Who Was The Greatest Figure In Christian History After 100 A.D.?.......

[Martingale]

Clovis. if not for him, you'd all be arian/unitarian.

 

[Baqueinfaith]

Nah, the Irish monks pretty much re-educated the Continent in the 7th Century, anyway. And Clovis was a nasty, nasty fellow.

 

[Martingale]

Nah, the Irish monks pretty much re-educated the Continent in the 7th Century, anyway. And Clovis was a nasty, nasty fellow.

catholic (trinitarian) christianity would have been left to the celtic fringe and the south italian peninsula and north africa. marginalized completely. actually, the most important person might have been his wife, who converted him.

nasty, but God chooses all kinds of improbable people to do His will.

 

[Baqueinfaith]

I'm not convinced. The Merovingians were doomed in any case, and you're forgetting the monasteries. And Italy was still the population center. The Carolingian renaissance would have brought back Catholic Christianity.

 

[Anoetos]

Augustine

 

[CryptoLutheran]

Martin Luther

I'm Lutheran, and so as much as I admire Fr. Martin (that whole justification through faith alone thing and all), I couldn't say he's the greatest figure in Christian history after the first century.

Luther is obviously an enormous influence on me theologically, but I think Luther would be deeply disturbed by the notion of being regarded as the greatest figure, after all he once said of those calling people "Lutheran", (paraphrasing) "Why ought the children of Christ be called by my wretched name?"

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Baqueinfaith]

Amy Winehouse.

 

[CryptoLutheran]

St. Constantine, perhaps.

Insofar as he made Christianity legal, that's significant. My ultimate discomfort with Constantine is the path it led toward, the imperialization of the Christian faith has an ultimately dark and disturbing history. This isn't Constantine's fault, at least not directly (that probably has more to do with Emperor Theodosius I).

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Martingale]

I'm not convinced. The Merovingians were doomed in any case, and you're forgetting the monasteries. And Italy was still the population center. The Carolingian renaissance would have brought back Catholic Christianity.

when clovis (the first of the merovingians) overruns soissons in 486, all of gaul is either in control of germanic pagans or germanic arians. italy is a mess, with arian and catholic ostrogoths, lombards and eastern imperial troops contending for control. so this is a choke point for trinitarian christianity. when clovis converts to catholic christianity (496), he is the only warlord who is catholic. but he's the strongest and when he subdues the others and creates a unified state (basically what will become france and germany) its a catholic (trinitarian) state.

without clovis, the carolingians would have inherited a francia that was either pagan or arian.

disagree on the celtic church. give patrick his due, but pagan england was christianized by a mission from rome led by st. augustine of canterbury who also brought the celtic church back into the fold.

there's nothing definitive about this speculation, and spain was catholic by the late 5th century, but the islamic conquests put an end to that.

 

[Biblicist]

In my view the question is tough to answer as there have been a number of key individuals who the Lord has used particularly over the past 1000 years. It would be easy to simply say Martin Luther as his ministry not only changed the political landscape of the church but his efforts also changed the face of Europe and consequently North America and places such as Australia and New Zealand were established with a strong Christian ethic.

We could go back to the 1100's with Peter Valdez who positively affected much of Europe and later on with Wycliffe and Huss. We also have James Harmenson (Arminius) who was the Dutch Reformer who helped to return the church to a more Biblical Theology and of course John Wesley may be the one who ignited the church in a purely spiritual sense.

My vote would probably go for Wycliffe even though to many he is only known for his translation of the Bible into English but his greatest work was Theological which heavily influenced men such as Huss and others which is why he is often referred to as the "Morning Star of the Reformation".

 

[Anoetos]

Benny Hinn

 

[Walter Kovacs]

Joel Osteen
Creflo Dollar
John Haggee
Tim LaHaye
Sandi Patti

 

[Martingale]

In my view the question is tough to answer as there have been a number of key individuals who the Lord has used particularly over the past 1000 years. It would be easy to simply say Martin Luther as his ministry not only changed the political landscape of the church but his efforts also changed the face of Europe and consequently North America and places such as Australia and New Zealand were established with a strong Christian ethic......

I'm not an apologist for either the reformation or the counter-reformation. you might consider, against the background of these spiritual revivals, that a series of religious wars broke out: the schmalkaldic war, a series of wars called the thirty years war, the eighty years war, all of which devastated europe and depopulated germany (maybe over 30%) and left plague, other epidemic disease and famine in its wake. luther was aided or co-opted by the north german princes who used the reformation as a political tool in the same way that rome's war was by fought the holy roman empire for similar reasons. how this human tragedy reflects God's will for His church is hard for me to see. I believe that there are a large number of protestant and catholic counter/reformers and warlords who occupy their own circle of hell.

 

[Biblicist]

Who Was The Greatest Figure In Christian History After 100 A.D.?.......

I should point out that my reference to Luther was to the political change that followed the overthrow of the imperial religion of Rome and not with any supposed spiritual benefits or enlightenment that immediately followed the Reformation. In my opinion this massive event was probably not so much a spiritual renewal but one that was more political and certainly it did address many of the wicked practices that were endemic within the imperial religion of the time - its impact on the spiritual life of the church did seem to take some time before we begin to see any real substantial change.

Even though many would see the Reformation as being a major spiritual shift in that the authority of the Word of God was finally returned to its rightful place within the church; it is difficult to grant that it initially raised the spiritual cognisance of the church. Considering the woeful spiritual state of the imperial religion of the time even the most carnal passive religious adherent could not help but recognise how wicked the church had become so in my view Luther simply found himself in very fertile ground which saw many Kings and princes gladly accepting his stand; without their support he would have most likely found himself being quickly martyred.

It can be easy to simply say that the Reformation was an unexpected event that happened overnight; but I would say that it may have its roots with Peter Valdez in the late 1100’s and its theological strength had begun with Wycliffe in the 1300’s. Where Valdez appealed to the heart of many Europeans in that few would doubt the wickedness of the imperial religion of the day, it seems that Wycliffe was able to gain broad appeal by his fellow academics and as such his ministry became the catalyst for those who followed, such as with Huss and Luther.

The problem with the question that this topic asks is that there were simply too many men and not only with those such as Valdes, Wycliffe, Huss and Luther who played important roles in seeing the church return to its Apostolic roots and many of them are unknown to us; Huss is a good example of this as he would be well known to those in eastern Europe but to those outside of Europe most of us would know very little about him.

 

[Anoetos]

St. Vitalis of Assisi

 

[57Logos]

Polycarp
Menno Simons
John Calvin (I know even today this saint is hated by many, and I read a story where people where calling their dogs John Calvin, just to insult the man (II Timothy 3:12)
George Whitefield
Jonathan Edwards
Billy Sunday
Dwight Moody
Charles Spurgeon
David Jeremiah
RC Scrouls
Just to name a few.

 

[Ishraqiyun]

Valentinus.

He was taught by Theudas who was one of the Apostles Paul's brightest students. He is often frowned upon by many Christians but he was one of the first to use the word 'hypostasis' to describe the members of the Trinity. Origen seemed to be indebted to him in some of his speculations as well.

 

[CryptoLutheran]

Joel Osteen
Creflo Dollar
John Haggee
Tim LaHaye
Sandi Patti

Two words: Car. Man.

YouTube - ‪Carman - Who's in the House?‬‏

Annnnnnnnnnnd I win.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Walter Kovacs]

Dang. How could I forget Carmen?

Yo Kidz!

 

[Chrysostoma]

St Athanasius the Great