The History of the Christian Church

The impact of the French Revolution on the Church in France.The title of this 142 episode of CS is “Off with Their Heads.”In this installment of the podcast, we’re going to give a brief review of The French Revolution, which may not seem at first blush to have much to do with Church History. Ahh, but it does. It does for this reason: What we see in The French Revolution is a proto-typical example of the Church, by which the institutional church, not necessarily the Christian Gospel and Faith, colliding with Modernity. (more…)

We look at the church under the Ottoman Turks after the Fall of Constantinople. We then look at the Ukrainian Uniate Church and the Russian Orthodox Church during the reign of the Romanovs.This 141st, episode is titled, Behind Enemy Lines. Following up their conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Turks conquered most of the Balkans. They now controlled the former Byzantine Empire and the substantial region of Armenia. They required the Eastern Orthodox patriarchs in Constantinople to obey their rules & policies. The Ottoman Turks employed their Christians subjects in key positions in the military & government. The bureaucrats who’d served the labrynthine Byzantine system made excellent court officials in the new realm. And thousands of young Christian boys were inducted into the Janissaries; elite fighting units renowned for their ferocity and loyalty to the Sultan. If you want to read some fascinating history, dig into the story of the Janissaries. (more…)

We wrap up our review of the Enlightenment effect on the Church in Europe by looking at Scandinavia, The Dutch United Provinces, Geneva, and Italy.This 140th episode is titled Up North, Then South. This will be the last episode where we take a look at Christianity in Europe following the Enlightenment. This narrative is nowhere near exhaustive. It’s more an exhaustING summary of Scandinavia, The Dutch United Provinces, Austria, and Italy. We’ve already looked at Germany, France, and Spain. (more…)

In this episode we finish off our look at the French Church of the 17th to 18th Centuries, then consider the impact of the German Enlightenment on the church in Germany.This 139th episode is title “Pressed.” In our last episode, we took a look the French church of the 17th C and considered the contest between the Catholic Jansenists & Jesuits. It’s interesting realizing the Jansenists began as a theological movement that looks quite similar to Calvinism. Their theology eventually spilled over into the political realm and undercut the Divine Right of Kings, a European political system that had held sway in Europe for centuries, & reached its apex in France under Louis XIV. (more…)

We back up a bit in this episode to take a look at what happened in France in the 17th Century with the demise of the Divine Right of Kings.The Title of this 138th Episode is Backing Up. And its titled that because once again we’re backtracking a bit to hop into the story of Church History earlier than where our last few episodes have taken us. We’re focusing this episode on what happened in France during the late 17th & into the 18th C. This period saw a massive struggle between the French monarchy & 2 groups; Catholic  Jansenists & Protestant Huguenots. At stake was the throne’s claim that it alone had the power to determine the religion of the French people. (more…)

We look at Theological Liberalism and the Social Gospel, as well as a brief glance at the reaction to it of Fundamentalism.In this 137th episode of CS, titled “Then Away,” we give a brief account of the rise of Theological Liberalism. In the previous episodes we charted the revivals that marked the 18th & 19th Cs. Social transformation is a mark of such revivals. But not all those engaged in the betterment of society were motivated by a passion to serve God by serving their fellow man. At the same time that revival swept though many churches, others stood aloof and held back from being carried away into what they deemed as religious fanaticism. (more…)

This 136th episode of CS is titled, Yet Again. Before we dive in, I want to give a hearty thanks to all those of you who nominated CS for the 2016 Podcast Awards. As I record this, I’m not sure where we came in, in the nomination process & whether or not we’ll be included in the general voting this year. They’ve changed the rules a bit this year & I’m not certain how things will sort out. If CS makes the final cut, I’ll let you know here on the podcast, the sanctorum.us site and the FB page. The 2nd piece of business is that we now have air costs for the Reformation Tour next year. The dates are March 6-19, 2017. The Land only portion for those who want to meet us at the start in Prague is $____________. If you want to start the journey with us in Los Angeles, CA, the total cost including airfare is $_______________. Please visit the sanctorum.us site or the CS FB page for contact information. It’s crucial if you intend to go that you sign up right away. We need to meet a minimum of 20. (more…)

This 135th episode of CS is titled, A Second Awakening. We ended our last episode with the dour spiritual condition of both the United States and Europe at the end of the 18th C. I mentioned Dr. J Edwin Orr a couple episodes back. He was the 20th C’s foremost expert on Revival and Spiritual renewal. While he could speak with eloquence on literally dozens of Revivals, one of his favorite subjects was what’s come to be known as the Second Great Awakening. Before it began, there were many who worried if God did not intervene, Christianity might die out of Europe and the US. (more…)

This is episode 134-Decline. Following the Great Awakening, which produced a deep-seated sense of Faith in so many Americans prior to the Revolutionary War, as the new nation organized itself around its new national identity, it realized something unique was taking place. A genuine religious pluralism had taken root. That was very different from the centuries of conflict that marked the Europe they or their ancestors came from. There are several reasons for the religious pluralism of the United States. But when we speak of pluralism at that point in history, let’s make sure what we mean is a lack of the establishment of a specific Christian denomination as the National or Federal Church. 18th C pluralism didn’t include other major world religions. There were no Buddhist or Hindu temples; no Islamic mosques nor Shinto shrines. Americans were Christians, if not of the committed stripe, at least nominally. (more…)

This 133rd episode of CS is titled Awakening. It’s time again for the Podcast Awards. Voting is only from April 15-30, 2016. The rules are a bit different this year, which I won’t bore you with. But please note if you want to nominate CS, you have to do so no later than April 30th. You can only nominate once and one show per category. CS will be in the Society & Culture category. The only podcasts that will make it to the finals are those who receive enough nominations. Then, once that list is made, regular voting will begin. We did well at year & want to see how we’ll do this year. So if you want, head over to podcastawards.com and nominate CS in the Society & Culture category. Thanks. (more…)

This, the 132nd episode of CS is titled, Colonies. Two announcements before we dive in. 1) For those who’ve expressed interest in the CS Reformation Tour in March of 2017, we’ll have the airfare portion of the trip nailed down soon, hopefully by the end of April. As soon as we rates, we’ll tell you here and on both the sanctorum.us site and the Facebook page. 2) The 2016 Podcast Awards are taking nominations for your favorite podcasts. If you want to vote for CS, head over to podcastawards.com and do so. Nominated podcasts only make it onto the slate if they receive enough nominations. As a listener, you can nominate Communio Sanctorum once a day for the 2 week nomination period. Both the sanctorum.us site and Facebook page will have more information. Thanks! (more…)

This episode of CS is titled, Results. Now that we’ve come through the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment & considered many but not all of the movements and luminaries of this period, it’s time to hold a brief review of the results of what took place in Europe and the New World following all this turmoil. Once we embark in the next Era of Church History, we’ll find ourselves in the weeds of so many movements that we’re going to have to back up and take it in an even more summary form than we have; and that’s been pretty overview-ish as it is. You see, the great warning Roman Catholics gave when the Protestants split turned out to be true. They warned if Luther and the other Reformers left the Mother Church, they would commence a fragmenting that would never end. They foretold that everyone who had their own idea of the way things ought to be would end up running off to start their own movement, denomination and church. The hundreds of denominations and tens of thousands of independent churches today are testimony to that fragmenting. Well, there’s just no way we can chronicle all the different direction the Church went. We’ll need to stand back a only mark the broad strokes. (more…)

This episode is titled, Kant. At the conclusion of episode 125 – The Rationalist Option Part 2, I said we’d return later to the subject of the philosophy of the Enlightenment to consider its impact on theology & Church History. We’ll do that in this episode. In that episode the past philosopher we considered was the empiricist David Hume, whose skepticism went so far as to suggest that the common sense notion of cause and effect was an illusion. Hume said that all we can says is what we experience, but that we can’t know with certainty that one things gives rise to another, no matter how many times that thing may be repeated. In may in fact at some time and place NOT repeat that pattern. So to draw universal laws from what we experience isn’t fitting. The effect of Hume’s critique was to cast doubt on reason. Empiricists and Rationalists were set at odds with each other. (more…)

The title of this episode is Moravians and Wesley. We took a look at Pietism in an earlier episode. Pietism was a reaction to the dry dogmatism of Protestant Scholasticism and the reductionist rationalism of Enlightenment philosophers. It aimed to renew a living faith in a living Christ. As a movement, it was led in the 17th C by Philip Jakob Spener & August Francke [frank -uh]. (more…)

In this episode, we’ll take a brief look at what came to be called Spiritualism. Coming out of the 16th C, the, what seemed to many at the time, endless debates on doctrine & dogma, the intolerance of Christians toward one another, and the lack of any apparent movement toward resolving the mess, moved many across Europe and the New World to seek refuge in a more of a religious sentiment, than a faith with clearly defined beliefs. Another factor that led to this movement was the burgeoning middle class that was rising in Europe. You see, it was only the wealthy nobility who possessed the resources for the higher education need to foster the excessive emphasis on correct doctrine. Those who didn’t have that opportunity; who couldn’t wax eloquent on complicated matters of theology, were regarded as unsophisticates who depended on their betters to tell them what to believe. (more…)