The History of the Christian Church

This episode is titled, “Wars of Religion” In our review of the Reformation, we began with a look at its roots and the long cry for reform that had been heard in the Roman church. We saw its genesis in Germany with Martin Luther & Philip Melanchthon, its impact on Switzerland with Zwingli & later with the Frenchman John Calvin. John Knox carried it to his native Scotland & Thomas Cranmer led it in England. We’ve taken a look at the Roman Catholic response the Reformation in what’s called the Counter-Reformation, but probably ought to be labelled the Catholic Reformation. We briefly considered the Council of Trent where the Roman Church affirmed its perspective on many of the issues raised by the Protestants and for the first time a clear line was set, marking the differences in theology between the 2 groups. We saw the Jesuits, the learned shock troops of the Roman Church sent out on both mission and to counter the impact of the Reformation in many regions of Europe being swung toward the Protestant camp. (more…)

This episode of CS is titled is titled “English Candles.” We’ve spent the last several episodes looking at the Reformation & Counter-Reformation in Europe. In this episode we’ll take a look at how the Reformation unfolded, specifically in England. The story of the Church in England is an interesting one. The famous, or infamous, Henry the VIII was king of England when Luther set fire to the kindling of the Reformation. Posturing as a bulwark of Catholic orthodoxy, Henry wrote a refutation of Luther’s position in 1521 titled “Defense of the Seven Sacraments” and was rewarded by Pope Leo X with the august title, Defender of the Faith. Ironic then that only about a decade later, Henry would hijack the church, officially ousting the Pope as head of the Church IN England and making himself head of the Church OF England. (more…)

This episode is titled Point – Counter Point: The Catholic Reformation. We’ve spent the last several episodes considering the Protestant Reformation of the 16th C. The tendency is to assume the Roman Church just dug in its heels in an obdurate opposition to the Protestants. While the 17th C will indeed see much blood shed between the religious factions of Europe, it would be wrong to assume the Roman Church of the early decades of the Reformation was immediately adversarial. Don’t forget that all the early Reformers were Roman Catholics. And reform was something many had been calling for in the Roman church for a long time prior to Martin Luther’s break. The Conciliar Movement we talked about many episodes back was an attempt at reform, at least of the hierarchy of the church, if not some of its doctrine. Spain was a center of the call for Reform within the church. But Luther’s rift with Rome, and the floodgate it opened put the Roman Church on the defensive and caused it to respond aggressively. That response was what’s called the Catholic Counter-Reformation. But that title can be misleading if one assumes the Catholic Church became only more hide-bound in reaction to the Protestants. Several important reforms were made in the way the Church was run. And Protestant theology urged Catholic theologians to tighten up some of theirs. (more…)

This episode is titled, The Ultimate Fighter; Reformation Edition. The pioneer of Protestantism in the western Switzerland was William Farel. Some pronounce it FAIR-el, but we’ll go with the more traditional Fah – REL. He began as an itinerate evangelist who was always in motion, seemingly tireless; full of faith and fire. He was bold as Luther but far more radical. He also lacked Luther’s genius. He’s called the Elijah of the French Reformation & “the scourge of priests.” Once an devoted RC who studied under pro-reform Catholics at the University of Paris, Farel became just as loyal a Protestant, who was able to see only what was wrong with the Catholicism of his past. Farel loathed the pope, branding him a veritable antichrist, as did many Protestants of that period. Of course, the popes returned the favor and labeled some of the Reformation leaders with the same title. Farel declared that all the statues, pictures & relics found in Roman churches were heathen idols which must be destroyed. (more…)

This Episode is titled, Knox, Knox, Who’s There? John Knox was born in 1514 in the small burgh of Haddington, south of Edinburgh. At the age of 15 he entered the University of St. Andrews to study, not golf, but theology. After 7 yrs he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest & became a notary since his studies specialized in the Law. Being a gifted speaker, he was employed as a tutor for the sons of some local lairds, a term referring to lower rung of Scottish nobility. Dramatic events unfolded in Scotland during Knox’s youth. Many were angry with the Catholic church, which owned more than half the land and gathered an annual income of almost 20 times that of the crown. Bishops and priests were more often than not political appointments, & many so morally corrupt, they didn’t even try to hide their debaucheries. Cardinal Beaton, archbishop of St. Andrews, openly consorted with concubines and fathered 10 children. (more…)

This episode of CS is titled “The School of Christ” and is part 2 in our look at the Reformer, John Calvin. We left off last time with John Calvin back in Geneva after being banished for a few years following a run in with the City Council. They realized how much they needed him to design the reforms they felt they had to make so they asked him to return and accommodated themselves to being the agents by which his plans could be implemented along civil lines. Social welfare in Geneva was charged to the church’s deacons. They were the hospital management board, social security executives, and alms-house supervisors. The deacons were so effective at administering these welfare programs, Geneva had no beggars. When the Scotsman John Knox visited Geneva in 1554, he wrote a friend that the city was à “the most perfect school of Christ that ever was in the earth since the days of the apostles.” (more…)

This episode it titled, Thrust Into the Game. So far we’ve marked the rise of 2 of the 3 major branches of the Reformation. We’ve considered Luthernism & the Radical Reformers or Anabaptists. Over the next few episodes we’ll consider the 3rd branch, called Calvinism, or simply, Reformed Christianity. I begin with a summary of the opening section of Bruce Shelley’s excellent, Church History in Plain Language & his chapter of John Calvin. Because the road to Strassburg was closed by the war between France & Spain the young French scholar had to pass thru Geneva. His plan was to spend only a night. He ended up spending many. (more…)

This episode is titled, Taking It Further. History, or I should say, the reporting of it, shows a penchant for identifying one person, a singular standout as the locus of change. This despite the recurring fact there were others who participated in or paralleled that change. Such is the case with Martin Luther and the Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli. While Luther is the “historic bookmark” for the genesis of the Reformation, in some ways, Zwingli was ahead of him. Born in Switzerland in 1484, Ulrich Zwingli was educated in the best universities & ordained a priest.  Possessing a keen mind, intense theological inquiry coupled to a keen spiritual struggle brought him to a genuine faith in 1516, a year before Luther tacked his 95 thesis to Wittenberg’s door.  2 yrs later, Zwingli arrived in Zurich where he’d spend the rest of his life. By 1523 he was leading the Reformation in Switzerland. (more…)

This episode of CS is titled Luther’s Legacy. Long time subscribers to CS know that while the podcast isn’t bias free, I do strive to treat subjects fairly. However, being a pastor of a non-denominational, evangelical Christian church in SoCal, I do have my views & opinions on the material we cover. When I share those opinions, I try to mark them as such. So >> Warning; Blatant opinion follows. We live in the Era of the Instant. People expect to have things quickly & relatively easily. Technology has produced an array of labor-saving devices that reduce once arduous tasks to effortless, “push a button & voila” procedures. Sadly, many people assume such instantifying applies to the acquisition of knowledge as well. The internet enhances this expectation with ready access to on-line information, not just thru a desktop computer, but via smartphones where ever we are. (more…)

This episode of CS is titled, Luther’s Struggle. As we saw last time, Luther’s situation after appearing before the Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms didn’t look hopeful. The majority of officials there decided to apply the papal bull excommunicating Luther & removing his protection. Some of the nobles knew they could incur the Pope’s favor by taking matters into their own hands and assassinating the troublesome priest. But the German prince Frederick the Wise, one of the Emperor’s most important supporters, arranged to air-quotes à “kidnap” Luther on his way back to Wittenberg. He secreted Luther to his castle at Wartburg under an assumed identity. Now in hiding, Luther used the time to translate the NT from Greek into a superbly simple German Bible.  He finished it in the Fall of 1522 and followed it up with an OT translation from Hebrew. This took longer and wasn’t finished till 1534. The completed Bible proved to be no less a force in the German-speaking world than the King James Version was later to be in the English sphere, and it’s considered one of Luther’s most valuable contributions. (more…)

This episode of CS is titled, Martin’s List. In the summer of 1520 a document bearing an impressive seal circulated throughout Germany in search of a remote figure. It began, “Arise, O Lord, and judge Your cause. A wild boar has invaded Your vineyard.” The document was what’s called a papal bull—named after that impressive seal, or bulla bearing the Pope’s insignia.  It took 3 months to reach the wild boar it referred to, a German monk named Martin Luther who’d created quite a stir in Germany. But well before it arrived in Wittenberg where Luther taught, he knew its contents. 41 of the things he’d been announcing were condemned as à “heretical, scandalous, false, and offensive to pious ears; seducing simple minds & repugnant to Catholic truth.” The papal bull called on Luther to repent and publicly repudiate his errors or face dreadful consequences. (more…)

This episode of CS is titled Erasmus. As we begin this 86th episode, I once again want to do a brief, and I promise it will be brief, summary of the threads that conspired to weave the tapestry of the Reformation. Others might refer to them less as threads that weaved a tapestry as those that frayed in the unraveling of the Church caused by those trouble-makers called the Reformers. The reason I feel compelled to do all this summarizing as we launch into the Reformation period in Europe is because of the massive sea-change that’s coming in Church History & the need to understand it wasn’t just some malcontents who woke open day and decided to bail on a healthy church. Things had been bad for a long time and the call for reform had been heard for a couple hundred years. The Western European Church of the 14th & 15th C’s experienced a major crisis of authority. This crisis came from challenges both within and without. They combined to plant seeds of doubt in the minds of many about the credibility and legitimacy of Church leaders. Let’s review some of the things they’d done, or that happened to the Church, that created the crisis. (more…)

This 85th episode of CS, is titled, Dawn. We’ve come now to 1 of the most significant moments in Church History; the Reformation. Since the Reformation is considered by many to be the point at which the Protestant church arose, it’s important to realize a couple things. First – The student of history must remember almost all those who are today counted as the first Protestants were Roman Catholics. When they began the movement that would later be called the Reformation, they didn’t call themselves anything other than Christians of the Western, Roman church. They began as an attempt to bring what they considered to be much needed reform to the Church, not to start something new, but to return to something true. When the Roman hierarchy excommunicated them, the Reformers considered it less as THEY who were being thrust forth out of the Church as it was those who did the thrusting, pushed themselves out of the true church which was invisible and not to be equated with the visible religious institution HQ’d in Rome & presided over by the Pope. It’s difficult to say for certain, but you get the sense from the writing of some of the Reformers that they hoped the day would come when the Roman church would recognize in their movement the true Gospel and come to embrace it. Little did they envision how deep and wide the break between them and Rome would become, and how their own movement would shatter & scatter into so many different sects, just as the Roman hierarchy worried & warned. (more…)

This 84th Episode of CS is titled Lost & is a brief review of The Church in the East. I encourage you to go back and listen again to episode 72 – Meanwhile Back in the East, which conveyed a lot of detail about the Eastern Church & how it fared under the Mongols and Muslim Expansion in the Middle Ages. Until that time, Christianity was widespread across a good part of the Middle East, Mesopotamia, Persia, & across Central Asia – reaching all the way to China. The reaction of Muslim rulers to the incipient Mongol affiliation with Christianity meant a systemic persecution of believers in Muslim lands, especially in Egypt, where Christians were regarded as a 5th Column. Then, when the Mongols embraced Islam, entire regions of Christians were eradicated. Still, even with these deprivations, Christianity continued to live on in vast portions of across the East. (more…)

This special episode of CS posts to the sanctorum.us website on Easter Sunday, 2015. I realize many subscribers will hear it at a later time, but since each week’s episode posts early Sunday morning, and this is Resurrection Sunday, a special podcast seemed appropriate. This week, we’ll be taking a look at the place of the celebration of Easter in the Early Church. There’s considerable controversy over the origin of the word Easter as the label that’s come to be attached to the Christian commemoration of the Resurrection of Christ. It’s best to see the word coming from the Germanic languages & the Teutonic goddess of Spring, Eastre. Her festival marked the vernal equinox, & with the arrival of Christianity the holiday morphed to be the anniversary of the resurrection of Christ. Today you’ll occasionally hear someone connect the word Easter to the Canaanite goddess Astarte, the Babylonian Ishtar, or some such other ancient deity. While there may be some etymological connection between the Teutonic Eastre & the Mesopotamian Ishtar, it’s submerged under the mists of time. (more…)