Christianity: The First Two Thousand Years
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Christianity: The First Two Thousand Years was a 6 hour 40 minute historical narrative of the Christian religion that was produced by Filmroos for the A&E Television Networks in 1998. It has since been updated in the year 2000 and made available by the network as a boxed set of two DVD discs that can be purchased either from the network's Internet store site or in many retail book stores. Each disc within the cardboard box has its own separate plastic case and is broken down into 24 chapters that encompass a little over 1,000 years of Christian history. The first disc details the first thousand years while the second disc details the second thousand years. There is some overlapping of events between the two discs for continuity's sake.
The first disc, entitled Christianity: The First Thousand Years, tells the story of Christianity from the death of Jesus in 30 AD to the 1077 standoff between Pope Gregory VII and Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV over who had authority to appoint bishops. The second disc, entitled Christianity: The Second Thousand Years, has a 20 minute review of what was on the first disc and continues the story to 2000, when the documentary was updated, ending with subjects such as Televangelism, Martin Luther King, Jr, Vatican II (the 21st Ecumenical Council) and South American Catholic "Liberation theology".
The following is a summary of what is found on each disc.
[edit] Disc 1 - Christianity: The First Thousand Years
[edit] The Apostles
In 30 AD a rebellion in Jerusalem was quashed and Jesus was murdered. Within days, His apostles saw their martyred leader in resurrected form. At the Pentecost Celebration, 50 days after Jesus's death (Acts 2:1-36), the apostles received the fire of the Holy Spirit and Saint Peter gained 3,000 converts in a single day. Communal living among the faithful (Acts 2:44) was practiced and new converts willingly sold everything they owned to pool their resources to finance the new religion’s missionary efforts.
[edit] The First Leaders
The eastern Mediterranean was dominated by the Hellenistic culture. There was a question as to who should lead the new religious movement after Jesus’s death. Catholic tradition tells us it was Simon Peter. However, he reported to James the Just, Bishop of Jerusalem (Galatians 1:18). Was James the physical brother or half brother of Jesus or was he merely a brother in a new religion? The answer is unknown. James was a faithful adherent to Jewish law while others within the new movement questioned it. Because the Eucharist symbolized blood and flesh together, many Jews shunned this new sect of Judaism because this mixing was considered taboo to Jewish dietary law.
[edit] Controversy
Stephen became the first martyr after Jesus (Acts 6:8) in the new religion. Traditional Jews were enraged by his supposed blasphemy when challenging their traditions and Saul of Tarsus was a leading persecutor.
[edit] Paul of Tarsus
Saul loved to persecute heretical Jews, especially those in the new Jesus Sect (Acts 8:2), but he soon converted to Christianity and changed his name to Paul after receiving a messianic vision. The original eleven apostles (Judas was dead by this time) were upset and jealous of Paul because they felt that only Jesus’s immediate followers should receive the sort of vision that Paul claimed to have received.
Meanwhile, the pagan world was tiring of the Olympian gods and trying new religions. Some pagans, the God Fearers, who were drawn to monotheism but not to Jewish laws, became easy converts to Paul’s message. Paul soon established a Christian community in Antioch and began writing instructional letters. These letters, which predate the gospels, became the first New Testament writings.
It soon became apparent that there was a difference of opinion within the Jewish community about observing God’s law and the messiahship of Jesus. As a result, James was forced to convene a council in 49 AD in Jerusalem. The council decided that gentiles needn’t convert to Judaism before becoming Christian, they could come directly into the new faith.
Soon after Paul was arrested by Jewish leaders, but due to his Roman citizenship, he had the court's venue transferred to Rome. Ironically, even though he was under arrest in Rome, this perioid of time became his most productive.
[edit] Seeds of Faith
The new Christian Church experienced explosive growth throughout the Mediterranean during its first quarter century and by 60 AD Peter had followed Paul to Rome. The Roman historian Tacitus considered the Christians to be a sordid and shameful group as they were rumored to practice cannibalism (by taking the Eucharist) and incest. Because they didn’t partake in pagan holidays or believe in the Olympian gods, they were thought to be extremely anti-social atheists.
When Rome burned, the people blamed Nero who immediately put the onus on the Christians. As a result, many Christians were sacrificed to the lions and gladiators in public venues. The irony was that the new faith’s victims became martyrs that attracted even more converts. Shortly after, James was killed in Jerusalem and the church there was destroyed in 62 AD. A year later a Jewish rebellion broke out that ebbed and flowed until the Roman army destroyed the city and temple in 70 AD. From that point on, the Holy Land was no longer the home of Christianity and heavy persecution forced the new faith to go underground, especially in Rome where the faithful convened their meetings in the catacombs.
[edit] Struggle for Survival
By 100 AD, the new faith found itself regionalized with centers in Antioch, Athens and Rome. They all, however, shared one tradition: the communal meal. It was truly a banquet held in conjunction with worship in individual homes where the woman reigned. Women, therefore, held important positions within the early Christian church. Ignatius of Antioch in 110 AD felt that there should be a united front when facing pagan society and he centralized the authority of each community under a single person - a bishop. As a result, women soon lost their early influence.
The Fourth Century is considered to be the Golden Age of Christian Theology as Greek philosophy mingled with Christian principles as espoused by Justin Martyr, Origin, Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian. The new religion spread rapidly to the middle and upper classes and began to gain political power. But, there was a price for this new found power as some of Jesus’s values were lost. A final persecution took place under Diocletian in 302 AD.
[edit] Constantine’s Rule
The Roman Empire was in crisis in the late 3rd Century due to political infighting. Twenty two emperors came and went violently in a 50 year period of time. Diocletian finally split the Empire in half near the end of the third century which only created more problems when he established the Tetrarchy (an Augustus and a subordinate Caesar was chosen to lead each half of the empire). In 312 AD Constantine conquered and reconsolidated the two halves. During his conquest he received a vision of a cross in front of the sun and was told by a voice that he should conquer under the Sign of the Cross. Shortly after his victories, he issued the Edict of Milan which stipulated that Christianity should be tolerated. It is felt by scholars that Constantine was a syncretist who blended Christianity with the worship of Sol Invictus. He ordered Christians to move their day of worship from the Sabbath day (Saturday in English, Sadabo in Spanish, Sabato in Italian) to Sunday.
[edit] The Gnostics
Gnostism, or Secret Knowledge, is a blend of Zoroastrian, Egyptian and Christian concepts. Some Gnostics believed that Jesus escaped execution. The Gospel of Thomas was one such gnostic text, found in 1945, that contains only the sayings of Christ.
Constantine, meanwhile, was desirous of a unified empire under a unified religion and called for a council to take place in 325 in Nicea to establish a written creed. Athanasius of Alexandria insisted that God the Father and God the Son were two beings of one substance while Arius felt Jesus, being the son of God, couldn’t be equal to God. It came down to the Latin terms homouseus (same substance as God) vs. Homiusius (like the substance of God). The only difference between the two camps was the Greek letter iota. The resulting Nicene Creed favored the first term and Arius and his Arianistic viewpoint was officially declared a heretical belief.
[edit] New Testament
The Nicene Creed became official church dogma, but there was a problem of each Christian community having its own set of scriptures. The dye was caste when Constantine subsidised the writing of 50 official Bibles. In 367 AD Athanasius of Alexandria formally listed which scriptures were to be included in this new book.
[edit] Monastic Life
"As the emperor goes, so goes the empire." The Christian Church had finally gained political and social power but was viewed as a worldly institution by many. Saint Anthony of Egypt decided to lead a solitary life away from the worldly influences that infected the religion. Simeon Stylites was another standout who lived in a small tower for 35 years in Alexandria. Monasteries soon followed where emphasis was on celibacy as sexuality was thought to be incompatible with spirituality.
[edit] Augustine of Hippo
Saint Augustine, who wrote City of God and the Confessions, was an intellectual who studied metaphysics, mysticism and Greek philosophy while enjoying wine, women and song. His great epiphany occurred when he read Paul’s letters and he converted to Christianity in 387 AD. Today, he is the most quoted theologian outside that of Saint Paul.
[edit] Fall of Rome
Constantinople became the premier city of the empire after Constantine. By the early 5th Century Rome was in obvious decline as the Franks, Goths, Vandals, etal. invaded the western half of the empire. In 410 AD the Visigoths sacked Rome where Bishop Leo I was left to defend the city. Leo argued that he was the premier bishop for all of Christianity as he was the direct successor to Saint Peter, the rock upon which Christ had built His church. The Bishop of Constantinople disagreed, and considering that he had a close relationship with a fully functioning eastern emperor, felt that his arguments carried more weight.
Leo is, to this day, greatly revered for his heroism when Attila and the Huns attacked Rome in 452 AD. Leo courageously left the confines of Rome alone to meet with Attila. Accompanying Leo were the ephemeral images of Saints Peter and Paul. Attila, being awestruck from the apparitions, called off his attack and departed the scene. In 455 Leo again saved Rome from the Vandals after a 2-week scourge. Finally, in 476 AD barbarian General Odovacar deposed the teenaged Emperor Romulus Agustus and the western part of the Roman Empire collapsed.
[edit] Saint Patrick
After 410 AD, the western Roman Empire began a spiraling decline as the barbarians advanced. Meanwhile in Ireland, a raiding party brought back an exiled Patrick from Britain. After 6 years, God commanded him to escape. Back in Britain he received a vision to become a missionary to the Irish in 432 AD. Patrick had the ability of blending Christian and Druid concepts with Irish philosophy to form a more loving and benevolent God. Monasteries sprang up throughout the countryside.
[edit] Irish Church
Unlike the European continent where bishops ruled over large cities, Ireland had abbots ruling over small rural monasteries. The Irish church emphasized private confessions of sin as opposed to the continental public confessions. Women also held more influence like Brigid of Kildare (or Mary of the Gael). Monastery Monks became classical scholars of Greek, Latin and Hebrew literature as work, prayer and study became their defining ethos. The continent was suffering under barbarian attacks and if it wasn’t for the Irish church, much classical learning would have been lost.
[edit] Byzantine Empire
All that was left of the glory of Rome was the Eastern or Byzantine Empire where church and state were one. Religious orthodoxy was a matter of national security and the emperor was responsible for church unity. As divisions and sects began to arise, seven general or ecumenical councils were convened from 325 to 787 AD in an attempt to keep the church unified. The first was at Nicea in 325 under Constantine where the Nicene Creed was published (see Section 1.8 above). In the Syrian-Egyptian area of the empire, the monophysites, which claimed that Christ is fully human and fully divine but that His nature is all divine, held sway. Although the orthodox view agreed with the first phrase, the second phrase was considered blasphemous as it was seen as a backhanded attempt of saying that Christ was all divine with no human qualities about Him. In 451 Emperor Marcian convened the 4th Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon. Though losing the argument, the monophysites rejected the Chalcedon decision and had to flee for their lives to Alexandria.
[edit] Theodora
A burlesque actress and prostitute in the capital of the Byzantine Empire, Theodora ended up being abandoned by her lover in Egypt at the age of 18. When monophysite Christians rescued her, she converted to the religion. After her return to Constantinople at the age of 22, she met Prince Justinian, who fell madly in love with her. After persuading his uncle/emperor to have the laws changed, Justinian married the beautiful actress and, in short order, Theodora found herself rising from the life of a prostitute to a Christian convert to Empress (when Justinian inherited the throne) of an empire before the age of 25. Her power and social standing was comparable to that of Hillary Clinton, Eva Peron or Jackie Kennedy. She persuaded Justinian to have leniency on the monophysites and one of them, Anthimus, became Patriarch of Constantinople.
Justinian left his imprint on history by regaining much of the western half of the old Roman Empire. After Theodora died in 548, Justinian convened, in her memory, yet another council at Constantinople in 553 to try and iron out the differences between his beloved’s monophysite viewpoint with that of the orthodox viewpoint. He failed and the attending Roman bishop persuaded Justinian to follow the council’s decision. The monophyites lost everything and had to flee again. After Justinian died in 565, the western part of the empire again fell under the sway of barbarian tribes.
[edit] Birth of Islam
In 610 AD Mohammad started a new religion, but asserted that the Hebrew Bible was the basis for his beliefs. Jesus, however, was considered a mere prophet who escaped crucifixion. By 650, all Arabs had converted to Islam as it swept through Asia Minor, Alexandria and Antioch.
[edit] Iconoclasts
Being that they were being subjected to extreme cruelty by their orthodox brethren, the monophysites saw the Islamic army as liberators and put up token resistance to their invasion. They actually gained more freedoms under Islamic law and are today’s Egyptian Coptic Church.
Due to military losses, Emperor Leo VI of Constantinople was convinced that God was punishing the Christian world and decided the problem lay with the blasphemous worship of icons, a form of idol worship. He became an Iconoclast and sent his army out to destroy all icons. After meeting stiff resistance, a 7th Ecumenical Council was held in Constantinople in 787 AD to settle this latest debate.
The verdict was that since Christ had a human soul and a human body, it was acceptable to have icons. Although settled on paper, this latest controversy only widened the gap between east and west as Rome felt it was being persecuted for its practices.
At the same time, the Islamic armies had created a wedge in the Balkans between the eastern and western parts of the empire and the two halves of the church were cut off from each other.
[edit] King Charlemagne
The old Roman Empire was being invaded from the north by the Vikings, south and east by the Moslems and the church was being torn apart by controversy. In 799 AD, Pope Leo III had survived an attempt on his life and had to flee Rome. He sought the help of the Frankish King Charlemagne.
Four hundred years earlier, as previously mentioned in Section 1.12 Fall of Rome, secular rule had ended in the Italian peninsula and the church was the only institution keeping the western half of the empire intact. The Roman bishop at the time (Leo I) had decreed himself the primary leader of the entire Christian church in an attempt to establish autonomy from Constantinople. As a result, all tithes from western Europe went directly to the Roman prelate which made his office both wealthy and powerful.
It soon became apparent that this new found wealth and power had a price. As the Roman treasury bulged, the Chair of Saint Peter became a vicious and coveted prize. Roman nobles vied for the seat as rival factions made and unmade popes. Some were arrested and tortured by their political enemies. One pope was dug up from his grave and tried for blasphemy by his successor.
Thus it came to the point at the end of the 8th Century where Leo III had to flee across the Alps and find sanctuary with Charlemagne.
[edit] Church and State
In 800 AD, an alliance between Leo III and Charlemagne was forged and Leo returned triumphantly to Rome. On Christmas Day, the year 800, Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne as Emperor of the newly founded Holy Roman Empire.
The act of a religious leader crowning a secular leader began a new struggle for power between church and state. Additionally, when the news of the coronation reached Constantinople, a line was drawn between east and west. In the Eastern view, the emperor was an icon of God's rule on Earth. Being that there was only one God, there could only be one emperor. When Leo III crowned Charlemagne, the East saw that as an affront: there can't be two equal co-emperors.
After Charlemagne conquered the Saxons at the eastern edge of his empire, he became heavily involved with religion. He established a learning center for the clergy at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) thus beginning the Carolingian Renaissance.
[edit] King Louis
The Aachen Scholar Alcuin of York carried on the Irish tradition of transcribing ancient classical texts. Over 90% of all classical works that survive today are a result of his work. In 813, Charlemagne's son Louis was named co-emperor and Charlemagne, in an effort to separate state affairs from papal meddling, made sure the Pope wasn't invited to the ceremony. Unfortunately, Louis wasn't as talented as his father in keeping the empire together.
[edit] The Vikings
Early in the 9th Century, Charlemagne left behind a peaceful, united Christian world in western Europe. His heir Louis, however, decided to divide his empire amongst his three sons. The result was much infighting which the Vikings took advantage of. They started out with small guerrilla type forays along the coast where they sought out the least protected and wealthiest properties - the churches. By 845 they brazenly attacked Paris and sailed into the Mediterranean as far as Pisa.
These dark times ironically increased Christian faith and a new emphasis was put on Christian relics and veneration for the Virgin Mary.
In 896 the Magyars, from present day Hungary, began a new assault from the east. They were disdainful of Christianity and committed many beheadings. Among learned circles there was talk of a millennial end of the world.
[edit] Otto the Great
The 10th Century was a time of turmoil for Christian Europe as the Vikings and Magyars laid waste to land, while the Roman Pope had little temporal power and the Byzantine Emperor was a mere figurehead.
With circumstances like this, a miracle was needed and in 955 a miracle occurred. Twenty five thousand Frankish Christian foot soldiers, led by General Otto, faced off against 40,000 Magyar horsemen at Lechfeld. Otto was fearless as he had a Christian relic embedded in his lance - a nail that had supposedly crucified Jesus. After the blood and mud had settled, only 7 Magyars had survived. Otto received a triumphant entry into Rome and knelt at the Throne of Saint Peter where he was crowned the latest Holy Roman Emperor, Otto the Great.
Otto soon became disillusioned with Pope John XII, a wild young womanizer who died in the arms of one of his concubines.
[edit] Otto the Second
Pope John XII extorted church funds for his lifestyle and the church was in financial ruin. When Otto died in 974, his son, Otto II, became the new emperor. Otto II nurtured Gerbert d'Aurillac, a scholar from Islamic Spain. Gerbert then became a tutor to Otto II's son, Otto III. When Otto III became emperor in 999, he had Gerbert eleveted to Roman Pope - Pope Sylvester II.
There was a syngergism between emperor and pope and the last of pagan Europe became Christian. On Palm Sunday, 999 the Magyar warlord was crowned by Pope Sylvester as King Stephen of Hungary.
Meanwhile, the eastern church was making just as much headway during the 900s. Bulgaria converted in 926, Serbia in 974 and Kievan Rus' in 988.
All of Europe was now under Christian rule, but the Christian Church wasn't united. In 1054, the heads of the eastern and western churches excommunicated each other.
In the western half, in the year 1077, a standoff took place between Pope Gregory VII and Emperor Henry IV over who had the authority to appoint bishops. When Gregory excommunicated Henry, the aggrieved secular king then walked to Canosa and stood for three days at the Papal door, begging forgiveness for his sins.
Thus ends the first disc and the stage is set for the 2nd millennium of the Christian Church which is found on the second disc.
[edit] Disc 2 - Christianity: The Second Thousand Years
[edit] The New Sect
The entire twelve minutes of this section is a review of what’s found on the first disc.
[edit] The Dark Ages
Continuing the review, barbarians and Islamic warriors had threatened Europe from the 8th Century on. Charlemagne rescued western European Christendom in 800 AD. Roman Bishop Leo III, the heir to Saint Peter, allied himself with Charlemagne to emancipate himself from Constantinople, which insulted the Eastern Patriarch. The Magyar invasions in the 900s was repelled by Otto the Great. Although it was a time of great cathedral building, petty feudal lords were battling each other for dominance throughout the continent, church positions were being bought and sold, and no one was sure of who was at the head of western European civilization - the secular emperor or the eclesiastical pope. The Church itself was undergoing internal fracturing that reached its climax in 1054 when Pope Leo IX of Rome and Patriarch Michael I of Constantinople excommunicated each other, resulting in the Great Schism.
In the western half, in 1077 Emperor Henry IV came begging to Pope Gregory VII at Canosa. After waiting 3 days in the snow and cold, he persuaded the Pope to forgive his many sins. From then on, Henry did pretty much what he wanted and 7 years later he came knocking again at Gregory’s door, this time from a position of superiority. He drove Gregory into a brief exile and tried to install a more pliant (antipope) Clement III.
[edit] Reformation
Although Henry had the military muscle, Gregory VII had the moral authority and Gregory’s religious ideals were having a profound impact over the political and social imagination as well as the economic. One of his reforms dealt with clerical celibacy.
There was a constant battle with secular leaders over authority. In 1177 the battle was personified in England when Thomas Beckett, appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by King Henry II, decided to exert autonomy. Beckett ultimately lost his life for his ideals, but his martyrdom ended up bing a moral victory for the Church as Europe was truly shocked at Henry's actions.
[edit] The Crusades
In 1095 Europe was a mess with internal warfare. The Church tried to quell all the petty feudal lords. The only way to bring peace to the continent was to create an external goal - the liberation of the Holy Land from the Muslims. Pope Urban II proposed a Crusade and in the Spring of 1095, a poorly organized and lead Peasants Crusade plundered its way across Europe. They were seen as invading locusts and three of the five armies were destroyed by enraged locals. The two remaining armies were annihilated when they reached Asia Minor. Later that same year, a more organized crusade, led by true knights, fought its way to the Holy Land. They reached Jerusalem in July of 1099 but left a legacy of brutality when taking the Holy City.
Although the Crusades had the effect of unifying western Europe, stoking the fires of trade and increasing the wealth of the western Church; they left a legacy of hatred in the places that were conquered.
The 4th Crusade in 1202 was particularly notorious for its barbarism against fellow Christians. It involved the greed of the Venetian Doge, Enrico Dandolo. Dandolo desired to eliminate his chief competition for trade with the Muslims - the Byzantines. He persuaded the Pope to make a pact with Alexius, a competitor to the Byzantine throne, to help him depose Emperor Isaac. In return, Alexius secretly guaranteed 10,000 knights to the cause of Holy Land conquest, a bundle of cash and a promise to make the Patriarch of Constantinople subordinate to the Roman bishop. As soon as the Crusaders were within sight of Constantinople, Isaac was deposed from within and the city swung open its gates to the liberation forces. But, once installed, Alexius couldn’t deliver on his promises as the populace was aghast when they learned that he had traded away Byzantine wealth and prestige to the western Church. He was immediately overthrown and the Crusaders were kicked out of the city. Infuriated, the Crusaders turned their anger against the city and murdered, rapped and annihilated most of its citizens.
[edit] Constantinople Falls
Pope Innocent III at first disavowed the barbaric 4th Crusade. Never-the-less, he couldn’t resist the appeal of a unified Church under his supreme authority. For 60 years, Constantinople was occupied and the eastern empire never regained its former power and prestige. The sac, death and destruction of Constantinople resulted in a bitter division between eastern and western Christianity that persists to the present day.
[edit] Saint Dominic
The church was at its nadir of power in western Europe, but it was entering a new struggle between enlightenment and darkness. Heresy reared its ugly head again in the form of Catharism in the Languedoc region of France. The Cathars belief of a good god that created the spiritual world and an evil one that created the physical was considered heresy. Add to that their belief that the earth was a place of punishment - Hell - and that all allegiances to authority (civil or religious) were considered evil didn’t set well with neither the Pope nor the secular kings and princes.
Meanwhile, Dominic of Guzman was an austere, serious individual with a heart of gold. He sold all of his assets, including himself into slavery, to help the poor and organized a group of like minded individuals, among them Francis of Assisi, to go out and preach to the masses.
Saint Francis and Saint Dominic became traveling itinerant preachers. Both were commissioned to begin monastic orders by Pope Innocent III. Their main mission was to persuade, through logic, any Christians wavering in the true faith to come back into the fold.
Being that Pope Innocent felt threatened by the heretical Cathars, he commissioned the Franciscan and Dominican orders to pacify the countryside. When their persuasion failed, Innocent organized a new Crusade to destroy the heresy. In 1231, Pope Gregory IX inherited the problem and took it one step further by organizing special courts - the infamous Inquisition.
[edit] Birth of Spain
The Inquisition was a time where church and state overlapped in saving souls. The Moors were driven out of the Iberian Peninsula in 1492 as Ferdinand and Isabella united their kingdoms into the new nation of Spain. Once a bastion of tolerance between Christians, Jews and Muslims, the new monarchs felt it must be united in all aspects, including religion. The Jews were expelled the day Columbus set sail for the New World and by the early 16th Century all of Spain is Catholic.
[edit] The Protestants
Gutenberg in Mainz invented modern printing making the Bible accessible to the masses. In 1526 William Tyndale published the Bible in the colloquial language which allowed individuals to read, interpret and think for themselves. The clergy viewed this as heresy as it was stripping them of their monopoly on scriptural interpretation. Tyndall was burned at the stake for his cause.
Meanwhile, in 1517 Martin Luther became outraged at the sale of indulgences that was being used to support the latest Pope's lifestyle as well as for the construction of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. He viewed it as salvation for those who could afford to buy it. Luther went as far as to call Pope Leo X an anti-Christ and many saw Lutheranism as a disruption of civil society. Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor held a special Diet (court) at Worms where Luther was branded an outlaw. Any citizen could feel free to kill Luther without fear of punishment.
Luther believed that salvation could only come through a belief in Jesus, not through good words and penance. The philosophy brought up the concept of individualism, but it also begged the question of morality.
[edit] Martin Luther [John Calvin]
The producers of the DVD mislabeled this section as Martin Luther, but in reality it mostly deals with Calvinism.
By 1530 the Protestant Reformation was sweeping through Europe. After breaking with the Catholic Church, Geneva was a ruderless society until John Calvin showed up. A man of discipline, he assumed the task of imposing order on his community and steered it towards a society that was both civil and religious. Geneva's society became a model for the new Protestantism - a quasi-Capitalistic economy populated by a pious and productive Middle Class. There was, however, a shadow side to this society: austere, harsh and highly controlled where citizens spied on one another.
As for the question of why do good works if one is saved by faith alone, as Luther asserts, Calvin’s solution was that it was preordained that some of Earth's inhabitants were the Elect of God while others were damned. Instead of becoming fatalistic about their situation, Calvinists reasoned that IF one was saved, they'd be successful and effective in being an instrument of God in all aspects of life on Earth. Being that Geneva was so prosperous with its newfound Middle Class, most of its citizens were convinced that they were of that elect group, thus motivating them to adhere to a pious lifestyle. As a result, Geneva was a community filled with optimistic and energetic citizens.
[edit] The Eastern Church
After suffering through the 4th Crusade and 60 years of occupation from Rome, the Turkish Sultan Mehmet II captured Constantinople in 1453. Though not forced to convert like the pagans, Christians found themselves to be second class citizens who were heavily taxed, having their churches converted to mosques and were unable to proselytize.
Moscow rose as the new center for the eastern Church and claimed itself as the third Rome. The secular leader proclaimed himself the new Ceasar (Czar).
Meanwhile, many christians migrated from Constaninople to Italy and would contribute to the upcoming Renaissance. Pope Julius II commissioned Raphael and Michelangelo to paint frescoes.
[edit] The Renaissance
Science, philosophy and religious ideas made great advances. The Spanish Moors held a vast repository of classical learning [whatever happened to the Irish monasteries and the scholars at Aachen mentioned in Sections 1.14 and 1.21 isn’t explained]. Italy was at the crossroads of knowledge flowing in from Spain and talented immigrants flowing in from the former Byzantine Empire. Aristotelian logic forced the Renaissance leaders to advance from inward contemplation to outward observation and the birth of science and technology began. Medicine and surgery advanced as old taboos about vivisection of the human body fell by the wayside.
This period was marked by the church and state being in constant struggle for property, power and souls. Many rulers aligned themselves with the Protestants against Roman Catholic hegemony.
[edit] Henry the VIII
Nationalism created new divisions between secular rulers and the Church. English King Henry VIII needed a divorce grant from Pope Clement VII. Clement refused and Henry installed his own Archbishop of Canterbury. The Supremacy Act of 1534 stated that Henry was the head of the Church of England. Thomas More was beheaded in 1535 for refusing to acknowledge Henry’s new marriages and any of his offspring as legitimate heirs to the English throne.
Meanwile, in Spain Ignatius Loyola, an ambitious military officer who was severely wounded in the Battle of Pomplona, saw a new light and became a solder in the service of the Virgin Mary. After some problems with the Inquisition, be became a priest and devoted himself to learning. He founded the Jesuit Order which was dedicated to founding centers of knowledge. The Protest Reformation was effectively checked and by the end of the 16th Century, significant portions of the populace were drawn back to the Catholic Church.
The battle for souls became physical and the concept of pluralism in religion was still centuries away from being accepted.
David Steinmetz, Professor of Christian History at Duke University summed up the situation well when he was quoted in the program as saying, “The dominant notion is that the unity and peace and tranquility of society depends on a common faith. That’s the glue that holds society together. And, therefore, when somebody is attacking, undermining the stability of society, this is certainly going to provide ... attempts at violent solution. [There’s a notion of one ruler under one faith] If you really want to know what the human race thinks, you have to ask what they’re willing to kill for. And, in this case, they were willing to kill for the unity of Christendom.”
[edit] The New World
Spain and Portugal were unmarked by the Protestant/Catholic conflict that ravaged the rest of Europe. They had turned outward to the rest of the world as the invention of the three-masted sailing vessel expanded their horizons.
Europeans not only brought their faith, but a sense of cultural superiority to the rest of the world as well as a lust for wealth. Even though Hernan Cortez was a devout Christian he was, according to Christian scholar Justo Gonzales, "a thief and a murderer who thought he was doing that in service to God."
Slavery was a common practice in Europe, particularly in Spain and Portugal. Almost all Europeans in the New World enslaved native populations. Bartolome de Las Casas, bishop of Chiapas, Mexico, was appalled and tried to change European attitudes towards the natives. His solution? Enslave the blacks from Africa.
[edit] Slavery
The rational for enslaving blacks was that they were captured in "just" wars. And economics soon persuaded Europeans that any war in Africa was a "just war". De las Casas soon realized his grave error and tried to ban all slavery. He succeeded in Spain, but not in the New World.
Meanwhile, back in Europe, society was undergoing great change with the advent of technology, science (particularly astronomy) and the Industrial Revolution. The Catholic Church, at first supportive of science, was by 1615 thorougly perplexed by the rise of Protestantism and all the other changes that were causing people to migrate from the villages to the large cities. The Inquisition gained new momentum and Galileo was forced to recant all of his discoveries.
[edit] The Methodists
Social upheaval created a new hunger for spiritual understanding. John Wesley, who spent some time in the American state of Georgia proselytizing to the Indians, had a great awakening in 1743. He had a sure fire "method" of gaining personal salvation. His General Rules were: 1. do no harm; 2. do good (an obvious break with other Protestants); and 3. attend to all the ordinances of God. Wesley felt that any locale was a place of worship and his method of preaching was the beginnings of the evangelical movement.
Wesley was soon outdone by George Whitfield in North America when it came to evangelism. A great orator, Whitfield took the continent by storm from north to south with his tent revival meetings. The "Great Awakening" was a North American experience and as such, the English colonies began to see themselves as separate from the Old World. With their new found shared awareness, they felt that maybe they also had a shared destiny.
[edit] Christianity in America
The Calvinist set up shop in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607 in an attempt to establish a City of God. The New World was seen as God's new Israel and they had hoped to make it a beacon to the world. The Puritans at Plymouth, Massachusetts and the others that followed were very intolerant of each other. Soon the Atlantic Seaboard was a region of competing religions: Puritans in New England, Presbyterians on Long Island, Lutherans in Delaware, Catholics around Baltimore, and Anglicans in Virginia.
Early in the 17th Century Roger Williams (1631) was deemed too liberal for the locals in Salem and he was forced to flee to present day Rhode Island where he founded Providence. He was opposed to the establishment of any religion. In the late 17th Century (1682) William Penn established Pennsylvania and allowed for an unprecedented freedom of worship. All one need do was proclaim a belief in One God. Philadelphia became the "City of Brotherly Love" and was a refuge for all kinds of people and faiths.
The 1775 shot that was heard around the world in Concord, New Hampshire was a crossroads of World and Christian History. The 1791 American Constitution, and its attendant Bill of Rights, was a product of the social models of Roger Williams and William Penn.
Paradoxically, with religion taken out of government, the American nation became the most religious society seen in world history. America was a place where religious enterpreneurs could vie for the hearts of the people. It was extremely hospitable and had become a market place for religion.
[edit] Napoleon
November 10, 1783 The French Revolution was also a revolt against the excesses of the Catholic Church. In a vulgar display, a prostitute was marched around the alter of Notre Dame Cathedral representing the "Goddess of Reason" to celebrate the new values of France and to make a mockery of the Catholic Church. Priests had to abandon their allegiance to the Pope and many churches were closed. Church property (about 10% of France) was confiscated and sold to fund the revolution. In 1798 Napoleon marched into Rome and extorted a large protection fee from Pope Pius VI only to eventually take him prisoner and isolate him in France where he died in a rural barn.
[edit] Doctrine of Faith
Reacting strongly against the French (and American) Revolution, the Catholic Church became violently anti-republican and remained that way until 1965.
The Industrial Revolution caused continued social upheaval as people migrated to large, crowded population centers. In 1869, the First Vatican Council convened and declared the Doctrine of Papal Infallibility as proscribed in Matthew 28:18. Pope Pius IX condemned all human rights exemplified in the United States Bill of Rights and strongly condemned Universal suffrage. The Garibaldi Movement unified the Italian Peninsula and all papal land was confiscated from the Church.
No longer having any temporal power, the Catholic Church was at last freed from worldly concerns and could focus on the realm of the spirit. The American and French revolutions marked the end of mediaeval ways and a turning point for Christianity.
[edit] The Modern Age
Marked by the ascendance of Protestantism, a second wave of missionary endeavors (the first was Father Loyola and the Jesuits - see 2.12 above) commenced. As opposed to a reactionary Catholic Church, the Protestants embraced technology, trade and new values. Missionaries often were lay individuals, couples and families going into the field. Women were more involved and more influential as they worked with other women and children in domestic situations.
The movement, however, was intertwined with colonialism. Some church leaders were opposed to the concept, but others saw it as a necessary evil. David Livingstone was in favor of the benefits of business and made it his battle cry.
[edit] Missionaries
David Livingstone reached into the African interior and railed against slavery. Although missionaries were ubiquitous, conversions didn’t come easily. A part of the problem was the missionary attitude of cultural superiority that was deeply alienating to indigenous peoples.
[edit] The Mormons
The Mormon Movement grew up in an era (1830s - 1850s) of multiple faiths vieing with each other, and many believed that the world was going to Hell with the Second Coming eminent. This faith practiced abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, but practiced polygamy.
Meanwhile, the Catholics, seeing a proliferation of many new faiths, took a reactionary response to Modernism. On Sept 8, 1907 Pope Pius X organized a Council of Vigilance to counter any Modernist thought. His actions only served to create a schism between conservative and liberal clergy. Modern Society was overwhelming many religions as scientific discoveries seemed to make faith impossible.
[edit] The Evangelists
Charismatic evangelists like Billy Sunday attracted large crowds at Revival Meetings. The Pentecostal Movement blossomed where ordinary citizens took religion back from theologians who were making it too complicated.
The Fundamentalist Movement took the Bible as literal truth and clashed with Modernism at the Scopes Trial in 1925 Tennessee. Although vindicated in the courts, many citizens saw the Fundamentalists as eccentrics, causing their followers to retreat.
Aimee Semple McPherson took advantage of a new means of communication, the radio, and drew many listeners to her International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. A counter-culture was created when McPherson organized local congregations and schools.
The 1950s and television brought more sophisticated means of reaching the masses and Billy Graham became so influential that he became a special advisor to at least eight American presidents. With television’s ability to draw graphic images of war and other modern problems, many became disillusioned with modern society and turned to religion in an effort to make sense of the world.
[edit] The Black Church
Blacks didn’t see America as the Promised Land like the Europeans did. They saw it as a land of exile and slavery. Roger Williams, William Penn and the Great Awakening of the 1700s created a democratic theology that Blacks slowly accepted. In their acceptance, they strongly associated with Israel in Bondage and held their religious services in secret. The Methodists and Baptists made strong headway among Blacks and they expected their leaders to become a modern Moses who would lead them to the fulfillment of the Promised Land.
[edit] The Church Today
In 1958 an era of conservative Catholicism passed with the death of Pope Pius XII who had turned a blind eye to Hitler and The Holocaust. Many argued that the Church had to come to terms with modernity. Soon, Pope John XXIII ignited a revolution by calling for a Second Vatican Council, or Vatican II. The council declared an understanding of basic principles with Judaism. It’s Declaration on Religious Freedom affirms that non-Christians have the right to practice the faith of their traditions. Even though there was a conservative backlash, most went along with the new declaration.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the South American Catholic clergy led the campaign for social justice and equality. This "Liberation Theology" was best exemplified by El Salvadoran Bishop Oscar Romero, who soon ran into trouble with conservatives within his country. The Church and its leaders soon found themselves under attack from governmental and right wing death squads which led to Romero’s assassination.
Pope John Paul II became renowned throughout all Christendom when he traveled the world and formally apologized for his Church’s previous bad behavior. On September 5, 2000 he took a step back with his Declaration of the Lord Jesus which states that all non-Christians are in grievous error and that other Christian sects have serious deficiencies.
