25 Milestones in the History of the Christian Faith

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Beginnings

East Into West [4]

Christianity’s roots are Near/Middle Eastern. Over time, the European Church westernized Christianity. The Protestant Reformation rejected much of Roman Catholicism, but retained much of its westernized Christian mindset. This transformation is invisible to us until we start seeing our Eastern roots through exposure to Christian history.

A Resilient Faith (Why Not? We’re Resurrectionists) [5]

• Sin => Repentance, Renewal, Reformation, Revival
• Persecution => Destruction? No, Purity
• Heresy => Dissolution? No, Orthodoxy and, in some cases, Tolerance
• Intellectual Attacks => Demoralization? No, Refinement of Faith & Practice

The Initial Surge [6]

“The foreign mission work has achieved three great conquests:

1. First, the conversion of the elect remnant of the Jews, and of civilized Greeks and Romans, in the first three centuries;
2. Then the conversion of the barbarians of Northern and Western Europe, in the middle ages; and
3. Lastly, the combined efforts of various churches and societies for the conversion of ...America, Africa, and Australia, and the semi-civilized nations of Eastern Asia, in our own time.”

Schaff. Apostolic. Kindle Loc 287-290.

1st Century Summarized [7]

• [1] 70 AD - Roman general Titus Destroys Jerusalem; Jews/Christians split, Christians no longer welcome in synagogues
• Jew revolt
• Jewish Christians flee to Pella in 66, refusing to participate in the revolt
• Confident of God’s intervention, Jerusalem’s Zealots burn the besieged city’s food supply to force the fellow Jews into battle with the Romans
• Jerusalem destroyed by Titus and rampaging soldiers destroy the temple
• Thousands of Jews enslaved and deported to Rome to build the Coliseum
• Afterwards, Christians banned from synagogues. Jewish conversions dry up.
• Last Apostle dead by 100 AD.
• Era of the Apostolic Fathers (Polycarp, Ignatius, Clement, and others), the first generation directly following the Apostles. Many of the Apostolic Fathers knew and were even disciples of the Apostles.

Christian Hallmarks in the Early Days [8]

• Simplicity
• Community
• Inclusive of All People BUT Exclusive regarding certain Behaviors
• Aggressively Evangelistic (<= Eerdman’s View; My View: Forced to Be Evangelistic by the hyperactive Roman civic religion)
• Love amongst themselves and for outsiders

Resurrection Faith [9]

• Apostolic Succession with Many Cities as Starting Points/Connections (Not Just the Apostle Peter in Rome)
• Emergence of the Rule of Faith; the Apostles’ Creed; Catechisms; Baptismal Formulas; Sign of the Cross
• The March towards the New Testament (Schismatic Montanus & Heretic Marcion drove this forward.)

Acceptance And Conquest

A State Religion – 4th Century [10]

• [2] 313 AD – Constantine officially recognizes Christianity with the Edict of Milan (Except for Julian the Apostate, smooth sailing government-wise for Christianity from that point on.)
• "Our purpose is to grant both to the Christians and to all others full authority to follow whatever worship each person has desired, whereby whatsoever Divinity dwells in heaven may be benevolent and propitious to us, and to all who are placed under our authority. Therefore we thought it salutary and most proper to establish our purpose that no person whatever should be refused complete toleration, who has given up his mind either to the cult of the Christians or to the religion which he personally feels best suited to himself. It is our pleasure to abolish all conditions whatever which were embodied in former orders directed to your office about the Christians, that every one of those who have a common wish to follow the religion of the Christians may from this moment freely and unconditionally proceed to observe the same without any annoyance or disquiet.” Excerpt from Edict of Milan
• Returned confiscated church property, church lands and buildings, etc.
• Government compensation for what couldn’t be returned
• Blessing…or Disaster in the long run?

(3) 325 – Council of Nicea; first of the 7 Ecumenical Councils [11]

• “The bishops and deacons were deeply impressed. After three centuries of periodic persecutions instigated by some Roman emperor, were they actually gathered before one not as enemies but as allies? Some of them carried scars of the imperial lash. One pastor from Egypt was missing an eye; another was crippled in both hands as a result of red-hot irons.” Shelley, “Council”
• “Arius…taught that Christ was more than human, but something less than God…God originally lived alone…Then He created the Son, who in turn created everything else.” Eerdman’s
• “Athanasius…called for a creed that made clear Jesus Christ’s full deity…homo ousion” (same substance)
• Homo Ousios a controversial term because it was…
  • A term associated with Modalism, an earlier heresy in the Church
  • Was not a Scriptural word
• IMPORTANT! Nicea 325 did not end the debate or the spread of Arianism; Nicean Christianity took almost 150 years to triumph.

(4) 367 – Athanasius’s Easter Letter establishing NT Canon [12]

• Based on consensus, not his individual ruling
• Ruled Didache, Shepherd of Hermas, I Clement, and the Epistle of Barnabas WERE NOT sacred Scripture.
• Ruled the controversial I Peter, II Peter, II John, III John, and Revelation WERE sacred Scripture.

(5) 386 – Augustine’s Conversion [13]

• Fought the Donatists (Donatists refused to re-admit clergy who had lapsed and the people consecrated by them)
• Fought the Pelagians (Pelagians believed human beings could make the first steps towards God)
• He’s a giant for Catholics and many Protestants

395 AD – Christianity becomes Rome’s official state religion [14]

(6) 405 - Jerome Completes the Vulgate [15]

• Translate the Hebrew OT into Latin; the Church had been using the Septuagint (Greek OT) from the beginning
• Jerome’s opinion on the Apocrypha (liber ecclesiastici not liber canonici)
• The Eastern Church on Jerome/Augustine
  • “Justification” a faulty translation choice. Uses a Roman legal term, which shapes future generation's view of the Atonement.
  • Reject guilt based on Original Sin; hold to sin-prone nature, sinful examples, and a sinful society

A Golden Twilight for the West – 4th to 6th Century [16]

• (7) 451 - Council of Chalcedon Refinement of Orthodoxy, Nicene CreedS) Lane, p 14.
• Against Arius – Christ was Divine;
• Against Apollinarius – Christ was Fully Human;
• Against Nestorius – Christ is One Person with…
• Against Eutyches – Two Natures
• The Chalcedonian Definition that “Christ is ‘made known in two natures [which exist]
  • Without confusion
  • Without change
  • Without division
  • Without separation’”
• Growth of institutional church: hierarchical clergy, focus on liturgy and sacraments
• (8) 540 – The Rule of Benedict – Preserves the simplicity of monasticism, but a monasticism for the common man, not the Superman.
• East/West Move moving closer towards their eventual split
• 590 - Pope Gregory the Great, the first Bishop of Rome that we Protestants recognize as a Pope.

Christian Society

Collapse – 6th to 10th Century [17]

• End of the Roman Empire in the West
• Church splits between
  • Rome – Independent of governments
  • Constantinople – Subservient to governments
• Roman Church continues as European governments come and go
• 622 – Emergence of Islam
• Vikings, Visigoths, etc. converted

Renewal & Missions Through Monasticism [18]

• 480-547 - Benedict of Nursia
• 910 - Monastery at Cluny – Integrate monks with society, stamp out simony, re-establish celibacy, eliminate corruption
• 1090-1153 - Bernard of Clairvaux & the Cistercians
• 1182-1226 - Francis of Assisi & the Franciscans
• 1170-1221 - Dominic and the Dominicans

Challenges for the Church - 10th to 12 Century [19]

• (9) 988 – Czar Vladimir Spawns the Russian Orthodox Church By Adopting Christianity Vladimir wanted to establish a state religion to stabilize his empire. He sent out teams to investigate the major world religions surrounding his empire.
  • Judaism and Islam – Diet too strict!
  • Orthodox over Catholicism – Beauty of the service!
  • “As for Vladimir himself, his lifestyle was clearly affected. When he married Anna, he put away his five former wives. Not only did he build churches, he also destroyed idols, abolished the death penalty, protected the poor, established schools, and managed to live in peace with neighboring nations. On his deathbed he gave all his possessions to the poor.” Lang, 17.

• Primacy of Rome	Bulgarian Evangelism	Filoque added to creed, pushing the Eastern Church further away	4th Crusade depredations (1204)
  ⇓	⇓	⇓	⇓

  (10) 1054 - Western (Rome and the Pope) and Eastern Churches (Eastern Empire and Patriarchs) split
• Dueling Excommunications

1077 - Emperor Henry IV Before Pope Gregory VII [20]

The excommunicated Emperor Henry IV had to beg Pope Gregory VII for pardon in the January snows of Canossa, Italy. Some Protestants think this display of Papal power is disgraceful. I’m with Gregory on this. Henry and other kings were claiming the right to grant wealthy and prestigious church positions as political favors. Compare this to Imperial Domination taking place in the Eastern Churches.

Decline and Decay – 11th to 15th Century [21]

• (11) 1095 – Pope Urban II Launches 1st Crusade
  • “Deus vult! Deus vult! (God wills it!)
  • Kicks off 300 years of warfare
  • Why go? Adventure, spiritual reward, material reward (land and plunder)
  • Outcome?
  • Persecuted Jews
  • Church fractured into East and West
  • Muslims—if possible—even more militant
• Scholasticism’s Golden Age – Peter Abelard & Thomas Aquinas
• Devolution into barren scholasticism OBJECTION, YOUR HONOR: “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” is an absurd question ONLY if (1) you don’t believe in angels, and (2) you don’t have physics, calculus and modern technology as a channel for your intellectual energy.
• (12) 1378 – The Great Papal Schism
  • Two popes! Then three popes! Then in 1417, back to one pope
  • This is way too complicated to explain quickly (and probably not worth the trouble)
• (13) 1456 – The First Gutenberg Bible
  • The Protestant Reformation could not have gotten off the ground without Gutenberg’s invention.
  • Lower price and quantity put the Bible in the hands of the people PLUS—and this is not mentioned much—it greatly reduced the problem of copyist errors.
• Pre-Reformers
  • Anti-clerical and Anti-hierarchical movements
  • Cathari ( ‘pure ones’)/Albigensians - Heretics
  • Waldensians – Bible-based, fled to inaccessible Alpine valleys for religious freedom
  • 1380’s – John Wycliffe
  • Early 1400’s – Jan Hus

(14) 1272 – Aquinas and Summa Theologica [22]

“More remarkable than this was an announcement he made three months before his death in 1274. He said, after apparently seeing a heavenly vision during a worship service, “All that I have hitherto written seems to me nothing but straw . . . compared to what has been revealed to me.” He gave up all theological writing, and so the Summa Theologiae was never actually completed. ” CH, 21 Norman Geisler’s Should Old Aquinas Be Forgot. A prominent Protestant endorses Aquinas.

Reform

Reformation - 16th Century [23]

• (15) 1517 – Martin Luther posts 95 Theses. An academic debate that got out of hand.
• Martin Luther & Lutheranism (State Church)
• John Calvin & Calvinism (State Church)
• (16) 1521 The Diet of Worms “Martin Luther: Unless I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture or by clear reason (for I trust neither pope nor council alone, since it is well known that they have often erred and contradicted themselves), I am bound by the Scriptures I have cited, for my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and will not recant anything, since to act against one’s conscience is neither safe nor right. I cannot do otherwise. Here I stand, may God help me.”
• (17) 1525 The Anabaptist Movement Begins (Baptized believers outside a State/Territorial Church)
  • AKA The Radical Reformation/Some really were radical
  • Baptized believers outside any State/Territorial Church
  • Congregationalist, saw no need for elaborate church bureaucracy
  • Separationists – Pacifistic as far as joining the military or police forces; Also did not seek government influence or office
  • Spread by Evangelism
  • Modern descendants are the Mennonite and Brethren
• William Tyndale, God’s Outlaw
  • 1526 – Finished English translation of NT. Copies were printed and smuggled into England.
  • Henry VIII was opposed to his work
  • 1536 – Betrayed by a friend, strangled and then burned at the stake over a year later
  • 90% of the KVJ was lifted from Tyndale’s NT

Reform - 16th Century Editor, “Supremacy” [24]

(18) 1534 The Act of Supremacy ( ”Henry VIII …’the only supreme head on earth of the Church of England.’ England now had a national church, with the king at the helm.”)

Restoration – 16th Century [25]

(19) 1536 John Calvin Publishes Institutes of the Christian Religion Probablythe most controversial Christian book ever written.

PRO	CON
“Calvin must be reckoned as one of the greatest and best of men who God raised up in the history of Christianity.” Phillip Schaff “	"We shall always find it hard to love the man who darkened the human soul with the most absurd and blasphemous conception of God in all the long and honored history of nonsense.” Will Durant

Restoration – 16th Century Continued [26]

• The Counter-Reformation
• The Spanish Inquisition (Dominican-led)
• The Society of Jesus, the Jesuit Order, is formed in 1540 – The Catholic Church’s combination of Mensa and Navy Seals
• (20) 1545 The Council of Trent Begins (Includes many of the reforms Luther called for.)

A Middle Way – 16th to 17th Century [27]

• (21) 1611 - Publication of the King James Bible The translators basically made sure Tyndale’s version was accurate and then used its wording
• The English Church – Evangelical in doctrine, high church in worship
• The Puritan Reaction – Mixture of Protestantism and the Radical Reformation; Migration to America

The Battle at the Gates of Vienna, September 12, 1683 [28]

In the largest cavalry charge in history, Poland’s winged hussars were part of a multi—pronged attack against the Islamic forces of Grand Vizier Mustafa. The European victory prevented the Muslim conquest of Europe, which could conceivably have led to a Muslim Britain and a Muslim America.

Reason, Revival, Revelation

Revival – 17th to 18th Century [29]

• Pietists
• Revivals started in Germany
• NT Simplicity and a personal experience with Christ
• John Wesley and the Moravians

Awakenings – 18th Century [30]

• (22) 1738 John & Charles Wesley Experience Conversions
  • Outdoor Preaching
  • Small groups for prayer and Bible Study
  • Book and Tract distribution
• (23) 1740 The Great Awakening Peaks
• Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, The Wesley Brothers
• “It was to the individual (not as positioned in a traditional hierarchy, not as bound by family constraints, not as members of a local congregation) that Whitefield made his appeal.” Noll, ”Great Awakening”,
• Concern for the poor, oppressed, and disenfranchised
• Great Awakening swallowed by Revolutionary fervor
• Legal Separation of Church and State in America
• French Revolution Violently Separates Church and State (Ann Coulter’s Demonic is definitely worth a read to see the American and French versions of Revolution.)

An Age of Reason – 18th Century [31]

• The Enlightenment and the War against Faith
• Fighting for the faith against skeptics
• Rejuvenation from revival kept things moving

Cities and Empires

Into All the World – 18th to 19th Century [32]

• William Carey – Beginnings of modern missionary movment
• Bible Translation Missions
• European associations—Protestant and Catholic--training and sending missionaries to 3rd world countries

Revolutionary Responses – 19th Century [33]

• Europe rocked by revolution
• Pope Pius IX vehemently opposes every form of modernism
• Vatican I declares the Pope infallible when speaking ex cathedra (1869-70)

Evangelical Crusaders – 18th to 19th Century [34]

• Many American Christians tied themselves to the doctrine of “Manifest Destiny”
• Many Christians became outspoken Abolitionists
• William Wilburforce in Britain eventually wins government support for the Abolition of slavery and a high seas war on the slave trade
• The evangelist Charles Finney in America
• The Guinness Family opens Irish breweries for progressive Christian reasons: beer instead of gin. Most progressive Christian company in the world at the time
• Charles Spurgeon, the Prince of Preachers, draws thousands

Towards 2100 (Eerdman’s)

Into the 20th Century – 20th Century [35]

• Pope Leo XIII comes to terms with modernism, including Marxism
• Missionaries and native believers are persecuted in many places
  • PREVIOUSLY: Your missionaries are destroying our past by eradicating our indigenous cultures;
  • NOW: Your missionaries are destroying our future by preserving our indigenous cultures.
• Darwinists and Christians go to war
• Dwight L Moody converted and begins preaching

Global Conflict – 20th Century [36]

• World War I dashes hopes of a Christian Millennium. Massive Change in Christian Eschatology
• Rise of Spiritism after WWI when massive numbers of mothers and wives try to reconnect with their dead sons and husbands
• Controversy, fragmentation, polarization, realignment
• Pentecostalism emerges in USA in 1901
• Billy Sunday and countless other evangelists
• World War II
  • Persecutions of Christians in Germany.
  • Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Christians and the State. Germany was not Rome. Rome ruled; it did not exterminate entire peoples.

Theologians Divide - 19th to 20th Century [37]

• Theological Liberals (German rationalism) Versus Conservatives
• Social Gospel (Get involved) Versus Evangelicalism (Withdrawal into Pacifism, Non-Involvement in Government, and Salvationism)

Unity and Discord [38]

• National Association of Evangelicals, 1942
• World Council of Churches, 1948
• Many American denominations split, while . . . Some 3rd World Dominations actually merged
• Christians Persecuted in Russia

A Wind of Change [39]

• (24) 1962 - Vatican II radically reforms the Catholic Church
  • Reduced feast and fast days
  • Masses in vernacular, rather than Latin
  • Reducing tensions between Protestants and Catholics
  • “It is no exaggeration, then, to say that the Catholic Church has changed more in the twenty-five years since Vatican II than it had in the previous two hundred.” Komonchak, “Second” 46
  • Center of Christ’s work moving from 1st and 2nd World to 3rd World
• (25) 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr. Leads the March on Washington
• “Over the following ten months, the white churches proved to be the most effective champions of the civil-rights bill.” Roberts, “King,” 47

During the 20th Century [40]

• Billy Graham emerges nationally
• Charismatic Christians move into the emerging cable tv world
• Vigorous 5-Point Calvinism re-emerges in late 20th Century
• Resurgence of Evangelical Christianity world-wide
• C. S. Lewis provides some intellectual respect to Christianity

New Challenges [41]

• Universities become visibly and ardently hostile to Christianity
• Persecution in Totalitarian Regimes (Communist, Muslim, Etc.)
• 3 of the Church's Most Implacable Foes Grow In Power
  • Marxism (Cultural Marxism, Liberation Theology, Etc.)
  • Feminism (Devaluation and Feminization of Males, Abortion, IQ Plunge, Transgenderism)
  • Islam

Remember! Christianity remains … [42]

• Resilient
• Dynamic
• Expansionist

Sources

• Lane, Tony. "The Council of Chalcedon." Christian History: The 100 Most Important Events in Church History, Issue 28, 1990, pp 14-15.
• Linder, Robert. “Christian Centuries,” Eerdman’s Handbook to the History of Christianity. pp xi-xxiv
• Shelley, Bruce. "The First Council of Nicea." Christian History: The 100 Most Important Events in Church History, Issue 28, 1990, pp 8-9.