History of Christianity (2000) | Full Movie | Dr. Timothy George | Mona Hurlbert Fisher

[Music] history of Christianity is developed and hosted by Timothy George internationally noted theologian author and editor and Dean of Beeson Divinity School history is a survey course designed to stimulate further your curiosity by providing glimpses at some of the pivotal events in the spread of Christianity and sketches of great Christian figures who have significantly affected Christian history thereby shaping the history of the world [Music] but when the fullness of time was come God sent forth his son made of a woman made under the law to redeem them that were under the law in the fullness of time two words designate time in the New Testament Chronos root of the English chronic and chronology is measured time time countered in minutes months centuries the tick tick tick of an alarm clock of a stopwatch in a race time as we live it that circumscribes our activities in our lives day in and day out Kairos means the right time the opportune time time laden with meaning the fullness of God's time [Music] the event of Jesus Christ his life his death his resurrection forever changed the meaning of time in history in Jesus Chronos became Kairos counted time and momentous event merged so affecting world history that even the measure of time was divided into before Christ and after Christ BC and AD you Christianity is not primarily a philosophy of life or a coded behavior or even a set of rituals it is the story of what God himself has said and done in space and in time in the person of his son on earth and the work of his spirit through the ages we remember the words of Jesus upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it the history of Christianity is to some extent the story of the fulfillment of that prophecy Christianity began as a small sect within Palestinian Judaism but by the end of the first century it had already become a significant force within the Roman Empire when Jesus died the Roman governor Pontius Pilate required that the words this is Jesus King of the Jews be written on his cross in three languages in Hebrew Greek and Latin these three languages represented the three worlds into which the early Christians carried their message of a crucified and risen Redeemer among Jesus disciples and early Christian evangelists the Apostle Paul was his greatest interpreter Paul was a Jew like Jesus but unlike many of the other disciples he was classically educated a member of the Jewish elite and free to travel throughout the Roman Empire and among the Gentiles one of the most important decisions of the early church was the retention of the Old Testament as Christian scripture above all else this meant that the god of creation the God of the Covenant the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob was none other than the God and father of the Messiah Jesus and the world of Greek culture since the time of Alexander the Great's on three hundred years before Christ the Mediterranean world had been drawn together into a common intellectual and cultural unity which we know as Hellenism a new form of the Greek language the Koine or common tongue came into general use it was in this language that the New Testament itself was written and the message of Jesus spread throughout the Roman Empire Christianity came into contact with Greek ideas and philosophical traditions with a heritage of Plato and Aristotle an early Christian father from Carthage named Tertullian asked the famous question what has Athens to do with Jerusalem this tension between faith and reason between philosophy and theology would run throughout the Christian movement right down to the present day Christianity made its way in the world of Roman order as well for more than 200 years the world had known a period of relative peace and stability known as the pox Romana the Roman peace was during this time that the Christian Church was born and the story of Jesus carried along the major highways and well-developed sea routes of the Roman Empire from the beginning Christianity was a missionary movement with a worldwide vision and a universal message inevitably Christianity was perceived as a threat to the prevailing world system and to Caesar its ruler believed to be divine religious pluralism was fashionable and minimal Christian concession might have resolved the conflict had Christians been willing to worship Jesus and also to place a pinch of incense on the altar of the imperial deity but when the emperor Domitian delegated to himself the title Christians would not concede Jesus is Lord they said not Caesar and the blood of the martyrs became the seeds of the church under two previous Emperor's Decius and Diocletian the Christians had been savagely suppressed their churches destroyed their Bibles burned many of them put to death because of their refusal to sacrifice to the pagan gods but rather than quenching Christianity these persecutions were a stimulus to its growth and expansion the joy and equanimity with which so many Christian martyrs faced horrible torture and even death became the means by which others were brought to faith in Christ as many of those who had witnessed the martyrs die with such constancy became followers of Jesus themselves in time the story of the martyr's death developed into a kind of devotional literature including the famous story of Perpetua and her servant girl Felicitas who were put to death in the arena in 202 in the city of Carthage conversion of the Emperor Constantine was a major turning point in the fortunes of Christianity Constantine a politically astute soldier with aspirations to Emperor recognized the religious temper within the Empire and in his legions he had initially linked his destiny with the Sun God Sol Invictus a deity claiming universal dominion over all parts of the Empire but in 312 as he prepared for battle at Milvian bridge near Rome Constantine dreamed he must place the sign of Christ the cairo on the shields of his soldiers in another version he also saw written across the sky in this sign you will conquer Constantine complied he subsequently won the battle of Novi Brij became emperor and changed his allegiance from the Sun God to the Son of God the sincerity of Constantine's conversion is debated among historians was it the result of divine intervention or an act of political expediency by either interpretation however it was evidence of God's will and had enormous consequences for the church in 313 the Edict of Milan recognized Christianity as a legal religion to be tolerated along with other religions within the Roman Empire in time Christian symbols began to appear on Roman coins and eventually December 25th the festival celebrating Sol Invictus became the day for Christians to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ this Christianization of the Roman Empire brought many wonderful benefits to the Christian Church but there was a downside as well for in time Christianity came not only to be tolerated but even to be dominant and some Christians gave way to the use of force suppressing other dissenters who would not follow in their particular beliefs and so a heritage of persecution and coercion was mingled with the gospel of Jesus Christ the fourth century was a watershed in three other ways as well there developed a new sense of history a new form of spirituality and the classic statement of Christian theology first history the earliest Christians looked forward to the coming of Christ to his return in power and glory but now while Christians did not abandon this belief they began to look not so much forward as backward church architecture was born as Christians moved from worshipping and the caves and catacombs into the beautiful basilica's and stately houses of worship Constantine's mother a very devout woman named Helena was a great advocate of developing beautiful churches in the Holy Land and in 333 we read about a group of pilgrims from France making the Great Trek to the Holy Land with a cessation of persecution martyrdom was no longer a possibility it was at this precise moment that a new and distinctive form of Christian spirituality emerged the white martyrdom of monasticism as it was called would leave an indelible mark on the history of the church the father of monasticism was Saint Anthony who at the age of 18 entered a church at the very moment the words of Jesus were being read if you want to be perfect go and sell all you possess give it to the poor and come follow me immediately Anthony obeyed he secluded himself in the desert of Egypt where he lived in tombs doing hand-to-hand combat with the devil and the demons of the dark eventually thousands of others followed Anthony into his monastic retreat the monk saw themselves as the successors of the martyrs now they were the front-line fighters in the ongoing struggle against the world the flesh and the devil at the same time Christianity was developing a new sense of history and a new form of community and spirituality there also developed the classic Christian orthodoxy as Christians defined for the first time in a definitive way the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and the person and work of Christ from the beginning Christian theology had been preoccupied with a question that Jesus himself asked during his earthly ministry whom do you say that I am in the Christian community answered with the Apostle Peter you are the Christ the Son of the Living God what we know today as the Apostles Creed developed out of this kind of basic confession of faith the church developed principles of Christian belief reflected in questions which were asked of each new Christian as a baptismal confession of faith we hear them echo through the ages now alive and powerful in the Apostles Creed do you believe in God the Father Almighty Creator of heaven and earth the new Christian answered hist you a oh I believe do you believe in Jesus Christ who was conceived by the Holy Spirit born of the Virgin Mary suffered under Pontius Pilate pist you a oh and do you believe in the Holy Spirit the Holy Catholic Church the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting pist you Oh still unresolved however was the fundamental question of how Jesus of Nazareth was related to the eternal God whom he called father in his most basic form the doctrine of the Trinity is the effort of the Christian Church to reconcile the Old Testament affirmation here o Israel the Lord our God is one with a New Testament confession Jesus Christ is Lord this was not merely a matter of semantics or philosophical word games it went to the very root of Christian piety in the fact that Jesus was an object of worship and prayer the issue came to a head in the early fourth century in a fierce conflict between areas and Athanasius the Bishop of Alexandria in Egypt arias emphasized the uniqueness and the transcendence of God the essence of God is indivisible he said and therefore it cannot be shared with anyone else not even with his son and so the law goes the son must be a creature area said he must have had a beginning there was when he was not but over against this idea of Christ as a creature Athanasius proclaimed that the son of God the law Gauss was homoousios of the same essence as the father himself a mere creature Athanasius said how ever exalted could never atone for our sins only God Himself could rescue us from sin and death in 325 when Constantine convened the Council of Nicaea the church established this view of Christ we believe in one Lord Jesus Christ the only Son of God eternally begotten of the Father God from God light from light true God from True God begotten not made of one being with the father through him all things were made for us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven in the West it was st. Augustine who summarized this theology in his great treatise on the Trinity emphasizing the unity and equality of Father Son and Holy Spirit as well as the personal dynamic of relationship within the divine Godhead Agustin himself had come to christian faith through a torturous intellectual and spiritual quest he was born in 354 in task 8 in what is today the modern country of Algeria his father Patricius was not a Christian but his mother Monica was a devout believer who had a dominant influence on Augustine's life and thought like CS Lewis in our own century Augustine tried many different paths before he found the true Christian faith for seven years he belonged to the Manicheans a dualistic sect which emphasized a radical difference between good and evil light and darkness then he became a skeptic doubting whether genuine truth and meaning could be discovered at all eventually he became a neo-platonist a philosophy which offered him a model of transcendence pointing him beyond the visible world of flux and flow from the temporal to the eternal sermons of Ambrose Bishop of Milan brought Augustine closer to the Christian faith still he resisted one day sitting alone in the garden he heard a group of children singing a song at play tolay laga Tolaga take and read take and read he picked up a copy of the scriptures and it opened to this text in romans 13 not in reveling and drunkenness not in quarreling and jealousy but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires to Augustine this event was as though the light of confidence had flooded his heart and all darkness and doubt was dispelled it was the turning point in his quest for God Augustine has been characterized as the first modern man but we might also call him the first medieval man for his life and his theology would exert a profoundly shaping influence on the 1,000 years of Christian history between his death and 430 and the birth of Martin Luther another Augustinian monk in 1483 agustin was not only a great theologian but also an active bishop and shepherd of souls as this 15th century Flemish manuscript shows him his voluminous writings would deal with all forms of the Christian life the nature of sacraments discipline and penance worship in prayer how to venerate the martyrs and saints how to study and teach and preach the Bible and in his debates with a British monk Pelagius Augustine set forth a theology of God's grace and salvation which emphasized the impotence of human beings apart from grace and stressed God's sovereign love and mercy and the church would later honor him by the title dr. grazie I the teacher of grace with the death of st. Augustine in 430 the world of classical antiquity drew to a close giving way to a millennium of turbulence and realignment in Western Christendom in his fulsome life as a religious seeker bishop spiritual ascetic and theologian st. Agustin summed up the major themes of the early Christian era his vision of God and his description of the Christian life would form the basis for numerous streams of medieval spirituality when he was born the blood of the martyrs was still warm and wet in Christian memory when he died the organized church had become sufficiently strong in the world to assume the place of the Fallen Roman Empire in the formation of a new civilization 1000 years later both Protestants and Catholics would claim st. Augustine as the forerunner of their own efforts to advance the cause of Christ today all Christians look back to st. Augustine and we read his marvelous autobiography the confessions and we see in him the master teacher of the introspective conscience the opening words from his confession still speak to us today thou has made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee whoever does not want to fear let him probe his inmost self do not just touch the surface go down into your cells reach into the farthest corner of your heart thank you so much for joining us for the early church the first in a six-part series on the history of Christianity in part 2 we will explore the Middle Ages the challenging millennium between the fall of Rome in 430 and the fall of Constantinople in 1453 we'd love to hear from you with your questions and comments thank you so much [Music] you [Music] you history of Christianity is developed and hosted by Timothy George internationally noted theologian author and editor and Dean of Beeson Divinity School history is a survey course designed to stimulate further your curiosity by providing glimpses at some of the pivotal events in the spread of Christianity and sketches of great Christian figures who have significantly affected Christian history thereby shaping the history of the world [Music] certain events in human history stand out in bold relief against all others defining moments which summarize the essence of an entire age the storming of the Bastille in 1789 or the fall of the Berlin Wall in our own century such an event took place in the year 410 when the city of Rome was sacked and burned by a gothic chieftain named Alaric for centuries Rome had stood as a symbol of stability and continuity the Eternal City it was called now Rome had been ravaged by barbarian soldiers and in faraway Palestine in the little town of Bethlehem Saint Jerome received the news of the fall of Rome with horror and shock he wept and asked if Rome can perish what then is safe the answer came from st. Augustine who replied to Jerome's lament you are surprised that the world is losing its grip that the world has grown old do not fear thy youth shall be renewed as an eagle for Augustine the wellspring of youth was Christianity it could not help but persist and grow rising above spent empires and cultures as soon as Agustin heard of the fall of Rome he began to ride his magnum opus the City of God it was the first philosophy of history written by a Christian author the City of God he said cannot be equated with any human Empire or Kingdom however glorious our powerful Jesus had promised that the gates of hell would never prevail against the church the church is the body of Christ extended throughout time as well as space it belonged to the future as well as to the past and the present more than anyone else it was a Gustin who provided the blueprint for the millennium of Christian history which we know as the Middle Ages but what are the Middle Ages when did they begin and end why should Christians be concerned about them today the Middle Ages are the intervening centuries between the death of st. Augustine in 430 and the birth of Martin Luther in 1483 the Middle Ages evoke images of knights in armor quests for the Holy Grail troubadours Arthur and Camelot they were in fact often times of great suffering and social tumult Saint Jerome had reason to weep centuries of marauders the Lombards the Franks the Vandals desecrated the heritage of classical Christian philosophy and theology then the Vikings and later the Magyars from Siberia terrorized outposts of Christian civilization but in the seventh and eighth centuries a more sinister threat swirled from the deserts of Arabia and the Near East forces of the Prophet Mohammed surged across the Mediterranean in a lightning jihad holy war capturing Jerusalem Alexandria and Carthage and advancing into the heart of Western Europe Sharla Martel grandfather of Chartres Manya damned the Muslim tide at the Battle of 40 ere in 1732 it was a victory of far more significance than mere military supremacy it was a battle for the survival of the Christian faith against a greater threat than any since the days of Nero this period would later be called the Dark Ages yet according to Jesus promise the light of the gospel was never extinguished and the gates of Hell never prevailed an unbroken tradition of prayer and worship was kept alive by early church fathers manuscripts were painstakingly copied and illuminated in the monasteries and Cathedral schools of Europe preserving the core of classical literature and religious philosophy that might have been lost and the record of prayer and spirituality was preserved and in BA figures such as st. Bernard of Clairvaux [Music] in the midst of the oppression and bloodshed of his age in which it must be said he himself played a part st. Bernard could describe the transcendent reality of divine love so beautifully that it still speaks across the centuries to our own hearts today what value has there been in all this work this I think we have learned that every soul although burdened with sins afflicted with sorrow may without fear enter a bond of society with God and may without alarm take up with the king of angels a sweet yoke of love a sweet yoke of love a bond of society with God these were the ideals which shape the most characteristic institutions of the Middle Ages the great Gothic cathedrals the universities and the monasteries from the 11th through the 14th centuries all of Christendom it seemed peasants and Lords artisans and scholars bishops and kings contributed to a remarkable wave of church building as one contemporary put it it was as if the whole earth had cast off her old age and were clothing herself everywhere in a white garment of churches peasant Riis harsh life and rigid social system the transience and turbulence of daily existence found salvation in the splendor of the great Gothic cathedrals soaring spires and flying buttresses stained-glass windows that bathe sanctuaries in dazzling divine light were transformed by religious faith into a mystical vision in the majestic Cathedral at Sharq these elements achieved their greatest harmony and were considered as Abid sujay wrote a revelation of the Spirit of God for many evil men and women life was a torturous journey up the ladder from earth to heaven the demons were always eager to ensnare and capture lost souls in their eternal war against humanity as this icon shows the way to heaven was beset by infernal dangers while pilgrims on the way were sustained by the prayers of the monks on earth and the exalted saints in heaven what the Gothic cathedrals displayed so magnificently in stone and stained glass the great scholastic masters of the 13th century set forth with equal clarity in their famous sue my or systematic summaries of Christian theology the rediscovery of the Greek philosopher Aristotle gave a new basis for theology in the thought of Albert the Great and his brilliant student Thomas Aquinas while revelation and reason are distinct thomas argued they are not in opposition it is the task of christian theology to show that faith is in harmony with reason he gave his life to building stone by stone a Gothic cathedral of Christian thought it is significant that Thomas was never able to complete his great masterpiece the Summa Theologica near the end of his life he experienced a vision of God a blaze of heavenly lights so overwhelming that he was not able to describe it after this experience he put down his pen and never wrote another word all that I have written he said now seems to me like straw thus Thomas Aquinas died in 1274 his lifework incomplete 50 years later he was canonized by Pope John the 22nd since then his theology has come to be regarded as normative for the Roman Catholic tradition two centuries before the death of Thomas Aquinas Saint Anselm father of scholasticism had expressed in a prayer the essence of harmony between faith and reason Oh Lord teach my hearts where and how to seek thee where and how to find thee for I was made in order to see thee and I have not done that for which I was made for I do not seek to understand in order to believe but I believe in order to understand Anselm was a monk and he combined in his prayer and his theology that love of learning and desire for God which was the wellspring of the monastic tradition the rule of Saint Benedict had provided a blueprint for a well-ordered Christian community whose basic motto was Ora at la barra pray and work the work of Benedictine monks involved physical labour clearing the forests tilling the soil but it also involved the intellectual labor of the scriptorium as ancient manuscripts were copied and biblical texts studied and commented upon in the annual cycle of the Christian year at the heart of this great enterprise was the priority of Christian worship the praying of the Psalms and the rich harmony of Gregorian chant again and again throughout the medieval centuries monastic reformers arose to call their fellow monks back to the purity and simplicity of st. Benedict's rule in the 13th century however the rise of the mendicant orders the Dominicans and the Franciscans introduced something radically new and different into the religious life of the Middle Ages the word mendicant means beggar and it points to the fact that these new religious orders were free to move into the new towns and cities of Europe begging for their food ministering to all the needy in Jesus name [Music] this new freedom of movement was in a way the byproduct of the Crusades the Crusaders brought back from the east not only silks and spices but also new ideas ideas which in time undermined the feudal structures of medieval society the Benedictine ideal had been stability us stability a tract of land a single place where one lived prayed and died but the ideal of the Franciscans and Dominicans was mobile eat us mobility like John Wesley in a later age their parish was the entire world especially the universities where in the medieval equivalent of a great Christian student movement they attracted disciples from all walks of life francis of assisi is the supreme Minda cat reformer born Giovanni Benidorm a son of a wealthy cloth merchant in Assisi he spent his youth as a master of revels whose ideals were troubadours and knights a spoiled playboy he squandered his father's money in dissolute living and with dreams of glory at age 20 he went to war he was captured and held prisoner for a year then fell seriously ill it was these experiences that brought about his conversion and caused him to see the vanity of his former ways his conversion coincided with his identification with the helpless the poor and the sick during a pilgrimage to Rome he was confronted with hundreds of beggar's who roamed the city looking for bread in an impulsive gesture he exchanged his fine clothes for beggars rags and walked the streets of Rome begging with them on another occasion while riding one day near Assisi he came across a leper in the road he dismounted gave the leper a gift of money whereupon the leper seized his hand and kissed it exposing Francis to his dreadful disease Francis determined to live with the lepers and to serve them as Jesus would have done Francis future ministry was determined by two other events one of these occurred while he was praying in an old dilapidated Chapel he heard he said the voice of Christ from the crucifix in the church saying my house is being destroyed go therefore and repair it for me Francis took this as a divine calling to rebuild the church the second event occurred when he appealed to his father for financial support his father however was not sympathetic to his son's radical ideas and hailed him before the Bishop of Assisi for discipline in an act of defiance before the bishop Francis declared up to this day I have called Pietro Bernhard own father but now I desire to serve God and to say nothing else than our Father which art in heaven not only money but everything that can be called his I will return to my father even the clothes he has given me immediately Francis stripped himself naked and ran out of the church to take up a life of abject poverty and apostolic simplicity he was as a contemporary writer put it a naked man following a naked Christ eventually Francis gathered around him a company of like-minded disciples who agreed to live with him my life of literal deliberate imitation of the way of Christ and His apostles Francis of course true opposition from the leaders of the church many of them like the Bishop of Assisi were themselves deeply enmeshed in the feudal structures of medieval society our modern game of chess derives from this historical period in that game it is no accident that the figure of the bishop serves the interest of the king and queen while he himself Lords it over many pawns Francis set forth a rule and a way of life which challenged this entire system his movement may well have been driven underground and declared heretical as that of Peter Waldo had been a generation before when Francis presented his order to Pope Innocent the third at Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome the powerful Pope frustrated himself before the barefoot priests from Assisi kissing his feet in a public act of devotion scholars debate the issue of innocence historic gesture was a genuine spiritual concern was it motivated by shrewd politics whether genuine or calculated in that single act the two vicars of Christ one resplendent representative of Christ's power and glory one humbled representing the Christ who came to serve and died were juxtaposed to be viewed forever in dramatic contrast it is no surprise that the franciscan ideal was too pure too unrealistic to survive the allurement of time in history soon after Francis death in 1224 he who had renounced all property had a beautiful church building erected over the place of his birth still the legacy of Francis a saint beloved by Protestants and Catholics alike reminds us that Jesus called to follow him can break through any social barrier or ecclesiastical system we can still join our prayer to his when we say Lord make me an instrument of thy peace and we can still lift our hearts to the Christ who calls us no less than Francis to see the world through the eyes of the Savior's love Francis was not the last medieval Christian to challenge the structures of the church john Wickliffe in england john hus in bohemia Savonarola in florence these and many others all called for a reform of the church in head and members as one contemporary theologian put it the whole world the clergy all Christian people know that a reform of the church is both necessary and expedient heaven and the elements demanded the very stones will soon be constrained to join in the cry the reform of the church would come but with consequences that no one from agustin on could have predicted if the Middle Ages began with the fall of Rome in 410 they can be fairly said to have concluded with the fall of another city in 1453 for a thousand years Constantinople had withstood a salt after assault but on the eve of the Reformation this great light in the East the last outpost of classical Christian antiquity succumbed to the forces of the Ottoman Turks hundreds of Greek scholars fled to the West carrying with them precious manuscripts relics of the Eastern Saints and a fresh knowledge of the language in which the New Testament was written in 1516 desiderio sarasu --mess published the first critical edition of the Greek New Testament in Basel Switzerland a few months later Martin Luther an Augustinian monk invit and Bayard Germany was poring over that same text desperately seeking to discover the meaning of the gospel of the grace of God in all of these events we can hear the death throes of the Middle Ages and the birth pangs of the modern world thank you so much for joining us for this study of the history of Christianity in the next episode we'll move to the great century of the Reformation and study the beginning of a new movement of faith and renewal led by Martin Luther John Calvin and the great reformers of the sixteenth century we trust that this series is a blessing to you and your study and we'd love to hear from you thanks so much [Music] [Music] history of Christianity is developed and hosted by Timothy George internationally noted theologian author and editor and Dean of Beeson Divinity School history is a survey course designed to stimulate further your curiosity by providing glimpses at some of the pivotal events in the spread of Christianity and sketches of great Christian figures who have significantly affected Christian history thereby shaping the history of the world it was the best of times it was the worst of times it was the age of wisdom it was the age of foolishness it was the epoch of belief it was the epoch of incredulity it was the season of light it was the season of darkness it was the spring of hope it was the winter of despair we had everything before us we had nothing before us we were all going direct to heaven we were all going direct the other way the opening lines from Charles Dickens famous novel A Tale of Two Cities described the spirit of the age on the eve of the French Revolution in the 18th century but they also described the mood and events on the eve of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century for seldom if ever has there been an age more similar to our own than the world into which Martin Luther was born in 1483 it was the best of times it was an age of exploration and discovery Luther was only nine years old when Christopher Columbus set sail for India and stumbled onto a new Hemisphere back in Germany the printing press had just been invented making literacy and learning available to common people in art and architecture the glory of the Renaissance cast its spell over all of Europe it was the age of Raphael and Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci of Kepler and Galileo whose invention of the telescope opened the heavens to the human eye it was the best of times but it was also the worst of times an age of violence and death of great anxiety about the meaning of life far greater a devastation than AIDS and cancer are to us the bubonic plague or Black Death was to the world of the Reformation sweeping Europe and taking one quarter of its population social furor saw peasants revolt against Lords kings against emperors thousands of so-called witches put to death in frenzies of persecution Shakespeare described it what raging of the sea shaking of the earth commotion in the winds frights changes Horrors divert and crack rend and duress innate the unity and married calm of states quite from their fixture and right in the middle of it all sat the church the Church of Jesus Christ against which he had said the gates of hell would never prevail but the church had become corrupt in many ways beset by sexual immorality extending even to the papacy Alexander the Six one of the most notorious of the Renaissance popes boasted numerous illegitimate children some of whom he had elevated to high offices in the church one of those who protested against such abuses was a scholar from Holland named desiderio Erasmus himself the illegitimate son of a Dutch priest Erasmus was a moral reformer he saw little value in external religious rights such as pilgrimages or the rosary or relics oh he said the folly of those who revere a bow the Apostle Paul enshrined in glass and feel not the glow of his spirit enshrined in his epistles Erasmus solution was to go back to the sources of classical and biblical antiquity especially the New Testament in 1516 he published the first critical edition of the Greek New Testament it was this very volume that Martin Luther would use to develop his own far more penetrating critique of the medieval church the Reformation began on October 31st 1517 when Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of the castle Church in Wittenberg he was protesting the religious hucksterism of a dominican friar Tetzel who had come to his territory hawking indulgences on behalf of the pope through the purchase of an indulgence one could receive great spiritual benefits including release time from purgatory Tetzel said in a catchy jingle when the coin in the copper rings the soul from purgatory Springs well Luther was incensed if the Pope had so much control over purgatory he said why doesn't he just open the door and let everybody out the true treasure of the church he said is not the accumulated merits of the saints but rather the holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and when Jesus said repent he did not mean as the Latin Vulgate had translated it do penance but rather as Erasmus Greek New Testament had shown he called for a change of heart and mind he meant for the entire life of believers to be one of repentance Luther was protesting against cheap grace he fought the church not because it demanded too much but because it demanded too little but how did Luther come to this insight I did not learn my theology all at once he said I had to follow where my temptations let me it is not by reading or writing or speculating that one becomes a theologian it is rather living dying and being damned that makes one of theologian [Music] in fact Luther had no intention of becoming a theologian when he started his academic career his father had wanted him to be a lawyer and he had taken up this discipline at the University of Erfurt returning home on spring break he was caught in a terrible thunderstorm and he cried out st. Anna helped me I will become a monk so against the wishes of his father and his friends Luther joined the order of the Augustinian monks in the monastery he sought to find an answer to the question which plagued his soul day and night how can I find a gracious God how can I know that God is for me not against me what can I do to please God to satisfy God to constitute some claim upon God Luther was not just a regular monk but a scrupulous one the earliest woodcuts we have of him show his face emaciated his cheeks protruding if ever a monk got to heaven because of his monk eree it was I Luther later recalled he would go without food and water for days on in in the wintertime he would sleep on the stone floor of his monastic cell without a blanket until he shivered to the bone but he was always asking himself am i hungry enough am i cold enough have I suffered enough is there ever any enough to satisfy God he would go to confession time and again pouring out all of his sins but still there was no relief he even began to doubt the goodness and mercy of God man said his confessor you're making it too hard all you have to do is just love God love God retorted Luther I hate him Luther found his way through this dark night of the soul by turning to the scriptures day and night he would pour over the text of the Bible in reading through the Psalter he came to this verse in Psalm 22 my God my God why hast thou forsaken me Luther realized of course that these were the very words Jesus had quoted on the cross forsaken Jesus forsaken that's exactly the way I feel and I thought that I was the only one how could it be that Jesus the sinless son of God felt himself estranged from his father on our side crying out in the darkness the very question I have asked a thousand times my God my God why he then came to Roman's 1 where st. Paul quotes the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written the righteous shall live by faith Luther had always understood that verse to refer to the righteousness by which God punishes the unrighteous he thought of Christ as Michelangelo had painted him on the Sistine Chapel the judge sitting on a rainbow consigning men and women sheep and goats to his right and to his left it was this God whom Luther could not love but rather hated and murmured against in his heart but as he studied that expression the righteousness of God he came to see that it refers to the righteousness by which God because of Jesus Christ accounts the sinner acceptable in his sight justification by faith by lying as Luther said in German by faith alone apart from good works and self earned merits when I realized this Luther said I felt as if the gates of paradise had opened and I had entered in it was as though I had gone from the darkest midnight into the brilliance of the noonday Sun I felt as if I had been born again the entire Reformation grew out of Luther's fundamental insight into the gracious character of God Luther believed everyone should be able to take the Word of God in their hand and weed it with their eyes the farm boy at his plough the milkmaid at her pale as well as the learned clerics and scholars in the university perhaps Luther's single greatest contribution to the Reformation was his translation of the Bible into his native tongue in 1519 Luther was drawn into a public debate with the Roman Catholic theologian John Eck Luther had great respect for the writings of the early church fathers and the decisions made at early church councils but all of these he believed should be subordinated to the authority of God's written word the Bible is God's Word clad in human words he said just as Christ the eternal Word of God is incarnated in the garment of his humanity Christ lies in the crib of the scriptures he said wrapped in swaddling clothes so alongside the doctrine of justification by faith alone we place a second principle of the Reformation the sufficiency of God's revelation in Holy Scripture alone the last thing in the world Luther wanted to do was to start a new church to the end of his life he saw himself as a faithful servant of the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church but in 1521 he was brought before the Emperor Charles v at the diet of forms and asked by the emissary of the Pope to recant what he had written unless I am persuaded by reason and by conscience he said I cannot and I will not recant here I stand I can do no other so help me God amen from this time on there was little hope that the division in the church could be patched over Luther's movement could not be stopped soon the cry for Reformation was being heard all over Europe in Switzerland a parallel and yet distinctive movement for reform was led by a powerful preacher named huldrych zwingli swingley had been deeply influenced by Erasmus as well as Luther he committed to memory all of Paul's letters in the original Greek on January 1st 1519 swingley was called to be the pastor of the famous great Minster Church in Zurich he entered the pulpit opened his Bible to the Gospel of Matthew chapter one and began a series of expose Ettore sermons from the New Testament four years later on January 29th 1523 some six hundred citizens crowded into the Zurich Town Hall to hear a public disputation between Zwingli and John Fabri a representative of the local bishop swingley brought his Greek New Testament and Hebrew Old Testament to which he referred again and again during the debate at the end of the day the City Council agreed that swingley could continue to preach God's Word and to lead the church to abandon the traditional practices which had no foundation in Scripture swingley had a great fear of idolatry he was much more radical than Luther in trying to prune from church life those ceremonial rites and religious accoutrements which were the mainstay of medieval piety the burning of candles the sprinkling of holy water images of the saints all this was but tomfoolery he said to depend upon them at all for salvation was like placing ice blocks upon ice blocks in 1527 even the organ at the great Minster was dismantled and removed the organ was finally restored in 1874 although the whitewashed walls and bare interior of this church still remind us of Xing Lee's Puritan instincts in 1529 s ving Lee and Luther came face to face for the only time in their lives they met in the city of Marburg to discuss their differing views of the Lord's Supper Luther for all his dislike of the medieval doctrine of transubstantiation still believed that Christ was bodily present in the sacrament of the altar in with and under the elements of bread and wine swingley on the other hand saw the Lord's Supper as a memorial feast the same concerns which had led Zwingli to oppose images and to remove the organ from the church in Zurich also prompted him to oppose Luther on this point salvation was by Christ alone through faith alone not through faith and bread he said the body of Christ is in heaven at God's right hand not on the various altars of Chris Anu when Christians gathered to celebrate the Lord's Supper at the height of the debate Luther took a piece of chalk wrote on the table before him the Latin word East e s T this is my body Jesus had said to believe anything less was to deny the Incarnation itself the two great leaders were never reconciled as a consequence the Protestant Reformation developed into two competing camps with different confessions the Lutheran and the Reformed traditions and from Geneva the reformed tradition was given a new impetus under the direction of John Calvin a brilliant Frischmann trained in law at the University of Paris we know very little about Calvin's conversion to the Protestant faith it must have occurred some time in the 1530s he only referred to it once and then in a very cryptic way by a sudden conversion he said God subdued my heart to teachability in 1536 Calvin found himself in the city of Basel a refugee from religious persecution in France here he published a little book entitled in Latin Institute Co Christiani religionists the Institute's of the Christian religion it was a brilliant systematic introduction to Protestant theology Calvin said he hoped that it would be a key to open a way for all children of God into a good and right understanding of Holy Scripture during the course of his life Calvin revised and expanded the Institute's numerous times on the definitive edition of 1559 the basic outlines of the institute's follow the order of the Apostles Creed it is divided into four books each of which deals with a cluster of key theological ideas book one is about the knowledge of God his general revelation and creation and his special revelation in the Bible along with the concern he shows for his people through his providential care but two focuses on the person and work of Jesus Christ his atoning death on the cross which is God's remedy for the sin and guilt of lost humanity book three explores the work of the Holy Spirit in salvation the life of prayer and the mystery of predestination along with a Christian hope in resurrection book four of the Institute's is about the church in one sense Calvin explains the church is invisible it is the company of all God's redeemed ones throughout all the ages of time we can never be absolutely sure who is a part of this invisible church because God's elect are known with certainty only to himself but in this life we are also concerned with a visible church the blueprint for which is found in the New Testament Calvin had very clear ideas about the organization of the visible church its officers sacraments and responsibilities in the world while the Anabaptist rejected the world as the domain of darkness and evil and while Luther accepted the world as a necessary evil with which the Christian had to coexist Calvin sought to overcome the world to transform and reform the world on the basis of the Word of God and his providential purposes in creation and redemption Calvin died on May 27 1564 and at his own request was buried in an unmarked grave his life's goal was to be a faithful servant of the Word of God Luther Bingley Calvin men of courage and conviction whose legacy lives on today in our own faith for every time we stand to sing a mighty fortress is our God every time we reach for our Bibles and open it to read a certain passage every time we hear the preaching of God's Word or gather as a community of believers in a church meeting we are bearing witness to the abiding validity of the Reformation the torch lighted by these reformers was carried forward by others sometimes in ways no one could have predicted who would have thought in 1525 when Pope Clement the seventh awarded the title defender of the faith to King Henry the eighth of England for having written a lusty treatise against Luther that within another generation England would become by Royal Edict a Protestant Commonwealth with the worship of the church forever enriched by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's liturgical masterpiece the Book of Common Prayer who could have predicted in 15-20 when Luther published his treatise the freedom of a Christian that some of his erstwhile followers the radicals and Anabaptists would interpret freedom in a vastly different way leading them to abandon infant baptism and to organize Congregational churches for believers only who in 1536 could have foreseen the revolutionary consequences of Calvin's Reformation swingley once compared the Word of God to the Rhine River one can perhaps Dam it up for a while he said but it is impossible to stop it looking back on the Reformation we can give thanks for the great achievements of that age the recovery of the gospel the translation and dissemination of the Bible among the common people the great doctrines of justification by faith alone the priesthood of all believers and the lordship of Jesus Christ over all of life but the Reformation was not an event which happened once and for all in the sixteenth century for the church faces always anew the decision for faith or for unbelief for obedience or for stagnation and thus the Reformers have bequeathed to us the concept of ecclesia semper refer Monda the church always reforming and ever in need of further Reformation and so in spite of their foibles blindspots and sins we continue to build on the good foundation laid by these reformers as the philosopher Ernst Bloch has written despite their suffering their fear and trembling in all these souls their glows the spark from beyond and it ignites the tarry Kingdom [Music] thanks so much for joining us for this study in the history of Christianity the Reformation was an explosive age of change and renewal in our next episode we'll move into the early modern period between the death of Luther in 1546 and the conversion of John Wesley in 1738 it was a time whose legacy is still with us today we trust this series will be a blessing to you and your own faith as you study and grow in your knowledge of the Lord thank you and god bless you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] history of Christianity is developed and hosted by Timothy George internationally noted theologian author and editor and Dean of Beeson Divinity School history is a survey course designed to stimulate further your curiosity by providing glimpses at some of the pivotal events in the spread of Christianity and sketches of great Christian figures who have significantly affected Christian history thereby shaping the history of the world [Music] during the two centuries between the death of Martin Luther in 1546 and the conversion of John Wesley in 1738 the Christian world experienced a major paradigm shift from the age of faith to the age of reason the tension between these two faith and reason was always there like an underground stream running just beneath the surface sometimes unseen at other times erupting like a geyser into full view it's a conflict embedded within the very bedrock of Christianity itself jesus said that we were to love God with all our mind yet st. Paul warned against an over reliance on philosophy and vain speculation Tertullian 'he's famous question what has Athens to do with Jerusalem what has the church to do with the Academy echoes down the centuries in the early church a Gustin struggle to integrate his Christian faith into the world view of Neoplatonism in the Middle Ages Thomas Aquinas tried to harmonize the competing claims of nature and grace it was not an easy task and three years after his death many of his ideas were condemned by the Bishop of Paris indicating that at least in the minds of some Thomas had not perfectly succeeded in this quest in the 16th century the Reformation asserted the priority of Revelation over reason but neither Luther nor Calvin were prepared to abandon the life of the mind only when human reasoning was elevated above faith was it seen as an enemy of God a beast or as Luther called it the devil's horror the period immediately after the Reformation was a time of great triumph in many ways the ideas of Luther and Calvin were expressed in classic statements of faith what is the chief end of man asked the Westminster Shorter Catechism to glorify God and to enjoy him forever this was the age of Johann Sebastian Bach who inscribed on every piece of music he wrote the words soli Deo Gloria to God alone be the glory this was also the age of John Bunyan and John Milton of Rubens and Rembrandt and the amazing art and architecture of the Baroque all majestic witnesses to the coherence and power of the Christian vision in 1543 three years before Luther's death polish astronomer Nikolai Copernicus book on the revolutions of the heavenly bodies overturned the cosmology of the ancient world that had remained unchallenged for more than a thousand years the earth is not the center of the universe Copernicus said but merely one of several planets revolving around the Sun and it forever changed the way human beings perceive the world and their place in it to this day we have yet to grasp the full significance of the Copernican revolution for we still speak anachronistically of the Sun rising and setting equally important was the work of Rene Descartes a French philosopher who introduced a new method of knowledge based on the principle of radical doubt Archbishop William temple once said that the most disastrous moment in European history was perhaps the bitterly cold day in the winter of 1620 when Descartes climbed into the alcove of a stove and resolved to search for a new kind of philosophy out of this effort came his famous first principle cogito ergo soon I think therefore I am or as he also expressed it I doubt therefore I am Descartes himself remained a nominal Catholic but the result of his philosophy was to split apart reality into mind and matter and to reduce God to the level of a hypothesis called in as it were merely to guarantee the validity of human thinking building on the work of Copernicus and Descartes Sir Isaac Newton finally drew up in complete mathematical form a mechanical view of nature Newton was a devout Christian who accepted the claim of the Bible he even wrote a commentary on the book of Revelation but later philosophers found it easier to accept his mathematics than his theology thus deepening the rift between faith and reason in such an atmosphere the age of enlightenment was born what is the enlightenment it was a tendency a spirit which permeated the culture and religion of the 17th and 18th centuries characterized by two primary thoughts the first we might call the rise of the Imperial self the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant summarized the Enlightenment in two Latin words sapere Aude dare to think for yourself to think for oneself meant to seek the supreme touchstone of truth in one's own reason and this implied the second principle of the Enlightenment a radical suspicion and distrust of authority and tradition especially Christian authority and tradition the Enlightenment attack on Christianity took two forms one was biting sarcasm and ridicule across a land femme shouted Voltaire destroy the infamous thing meaning historic Christianity now to be sure there was much about the church which deserved criticism for more than 100 years Europe had been ravaged by fierce wars of religion Catholics fighting Protestants and there was immorality and corruption in the church itself but Voltaire was less interested in reform than in refutation he denounced Christian doctrine and belief he scoffed at the miracles in the Bible and made fun of traditional Christian teaching if Jesus had been taken up to a hill where he could see all the kingdoms of the earth he asked why hadn't he discovered America instead of Columbus and why had not Jesus returned to Earth as he promised to establish the kingdom of God what had detained him was the fog too thick perhaps what Voltaire tried to do with a sneer the English deist wanted to accomplish through a religion of reason and refinement the titles of their writings say it all Christianity not mysterious Christianity as old as the creation no special revelation no miraculous incarnation was necessary in America Thomas Jefferson who was greatly influenced by the Dias published a special edition of the New Testament in which he literally cut out all of the verses that were offensive to his reason while this kind of apologetics had a place in Christian thinking it did little to bring genuine renewal and revival to the church for this we must look elsewhere to France for the lonely witness of Blaise Pascal to Germany where the Lutheran Pyatt asst stressed the importance of the new birth and finally to England where John Wesley and the Methodist revival made a lasting impact on the church and the modern world Pascal was a brilliant philosopher mathematician and inventor he was the first man to wear a wristwatch and he also invented one of the earliest forms of the computer as well as the first underground public transportation system for the city of Paris Pascal had a profound sense of the ambiguity of human existence what a novelty what a portent what a chaos what a mass of contradictions what a prodigy is men judge of all things a ridiculous earthworm who is nonetheless the repository of truth a sink of uncertainty and error the glory and scum of the world a chaos suspended over an abyss Pascal was a Roman Catholic of course he defended the Jansenist a radical Augustinian order in the Catholic Church who were opposed by the Jesuits Pascal agreed with the Jansenist emphasis on the sovereignty of God and the surprise of grace in the Christian life Pascal was no ear rationalist but he did realize the limitations of human thinking the heart has its reasons he said which are unknown to reason when Pascal died at the age of 39 a statement of his own personal conversion was found on his body sewn into the fabric of his shirt it said this the year of grace for Monday November 23 day of Saint Clement Pope and martyr and others in the Martyrology vigil of saint chris organist smarter and others from about half-past ten in the evening to about half past midnight fire god of abraham god of isaac god of jacob not of the philosophers and the scientists certitude certainty emotion joy peace god of jesus christ [Music] Pascal's writings were not widely known outside of france in his own lifetime but many of his ideas were echoed among the pietistic ayat is amuro's as a protest movement within the tradition of lutheran orthodoxy the piety stressed the religious renewal of the individual and experiencial oneness with God over against arid scholasticism in theology and extreme formalism in worship John Wesley summarized the spirit of Pietism as well as anyone when he said how plain and simple is this is not this the some one thing I know I was blind but now I see if then it were possible which I can see that it is not to shake the traditional evidence of Christianity still he that has the internal evidence would stand firm and unshaken Pietism was about the internal evidence and this led them to stress three things first the importance of the new birth which implied a life of holiness and complete devotion to Christ we are called to be eingang zur creased as they said in German a whole complete Christian we cannot be almost Christians almost a son is a bastard almost sweet is unsavory almost hot is lukewarm which God spew us out of his mouth so almost a Christian is not a Christian but for all of their stress on individual renewal the Pyatt esteem unk's who lived alone in the desert the context of personal renewal was the small group the prayer circle the Bible Study Fellowship within such small groups a much higher level of commitment could be demanded than was possible within the larger congregation not surprisingly these small groups became little churches within the church sometimes leading to division and separation but often working as a reforming leaven within the larger group a third mark of piety spirituality was a sense of opposition to the world goddess kinder are not in league with veldt kinder they said God's children marched to a different drummer than the children of this world to sump iotus separation from the world meant a distinctive form of dress and food as well as for swearing such worldly activities as dancing drinking the theater and so forth this tradition lives on today in the Amish sex and other holiness movements who have willingly separated from the world to maintain the purity of worship and a distinctively Christian lifestyle but in its larger expressions the Pietism --nt was both world affirming and missionary minded it was the Pyatt is to pioneer dwergi among the poor orphanages medical missions and Bible societies it was also the pietistic Airy the gospel into the remote corners of the world thus paving the way for the modern missionary movement the founder of the Moravian Church was Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf a Lutheran nobleman from Saxony while touring Europe in 1719 Zinzendorf saw a famous painting of Christ wearing the crown of thorns with the inscription all this I did for you what are you doing for me zenzen Dorf gathered around him a group of Moravian refugees who dedicated themselves to carrying the gospel into all the world and the Methodist revival was born in a Moravian prayer meeting on Aldersgate Street in London where John Wesley had gone seeking salvation and hope Jon Benjamin Wesley was born in 1703 one of 19 children samuel wesley was a pastor and john grew up familiar with the disciplines of christian life when he was only six years old the parsonage caught on fire and young john nearly perished he was rescued miraculously at the last minute and his mother called him a brand plucked from the burning wesley never forgot this event and on each anniversary of his rescue he thanked God for his remarkable Providence when he and his brother Charles were students at Oxford they met another young man George Whitfield the son of an innkeeper all three would later lead in the evangelical revival at Oxford they formed a small pie attest which other students nicknamed the holy club they would pray together read the scriptures together visit the sick and those in prison moved by this kind of commitment both Wesley brothers volunteered for a stand of missionary service in the new colony of Georgia where General James Oglethorpe needed chaplains to serve among his settlers many of whom were recently released prisoners and other Nair do Wells John Wesley was a notable failure as a minister in Georgia he fell passionately in love with a young lady named Sophie hotkey but decided by casting Lots that he should not marry her Miss Sophie felt betrayed and before long Wesley found himself imprisoned in Savannah charged with slandering the good name of this young lady Wesley managed to escape that situation and was soon on a ship to England when the ship was caught in a fierce storm Wesley in his fear doubted his own salvation he wrote in his journal I went to America to convert the Indians but Oh who shall convert me who what is he that will deliver me from this evil heart of unbelief I have a fair summer religion I can talk will neigh and believe myself while no danger is near but let death look me in the face and my spirit is troubled nor can I say to die is to gain but aboard ship Wesley was deeply impressed by a band of Moravian 's who had faced death with great peace and poise back in London he met a group of Moravian sled by Peter Burrell er who invited him to that fateful service of worship in a little meeting house on Aldersgate Street not far from st. Paul's Cathedral on the apparently ordinary evening of May 24 1738 Wesley went very unwillingly he said to a society and Aldersgate Street where one was reading a passage from Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans about a quarter before nine while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ I felt my heart strangely warmed I felt I did trust in Christ Christ alone for my salvation and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins even mine and saved me from the law of sin and death someone has said that what happened in that little room was of more importance to England than all of the victories of Pitt by land or by sea but what did happen in that little room no doubt Wesley's Aldersgate experiences one of the most famous conversions in the history of Christianity but what was he converted from he was 34 years old when this happened he had been brought up in a godly home educated in the finest schools ordained as both a deacon and priest in the Church of England he had been a tutor at Lincoln College Oxford and it even served several years on the foreign mission field apart from a few Wild Oats sowed in Georgia perhaps there is no evidence that Wesley was anything other than a religious man of disciplined devotion and earnest service but all of that had left him totally miserable with no assurance of salvation and what was he converted by there were none of the trappings of modern revivalism no sawdust trail no one's saying just as I am or the old rugged cross someone was merely reading a commentary of Luther on a letter of Paul who was explaining the meaning of the forgiveness that Jesus had brought but in that moment Wesley discovered for himself what Jesus had declared what Paul had known and Luther had proclaimed namely that no one can find peace of heart by trying to make himself a worthwhile person in the eyes of God Wesley later said that before Aldersgate he had had the faith of a servant now he had the faith of a son and finally what was Wesley converted to well in one sense he was converted to the same kind of work he had been doing all along before Aldersgate he remained a priest in the Church of England he continued to receive the sacrament of communion once every five days for the rest of his life he still visited the poor the sick the imprisoned he continued to study and preach from the scriptures but he was now doing all of this not as a means to earn favor with God but in glad and joyful obedience to God's Amazing Grace in his life Wesley once declared that he had only one point of view to promote so far as I am able Rydal practical religion and by the grace of God beget preserve and increase the life of God in the soul of men Methodism was a movement on fire with John's theology set to music by his brother Charles who produced over 7,000 sacred songs and points him singing made an enormous contribution to the evangelical revival the hymns of Charles Wesley were especially powerful expressing both the joy of the new birth and the great doctrinal truths of Scripture the world is my parish Wesley had declared and his movement soon spread beyond England to America and indeed throughout the world his theology can be summarized in three phrases faith alone working by love leading to holiness Wesley brought together the personal and social sides of Christianity to turn Christianity into a solitary religion is to destroy it he said and he proved his conviction through his work on behalf of the poor the imprisoned the unlearned and the addicted and in a day when many Christian leaders were defending the lucrative slave trade Wesley spoke out against it on February 24 1791 Wesley wrote the following letter to William Wilberforce encouraging him to persevere in the struggle against slavery dear sir unless God has raised you up for this very thing you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils but if God be for you who can be against you are all of them together stronger than God Oh be not weary in well-doing go on in the name of God and in the power of his might till even American slavery the vilest that ever saw the Sun shall vanish away before it the of angelical awakening ignited new fire in God's people inspiring them once again to be a vital force in the life of the world the spirit of the original Wesleyan movement rings in the words of this Charles Wesley him which affirms God's sovereign saving grace and can it be that I should gain an interest in the Savior's blood died he from me who caused his pain for me amazing love how can it be that thou my God shoulds died for me thank you for joining us for this study in the history of Christianity today we've looked at the age of the Enlightenment and the challenges to Christian faith that arose during that period along with movements of renewal and revival which reminded God's people of his love and grace next time we'll cross the ocean and come to America and study the history of Christianity in the new world please join us for that special study thank you and God bless you [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] history of Christianity is developed and hosted by Timothy George internationally noted theologian author and editor and Dean of Beeson Divinity School history is a survey course designed to stimulate further your curiosity by providing glimpses at some of the pivotal events in the spread of Christianity and sketches of great Christian figures who have significantly affected Christian history thereby shaping the history of the world [Music] [Music] Martin Luther was only nine years old when Christopher Columbus set sail for India and stumbled onto a new hemisphere Columbus believed his voyage to be a religious mission the launching of a new crusade which would restore the unity and splendor of medieval Christendom he thought he had a prophetic role to play one foretold long ago by the prophet Isaiah when he said I called the bird of prey from the east a man of my counsel from a far country I have spoken says the Lord and I will bring it to pass Columbus died a pauper not realizing what a new chapter his discovery of the new world would open in Christian history America was the land of new beginnings Europe represented for Americans not only the past which they were eager to forget but a corrupt past whose contamination they wished to escape here in America they could build the Holy Commonwealth here they could carry out a lively experiment as Baptists pioneer John Clark said and here in the famous words of Massachusetts Bay's governor John Winthrop they could become a city set on a hill sending forth the light of the gospel unto the uttermost ends of the earth William Blake the poet never came to the new world but he seemed to understand the mystique of the American promise when he wrote though born on the cheating banks of Tim's though his waters bathed my infant limbs the Ohio shall wash his stains from me I was born a slave but I shall go free one constant theme permeates the history of Christianity in America from the earliest settlements at Jamestown and Plymouth through the revivals and Great Awakenings the trauma of civil war and reconstruction to the explosion of the charismatic movement and seeker-friendly megachurches in the last decades of the 20th century that one theme is the mission of fulfilling God's purpose in the new world in a new way in this study we will examine this theme through three major episodes which were crucial in the shaping of Christianity in America the Puritan foundations the struggle for religious liberty and the first Great Awakening the Puritans story began in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth when a number of her subjects protested against the slow pace of reform within the established church they objected to ministers wearing vestments to kneeling at communion to the lack of fervent preaching and the ritualism of the Book of Common Prayer all of these were vestiges of popery they said and should be replaced by a more biblical pattern of worship their enemies referred to them in uncomplimentary terms calling them hot gospel errs or Puritans the Puritan strategy was to work for change from within the Church of England however slow or difficult that might be others however were less patient they were Puritans in a hurry so to speak they wanted a reformation without tarrying for any as the title of a book by Robert Brown put it in 1583 they would separate from the manifestly false Church of England and restore what they call old glorious face of primitive Christianity by starting all over again when King James came to the throne in 1603 he could barely tolerate the Puritans the separatist he could not abide I will make them conform he said or else I will Harry them out of the land indeed many of the separatists were driven into exile in Holland but after living there some twelve years a band of these separatists decided to transplant their community to the new world in a tearful scene of farewell their pastor John Robinson bade them at you the Lord knoweth whether ever we shall see your faces again he said but I am confident that the Lord has more truth and light yet to break forth out of his holy word then on the tide which stays for no man as William Bradford wrote in his journal they set sail for the unknown leaving behind friends families everything they had known but they looked not much on such things Bradford wrote but lifted their eyes to heaven their dearest country for they knew that they were but strangers and pilgrims in this world against all odds the Pilgrim Fathers survived the treacherous ocean voyage to establish the first beachhead of Protestant Christianity in New England there in Plymouth Massachusetts in the desert of dismal circumstances as Cotton Mather described their situation their faith was to be shaken but not destroyed the pilgrims established a Christian community of courage and faith which many others would emulate William Bradford after serving many years as governor of Plymouth looked back on the experience of the pilgrims as one small candle may like a thousand so the light here kindled hath shown too many yay and some sort to our whole nation but unlike the pilgrims who came to Plymouth the Puritans who settled Massachusetts Bay Colony were not separatists we do not say farewell Babylon farewell Rome but we say farewell dear England farewell the Church of God in England and the Christian friends there we go to practice the positive part of church Reformation and propagate the gospel in America the pilgrims had come to light a candle the Puritans aimed to build a city set on a hill the Puritans exerted an influence on American culture far out of proportion to their numbers and yet the word Puritan has become a derogatory label HL Mencken voiced the popular belief that a Puritan is a person who has the haunting fear that someone somewhere might be having a good time but nothing could be further from the truth the Puritans were exuberant about life they were painters and poets they wore bright clothes and lived in beautifully decorated houses they read great books and listen to great music they drank rum at wedding parties and far from being proves they reveled in the sensuality of married life it is ironic that some of the most revolutionary forward-looking movements in history have taken their cues from the past Puritanism was a Back to the Future movement which called the people of New England back to God back to the Bible and back to the Reformation like Martin Luther and John Calvin before them Puritans were Augustinians in theology salvation was the work of grace which resulted in the miracle of conversion a turning from sin to trust the promise of forgiveness and justification through Christ's death on the cross conversion required the preparation of the heart and many Puritans recorded the struggles of their soul in journals and personal Diaries in this way the Puritans sought to bring every activity and relationship into conformity with the will of God is revealed in his word the Bible William Ames said it beautifully when he defined theology as the science of living in the presence of God the Puritans wanted to create an ordered and godly society marked by the unity of faith and public life for them New England was New Israel God's elect people in covenant with air creator life was the interweaving of covenantal relationships and the rule of Christ would prevail in them all the family the congregation the Commonwealth on every New England town square there was a schoolhouse a church house and a meeting house representing the three offices of Christ as prophet priest and King someone has said that the Puritans came to New England to worship God in their own way but not in anybody else's this was somewhat accurate in that competing religious confessions coexisting within the same political structure was a radical thought in the seventeenth century while the Puritans were settling Boston and Salem the Wars of Religion were raging between Protestants and Catholics in Europe the Puritans hark back to an earlier medieval ideal and insisted upon religious conformity within their colony one of the first to challenge this principle was Anne Hutchinson Midwife nurse and mother of 15 children Anne was a devotee of the Reverend John cotton a Puritan minister who stressed God's initiative and Sovereign Grace in salvation this was the common view of all Puritans but and so stressed God's grace that she left no room for the moral law in the life of the believer for if the Ten Commandments had become obsolete how could there be laws against adultery theft or even murder as a woman of ready width and a bold spirit and began to hold meetings in her house where Puritan sermons were criticized and where she gave out teachings which she claimed were the result of direct inspiration by the Holy Spirit this was too much for the pastors and magistrates and Anne was excommunicated and banished from the colony in 1637 driven to New Netherlands she and five of her young children were killed in an Indian raid five years later it was considered by some her just desserts if Anne Hutchinson's theological ideas were unsettling to the Puritans Roger Williams doctrine of Soul liberty was an outrage Roger Williams was a brilliant thinker graduate of Cambridge University and sometime minister in both Plymouth and Salem as a strict separatist Williams had long criticized Puritan congregations for having fellowship with the Church of England but now he also began to criticize the whole system of church state relations in Massachusetts Bay in the Old Testament he said God had had a national people the Jews but now he had only a congregational people the state is ordained of God to regulate the material affairs of life but civil magistrates have no authority over the souls of their subjects Williams summed up his ideas in his famous the bloody tenant of persecution God alone is the Lord of the conscience he argued the persecute or is a soul murderer and religious coercion is never justified having bought truth dear he cried we must not sell it cheap no not the least grain of it for the whole world Roger Williams was found guilty of spreading diverse new and dangerous opinions and was exiled from Massachusetts leaving behind his wife and small child he walked southward in the bitter winter season of 1636 he wandered in the wilderness sorely tossed not knowing what bread or bed did mean when he finally arrived and Narragansett Bay he purchased a parcel of land from the Indians and established a new settlement which he called Providence so named because God's providence had guided him through great distress thus Roger Williams became the founder of Rhode Island the first colony established on the principle of religious liberty the Puritans of Boston called Rhode Island the latrine of New England because it permitted all sorts of religious beliefs and made no religious requirements for citizenship but the Puritan viewpoint prevailed and many others would suffer greatly for their faith before religious freedom became the norm in the new world in 1651 Baptist preacher Obadiah Holmes was publicly whipped for teaching that baptism should be administered by immersion for believers only in 1654 Henry Dunster the first president of Harvard was pressured from office for objecting to infant baptism and in 1661 of an Hutchison's friends Mary Dyer who had become a Quaker was banished three times and finally hanged to death on Boston Common when she would not promise never to return to bear witness to her faith why don't you stay down in Rhode Island her accusers asked no she replied the whole earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof after the American Revolution religious freedom was protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution but the continued existence of slavery posed a terrible dilemma for people who believe that God alone was the lord of the conscience could there be religious liberty without basic human equality especially when the Constitution itself considered slaves as only three-fourths of a human being on the other side of the bloody conflict which answered that question by tearing a nation apart Abraham Lincoln reached back to the original Puritan ideal of God's sovereign plan at work among men and Nations the purposes of god almighty are perfect and must prevail he said though we erring mortals may fail accurately to perceive them in advance the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether Christian's in every age have struggled with the difficult task of passing on their faith intact to the rising generation and the Puritans were no exception by the early 18th century the original Puritan vision of America as a city set on a hill had grown dim with age could Puritanism survive its own success while their errand in the wilderness increasingly prospered their hearts desire for God seemed to diminish Cotton Mather observed piety has begotten prosperity and the daughter has devoured the mother a new form of sermon literature called the jeremiad appeared as Puritan preachers bemoaned the loss of fervor and zeal in their congregations on the eve of the first Great Awakening the Reverend Samuel wiglesworth exclaimed we have a goodly exterior form of religion yet this is but the remains of what we once might show the shadow of past and vanished glory in this context a series of religious revivals swept through the American colonies between 1739 and 1745 this great and general Awakening as it was called was to leave an indelible mark on the character of American Christianity the theologian of the Great Awakening was Jonathan Edwards whom Perry Miller once aptly described as the greatest theologian ever to grace the American scene the precocious son of a Congregationalist minister Edwards was born in the same year as John Wesley 1703 he entered Yale College at age 13 and 10 years later was called to succeed his famous grandfather Solomon Stoddard as pastor of the church at Northampton Massachusetts Edwards was an evangelical Calvin no one before or since has written so deeply or with greater clarity on the themes of election predestination and justification by faith the modern critical edition of his writings fill some twenty hefty volumes but he was not a stuffy academic he had a great love and an almost mystical devotion to Jesus Christ Edwards told of an experience he had in 1737 when riding out into the woods for his health he was suddenly overwhelmed with a sense of the glory of the Son of God the person of Christ he said appeared in Ethel e-excellent in a flood of tears weeping aloud I felt my soul to be emptied and annihilated a desire to lie in the dust and to be full of Christ alone to love him with a holy and pure love to trust in him to serve him and follow him with a divine and heavenly purity Edwards was a complete stranger to that separation of heart and head that has so often plagued evangelical religion the Great Awakening came to Northampton in 1734 while Edwards was preaching a series of doctrinal sermons from the letters of st. Paul he later documented this awakening in his a faithful narrative of the surprising work of God a great earnest concern about the themes of religion and the eternal world became Universal in all parts of the town and among persons of all degrees in all ages each day the noise among the dry bones whacks louder and louder in the course of one year more than 300 persons were converted soon the revival spread to other towns in Connecticut Valley then throughout New England and the other colonies Jonathan Edwards was the theologian of the Great Awakening its most effective preacher and promoter was George Whitfield Oxford friend of John Wesley Whitfield carried the flame of revival from England to the new world preaching up and down the eastern sea coast from Georgia to Maine Edwards the theologian was measured and restrained Whitfield the communicator was exuberant and unpredictable in Philadelphia Whitfield preached with great passion to a crowd of more than 20,000 even the notoriously skeptical Benjamin Franklin was deeply impressed with his sincerity and eloquence not everyone of course was equally impressed Charles Chauncey of Boston dismissed Whitfield as a raving enthusiast whose emotional preaching did far more damage than good one day the two antagonists happened to meet on the street in Boston I am sorry to see you returned said Chauncey to whitfill to which Whitfield replied so is the devil when Whitfield died in 1770 an african-american servant girl and poet Phyllis Wheatley wrote a famous elegy about the great awakener he leaves the earth for Heaven's unmeasured height and world's unknown receive him from our sight there Whitfield wings with rapid course his way and sails to Zion through vast seas of day the effects of the first Great Awakening were momentous the importance of a personal experience faith heart religion as it was called became a defining characteristic of the other Jellicle tradition the necessity of truly knowing God not merely knowing about him would be stressed by later awakened errs and evangelists such as Charles Finney DL Moody and in the 20th century Billy Sunday who once said going to church don't make a man a Christian any more than going to a stable makes a man a horse revivalism became a major feature on the American religious landscape Jonathan Edwards would doubtless have frowned on some later evangelistic techniques for they showed little appreciation for what he called the surprising work of God education also benefited from the Great Awakening new colleges and schools were begun Princeton by the Presbyterians in New Jersey Brown by the Baptist's in Rhode Island another result was the rise and growth of denominations Baptists Presbyterians and later Methodists in the numbers game the Baptist's became the biggest winners in 1740 there were 96 Baptist churches in the American colonies by 1780 there were 457 the first Great Awakening also spawned a new kind of interdenominational evangelicalism as Christians joined efforts across denominational lines to support Bible societies missionary movements and benevolent works of all kinds speaking from the courthouse balcony at Philadelphia in 1740 George Whitfield sounded the call for Christian unity father Abraham whom have you in heaven any Episcopalians know any Presbyterians know any independence and Methodists no no no whom have you there we don't know those names here all who are here are Christians oh is this the case then god help us to forget party names and to become Christians in deed and in truth thank you so much for joining us for this study of the history of Christianity in America the religious and moral foundations of American life are something that we still sing about even in this famous hymn my country tis of thee by Samuel Smith our fathers God to thee author of Liberty to thee we sing long may our land be bright with freedoms Holy Light protect us by thy might Great God our key well our study on the history of Christianity will conclude in the next episode when we will look at the last two centuries of the Christian mission in a world of uncertainty will study the changing face of Christianity around the world between the fall of the Bastille in 1789 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 please join us again thanks so much [Music] you history of Christianity is developed and hosted by Timothy George internationally noted theologian author and editor and Dean of Beeson Divinity School history is a survey course designed to stimulate further your curiosity by providing glimpses at some of the pivotal events in the spread of Christianity and sketches of great Christian figures who have significantly affected Christian history thereby shaping the history of the world [Music] on July 14 1789 a mob of French peasants in Paris attacked the famous prison the Bastille stormed its gates and burned it to the ground this act of violence marked the beginning of the French Revolution on November 9 1989 citizens of East and West Berlin converged on the infamous Berlin Wall with picks and hammers they chipped away until the wall was reduced to rubble the fall of the Bastille and the fall of the Berlin Wall 500 miles and 200 years apart define the history of Christianity in an age of revolution the tiny village of Pollard's Puri in the Midlands region of England is a far cry from either Paris or Berlin yet the little boy who was born here in 1761 would have a revolutionary effect on the Christian witness in the modern world his name was William Carey and we remember him today as the father of modern missions Carey was a poor cobbler by trade but he had an amazing gift with languages and taught himself Hebrew Greek Latin and Dutch he also had an unusual concern for the world and tried to persuade his fellow Baptists that they should pray for the conversion of those who had never heard the name of Jesus Christ at one meeting while he was making such a plea a senior minister said to him young man sit down when God wants to convert the heathen he will do it without your help or mine in those days many Christians even Baptist and other Evan Jellicle believed that the Great Commission had been fulfilled long long ago and was no longer applicable to them sometimes they even joined in singing anti missionary hymns go ye into all the world the Lord of old did say but now where he has placed thee there he would have this day Carrie could not accept this theology when he read the Great Commission it was clear what Jesus meant go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature go ye carry said means you and me here and now on May 31 1791 Kerry preached a famous sermon based on a text from Isaiah 54 let us expect great things from God he urged and attempt great things for God in the following year Kerry published his ideas in a book an inquiry into the obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathens we must pray plan give and go he said Kerry's inquiry became the manifesto of the modern missionary movement On June 13th 1793 Kerry his wife Dorothy and their four children including a nursing infant sailed from England on a Danish ship headed for India no one on board that ship would ever see their homeland again Kerry spent 41 years in India translating the Bible into Bengali and scores of other Indian languages and dialects of the East he and his fellow missionary izzat Serampore near Calcutta had a phenomenal ministry among the people of India preaching the gospel planting churches building schools and working to overcome inhumane practices such as infanticide and sati the burning of widows alive on their husbands funeral pyres Carrie always insisted that the gospel was addressed to the whole person he would have agreed completely with east stanley Jones the great 20th century Methodist missionary to India who once said a soul without a body is a ghost a body without a soul is a corpse Jesus came to bring good news to the whole person body and soul although he lived in a radically pluralistic culture Kerry never compromised the essential Christian message he always proclaimed Jesus Christ as the only way of salvation for all peoples everywhere through the publication of his letters and journal Kerry's work in India became well-known throughout the Christian world shortly before he died Kerry was visited by Alexander Duff a preacher from Scotland who had travelled many miles to see the famous missionary Kerry summoned him to his bed and whispered you have been speaking of dr. Kerry dr. Kerry but when I am gone speak no more of dr. Kerry speak instead of dr. Kerry's Savior when he died in 1834 Kari requested that two lines from a hymn by Isaac Watts be inscribed on the simple stone slab that would mark his grave a wretched poor and helpless worm on thy kind arms I fall although Carey's work in India was sponsored by the Baptist missionary society he worked closely with Anglicans Presbyterians Methodists and other Christians committed to carrying out the Great Commission the modern quest for Christian unity was born on the mission field those who followed in his footsteps such as Henry Martin David Livingstone Lottie Moon Hudson Taylor we're all guided by the same principle which informed his approach to ecumenical cooperation in the essentials unity in non essentials Liberty and in all things charity Kerry's mission to India was a catalyst for a great missionary Awakening throughout the entire body of Christ he called for Christians of all denominations to come together in 1810 to devise a common strategy for world evangelization precisely one hundred years after Kerry had proposed such a gathering the first international missionary conference actually convened at Edinboro in 1910 in recent decades the modern ecumenical movement has lost influence as the original vision for missions and evangelism has waned and yet the work of God cannot be stopped by official structures and bureaucracies today Christians are cooperating in ways that would have surprised William Carey during these two centuries Christianity spread around the world at a phenomenal pace spiritual and theological storms were brewing in Western Europe in the heart of what had once been Christian civilization the church was like an army besieged by unseen foes Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels called religion and opiate of the people exhorting the workers of the world to unite against traditional Christian beliefs Charles Darwin's theory of evolution seemed to call into question the biblical account of creation Sigmund Freud looked deep into the human soul and pronounced it void of religious significance but few were as bold as Friedrich Nietzsche who summed up the mood of his age in this way the most important of recent events that God is dead that the belief in the Christian God had become unworthy of belief already begins to cast its first shadows over Europe amidst these shadows of doubt loomed the greater shadow of violence looking back on all this H Richard niebuhr characterized the theology which prevailed as the world hovered on the brink of chaos a God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross in the midst of this malaise a young pastor in Switzerland Carl Bart spoke out for a new kind of theology very much at odds with the prevailing liberalism of the day Bart's sermons were preached within the sound of the gunfire of world war 1 the liberal theology he had been taught in the finest German universities was inadequate to the crisis which engulfed him and his parishioners Bart's answer was to return to the witness of the Reformation and to the Bible which lay behind it in 1918 he published his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans which as someone said fell like a bomb on the playground of the theologians one cannot speak about God Bart said simply by speaking about man in a loud voice what was needed was a recovery of the transcendent God the God who speaks in the Bible above all the God who reveals himself in Jesus Christ this medieval painting by Matthias Gruner vault which Carl Bart hung on the wall behind his desk depicts one of his favorite scenes in the Bible it shows John the Baptist pointing with his long bony finger to Jesus on the cross the mission of every theologian of every Christian of the church itself is not to draw attention to ourselves our ideas or our achievements our job like that of John the Baptist is to point others toward the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world Bart was called on to put his theology into practice when he was offered a teaching post in Germany's vie Mar Republic Germany was reeling from its defeat in World War one and at all Hitler and the Nazis were rising to power many Christians in Germany found Hitler's appeal irresistible Hitler stressed Pro moral and pro-family values promising to eliminate pornography and prestige nazism he said was the true for filmin tough Christianity and many German Christians agreed with him the swastika on our breasts the cross in our hearts was their motto the real motive of the Nazi movement was better expressed by Heinrich Himmler we shall not rest until we have rooted out to Christianity in 1933 Martin niemoller a former u-boat captain in World War one who was then a Lutheran pastor in Berlin organized resistance to the Nazi takeover of the church that opposition set up an alternative church structure known as the confessing Church in May 1934 Karl Bart drafted the famous barmen declaration the theological standard of the confessing Church article one of that famous statement reads Jesus Christ as he has testified to us in the Holy Scripture is the one Word of God whom we are to hear whom we are to trust and obey in life and in death we repudiate the false teaching that the church can and must recognize yet other happenings and powers images and truths as divine revelation alongside this one Word of God as a source of her preaching we repudiate the false teaching that there are areas of our life in which we belong not to Jesus Christ but to another Lord areas in which we do not need justification and sanctification through him later that same year Karl Bart found himself in trouble at the University of Bonn when he refused to begin his classes with the Nazi salute Heil Hitler he was soon deprived of his teaching post and expelled from Germany one of Karl Bart's closest friends and disciples was a young theologian dietrich bonheoffer like bart he denounced the paganism and anti-semitism of the Nazis while Bonhoeffer served as the director of an underground seminary training pastors for the confessing Church near the end of the war however he became involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler the plot was uncovered in Bonhoeffer was imprisoned by the Gestapo eventually he was executed in the concentration camp at flossenbürg prophetically in one of his early books the cost of discipleship Bonhoeffer had written when Jesus Christ calls a man to follow him he calls him to take up his cross and die pain best an English officer shared a prison cell with von Hoffer during his last days Bonhoeffer was all humility and sweetness he wrote he always seemed to diffuse an atmosphere of happiness of joy in every smallest event of life and of deep gratitude for the mere fact that he was alive he was one of the very few men that I have ever met to whom God was real and close Bonhoeffer and Barth were part of a minority of Christians who dared to stand for the truth of the gospel in a time of great darkness and distress nearly 100 years ago a group of progressive Protestants launched a journal called the Christian century a title seemingly at odds with the reality of an age which has encompassed two world wars a holocaust worldwide poverty oppression and dehumanization yet Christianity survives even thrives in places like Africa Latin America and even China where decades of persecution of Christians have not extinguished the flame of the Christian faith Korea has also become a dynamic center of Christian witness in Asia and thousands of Korean missionaries minister to people in areas previously untouched by the gospel of Jesus Christ but what is Christianity's future the German theologian wolf Hart Penenberg has said that the three vital forces within the Christianity of the third millennium will be Eastern Orthodoxy Roman Catholicism and conservative evangelical ism these three groups the Orthodox churches of the East may be the least open to change tied as they are to national identity and ethnic history yet the majesty and dignity of the Orthodox tradition continue to attract new believers follow prophetic figures such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn calls for renewal of the Christian faith in both East and West Orthodox theologians have also been stalwart defenders of classical Christology and the historic doctrine of the Trinity against more modernist views within circles of liberal accumulation at the same time others have raised the issue of religious liberty and the freedom to share the gospel in many countries where Orthodox churches are dominant while Orthodoxy has pursued its own pathway Roman Catholicism has emerged as an aggressive global movement of numerous national churches all in fellowship with a Bishop of Rome who claims to be the Vicar of Christ's for the whole Christian Church the direction of Roman Catholicism in the third millennium will be shaped by the legacy of the two greatest Pope's of the 20th century john xxiii and john paul ii john xxiii was elected Pope in 1958 he surprised the world by announcing that he intended to summon a general council to consider many basic matters of church teaching and worship it was time he said to open the windows and let some fresh air into the corridors of the Roman Catholic Church his favorite word for this process was eyes urine amento which means in Italian bringing up-to-date the work of the Second Vatican Council which Pope John convened in 1962 has led to major changes within the Catholic Church including an eager desire to read and study the Scriptures and to conduct worship in the common language of the people non Catholic Christians were no longer automatically condemned but regarded instead as separated brethren the election of Cardinal Karol Vojta wha as pope john paul ii in 1978 was another signal of the worldwide significance of the catholic church coming from poland john paul was the first non Italian pope since the 16th century if john xxiii Swach word was a ornamental bringing things up to date john paul ii keynote theme has been resourceful a French word meaning to return to the sources of tradition and early church thinking the Pope supported by his chief theological adviser Cardinal Ratzinger has opposed the modernizing theology of scholars such as hans kuhn and the excesses of liberation theology in latin america he has also refused to ordain women priests lift the ban on clerical celibacy or change the church's teaching about birth control all controversial issues for many Catholics in America at the same time john paul ii has had an impact far beyond the bounds of the catholic church his stand against communist oppression in eastern europe was a major factor in the disillusion of that totalitarian system and his opposition to what he calls the culture of death including abortion and euthanasia has struck a prophetic note when human life is increasingly regarded as cheap and dispensable for all these reasons john paul ii is widely regarded as the greatest living christian statesman in the world today Penenberg third vital force in the christianity of the third millennium is evangelicalism humorous entrepreneurial ministries and parachurch movements such as Campus Crusade for Christ Prison Fellowship World Vision and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship have broadened and shaped Christian evangelism today three of the greatest leaders of evangelism during the past half century have been theologian Karl F Henry British writers CS Lewis and Southern Baptist evangelist Billy Graham Karl Henry was a founding member of the Faculty of Fuller Theological Seminary in California and also the founding editor of the evangelical journal Christianity today CS Lewis himself a renowned scholar of English literature produced numerous popular books on apologetics and the Christian life his writings including many books for children have been translated into numerous languages of the world and are treasured today as classics of Christian spirituality but no one person has represented the wide world of evangelicalism more fully than Billy Graham throughout his long and productive ministry he has consistently stuck to one thing salvation by grace through personal faith in Jesus Christ the clarity of his witness and the integrity of his life stand out in contrast to less worthy exemplars of the of Angelica movement in 1966 Billy Graham and Carl Henry convened the World Congress on evangelism in Berlin eight years later Billy Graham spoke to the International Congress on world evangelization at Lausanne his five key principles may be taken as hallmarks of the world evangelical movement the authority of the Scriptures the lostness of human beings apart from Jesus Christ's salvation in Jesus Christ alone a witness to the gospel in word and deed and the priority and urgency of evangelism and missions we close this series on the history of Christianity by remembering that the church is the body of Christ extended throughout time as well as space between Jesus and the first disciples there is a long line a trail of brothers and sisters a circle of forgiven sinners a company of fellow pilgrims in the family of faith forever United through the bond of Christ's love and forgiveness although each of us may differ from one another in many respects all who know Jesus Christ as personal Savior and Lord belonged to his body and share in his life God's truth binding people together throughout the world transcending national and denominational boundaries culture language time is expressed in the enduring witness of arena Ratish in skya a christian poet she was imprisoned by the communist regime for her gospel witness and defense of human rights from her gulag in Siberia arena wrote the following words believe me it was often thus in solitary cells on winter nights a sudden sense of joy and warmth and a resounding note of love and then unsleeping I would know a huddle by an icy wall someone is thinking of me now petitioning the Lord from me my dear ones thank you all who did not falter who believed in us in the most fearful prison hour we would probably not have passed through everything from end to end our head held high unbowed without your valiant hearts to light our path thank you for joining us for this journey through the history of Christianity the 17th century poet John Donne once said no man is an island entire to itself well no Christian is an island either between Jesus and the most recent disciples there is a long line a trail of brothers and sisters a circle of forgiven sinners a company of fellow pilgrims in the family of faith forever United through the bond of Christ's love and forgiveness in this series we have been studying about that story some of the highlights some of the great personalities who have shaped our own faith and life in Christ we hope you've been inspired to study further and dig deeper into this grand story perhaps you have questions about the series or about the Christian faith itself we'd love for you to write and share your comments with us thank you and god bless you [Music] you

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Published: Mon Nov 09 2020