Church History
September 25, 2009Yesterday, I completed a rather lengthy survey of church history from the 
Apostles to the 1900s. I wrote a curriculum for teaching the basics of church history to teenagers over 7 one hour classes. Having completed this textbook, I have many observations about what I don’t know about Christianity.
1) I know very little about centuries of the church, namely in the Middle Ages. I went into the study of the period between Constantine (4th century) and Luther (16th century) expecting to find a nugget here and a story there. Something inside should have sounded alarms when 1200 years, or over 30 generations of people sat nestled in this period. The truth is, there are many people within this time period who contributed fascinating thought and effort to ensure a genuine faith arrived here for me. Chief among those who interested me were:
- Peter Waldo – 12th-13th century reformer who was excommunicated for his beliefs. Had he been born 300 years later, we would lump him with Calvin & Luther.
- Pope Gregory VII – monk who reluctantly became pope and ushered in many ideas and traditions that formed Christianity more than most would imagine
2) The Church is much bigger than I imagined. Having been more thoroughly introduced to the concept of the Greek Orthodox Church, its history, and its focus, I am floored that an entire worldview about Christianity exists without my knowledge. Whether or not its use of icons, the iconclast controversy, and the veneration of worship spaces is legitimate is not the point. Our American eyes present us with a lens than causes us to read and relate to the Hebrew and Greek Testaments in certain ways. For those in the Eastern/Orthodox Churches, the lenses are very different. Perhaps embracing a more global worldview isn’t such a bad idea. They definitely knew/know how to build a building.
3) Catholicism, while imperfect, has many elements today’s Protestant expressions are missing. There is something powerful about being able to convene a council of global church leaders to make a decision to thwart a heresy. As a result of schisms, protests, church splits, and more, we don’t have 1 pope – we have millions of popes (and a laity who progressively believe they are popes as well). It is unhealthy to assume we are all an authority about a faith with such a rich and critical heritage. At some point, to decrease the effects of the plethora of heresies floating around, some measure of authority or unity of authorities would do us a lot of good.
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4) The Inquisition was worse than I thought. For those not up on this, the Inquisition was the Church’s response to heresies or those who refused to convert to Christianity. The sentence for the trials was eventually execution, a black eye for our history, to say the least. Its ugly twin, the Crusades, was also awful. The desire to execute Jews, Muslims, and even other Christians to politically take land is what I would call a great adventure in missing the point.
5) 19th Century theology was vast. I have been scarcely introduced to high criticism of Biblical text, though I am certain I will learn much about it. I will spare you the details about this, but just know that there is much more to the Holy Text than meets the eye.
Brad, strangely enough I have had similar thoughts about the Catholic Church. Over the past couple of months I have been watching some programming on EWTN, the Catholic version of TBN. Not as gaudy. That network’s programming includes several history, theological, and philosophical programs. It is regrettable that protestants don’t have the history and the structure that the Catholic church has.
Two quick points,
1)on Catholicism, history and authority; you only have to study the patristic writings and the Bible, as well as Jewish history, to realize that the authority you mention we need is/was just started when Christ gave Peter the keys, and hasn’t ended.
Granted, also realizing that the idea of “Bible alone” is no where in the Bible helps too.
Warning, as fellow convert John Henry Cardinal Newman once said “To be steeped in history is to cease being Protestant”
2) On the Inquisition and the Crusades; you must be reading from a bad source, as anyone studying the different Inquisitions is more apt to realize it was rather tame compared to the legends, as well as gave us a legal system still used in courts today.
Understanding history is to understand the way people and societies were then, not looking at them through modern eyes. What we call the Inquisition (which is still in effect today) came about because secular lords were killing heretics, without any true knowledge of what the church considered heresy (most couldn’t read . . .which also demonstrates why sola scriptura is ridiculous). In those times heresy was equal to treason,because their was only one religion and that kept harmony in the land for the secular lords (this was politics, not Christianity!). The Church started the inquisition process as a way to “save” heretics both from the secular lords, as well as from hell. It was only an unrepentant heretic which the Church, not wishing the cancer of heresy to spread, would then turn over to the secular lords. The inquisitors were not big oafish brutes like movies and books portray, but actually men extremely knowledgeable in theology, and their goal was not to kill heretics, but to instruct them in the faith, and to see the “light”.
What is called the Spanish Inquisition was actually condemned by the Pope, but the Spanish King and Queen ignored him. Again, it was politics, not Christianity. The odd thing is that because the inquisition was so strong here, that the Protestants never really into Spain, leaving it rather free of the violence that ensued from Luther’s pride. Ten times more were killed because of the Reformation, than the Inquisition.
The Crusades were started nearly 300 years after the Muslims took the Holy Land, and it was only after Christians were forbidden to pilgrimage there that Rome began to act. The Church started this as a way to protect innocent Christian pilgrims.
Most of the stupid and terrible things which happened were due to poor communication, or ignoring Rome altogether.
In the future, multiple sources are the only way to gleam true in history. I highly recommend anything by Thomas Madden http://www.thomasmadden.org/
God bless,
michael