Church History

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Introduction to Church History

The Biblical Church:  The Church In Its Jewish Context

The Biblical Church:  Christ and His Disciples

The Biblical Church:  The Church Reaches Outward

The Biblical Church:  The Final Apostles

The Post-Bible Church:  Redefining "Church"

The Post-Bible Church:  The Emergence of the Apostolic Fathers

The Post-Bible Church:  Theology By Debate (Round 1)

The Emperors:  Hadrian and His Final Solutions

The Emperors:  Marcus Aurelius and Polycarp

The Emperors:  Commodus and the Beginnings of the Fall

The Emperors:  Septimus Severus and Persecution

The Emperors:  The Severan Dynasty and Internal Turmoil

The Emperors:  The Decian and Valerian Persecutions

The Emperors:  Diocletian and the Great Persecution

The Emperors:  Constantine and the Dawn of Christendom

Constantine:  The Thirteenth Apostle? (Part 1)

Constantine:  The Thirteenth Apostle? (Part 2)

The First Ecumenical Council

The Constantinian Line

The Establishment of Christendom

The Second Ecumenical Council

Fathers of the New Church:  Augustine

Fathers of the New Church:  Chrysostom

Fathers of the New Church:  Patrick

Things Fall Apart:  Attila and Jerome

Things Fall Apart:  Nestorius, Eutyches, and the "Robber Council"

Things Fall Apart:  The Sack of Rome

The “Dark Ages” Overview

Flagrant Abuses of Authority:  Zeno, Theodoric, and Clovis

Auctoritas Sacrata Pontificum:  Gelasius

The Rise of the Monk:  Benedict, Brendan, and Dennis

The Politics of Death:  Justinian and Columba

Kingdoms of God:  Gregory

Kingdoms of God:  Muhammad

Kingdoms of God:  The Politics of God's Kingdoms

Streamlining the Church:  The Apostles' Creed

Streamlining the Church:  Battlegrounds

The Carolingians:  Charles Martel vs. the Moors

The Carolingians:  Pepin and Feudalism

The Carolingians:  Charlemagne--The Second Council of Nicaea

The Carolingians:  Charlemagne--Reformation and Empire

The Northmen:  The Venerable Bede

The Northmen:  Vikings 101

The Northmen:  The Christianization of the Vikings

Centuries of In-Fighting:  The "Cadaver Synod" and the Saeculum Obscurum

Centuries of In-Fighting:  Anti-Popes, Mahdis, and a Germanic Roman Empire

Centuries of In-Fighting:  The Peace of God and the Truce of God (aka "The Birth of Chivalry")

West vs. East:  Normans, Turks, and Berbers

West vs. East:  Leo IX and the Great Schism

West vs. East:  The Normans in England, El Cid in Spain

The First Crusade(s):  The New "Crusader States"

The Crusades Become a Fad:  Anselm, Vinland, and the Knights Hospitaller (and Templar)

The Crusades Become a Fad:  Peter Abélard, Peter of Bruys, and the Almohads

The Crusades Become a Fad:  Second Crusade, European Crusades, and Prester John

The Crusades Become a Fad:  Henry II vs. Thomas Becket, Saladin, and Peter Waldo

The Crusades Become a Fad:  King Richard vs. Prince John, and Lots of Excommunications

Kill 'em All—Let God Sort 'em Out:  Rome vs. Constantinople, Genghis Khan, and the Albigensian Crusade

Kill 'em All—Let God Sort 'em Out:  Franciscans, Dominicans, and the Magna Carta

Kill 'em All—Let God Sort 'em Out:  Crusades by the Professionals

Kill 'em All—Let God Sort 'em Out:  Mongols, Teutonic Knights, and the Inquisition

The Last Crusades (plus Roger Bacon, the Disputation of Barcelona, and Thomas Aquinas)

The Renaissance:  Welcome to the Renaissance

The Renaissance:  Turnovers...

The Renaissance:  The Black Death and a Century of War

Wobbling Out of Control:  Tamerlane, John Wycliffe, and the Western Schism

Wobbling Out of Control:  Even More Schisms, Jan Hus, and the Order of the Dragon

Wobbling Out of Control:  Families (Medici, Borgia, Hapsburg, and Plantagenet)

Wobbling Out of Control:  Fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans, and the Gutenberg Bible

Falling Into Spiritual Collapse:  The Rise of Empires (Especially Spain)

Falling Into Spiritual Collapse:  The Borgia and Medici Popes, Erasmus, Macchiavelli

The Reformation:  Martin Luther

The Reformation:  Conquests of Various Kinds (Including Henry VIII vs. Thomas More)

The Reformation:  The New Martyrdom of the Church

The Reformation:  Die Warhet Ist Untödlich

The Reformation:  Calvinists and Mennonites (Part 1)

The Reformation:  Calvinists and Mennonites (Part 2)

The Counter-Reformation:  Jesuits and Book Controversies

The Counter-Reformation:  Aztec Genocide and the Council of Trent

The Counter-Reformation:  Martin Butzer, German Independence, and Michael Servetus

The Religious Wars:  John Knox and the Three Queen Marys

The Religious Wars:  French Wars of Religion and the Ottoman Turks in the Mediterranean

The Religious Wars:  The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre and the Three Henrys

The Religious Wars:  The Spanish Armada, the End of the Wars of Religion, and How to Read Revelation

The Proto-Enlightenment:  King James, Jamestown, Pocahontas, Puritans, and Baptists

The Proto-Enlightenment:  The KJV, the Rosicrucians, and the Thirty Years' War (AKA "Don't Trust a Guy in a Bear Costume")

The New World:  Galileo, the Pilgrims, New France, New Amsterdam, and Fumi-e

The New World:  "A City on a Hill," "Soul Liberty," "Free Grace," and Pure-Pure Puritans

The Religious Wars (End):  Descartes vs. Pascal, the Shimabara Rebellion, and Charles I vs. the Roundheads

The Religious Wars (End):  English Civil Wars, Westminster Confession, Quakers, and Beheading a King

The Age of Enlightenment:  Oliver Cromwell

The Age of Enlightenment:  James Ussher, Baruch Spinoza, Charles II and Charles II, and the Great Plague

The Age of Enlightenment:  Jesuit Missionaries, William Penn, and the Pietists

The Seeds of Revolution:  Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, The Plague of Vienna, and the Siege of Vienna

The Seeds of Revolution:  Isaac Newton, the Glorious Revolution (and Jacobite Rebellion), and the Salem Witch Trials

The Seeds of Revolution:  The Chinese Rites, Brother Lawrence, and the Amish

The Seeds of Revolution:  Spanish Succession, Queen Anne's War, and the Great Frost

Proto-Revolutions:  Son of the Jacobite Rebellion, Löscher vs. the Pietists, Voltaire

Proto-Revolutions:  Pirates, Tulips, Jacobites, and the First Prime Minister

Proto-Revolutions:  Pyotr the Great, Zinzendorf and the Moravians, Why Organs Are Evil, etc.

Wake-Up Calls:  Jonathan Swift, The Great Awakening, Hume vs. Campbell

Wake-Up Calls:  War of Jenkins' Ear, Friedrich the Great, New Presbyterians, and John Newton

Wake-Up Calls:  More Jacobite Rebellions, Peter Sanz, Junípero Serra, and the Guaraní War

Wake-Up Calls:  Ben Franklin, George Berkeley, Samuel Johnson, the Seven Years' War, George III

Intolerables:  Catherine the Great, Augustus Toplady and Rock of Ages, the Stamp Act, Joseph II

Intolerables:  Persecution for the Jesuits, Captain Cook, California, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Intolerables:  "The Turk" Plays Chess, Marie Antoinette, Famine and Disease, Slavery, the "Intolerable Acts"

American Revolution:  The Industrial Revolution, The Flour War, The American Revolution (part 1)

American Revolution:  Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Ben Franklin in France, The American Revolution (part 2)

Age of Revolution:  Sunday Schools, Immanuel Kant, Serfdom and Slavery (and William Wilberforce)

Age of Revolution:  Mt. Laki, Treaty of Paris, the Methodists, the Little Turtle War

French Revolution:  The Constitution, Sierra Leone, Tons of "Firsts," and the French Revolution (part 1)

French Revolution:  William Carey, Richard Allen and the AME Church, Thomas Paine, and the French Revolution (part 2)

French Revolution:  South Africa, Treaties, Vaccination, Napoleon, The Protestant Ascendancy, Schleiermacher and Liberalism

Age of Revolution:  Napoleon in Egypt, The Second Great Awakening, the Restoration Movement, First Barbary War, Louisiana Territory

The Napoleonic Era:  Aaron Burr, Tecumseh's War, Robert Morrison, the End of Slavery in Britain

The Napoleonic Era:  The War of 1812 (and Indian Wars), the Baptists, Peter the Aleut, Mt. Tambora

You're Doing It Wrong:  Claus Harms, First Seminole War, Stille Nacht, the Jefferson Bible, Stealing Oregon and Florida

You're Doing It Wrong:  Joseph Smith, Liberia, Reginald Heber, the Plymouth Brethren and Dispensationalism, Webster's Dictionary

You're Doing It Wrong:  Johnny Appleseed, Charles Finney, the Indian Removal Act, Joseph Smith (again)

You're Doing It Wrong:  Adventists, American Lutherans (part 1), the Black Hawk War, the Oxford Movement, Andrew Jackson's Enemies

You're Doing It Wrong:  Texas and the Mexican-American War, Southern Baptists, Pius IX, Oneida Society, Spiritualism

Soldiering for Christ:  David Livingstone, Charles Hodge, Perry in Japan, Gadsden Purchase, Sioux Wars, Clerical Collars

Soldiering for Christ:  D.L. Moody, Jeremiah Lanphier, Utah Mormon War, Great Stink, Japan, The Origin of Species

Soldiering for Christ:  (Prelude to Civil War) John Brown, Crittenden Compromise, Abraham Lincoln, Flags, Fort Sumter, Robert E. Lee

Soldiering for Christ:  Civil War Hits America... and Mexico... and Japan...

Soldiering for Christ:  Civil War and Slavery, Free Methodists, Lincoln's Christianity, Thanksgiving, Longfellow, the War Ends

Soldiering for Christ:  Post-War America, The Salvation Army

Soldiering for Christ:  Henry Egly, Fanny Crosby, Carrie Nation, the First Vatican Council

Conflagrations:  Our Lady of Hope of Pontmain, Stanley & Livingstone, Great Chicago Fire, Victoria Woodhull, P.P. Waldenström

Conflagrations:  Great Sioux War, JEPD Hypothesis, Christian Science, South African Wars, Ben-Hur

Conflagrations:  Khartoum, Revised Version, Chinese Exclusion, FCC & ECC, Jehovah's Witnesses, Problems in Africa, Moody Bible, Chicago Cubs

Conflagrations:  Billy Sunday, Wounded Knee, Hawaii, Scottish Churches, Armenian Genocide, Tolstoy, Gandhi, Nietzsche, Crowdy, Plessy

Modern Empire-Building:  Spanish War, Philippine War, Boer War, Boxer Rebellion, Moroccan Incident, Gideons, Welsh Revival, France

Modern Empire-Building:  Albert Schweitzer, Azusa Street and Pentecostalism, Chicago Cubs, C.I. Scofield, Ecumenicalism

Modern Empire-Building:  Fundamentalists, the Assemblies of God (Pentecostals, Charismatics, and Cessationists), Franz Ferdinand

Modern Empire-Building:  World War I, Woodrow Wilson, Benedict XV, Christmas Truce, Jehovah's Witnesses, Post-War Changes, Russian Revolution(s)

Post-War Religion:  Father Divine, Oneness Theology, Religion in the Soviet Union, Prohibition, Karl Barth and Neo-Orthodoxy

Post-War Religion: Germanos, Esotericism, Aimee Semple McPherson, Eric Liddell, Scopes "Monkey" Trial

Post-War Religion: Cristero War, Chinese Civil War, Rape of Nanking, E. Stanley Jones, Vatican City, Rastafarians

Post-War Religion: Stock Market(s) Crash and Great Depression, Catholic Worker Movement, Rise of Adolf Hitler

Conflicts of the "Greatest Generation": Worldwide Church of God, British Fascists, Methodist Church, "Positive Christianity"

Conflicts of the "Greatest Generation": The Maginot Line, Winston Churchill, America Joins the War, Fundamentalists vs. Evangelicals

Conflicts of the "Greatest Generation": Crux Ansata, Hugh O'Flaherty, John Rabe, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, V-E Day, V-J Day, Atomic Bombs

Conflicts of the "Greatest Generation": Nag Hammadi Codices, Chinese Civil War, The Cold War Begins

Conflicts of the "Greatest Generation": Dead Sea Scrolls, Pakistan, Fuller and Henry, World Council of Churches, Israel, Apartheid

Conflicts of the "Greatest Generation": Korea, Berlin, Germany, and China Divide; NATO; Billy Graham; Mother Teresa

Conflicts of the "Greatest Generation": Assumption of Mary, New World Translation, Fulton Sheen, Last Temptation, Campus Crusade, Compassion International

The New Conservatism: The 1950s, Mere Christianity, Unification Church, Desegregation, McCarthyism, Pledge of Allegiance, "In God We Trust"

The New Conservatism: The Ten Commandments, Anchor Bible, It Is Written, Peoples Temple, United Church of Christ, Family Radio, John F. Kennedy

The New Conservatism: The Second Vatican Council (i.e.; Vatican II), School Prayer, Bible Readings in School

The New Conservatism: Martin Luther King Jr., American Lutherans (part 2), Chalcedon Foundation, Good News for Modern Man

Backlash to the New Conservatism: Hare Krishnas, Six Day War, United Methodists, "Hippies," Children of God, Bloody Thursday

Backlash to the New Conservatism: Woodstock, the Jesus Movement, JPUSA, Chick Tracts, Hal Lindsey, TBN, The Exorcist

Backlash to the New Conservatism: The NAS Bible, the Living Bible, Jerry Falwell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict, the NIV Bible, Yom Kippur War

Modern Religion: Willow Creek Community Church, Focus on the Family, The Myth of God Incarnate, The "New Perspective on Paul"

Modern Religion: Ryrie Study Bible, Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, Pope John Paul II, the Jesus Film, the Middle East, New Gospels, Scandals, Emergent Church