Church History, Volume Two: From Pre-Reformatio...
The Church History, Volume Two Pack offers a unique contextual view of how the Christian church spread and developed from the just prior to the Reformation through the next 500 years into the present day. It did so, not in a vacuum, but in a setting of times, cultures, and events that both influenced and were influenced by the church. This resource looks closely at the integral link between the history of the world and that of the church.
Church History, Volume Two: From Pre-Reformatio...
In Church History: From Pre-Reformation to the Present Day, scholars John D. Woodbridge and Frank A. James III recount the ups and downs, the triumphs and struggles, of the Christian movement. They offer a unique contextual view of how the Christian church spread and developed from the period just prior to the Reformation through the next five hundred-plus years. This course also looks closely at the integral link between the history of the world and that of the church, detailing the times, cultures, and events that both influenced and were influenced by the church.
Church History, Volume One offers a unique contextual view of how the Christian church spread and grew from its development in the days of Jesus to the years leading up to the Reformation.
Scholar and writer Everett Ferguson wrote this history of the church from the perspective that such a history is the story of the greatest movement and community the world has known. It's a human story of a divinely called people who wanted to live by a divine revelation. It's a story of how they succeeded and how they failed or fell short of their calling.
Church history is likely one of the most neglected topics in evangelical theology today. With the resurgence in conversation on the Gospel and other related topics what is missing in this is a resurgence of interest in church history. While the Puritans and Reformers in general have become popular among many evangelicals what would be neat to see in my opinion is a resurgence in the broader corpus of church history. Understanding church history is important for several reasons the main one being that understanding this topic leads to insight about what the Church has taught, how the Church has taught it and moreover how the Church has defended the Truth of biblical Christianity. The best church history books take all three of the factors I mentioned while remaining true to the story of church history. Such a volume has come out with Church History Volume Two From Pre-Reformation to the Present Day The Rise and Growth of the Church in Its Cultural, Intellectual, and Political Context by Drs. John D. Woodbridge and Frank A. James III.
As the title of the book suggest this book covers from Pre-Reformation (1300 AD) to the Present Day. Along the way the authors cover everything from Martin Luther, John Calvin, Charles Spurgeon, John Owen to the challenges of Islam and the new centers of global Christianity. This is not your typical academic church history book. This work is engaging and fascinating. As I read this volume, and volume one what impressed me is that the authors contribute great insight into church history while showing why church history matters to the health and growth of the Christian church.
Volume One and Volume Two of Church History published by Zondervan is an excellent and thought provoking study on the Pre-Reformation to the present day. This well-written and helpful volume will help lay people understand the story of Church history from the Pre-Reformation to the modern day. More serious students of church history will find help in this book by understanding trends and developments of church history. Regardless of where one is in their understanding of church history, this volume is a phenomenal achievement along with the first volume. The two volumes in the Church History series are church history as its best accessible to the lay person, engaging for the Bible college/seminary student and containing enough information that even the most serious church history student/scholar could benefit from the work in this volume. I highly recommend this volume and the first volume in the series and pray both volumes might lead to a revival of interest in studies on church history.
A second volume of a new work on church history has recently been published completing the two-volume set. This set is one of the best treatments of church history now available. It should prove to be a standard for many years.
Not to know church history is to lapse into a kind of cultural amnesia. Moreover, we rob ourselves of a rich source of guidance and inspiration to help us live more informed and fruitful lives in our won day. Church history, stuffy and irrelevant? By no means!
I give a strong recommendation to this book. I would recommend that all pastors purchase both volumes and read them. I would also encourage them to purchase a set for the church library. These works are not only informational, they are also edifying as you learn of the providence of God worked out in history in the midst of a fallen world.
Everett Ferguson (PhD, Harvard) is professor emeritus of Bible and distinguished scholar-in-residence at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas, where he taught church history and Greek. He is the author of numerous works, including Backgrounds of Early Christianity, Early Christians Speak, and Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries. He was also general editor of the two-volume Encyclopedia of Early Christianity.
By 1530, over 10,000 publications are known, with a total of ten million copies. The Reformation was thus a media revolution. Luther strengthened his attacks on Rome by depicting a "good" against "bad" church. From there, it became clear that print could be used for propaganda in the Reformation for particular agendas, although the term propaganda derives from the Catholic Congregatio de Propaganda Fide (Congregation for Propagating the Faith) from the Counter-Reformation. Reform writers used existing styles, cliches and stereotypes which they adapted as needed.[36] Especially effective were writings in German, including Luther's translation of the Bible, his Smaller Catechism for parents teaching their children, and his Larger Catechism, for pastors.
Some followers of Zwingli believed that the Reformation was too conservative and moved independently toward more radical positions, some of which survive among modern day Anabaptists. One famous incident illustrating this was when radical Zwinglians fried and ate sausages during Lent in Zurich city square by way of protest against the Church teaching of good works. Other Protestant movements grew up along the lines of mysticism or humanism (cf. Erasmus and Louis de Berquin who was martyred in 1529), sometimes breaking from Rome or from the Protestants, or forming outside of the churches.
Following the excommunication of Luther and condemnation of the Reformation by the Pope, the work and writings of John Calvin were influential in establishing a loose consensus among various churches in Switzerland, Scotland, Hungary, Germany and elsewhere. After the expulsion of its Bishop in 1526, and the unsuccessful attempts of the Berne reformer Guillaume (William) Farel, Calvin was asked to use the organisational skill he had gathered as a student of law to discipline the "fallen city" of Geneva. His "Ordinances" of 1541 involved a collaboration of Church affairs with the City council and consistory to bring morality to all areas of life. After the establishment of the Geneva academy in 1559, Geneva became the unofficial capital of the Protestant movement, providing refuge for Protestant exiles from all over Europe and educating them as Calvinist missionaries. These missionaries dispersed Calvinism widely, and formed the French Huguenots in Calvin's own lifetime and spread to Scotland under the leadership of John Knox in 1560. Anne Locke translated some of Calvin's writings to English around this time. The faith continued to spread after Calvin's death in 1563 and reached as far as Constantinople by the start of the 17th century.[citation needed]
Refused an annulment of his marriage to Catherine, King Henry decided to remove the Church of England from the authority of Rome.[58] In 1534, the Act of Supremacy recognised Henry as "the only Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England".[59] Between 1535 and 1540, under Thomas Cromwell, the policy known as the Dissolution of the Monasteries was put into effect. The veneration of some saints, certain pilgrimages and some pilgrim shrines were also attacked. Huge amounts of church land and property passed into the hands of the Crown and ultimately into those of the nobility and gentry. The vested interest thus created made for a powerful force in support of the dissolution.[citation needed]
The Reformation in the Netherlands, unlike in many other countries, was not initiated by the rulers of the Seventeen Provinces, but instead by multiple popular movements which in turn were bolstered by the arrival of Protestant refugees from other parts of the continent. While the Anabaptist movement enjoyed popularity in the region in the early decades of the Reformation, Calvinism, in the form of the Dutch Reformed Church, became the dominant Protestant faith in the country from the 1560s onward. In the early 17th century internal theological conflict within the Calvinist church between two tendencies of Calvinism, the Gomarists and the liberal Arminians (or Remonstrants), resulted in Gomarist Calvinism becoming the de facto state religion.
The Reformation in Ireland was a movement for the reform of religious life and institutions that was introduced into Ireland by the English administration at the behest of King Henry VIII of England. His desire for an annulment of his marriage was known as the King's Great Matter. Ultimately Pope Clement VII refused the petition; consequently it became necessary for the King to assert his lordship over the church in his realm to give legal effect to his wishes. The English Parliament confirmed the King's supremacy over the Church in the Kingdom of England. This challenge to Papal supremacy resulted in a breach with the Roman Catholic Church. By 1541, the Irish Parliament had agreed to the change in status of the country from that of a Lordship to that of Kingdom of Ireland.[citation needed] 041b061a72