An Introduction to Church History Class Notes Compiled and presented by: Rev. M. Dean Morgan Church History, page 2 Church History How much do you know about church history? Fifteen key names from church history are hidden in the word-search. Each name completes one of the sentences below. Feel free to use a hymnal or Bible. If you don’t know an answer, guess! R E F F E O H N O B E L A S C A S A S Q N S G R A H A M L D How Did You Do? I P A U L T B C E R 0-5 CORRECT: Don’t feel too bad! T U T N S R R A F A Most persons are in this category. N R A N I A E L F G A P Y O M B H V I E 6-12 CORRECT: Good work—but T E E E O H T I L D you still have a lot to learn. S T L G N O U N C L N E S R S U L L Y I 13-15 CORRECT: Excellent! This study will help you apply what you O R E U U S H A W H already know. C R W P H E G R A H M O T S O S Y R H C 1. According to tradition, Peter was crucified upside down. 2. Early Christians met in houses (Romans 16:5). 3. Emperor Constantine claimed that he saw a cross in the sky. 4. John Chrysostom‘s nickname meant “Golden-Mouth.” 5. One bishop accused Hildegard of Bingen, a mystic, of heresy. 6. Many Protestants call John Wycliffe “the Morning Star of the Reformation.” 7. Martin Luther wrote “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” 8. John Calvin wrote the Institutes of the Christian Religion. 9. Menno Simons was an early Anabaptist leader. 10. Bartolome de Las Cosas fought his country’s exploitation of Native Americans. 11. Charles Wesley, who wrote the hymn “And Can It Be”, was part of a “Holy Club” at Oxford University. 12. Charles Spurgeon was an English pastor in the mid-1800s. 13. Karl Barth’s commentary on Romans criticized the liberal theology of the 1800s. 14. Hitler had Dietrich Bonhoeffer executed in 1945. 15. Billy Graham has been called the “best loved American Christian.” Church History, page 3 Christians have a special interest in history because the very foundations of the faith which they profess are rooted in history. Church history is thus a matter of profound interest to the Christian who desires to be enlightened concerning his spiritual ancestry. The Definition Of Church History The English word for history came from the Greek word historia, which is derived from the Greek verb historeo. This word was used by the Attic Greeks and originally meant to learn by inquiry or investigation. Ti denoted the activities of one seeking knowledge. The word is used by Paul in Galatians 1:18 to describe his interview with Peter in Jerusalem. Like any true historian, he sought to learn about Christianity by a process of inquiry. The Greeks subsequently began to use the word historikos the product of inquiry, the record; whereas the other indicated the process by which the record is made. The German noun geschichte, a form of the verb geschehen, which means to happen, refers to history as event rather than to history as a process or a product. From all this we see that the word history refers to event, documents, process or product. The crowning of Charlemagne in 800 as emperor of the Romans was an historic event. The historian’s study of the sources to ascertain the facts of the event is process, and the account of those facts is history as product. History as event is absolute and cannot be changed once it happens, but history as sources, process and product is relative and subject to change. History may be defined as the interpreted record of the socially significant human past, based upon organized data collected by the scientific method from archaeological literary or living sources. Church history, then, is the interpreted record of the origin, progress and impact of Christianity upon human society, based upon organized data gathered by scientific method from archaeological, documentary or living sources. It is the interpreted, organized story of the redemption of man and the earth. The Value Of Church History Why does church history matter? Sally carefully labels her paper, “Church History.” As Charlie Brown glances over her shoulder, Sally considers the subject. “When writing about church history,” Sally scribbles, “we have to go back to the very beginning. Our pastor was born in 1930.” Charles Schulz’s comic strip may be amusing, but it isn’t too far from the truth. In sermons and devotional books, we encounter names like Augustine, Calvin, Spurgeon, Church History, page 4 and Moody. Their stories interest us, but we have a tough time fitting the stories together. The average Christian’s knowledge of church history ends with the apostles and doesn’t begin again until the twentieth century. Still, Christian history deeply affects every Christian. It affects how we read the Bible. It affects how we view our governments. It affects how we worship. The church’s history is our family history. Past Christians are our mothers and fathers, our aunts and uncles, our in-laws and (in some cases) our outlaws! When a child in Sunday School asks, “How could Jesus be God and still be like me?” she’s asking a question that, in AD 325, three hundred church leaders discuss3ed in a little village named Nicaea (modern Iznik, Turkey). Somehow, what those leaders decided will influence your answer. If you wonder, “Why are there so many different churches?” the answer is woven somewhere within 2,000 years of struggles and skirmishes. When you read words like “predestined” or “justifies” in Paul’s letter to the Romans, it isn’t only Paul and your pastor who affect what you believe. Augustine, Aquinas, Martin Luther, and Jonathan Edwards also influence your response, whether you realize it or not. Still, the story of Christianity can seem like a vast, dreary landscape, littered with a few interesting anecdotes and a lot of dull dates. What we don’t recognize sometimes is that church history is a story. It’s an exciting story about ordinary people that God has used in extraordinary ways. Yet, most church members will never read Justo Gonzalez’s thousand-page The Story of Christianity. Only the most committed students will wade through all 1,552 pages of Ken Latourette’s A History of Christianity. Fewer still will learn to apply church history to their lives. That is the purpose of this class, to help you at least get a brief overview of church history. We want to give you a brief glimpse of what God has been doing in the church for the last 2,000 years. Church history is only a dreary academic exercise in the remembering of facts unless some thought is given to the matter of its value to the Christian. The student who is conscious of the values to be achieved in the study of the history of the Christian Church has a powerful motivation to a real interest in this particular area of human history. Church History As A Synthesis One of the primary values of church history is that it links the past factual data of the Christian Gospel with the future proclamation and application of that gospel in a present synthesis that creates understanding of our great heritage and inspiration for its further proclamation and application. Church history shows the Spirit of God in action through the Church during the ages of its existence. Church History, page 5 Church History As An Explanation Of The Present We can understand the present much better if we have some knowledge of its roots in the past. The answer to the puzzling query concerning the presence of over two hundred and fifty religious groups in the United States is to be found in church history. The principle of separation found a place early in the history of the Church which the Reformation was to accentuate. Different beliefs and liturgical practices become more understandable in the light of past history. Methodists kneel at the rail for communion because for many years the Methodists constituted a church within the Anglican Church, and Wesley, who was reluctant to break with the Anglican Church, followed its liturgical customs. In contrast, Presbyterians are served the Communion in their seats. Present-day problems of the Church are often illuminated by study of the past. The refusal of most modern dictatorial rulers to permit their people to have any private interests separate from their public life in the state is more easily understood if one remembers that the Roman emperors did not think that one could have a private religion without endangering the existence of the state. Church History As A Guide The correction of existing evils within the Church or the avoidance of error and false practice is another value of the study of the past of the Church. The present is usually the product of the past and the seed of the future. Paul reminds us in 1Corinthians 10:6, 11 that the events of the past are to help us avoid the evil and emulate the good. Ignorance of the Bible and the history of the Church is a major reason why many advocate false theologies or bad practices.