Strange Church History

Strange Church History

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Strange Church History explores the forgotten, bizarre, and enchanted tales of Christianity’s past. From headless bishops to dog-headed saints, from miraculous wonders to eerie legends, each episode dives into the stories that are too strange to ignore and too meaningful to dismiss.

12/04/2025

Re-enchanting the Cosmos | C.R. Wiley

In this episode of Strange Church History, we share a conference talk from C. R. Wiley on re-enchanting the cosmos. With his characteristic clarity and good sense, Wiley turns our attention to the architecture of creation itself—its hierarchy, order, purpose, and harmony. He reminds us that before the modern world thinned reality to particles and probabilities, Christians understood the cosmos as a house built by God, a place alive with meaning and structured for wisdom. This talk presses against the disenchanted assumptions of our age and calls us to recover a world thick with significance. Wiley argues that forgetting the cosmos is forgetting our place within it. He draws together Scripture, the Christian tradition, and the deep patterns of life to show that the universe is not a cold expanse but an ordered home in which God’s people are meant to dwell, act, and take dominion. Join us as Strange Church History revisits this compelling and timely message delivered at the Re-enchanting the Church conference in Logan, West Virginia—a reminder that the world is far larger, stranger, and more glorious than we have been taught to imagine.

1h 5m
12/04/2025

Re-enchanting the Christian Imagination | S.D. Smith

In this episode of Strange Church History, we share a conference talk from S. D. Smith on the renewal of the Christian imagination. Drawing from story, Scripture, and the deep patterns woven into creation, Smith challenges us to consider what truly forms the inner life of God’s people. Imagination, he argues, is never empty. It is always being shaped, always being filled, always bending toward worship or toward something far darker. If our imaginations are not shaped by what is doxological, they will inevitably be shaped by what is diabolical. This talk calls the Church to recover a vision large enough for the world God actually made: a world that is storied, symbolic, and charged with meaning. Smith invites listeners to see again with childlike clarity, to recognize the quiet wonders we have forgotten, and to cultivate imaginations sturdy enough to live faithfully in an age of confusion. Enter Strange Church History as we revisit this timely and hopeful message delivered at the Re-enchanting the Church conference in Logan, West Virginia.

58 min
12/04/2025

Re-enchanting the Church

In this episode of Strange Church History, we share a conference talk from Josh delivered in Logan, West Virginia, on the theme of re-enchanting the Church. This session explores how the Church can recover a deeper imagination, a sacramental vision of the world, and the ancient patterns that shaped Christian worship and life long before modernity stripped them of their wonder. Drawing from Scripture, history, and the symbolic world that once formed the Christian mind, Josh invites listeners to consider what it means to live as a people who see the world charged with the presence of God. This talk stands as both reflection and invitation. It looks back to the great story the Church has inherited and asks how that story can once again shape our communities, our worship, and our sense of place in God’s creation. Step inside Strange Church History and listen as the veil lifts a little, reminding us that the faith we confess has never been ordinary.

36 min
11/06/2025

The Cadaver Synod

In the winter of 897, the city of Rome gathered in silence to witness the unthinkable. Inside the Basilica of St. John Lateran, a corpse sat propped on a throne — the body of Pope Formosus, dead for nine months, dressed again in papal robes. And before him, another pope pronounced judgment. This was the Cadaver Synod — one of the strangest and darkest moments in Church history. A trial of the dead. A symbol of power gone mad. But also, a mirror of the Cross: when heaven’s instruments are twisted by human hands, and yet grace still refuses to depart. In this episode of Strange Church History, we enter the madness of medieval Rome, trace the politics that led to the Synodus Horrenda, and uncover the meaning hidden within the grotesque — the truth that even in corruption, resurrection waits.

15 min
10/16/2025

The Strange History of Halloween

It's the Hallowtide Season. The air is cold, the wind whispers through the trees, and the line between the living and the dead grows thin. Candles burn inside hollowed pumpkins. Children walk beneath the moon wearing masks of saints and spirits. But behind the costumes and candy lies one of the strangest stories in all of Christian history. In this episode of Strange Church History, we uncover the true origins of Halloween — not as a pagan survival, but as a Christian holy night: the eve of All Saints. From the shadow of ancient harvest festivals to the dawn of the Hallowtide Triduum, we follow how the Church claimed the season of death as a proclamation of resurrection. Hear how medieval Christians faced the darkness without fear, transforming superstition into sanctity, and how the strange beauty of this feast still echoes today — when heaven and hell both seem to hold their breath. Is Halloween trick... or treat?

1h 3m
Season 1, Episode 3 Trailer

Preview | The Strange History of Halloween

It’s the last night of October. A cold wind moves through the valley, whispering through the bones of the trees. Outside an old stone church, candles flicker, tombstones lean, and somewhere in the darkness children laugh. They wear masks of saints and spirits, angels and monsters, walking a line that feels older than memory. In this episode of Strange Church History, we explore the true story of Halloween, not as a pagan survival, but as one of the Church’s strangest triumphs. From the ancient harvests of Samhain to the birth of All Hallows’ Eve, we trace how the Church faced the darkness of death not with fear, but with faith. Hear how Christians turned the season of the dead into a proclamation of resurrection, how the Allhallowtide Triduum—All Hallows’ Eve, All Saints, and All Souls—became a vision of time itself redeemed. Because the night does not belong to the devil.It belongs to Christ, the Lord of Time.

5 min
10/09/2025

The Dancing Plague of 1518

In the summer of 1518, the city of Strasbourg was seized by madness. It began with one woman, Frau Troffea, who stepped into the street and began to dance. Days passed, and she did not stop. Soon her daughter joined her. Then dozens. Then hundreds. They danced until their feet bled, until their bodies convulsed, until some collapsed dead. Was it mass hysteria? Ergot poisoning from tainted rye? Or was it, as the people believed, a judgment from heaven with Saint Vitus himself compelling sinners to dance? The city council built stages and hired musicians, hoping to “dance it out.” But the mania only spread. Finally, the Church intervened with red shoes, holy water, incense, and prayers and the frenzy broke. The Dancing Plague of 1518 remains one of the strangest events in Christian history. A parable of joy without God collapsing into chaos, and of the Church restoring order through ritual. Join me as we step into Strasbourg’s cobbled streets, hear the bells of its great cathedral, and uncover the meaning behind a plague that made a city dance toward death.

34 min
Season 1, Episode 2 Trailer

Preview | The Dancing Plague of 1518

Enjoy this preview of Episode Two from Season One of Strange Church History.In this episode, we uncover one of the most haunting events ever recorded in Christian Europe. Episode Two releases Thursday, October 9th.Stay tuned — the past is stranger than you think.

1 min
10/02/2025

The Bishop Who Walked Without A Head

In 3rd-century Paris, then a small Roman frontier town called Lutetia, a bishop named Denis was condemned for preaching Christ as King. The sword fell. His head rolled upon the earth. But that was not the end. According to ancient tradition, Denis rose to his feet, lifted his severed head in his own hands, and walked. Step by step, mile after mile, he carried his head while still proclaiming Christ, until he fell on the spot where the great Basilica of Saint-Denis would one day stand, the resting place of French kings. In this first episode of Strange Church History, we explore the world of Paris under Rome, the mission of Denis, his martyrdom, and the meaning behind his headless miracle. Was it legend? Symbol? Miracle? Or all three at once? Join us as we walk through history, imagination, and faith to uncover the story of the saint who would not be silenced by death.

25 min

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Strange Church History explores the forgotten, bizarre, and enchanted tales of Christianity’s past. From headless bishops to dog-headed saints, from miraculous wonders to eerie legends, each episode dives into the stories that are too strange to ignore and too meaningful to dismiss.

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Strange Church History
Years Active

2K
Episodes

9
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