My take on the brief history of Christianity

[WisdomTree]

Hello everyone!

I have made this PowerPoint presentation a while ago when I realized that a lot of my Christian friends had no idea on how the Church came to be. So this is supposed to be educational, but in no way 100% accurate nor unbiased. Regardless, any feedback is welcome.

Brief History of Christianity: Division of the Church

This is my first one entitled: "Division of the Church", and as such more may be coming...

Enjoy.

PS If you go into fullscreen mode, the notes I have written which I couldn't really fit into the general presentation will not be visible and as such I recommend that you read it in normal view.

 

[Look Up]

A monumental task in summary format, surely, despite the probability (understandably) that you are relying heavily on the monumental works of others.

Much of your presentation I had either forgotten from a sweeping church history class of some decades back or failed to absorb previously (yes, with familiarity to much also), so any quibbles or preferences of mine would have to be in light of my own poverty of knowledge, tempered further when I realize your chosen topic here is "Division in the Church" rather than something broader and perhaps more traditional to a church history textbook.

I also appreciate that you took pains to explore eastern (and Coptic, Armenian, Syrian etc.) branches as well as western ones ... or more than merely emphasizing how we came to your own communion, important as that is even to me.

The read was enjoyable. Simultaneously your chosen topic (not that it is yours alone) is profoundly sad (division in the church), stimulating a desire for a ray of hope, such as Jesus' promise to build His church. But perhaps the negative emotional consequence is good marketing for the next installment!

P.S. I am a bit of a fan of Edwin Judge, Christopher Forbes, and others with ties to Macquarie University's Ancient History Documentary Research Centre in Sydney. Judge I believe may be classified as something of a missionary--a NZ Kiwi in AU.

 

[WisdomTree]

A monumental task in summary format, surely, despite the probability (understandably) that you are relying heavily on the monumental works of others.

Much of your presentation I had either forgotten from a sweeping church history class of some decades back or failed to absorb previously (yes, with familiarity to much also), so any quibbles or preferences of mine would have to be in light of my own poverty of knowledge, tempered further when I realize your chosen topic here is "Division in the Church" rather than something broader and perhaps more traditional to a church history textbook.

I also appreciate that you took pains to explore eastern (and Coptic, Armenian, Syrian etc.) branches as well as western ones ... or more than merely emphasizing how we came to your own communion, important as that is even to me.

The read was enjoyable. Simultaneously your chosen topic (not that it is yours alone) is profoundly sad (division in the church), stimulating a desire for a ray of hope, such as Jesus' promise to build His church. But perhaps the negative emotional consequence is good marketing for the next installment!

P.S. I am a bit of a fan of Edwin Judge, Christopher Forbes, and others with ties to Macquarie University's Ancient History Documentary Research Centre in Sydney. Judge I believe may be classified as something of a missionary--a NZ Kiwi in AU.

Thank you for your feedback! You are absolutely right in that it isn't a completely original research, but more an analysis of those researches done by others. I have every intention of crediting to those it belongs to in the reference section which I have not finished yet.

 

[Shane R]

Good work. It's a broad look at some of the subjects I myself have taught in much smaller units. I especially like some of the graphs you incorporated. My quibble: the presentation is hard on Nestorius - but I can understand this because most Church historians are hard on Nestorius.

 

[WisdomTree]

Good work. It's a broad look at some of the subjects I myself have taught in much smaller units. I especially like some of the graphs you incorporated. My quibble: the presentation is hard on Nestorius - but I can understand this because most Church historians are hard on Nestorius.

Yeah, but I can't really help it though cause there is limited space if I want to keep the presentation readable while the issues are a lot more complex than we anticipate it to be.

Thanks for your feedback by the way!

 

[Look Up]

Following my reading of your Power Point presentation on divisions in the church last night, I was reflecting on the north/south divisions within Presbyterian and Baptist denominations in the US in the mid-19th century (hence the Southern Baptist Convention), crudely put over the evil of owning slaves (in racist fashion) versus the right of states not to be invaded militarily over political secession. Spiritual brother went to war against spiritual brother of the same denominational family (cf. Cromwell period and the Thirty Years War).

Cultural divisions played their roles in the US churches of the period, not merely urbanized versus agrarian or the mind set of nationalist socialism versus that of a kind of expanded tribalism, not that I am any great authority on the American Cultural Revolution (Civil War and Reconstruction) of the mid 19th century. And then doctrinal divisions among Presbyterians and Baptists north and south almost seemed to follow the socio-political, perhaps incidentally, though I doubt entirely incidentally.

And thus admittedly my mind digressed from the facts of divisions in the church to possible reasons for those divisions. Can reasons for divisions be denominated too? Certainly the flow of your presentation suggested (as also in church history presentations elsewhere) doctrinal divisions over the nature of the Trinity and of Jesus predominated especially in the critical Ante-Nicene or ante-Chalcedon period (as well as beyond). Yet one wonders if cultural and socio-political grounds were not also present even in those early declarations of orthodoxy, for example in the heated debates between Alexandria and Antioch leading to the Chalcedon Definition of A.D. 451. "East is east and West is west and never the twain shall meet"?

And doctrinal divisions were present in the creation of Protestant denominations as you noted, particularly concerning church government and soteriology. And socio-political roles are evident in Venice v. Constantinople (1204), the history of Antipopes, Lutheranism (e.g., leading to Augsburg), the selective recognition of ecumenical councils, and so on.

In other words, doctrinal and socio-political grounds may have weaved their ways together more broadly in the history of church divisions that may be apparent at first blush.

I also would not want to suggest the doctrinal and socio-political would exhaust possible reasons for divisions (perhaps e.g., divisions over the calendar in Russian orthodoxy), nor that the terms "doctrinal" and especially "socio-political" are necessarily adequate for the task.

Nonetheless, delimiting reasons for divisions would seem an early step toward (re-)union even while, realistically, divisions in "the people of God" introduced in Genesis and interpreted by David, Isaiah, Jesus, John, and Paul suggest fundamental differences will remain. But surely my digression cannot be wholly unwelcome on this thread. At least it suggests your Power Point presentation can be of service to the church.

 

[WisdomTree]

Yeah, there continues to be schism within Christendom with no end in sight... There is still hope though!

 

[barryatlake]

Jesus established only 'One ' church and it was based on His Teaching Apostles back then [ Pentecost, 1ST. Century ] not many hundreds of years in the future.Jesus never promised us a perfect Church, only that it's members would be made up of sinners. Never would Jesus form thousands of conflicting churches as we find today.