything else is false. That's why pornography and affairs and hookups and all these different things that are out there that people participate in, it's not real. no real true intimacy in those things. That's why they always come up and fail. And it's also more than than just a document. I mean, Nicaea, it's not, this is not, okay, here's the, here's the,

just the optional vocabulary that we could use. It's not, that, that's not the way to see what, what's happening here. And so when you think about Constantine, I think that is one of the flaws of Constantine, we're going to institutionalize this thing. We're going to put it in a document. We're going to get out. And if that's how you view it, and it's, stays there. Your question about the Nicene Creed is very interesting, because I could also ask the other question is, what if it had just stayed there? What if it had just stayed as a document? What would we be like today? Yes, without the document and without the confession, without the creed, I think, yeah, I think it changes the shape of human history. But at the same time,

Athanasius, without the embodiment of what this actually is, you also see that. And so that that is the nature of of I think the kingdom is is and you're seeing like I love it because it's like you can't create a system that contains God like creeds don't containing they don't yeah like the creeds are written by men they're not inspired by the Holy Spirit like scripture is they're helpful in the advancement of the kingdom but what's more important is does that does what the creed actually is a testify to that's already in scripture by the way does that get embodied? Because I didn't mention, I mentioned John 173. That's not in the creed. That's in the Bible. But that's what Athanasius was all about. And so I think that he's embodying this.

So you're seeing that historical progression of how God's using all of this stuff. But what you're actually seeing in the kingdom is real people living it out in communion with God and with one another. Yeah. Christian, do you have son? No, I was just pulling up John 17, three, what Zach said. I was just reading what it was. Well, I just had just a point because I know we're coming to the end here. With Asinacious and all these, like, when he says he goes to the Egyptian desert to stay with Anthony the hermit,

I love this idea of those like early church fathers, the desert fathers. If you just Google the desert fathers, you can get to some mysticism and stuff. But the actual like history of those guys who were just like out in the desert who just said like, we're going out here, we're going to learn about God, we're going to preserve scripture. I love that whole idea and all that whole time period and all those guys. Because that reminds me of Phil Robertson. It's like the guy out in the swamp in the wilderness just like,

I'm going my Bible, I'm going to do right. And then people just kept going to them and saying like, what are you learning? John the Baptist. John the Baptist. Just the guys out there in their wilderness just putting their full thought into like, who is God, how can I live like Christ? And then that like draw, no matter where they are out in the middle of nowhere, just like drew people in.

And it kind of gets you out of the, we mentioned by Constantine in the buildings, because we didn't mention the basilicas he built and a lot of them still beautiful things that we see today. But empty. You know, just they're beautiful. They're great to look at. We look at them all the time. They're like museums. Well, it's like a bunch of tourists. I mean, everybody in the one.

I mean, it was incredible, the ones we went into. but it was all tourists that were in there. And that made me think of that Act 17 passage of God doesn't live in temples built by man's hands. And so grateful for the history, I think it's a part of our heritage, obviously. But I think at the end of the day, what we have to fight against, it's the same today. I mean, all these threats that were coming out of the kingdom, you just can't turn Jesus into something smaller than he is. you can't condense him into like a political tribe or or therapist for you know personal peace or or some kind of identity of western civilization all that like all of that is to shrink him down

like he's much bigger than that like he is the son of the living god he is god he incarnated he was crucified buried in a tomb and resurrected three days later then he was given the kingdom of God ascended to enter into the heavenly tabernacle where he now sits at the right hand that Father mediates for us. That's the king we serve. And our role is to surrender to him, to serve him, and to imitate him. And that's what we do. And that's bigger than any government or anything else as well. So we're out of time. Has everybody been baptized, by the way? Just making sure. Have you all been baptized? Has everybody been baptized twice? I was waiting until my deathbed. So we want you to sign up, take the course with us for free, take the journey.

It's a lot of fun. It's a lot to learn. And we've really enjoyed it. Thank you, Hillsdale. Unashamed for Hillsdale.com is where you go. We want you to be right in here with us and listening to these wonderful people that they've been good to us. So we'll get back into it next time on Unashamed for Hillsdale.

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