The History of the Christian Church

As I record  & post this episode, a new movie’s out called Logan. It’s appears to be the last installment for the venerable X-Men character Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman. Logan was an immortal who became the subject of a secret military experiment gone wrong. His skeleton was infused with a fictional metal called adamantium that bears the hardness of a diamond. (more…)

This is part 6 of our series titled The First Centuries, in Season 2 of CS. In the last episode we took a look at the Church Father Irenaeus. This episode we’ll consider Tertullian.That may prompt some to wonder if we’re going to work our way through ALL the church fathers of the Early Church. Uh, no – we won’t. Just a few.While he’s known to history as Tertullian, his full name was Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus. (more…)

The historical record is pretty clear that the Apostle John spent his last years in Western Asia Minor, with the City of Ephesus acting as his headquarters. It seems that during his time there, he ppoured himself into a cadre of capable men who went on to provide outstanding leadership for the church in the midst of difficult trials. Men like Polycarp of Smyrna, Papias & Apolinarius of Hierapolis, & Melito of Sardis. These and others were mentioned by Polycrates, the bishop of Ephesus in a letter to Victor, a bishop at Rome in about AD 190. (more…)

Have you noticed that, generally-speaking, Christians like to argue?Maybe we get it from our spiritual ancestors, the Jews. Once while on a tour of Jerusalem at what are called the Southern Steps of the Temple Mount, our Jewish guide told us that a frequent joke among his people was that where there are 2 Jews, there’s 3 opinions.Yeah; it seems controversy has been a part of the history of The Church since its inception. And maybe that’s really more a “human” tendency than something unique to, or the sole prerogative of the followers of Jesus. (more…)

In part 1 we took a look at some of the sociological reason for persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. Then last time we began a narrative-chronology of the waves of persecution and ended with Antonius Pious.A new approach in dealing with Christians was adopted by Marcus Aurelius who reigned form 161–180. Aurelius is known as a philosopher emperor. He authored a volume on Stoic philosophy titled Meditations. It was really more a series of notes to himself, but it became something of a classic of ancient literature. Aurelius bore not a shred of sympathy for the idea of life after death & detested as intellectually inferior anyone who carried a hope in immortality. (more…)

This is part 2 in our follow-up series on the first centuries in Church History. We’re concentrating on the persecution Jesus’ followers endured. In part 1, we examined the social & civic reasons for persecution in the Roman Empire.The suspicion of nefarious intent by Christians, fueled by their withdrawal from society due to its tacit connection to paganism, morphed into a suspicion of covert actions Jesus’ followers were taking to subvert society. Why were Christians so secretive if they weren’t in fact doing something wrong? And if the rumors were true, Christians WERE doing odd things; like pretending slaves had the same dignity as freemen; that women and children were to be honored as equal to men; and they rescued exposed infants. Why, if they kept all that up, and more joined their cause, what was to become of the world? It would look very different from the one that had been. (more…)

Welcome BACK to Communion Sanctorum: History of the Christian Church.We ended our summary & overview narrative of Church History after 150 episodes; took a few months break, and are back to it again with more episodes which aim to fill in the massive gaps we left before.This time, we’ll do series that go into detail on specific moments, movements, people, places, and other topics. (more…)

The final episode of Communio Sanctorum. We look briefly at the reaction of some Protestants  to Manifest Destiny. DL Moody, The Holiness Movement, Phoebe Palmer, The Azusa Street Revival.This 150th episode of CS is titled The End.150 episodes! And this is the rebooted v2. We had a hundred episodes in v1 before I started over again in an attempt to clean up the timeline and fill in some gaps. (more…)

Evangelism into FundamentalismThis 149th episode is titled Evangementalism.We’ve spent a couple episodes laying out the genesis of Theological Liberalism, and concluded the last episode with a brief look at the conservative reaction to it of what’s been called Evangelicalism. Evangelicalism was one of the most important movements of the 20th C. The label comes from that which lies at the center of the movement, a devotion to an orthodox and traditional understanding of the Evangel, that is, the Christian Gospel. The Good News of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. (more…)

The work of the Protestant Liberal theologians Schleiermacher & Ristchl. The Evangelical response.The title of this 148th episode is Liberal v EvangelicalIn our last episode, we considered the philosophical roots of Theological Liberalism. In this episode we’ll name names as we look at the early leaders and innovators or Liberalism.Some years ago in a college Philosophy class, my professor gave his understanding of both faith and reason. After a lengthy description of both, he concluded by saying that faith and reason had absolutely nothing to do with each other. Reason dealt with the evidential, that which was perceived by the senses and what logic concluded were rationally consistent conclusions drawn form that evidence. Faith, he declaimed, was belief in spite of evidence. When I asked if he was thus saying faith was irrational, he just smiled. (more…)

Part 3 in our looks at Theological Liberalism. A summary Biblical Criticism and Liberalism's overall goal in merging reason & faith.The title of this 147th episode is Why So Critical?Two episodes back we introduced the themes that would lead eventually to what’s called by many Theological Liberalism. Last episode we talked a bit about how the church, mostly the Roman Catholic church, pushed back against those themes. In this episode we’ll go further into the birth of liberalism. (more…)

The Roman Church's response to Modernism in the mid to late 19th Century. Pius IX's development of Papal Infallibility.The title of this 146th episode is Push-BackAs we move to wind up this season of CS, we’ve entered into the modern era in our review of Church history and the emergence of Theological Liberalism. Many historians view The French Revolution as a turning point in the social development of Europe and the Western Civilization. The French Revolution was in many ways, the result of the Enlightenment, and a harbinger of things to come in the Modern & Post Modern Eras.For convenience sake, but in what is probably a gross simplifying, let’s chop up the history Western Civilization into these eras, in regards to Church History. (more…)

We examine the impact of the tendency for modernization to foster a creeping secularism in the 19th C.The title of this 145th episode of CS is Liberal.The term “modern” as it relates to the story of history, has been treated differently by dozens of authors, historians and sociologists. Generally speaking, Modernization is the process by which agricultural and rural traditions morph into an industrial, technological and urban milieu that tends to be democratic, pluralistic, socialist, and/or individualistic. (more…)

We take a look at what's happening in the Eastern Church during the 17th to 20th Century.The title of this 144th episode is Coping.A quick announcement before we dive in.Go to the sanctorum.us website or the CS FB page and hit the link to the 2017 Reformation Tour we’re doing in March. We have all the info up with prices and dates. So take a look and think about joining us.It’s time once again to lay down our focus on the Western Church to see what’s happening in the East. (more…)

Christianity as a religion becomes a diminishing factor in the political affairs of 19th Century Europe and Latin America.This 143rd episode of CS is titled Coming ApartEurope in the late 19th C was recovering from the Napoleonic Wars. War-weary, the nations longed for a prolonged period of peace in which to take a breath, and consider HOW they were going to rebuild from the devastation recent conflicts has left. A plethora of new economic and political theories were available for them to choose from as they rebuilt. Most settled on economic and political ideas that were more liberal in terms of individual rights. The prosperity that had marked Holland became a model for a good part of Europe as they moved to a classic free-market system. With few exceptions, the governments of Europe adopted modified parliamentary systems. (more…)