Describe Nature and History Christian Missions

UNIT STANDARD 116736

Describe the nature, history and different methods of Christian mission

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Unit Standard

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SOUTH AFRICAN QUALIFICATIONS AUTHORITYREGISTERED UNIT STANDARD:

Describe the nature, history and different methods of Christian mission

SAQA US ID UNIT STANDARD TITLE

116736 Describe the nature, history and different methods of Christian mission

ORIGINATOR REGISTERING PROVIDER

SGB Christian Theology and Ministry

QUALITY ASSURING BODY

-

FIELD SUBFIELD

Field 07 - Human and Social Studies Religious and Ethical Foundations of Society

ABET BAND UNIT STANDARD TYPE

OLD NQF LEVEL NEW NQF LEVEL CREDITS

Undefined Regular Level 4 NQF Level 04 4

REGISTRATION STATUS REGISTRATION START DATE

REGISTRATION END DATE

SAQA DECISION NUMBER

Reregistered 2007-08-07 2010-08-07 SAQA 0160/05

LAST DATE FOR ENROLMENT LAST DATE FOR ACHIEVEMENT

2011-08-07 2014-08-07

In all of the tables in this document, both the old and the new NQF Levels are shown. In the text (purpose statements, qualification rules, etc), any reference to NQF Levels are to the old levels unless specifically stated otherwise.

This unit standard does not replace any other unit standard and is not replaced by any other unit standard.

PURPOSE OF THE UNIT STANDARDThis Unit Standard will be useful to people who wish to understand or participate in Christian mission.


People credited with this Unit Standard are able to: Describe and discuss the nature and importance of Christian mission Outline the history and development of Christian mission in context Compare different methods and approaches to mission

LEARNING ASSUMED TO BE IN PLACE AND RECOGNITION OF PRIOR LEARNINGLearners are assumed to be competent in Communication at NQF Level 3 and Mathematical Literacy at NQF Level 2.

UNIT STANDARD RANGESpecific range statements are provided in the body of the Unit Standard where they apply to particular specific outcomes or assessment criteria.

Specific Outcomes and Assessment Criteria:

SPECIFIC OUTCOME 1Describe and discuss the nature and importance of Christian mission.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIAASSESSMENT CRITERION 1The nature and importance of Christian Mission is described and explained with reference to biblical texts and appropriate historical examples.

ASSESSMENT CRITERION 2The nature and importance of Christian Mission is described and explained with reference to prevalent views of mission in own faith.

ASSESSMENT CRITERION 3The view of mission in the learner`s own faith community is compared with that in other faith communities.

SPECIFIC OUTCOME 2Outline the history and development of Christian mission in context.OUTCOME RANGEFrom 1st century to present.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIAASSESSMENT CRITERION 1The main characteristics of different periods of Christian mission are described in accordance with recognized scholarship.

ASSESSMENT CRITERION 2The characteristics of mission in each period are described and explained with reference to the social, political and historical context.

SPECIFIC OUTCOME 3Compare different methods and approaches to mission.


OUTCOME RANGEAt least two comparisons, of different periods or different denominations.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIAASSESSMENT CRITERION 1The different methods and approaches to Mission are described in terms of similarities and differences.ASSESSMENT CRITERION RANGEBoth similarities and differences are included.

ASSESSMENT CRITERION 2The strengths and weaknesses of each method and approach to Mission are described with reference to their impact.

UNIT STANDARD ACCREDITATION AND MODERATION OPTIONSProviders of learning towards this Unit Standard will need to meet the accreditation requirements of the relevant ETQA.

Moderation Option:

The moderation requirements of the relevant ETQA must be met in order to award credit to learners for this Unit Standard.

UNIT STANDARD ESSENTIAL EMBEDDED KNOWLEDGEThe following essential embedded knowledge will be assessed through assessment of the specific outcomes in terms of the stipulated assessment criteria. Candidates are unlikely to achieve all the specific outcomes, to the standards described in the assessment criteria, without knowledge of the listed embedded knowledge. This means that for the most part, the possession or lack of the knowledge can be directly inferred from the quality of the candidate`s performance. Where direct assessment of knowledge is required, assessment criteria have been included in the body of the Unit Standard.

A broad general knowledge of world history and chronology during the last two millennia A broad general knowledge of the history of Christianity in the last two millennia Knowledge about cultures and value systems, and the way in which people of different cultures interact with each other

UNIT STANDARD DEVELOPMENTAL OUTCOMEN/A

UNIT STANDARD LINKAGESN/A

Critical Cross-field Outcomes (CCFO):

UNIT STANDARD CCFO COLLECTINGCollect, analyse, organise and critically evaluate information: by gathering and comparing historical information.


UNIT STANDARD CCFO COMMUNICATINGCommunicate effectively using visual, mathematical and/or language skills: The specific outcomes all require the use of language skills, and to a lesser extent, visual skills.

UNIT STANDARD CCFO DEMONSTRATINGUnderstand the world as a set of inter-related parts of a system: through interpreting information on the relationship between Christian mission and its context.

QUALIFICATIONS UTILISING THIS UNIT STANDARD:

ID QUALIFICATION TITLE OLD LEVEL

NEW LEVEL

STATUS END DATE

Core 49057 Further Education and Training Certificate: Theology and Ministry

Level 4 NQF Level 04

Reregistered 2010-08-07

PROVIDERS CURRENTLY ACCREDITED TO OFFER THIS UNIT STANDARD:This information shows the current accreditations (i.e. those not past their accreditation end dates), and is the most complete record available to SAQA as of today. Some Quality Assuring Bodies have a lag in their recording systems for provider accreditation, in turn leading to a lag in notifying SAQA of all the providers that they have accredited to offer qualifications and unit standards, as well as any extensions to accreditation end dates. The relevant Quality Assuring Body should be notified if a record appears to be missing from here.

NONE

All qualifications and unit standards registered on the National Qualifications Framework are public property. Thus the only payment that can be made for them is for service and reproduction. It is illegal to sell this material for profit. If the material is reproduced or quoted, the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) should be acknowledged as the source.


Learning Programme Guide

Introduction

This learning program is part of a complete qualification. For more details concerning the complete qualification please contact your service provider or alternatively the office of the HWSETA.

Purpose of this learning program

This Unit Standard will be useful to people who wish to understand or participate in Christian mission.

People credited with this Unit Standard are able to:

Describe and discuss the nature and importance of Christian mission Outline the history and development of Christian mission in context Compare different methods and approaches to mission

Learning assumed to be in place

Learners are assumed to be competent in Communication at NQF Level 3 and Mathematical Literacy at NQF Level 2.

Standards and qualifications

It is important that you as the learner understand and realize that this training program is not presented in isolation, but that it was developed based upon nationally recognized standards known as unit standards.

Unit standards are the “building blocks” of qualifications. All qualifications are plotted on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF).

Unit standards comprises of outcomes. An outcome is a statement that describes the required competency that must be demonstrated by the learner on successful completion of a training intervention.

Assessments

In order to assess whether a learner can actually demonstrate the desired outcomes, assessment criteria are included in the unit standard. Each outcome has its own set of assessment criteria.

THE ASSESSMENT CRITERIA DESCRIBE THE EVIDENCE THAT IS NEEDED THAT WILL SHOW THAT THE LEARNER HAS DEMONSTRATED THE OUTCOME CORRECTLY.

Kindly refer to the unit standard attached to for the assessment criteria.

It is of utmost importance that the learner fully understands the assessment criteria as listed in the unit standard, as it is the only way in which the learner will know what he will be assessed against.


The final or summative assessment is the most important aspect of this training program. It is during this process that the learner will be declared competent or not yet competent.

The learner will know exactly how he will be assessed, and when and where he will be assessed. All of these details must be obtained from the training provider where the learner enrolled for his program.

Each of the modules consists of learner outcomes to be achieved during training and development interventions, work related experience or at your own time. The learner outcomes will enable you to achieve the required level of confidence and competence in order to undergo the summative (final evaluations) assessment.

Range statements

Also included in the unit standard are the range statements in support of the assessment criteria.

THE RANGE STATEMENTS INDICATE DETAILED REQUIREMENTS OF THE ASSESSMENT CRITERIA.

The learner guide

The learner guide is included in this material under various learning units. The learner guide has been designed in such a manner that the learner is guided in a logical way through the learning material and requirements of the unit standard.

On completion of this skill program, the learner will be assessed against the assessment criteria as stipulated in the unit standard.

The learner needs to assess his own knowledge and skill throughout the training process by completing the learner workbook. With the completion of the workbook you start collecting evidence to proof your competence. The learner workbook will be assessed (FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT)

THE LEARNER GUIDE WILL REMAIN THE PROPERTY OF THE LEARNER ONCE THE LEARNING PROGRAM HAS BEEN COMPLETED.

The best results will be obtained if you start with Study Unit 1 in the Learner Guide, and work your way through it, study unit by study unit.

All learning outcomes are vital and must be studied (and exercised for all practical requirements) thoroughly to ensure that enough evidence for all specific outcomes is generated.

Icons

Indicates a checkpoint, or a short summary of the previous section.


Indicates an interesting fact that will enhance the learning experience for the learner.

Indicates were in the learning material an assessment criteria is covered.

Indicates the end of a chapter and summarises the key points in the chapter.

Preparation of summative assessment

After you have worked through the LEARNER GUIDE and you are satisfied that all theoretical and practical requirements/ evidence, as stipulated by the UNIT STANDARD, can be met, you need to make your own necessary arrangements with the assessor and/or facilitator. The training establishment will then arrange a suitable date for you to attend your pre-assessment meeting and then arrange for a suitable date to complete the final assessment.

RPL assessment

The assessment of RPL learners will be conducted in the same way as for those of new learners. The assessment pack is exactly the same and will therefore be used for new learners as well as RPL Learners. It must however be noted that learners who are applying for RPL must provide proof of previous learning and subject related experience prior to the assessment. This proof or evidence can be in the format of certified copies (certificates) of previous learning programs that have been attended.

All the evidence will be assessed and authenticated before a learner will be allowed to enroll for an RPL program.

Roles and responsibilities

Facilitator/instructor

Prepare to facilitate.Transfer of knowledge and skills

Learner Support and Provider Responsibility

The Provider as facilitator has the responsibility to create the optimum conditions in which the learner can achieve the prescribed competence. This involves facilitation in contact sessions, coaching and mentoring during the pursuit of assignments, support and guidance through evidence collection (especially RPL) assignments and formative and summative assessment. The provider is to conduct assessment of the learning outcomes and arrange for moderation.


http://images.google.co.za/imgres?imgurl=http://ninjaradio.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/scroll1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://ninjaradio.wordpress.com/2009/07/&usg=__8EEG1XmUDRE2aGceFY-5j3QkxSo=&h=357&w=478&sz=27&hl=en&start=4&sig2=bKj3t29hy3DpkBqXQrLsnQ&tbnid=JCDVeWglkvQKiM:&tbnh=96&tbnw=129&prev=/images?q=scroll&gbv=2&hl=en&sa=G&ei=tQ8FS46RMsn64Aaen6zRCw

The process of RPL is addressed in the assessment guide. KHANYA COLLEGE & Family Care Centre provides the learner with access to the following services in order to enhance the learning experience;

Expert guidance in the development of a learning path suited to the needs of the learner;Well developed text books and multimedia assistance on a wide range of topics;Open channels of communication with the facilitator via;Contact sessions;e-mail; One-on-One meetings; andTelephone assistance

Mentor/Coach

Assist learner in the application of skills in the workplaceAssist learner in the collection of evidence in the work placeTo verify authenticity of evidence collected in the workplace

The role of the assessor

Plan for the assessment Prepare the learner for the assessment Adhere to the policy of KHANYA COLLEGE & Family Care Centre

The role of the Learner

Prepare for assessment.Accept the responsibility of learning.Accept the responsibility to produce/deliver evidence. Adhere to the policy of KHANYA COLLEGE & Family Care Centre


Chapter 1: Describe and discuss the nature and

importance of Christian mission.

Specific Outcome

On completion of this chapter the learner must be able to describe and discuss the nature and importance of Christian mission.

Assessment Criteria

The nature and importance of Christian Mission is described and explained with reference to biblical texts and appropriate historical examples.The nature and importance of Christian Mission is described and explained with reference to prevalent views of mission in own faith.The view of mission in the learner`s own faith community is compared with that in other faith communities.

Introduction

Today the church is concerned about missions like it was never before. More and more Christians are committing themselves to serve in the missions field despite all the obstacles and risks involved with it. It is reported that many missionaries have been martyred for the past couple of years. Some of them have been burnt alive, Some have been hacked to death, Others have been shot. Most sadly many young missionary wives have been raped by anti Christian groups. But the number of people who sacrifice themselves for missions is increasing everyday.

So what importance does missions has that Christians sacrifice their lives so much?


Most people who come to know Jesus know little more than the idea that they are sinners and Jesus is their Saviour, but we must know more than these two truths in order to grow in our Christian walk.

The nature and importance of Christian Mission is

described and explained with reference to biblical texts

and appropriate historical examples.

Text: Matthew 28:16-20

Christian missions was originated in God’s heart

God sent His only begotten son to this earth on a missions trip, John 3:16

God devised the plan of salvation even before the fall of mankind. He foresaw everything with his divine knowledge. And when Adam and Eve sinned He did not destroy them and start over, instead He sent His own son as a missionary from heaven to earth to redeem the human race.

This is the reason why we claim missions originated in the heart of God. He had such a big burden for you and me that He sent His only son to die in a cross. Jesus the son of God who has never sinned gladly gave up His life on a cross, at the climax of His mission.

Are you ready to sacrifice yourself? Those who die in the missions field, are the ones who have understood the above truth. It is the belief of every missionary that death is a gain but to live is for Christ (Philippians 1:21).

Christian missions is a command, Matthew 28:19

The great commission itself refers to Christian missions

Jesus never used the word Christian missions, when He gave us the great commission. But even a Sunday school child can understand that Jesus is referring to missions. And He wants you and me to be a missionary to every people group on this earth. (Nations = [in Greek translation] ethnos => means “People groups). Let it be the gypsies, let it be the lowest people group you can find, but God wants you to evangelize them through means of missions.

And when we read Matthew 28:19 we must remember that missions are compulsory. It does not say “If you can go”. But it says “Go!”. Missions is not an alternative. It’s a command that each and every Christian should obey.

WE ARE ENJOYING SALVATION TODAY, BECAUSE A MISSIONARY SACRIFICED HIS LIFE YESTERDAY

We must not forget that the gospel came to Sri Lanka and the other Asian countries through missionaries like William Carey who sacrificed their whole life for the sake of the gospel. It would have been taken much longer for you and me to know Christ as our personal savior if they had turned their back to the calling of God. For faith comes from hearing the word of God only, and no one can hear the word of God if there is no one tell (Romans 10:17).

Missions is a one major reason why God sent the Holy Spirit, Acts 1:8

- Jesus said “you will be my witnesses…… to the end of the earth…Page | 13

LG US 116736: Describe the nature, history and different methods of Christian Mission. .23/04/08

Jesus did not say that we will be witnesses in our own locality once we are empowered with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But we will be witnesses to the end of the earth. And the history says the apostle Thomas came to India as a missionary. The apostles had only one purpose followed by the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That was to preach the gospel all over the world. Funny though in their time the world was too small. They knew nothing more than the region of Asia, and a couple of other continents. They assumed that’s the complete world. And they thought once they evangelize these areas their task is complete. So they did their best. This idea prevailed until Christopher Columbus discovered United States of America or the “New World”.

God did not anoint you to just to sit on a church pew and wait, desiring Jesus’ second coming. But God has called you and filled you with His Holy Spirit, so that you can Go unto the world and be a blessing!

You might tell me, “I can’t master a foreign language, I don’t have a missionary calling”. But I am telling you there are other ways you can contribute to missions like prayer and finances.

Today we have everything it takes. We have superb travelling facilities, high tech stuff, but are we really standing up to the need? Think about it.

http://www.virtualpreacher.org/sermon-why-christian-missions-are-important/

Christian Missions in the Third Millennium

Now facing its third millennium, the Christian church faces a moment of great historical importance and opportunity. The modern missionary movement is now over two centuries old. Looking back over those years, it is clear that God mobilized His people to make great strides in taking the gospel to many parts of the world.

This missionary movement has seen the evangelization of millions of persons

representing thousands of ethnic and cultural groups. The Bible has been translated into hundreds of languages and dialects. Over the last several decades, new areas of the world have shown a remarkable response to the gospel, and the continent of Africa may now be the center of the world missionary enterprise. In fact, the last half of the twentieth century saw an enormous evangelistic response throughout the Pacific Rim and the African continent.

Today, the Christian church faces new challenges. Without exaggeration, we can point to the twenty-first century as a new era in Christian missions, and recognize it as a vast new opportunity.

Looking at Christian missions today, we may be seeing the birth of a new missiological movement. This new era in missions will build upon the accomplishments of the last 200 years, but it must also be adapted to the new realities of our world context.


The most important dimension of any vision for world missions is a passion to glorify God. From beginning to end, the Bible declares that God is glorifying Himself in the salvation of sinners, and that He desires to be worshipped among all the peoples of the earth. The impulse of the missionary conviction is drawn from the assurance that God saves sinners, and that He is glorifying Himself by creating a new people through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, we have the glad opportunity to glorify God by declaring the Gospel to all the peoples of the earth.

As John Piper has stated, "The deepest reason why our passion for God should fuel missions is that God's passion for God fuels missions. Missions is the overflow of our delight in God because missions is the overflow of God's delight in being God." In missions, we share God's delight.

Pioneers such as William Carey gave birth to the modern missionary movement. It was Carey's sense of evangelistic passion, set upon a clear foundation of biblical truth and confidence in the gospel, which compelled him to leave the safe confines of England and go to India. The full harvest of William Carey's ministry will be known only in eternity. Most Christians are aware that he served for many years without a single convert. When many missionaries would have returned home or moved to greener pastures, Carey stayed and invested himself in India. He translated the New Testament and built bridges to the people of that great nation.

Since Carey's time, thousands of missionaries have left homes and families to take the gospel to the remotest parts of the earth. Reviewing the history of the missionary movement, it is clear that great gains were made for the gospel. At the same time, every generation has left its own imprint on the missionary task, and each generation is blind to some of the cultural baggage it takes along with the gospel. At the height of the mission’s movement in the Victorian era, it often seemed that missionaries were just as intent on Westernizing native peoples as in evangelizing them. A new awareness of the global context and respect for native cultures should lead us to be careful to preach the gospel rather than Western culture.

The new vision for world missions is directed toward the reaching of people groups rather than nations. Missiological focus upon the nation-state is a remnant of the nineteenth century, when nations were conceived as singular units and national identity was paramount. This paradigm was long out of date by the end of the twentieth century. Christians now recognize that there are thousands of distinct people groups, each identifiable by culture, language, and social structure--and they are not always divided neatly by political boundaries. Each of these people groups represents a distinct missiological challenge, and each must be considered in its own right.

While it is likely that churches and denominational gatherings will continue to celebrate a parade of the flags of the nations, the reality is that each of those nations includes a collective of various people groups desperately in need of the gospel--people groups often dispersed throughout the globe.

This should bring a new humility as well as growing urgency to the church. So long as we were able to count nation-states in terms of missionary saturation, we could see a tremendous advance and what seemed to be a constant march of progress. When people groups are taken into consideration, however, we can clearly see that the greater challenge still lies before us. This means that the Christian church must


develop cultural understanding and sensitivity, as well as linguistic and cultural dexterity, in the task of preaching the gospel to unreached persons.

This new vision for world missions is also remarkable in the fact that much, if not most, of the energy is coming from grassroots Christians rather than from institutional structures. Perhaps the greatest missionary advance among American churches is seen in the widespread participation of Christian laypersons in missionary trips and short-term mission projects. Churches that encourage and support this hands-on approach to missions will bear testimony to the powerful impact it has upon the participants and upon the missionary commitment of the entire congregation.

Today's Christians are looking for an experiential participation in the missionary challenge. They draw great excitement in hearing from missionaries, but even greater commitment by being participants in the missionary movement themselves. Because of this, this new vision is also congregational in its focus. Individual congregations are taking up the missionary challenge, and measuring their own faithfulness by the number of missionaries sent around the world from among their own members.

Much of this new vision is flowing out of reports from the 10/40 window--that portion of the world between latitudes 10 and 40 degrees, where most of the world's unreached peoples live. This focus on the Great Commission has led to a mobilization mentality that holds great promise for the future of the Christian church.

One missionary leader has defined this mobilization as "all of God's people reaching all the peoples of the earth." That motto sets the issue clearly. This generation must be committed to see all of God's people together reaching all the peoples of the earth without regard to race, culture, economic reality, or geographical or political obstacles.

Over the past half-century, America has seen several generational transitions. As the new millennium dawns, the Baby Boom generation is now in mid-adulthood, and some are heading toward retirement. The GI generation that built so many of the great institutions and provided leadership in our denomination and churches is now reaching advanced years, though many in this generation continue to be active participants and well-known leaders. Behind the Baby Boomers are coming "Generation X," the "Busters," and the "Millennials." How will these generations mold the missionary movement of the future?

This generation demonstrates a readiness to take on new challenges and to go where no previous generation has yet taken the gospel. They have been born into a culturally diverse world, and they are gifted with skills in intercultural communication. They are impatient with the cultural isolationism of previous generations. They see no political boundaries to the Gospel. They are ready to cross political borders and see no limitations on the Great Commission. Where previous generations wanted to support missions, this generation is determined to do missions. Incubated in an experience-driven culture, these young Christians are not interested in missions by proxy.

This new generation holds great promise, but it also demands urgent attention. The church needs to mobilize the energy of these younger Christians and deploy their


gifts in cultural translation and adaptation. Nevertheless, this generation has inherited a dwindling deposit of doctrinal and theological understanding. Our churches and seminaries must quickly be about the business of grounding this generation in biblical truth, even as they are mobilizing for world missions.

In all likelihood, these new generations will establish a missiological pattern of long duration. We may well see a tidal wave of participatory missions unlike anything seen by the Christian church since the first century. Finally, it is up to the church both to release their energy and to ground their convictions.

Our vision for world evangelization is an important barometer of spiritual and theological health. A vibrant commitment to Christ leads to a passion for the Gospel. A grand embrace of God's truth produces an enthusiasm to see God glorified as His name is proclaimed to the nations. It is time for a new generation to lead--and to point the way.

http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/07/30/christian-missions-in-the-third-millennium/

Check Point

Not everyth


The nature and importance of Christian Mission is

described and explained with reference to prevalent

views of mission in own faith.

The Purpose of Christian Missions - Seven Essential Tasks of

Effective Christian Missions

By Eric D Coggins

There are many important responsibilities applicable to Christian missions. Yet, of all that can be listed, there are seven essential tasks that are most central.

Christian Foreign Missions exists to:

1. Exalt the Name of the One True God 2. Exemplify the Body of Christ 3. Evangelize Unbelievers 4. Educate Disciples 5. Establish Local Church Bodies 6. Equip and Empower National Leaders 7. Encourage the National Church as Co-Laborers in Christ

Exalt the Name of the One True God

First, Christian missions exists to exalt the Name of the One True God. Christians believe there is only one Lord God Almighty, Creator of the universe and all living things. He made every human being to be special, unique persons with eternal value in his sight. To exalt His Name means to glorify God or, in plain terms, to make God look good and attractive to others. Certainly, others have the right to reject God, but they should never reject him because of the unseemly character of a mission group or team member.

Exemplify the Body of Christ

Second, Christian missions is about exemplifying the Body of Christ. To exemplify Christ's Body means to model the kind of loving fellowship that comes from knowing Jesus and walking together in God's Holy Presence. Christian missionaries are far from perfect, but as a group they exist to demonstrate to others around the world a type of support and camaraderie that does not exist in the secular world. Christian


mission teams are envoys or ambassadors that represent the Kingdom of God, a place of refuge, a safe harbor from the storms of life. To exemplify the Body of Christ means to value each member along with their special quirks and peculiarities and to help each other thrive to God's fullest potential. As such, team members seek God together and when conflict arises, as inevitably it will, they are quick to talk through differences, forgive one another and walk forward together, hand-in-hand.

Evangelize Unbelievers

The third essential task of Christian Missions is to evangelize unbelievers. Unfortunately, the term - evangelize- has a bad connotation, as it gives the picture of a Christian hammering a non-Christian over the head with a Bible until they cower into submission and - pray the sinner's prayer.- However, in this context, the term - evangelize- simply means - to tell the good news- of God's great love for them. To testify about Him, who He is and what He has done.

If there is only One True God, then it is an imperative that Christians, including Christian missionaries, tell others about Him and how they can have a relationship with Him. Telling others the good news also includes telling them about God's Son Jesus Christ, his loving sacrifice on the cross in order to pay the penalty for our sins, and how Jesus conquered death by resurrecting on the third day.

Perhaps, it should be written that telling the good news does not mean shoving Christ down another person's throat. Not even the most persuasive person can make another person a true believer by coercion. Christian's are called to be loving, kind and cordial. It is God's task to convince others to believe; it is the Christian missionary's task simply to present the good news in a loving manner.

Educate Disciples of Jesus Christ

The fifth purpose of Christian missions is to educate disciples. To educate disciples means to teach the new believers how to grow in their faith and knowledge of God and Jesus Christ. The main source of teaching should be the Christian Bible. New believers should be taught or trained in the basic fundamentals of Christian faith and practice, including how to:

Worship God Read and study the Bible Pray for themselves and others Fellowship with other believers Deal with conflict Forgive themselves and others Tell others about God and Jesus

Establish Local Church Bodies

Another task relevant to Christian missions is to establish local church bodies or to start new church groups. Christians were never meant to live their lives in isolation. Each person has been uniquely created to function within a wider organization of believers. The reason this is so is because each human being is finite in his or her abilities. No one is good at everything. Christians need one another to balance each other out and to help each other thrive to their optimum potential. The Christian Bible


tells us that each member of the Christian family has been given unique spiritual gifts to aide in the administration of the church. The goal is to establish a place of loving fellowship where fellow believers can worship God and support one another in their relationship with God and His Son, Jesus Christ.

It should be noted that establishing a local church does not mean making the church in the likeness of American or Western cultural norms. Each culture has its own unique expression of what it means to do church. Missionaries should allow national believers to explore what doing church means in their own cultural context.

Finally, one part of the task of establishing a local church body is to teach and train them in administration of the church. This includes guiding them through the process of:

Defining their own vision for the church, Writing out guidelines for church discipline Learning how to handle church finances.

Equip and Empower National Leaders

A sixth purpose of Christian Missions is to equip and empower national leaders. The ultimate goal of Christian mission teams is to work themselves out of a job. Many missionaries lack faith and trust in God to keep His church going when they leave. Christian leaders are often too slow to let go of the reigns of leadership to national believers. It seems a bit ironic that these missionaries, who trusted God enough to leave home and family to go to a strange land far off, are not able to muster enough faith in God to raise competent leadership in their stead. Even so, leadership development is a central task of the Christian mission team.

Encourage the National Church as Co-Labourers in Christ

It is not a proper objective for Christian mission organization to remain on soil forever. It is another imperative that mission teams define an exit strategy, clearly defining what a mature national church should look like and how to back out when the appropriate time comes. However, this does not mean that the relationship has to end. In fact, the seventh purpose of Christian missions is to encourage the national church as co-labourers in Christ. Such encouragement can come through letters or periodic visits. When a mission organization has exited from a foreign field, the national church and or one or more of the local bodies will have periods when they will experience hard times. It is not the job of the mission group to jump back over and re-take the reins, but rather to be there for moral support and encouragement.

There are many important responsibilities applicable to Christian missions. Yet, of all that can be listed, there are seven essential tasks that are most central. This article has outlined and briefly discussed the seven main points pertinent to Christian missions.

Eric Coggins and his family served as missionaries in Cambodia for six years. Beyond that, he has had extensive interaction with members of many different ethnic backgrounds including African-American, Latin American, Japanese, Korean,


Cambodian, Australian and European. His mission is to promote the best possible life for all everywhere in the world and to help them reach their God-given potential.

Are you living up to your God-given potential?

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Eric_D_Coggins What are its primary tasks of the church today?

The Church is the global Body of Christ formed for the salvation of the world. The United Methodist Book of Discipline helpfully reminds us of the nature of the local church as:

a place of disciple-making, a community of true believers under the Lordship of Christ,the redemptive fellowship where the Word of God is proclaimed, and the place where the sacraments are administered to the people of God.

The Discipline then breaks these tasks into three distinct activities: maintenance of worship, edification of believers, and the redemption of the world.

One of the congregations I serve has been transformed by the answer to this question. Over the last few years, we have been involved in not one, but two mission trips to Rio Bravo, Mexico. Although this is a fairly common occurrence for some congregations around the Oklahoma Conference, it has been extremely significant for our congregation. Not only had our congregation never been to Mexico on a mission trip, they had never participated in a Volunteer in Mission experience in the history of the congregation! The difference in the congregation has been profound, and I believe the reason relates directly to the nature and mission of the Church. As we participated in these two missions, we have received far more than we have given. The mission experiences have been far more than simply going to build homes and serve others; they have been opportunities for deepened discipleship, a testimony to the Lordship of Christ, the very proclamation of God’s word, and active participation in the redemption of the world.

As we have been formed by God’s true story of creation, fall, and above all, redemption, we have been much more sensitive to God’s claim on our lives and our community. Worship of the Living God is no longer simply “going to worship;” it is training for our missional life together as God’s people. Christian formation becomes far more than simply memorizing Scripture and learning historical facts about a dry and dusty faith; it becomes learning about a living and active God that we have seen working in our midst. Redeeming the world is no longer something we hope and pray for as though we are simply wishing for something impossible; it is something we have seen on the ground, incarnate in Christ, and lived in our experience.

As we are caught up in the passionate pursuit of God in our lives and world, the community of faith becomes the primary place where we grow as disciples, challenging one another, encouraging one another, and learning to embrace God’s guidance and grace. Although each of our Churches are imperfect and flawed, God has entrusted us with the call to carry out the mission of the Kingdom as God’s vision made known in our world. We receive a picture of this vision in Luke when we hear how Jesus initiated his mission as he read from the prophet Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to


proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19). As followers of Christ, we can expect no less than full participation in this mission and God’s vision: preaching good news to the poor, proclaiming release and recovery, releasing the oppressed, and proclaiming the Lord’s favor. This vision and understanding of the nature and mission of the Church is profound. As we move from an understanding of Church as “the place we meet on Sundays” to “an essential means God has given for redemption and salvation,” we will begin to live a different way. If live a life of faithful response to God’s call and vision for the Church, our congregations, our communities, and our world will never be the same.

http://catchingmeddlers.wordpress.com/2007/09/11/ordination-questions-nature-mission-of-the-church/

Check Point

Not everyth

The view of mission in the learner`s own faith

community is compared with that in other faith

communities.


Check Point

Not everyth

Wrap-Up

What have we learned?

Experience and reason are common to all human beings. Tradition will arise within any g

Self Assessment

Would you be able to; SO / AC YES NO

The nature and importance of Christian Mission is described and explained with reference to biblical texts and appropriate historical examples.

SO 1

AC 1

The nature and importance of Christian Mission is described and explained with reference to prevalent views of mission in own

SO 1


faith. AC 2

The view of mission in the learner`s own faith community is compared with that in other faith communities.

SO 1

AC 3


Chapter 2: Outline the history and development of

Christian mission in context.

Specific Outcome

On completion of this chapter the learner must be able to outline the history and development of Christian mission in context.

Assessment Criteria

The main characteristics of different periods of Christian mission are described in accordance with recognized scholarship.The characteristics of mission in each period are described and explained with reference to the social, political and historical context.

The main characteristics of different periods of Christian

mission are described in accordance with recognized

scholarship.

AC 1

History of Christian missionsSee also Timeline of Christian missions.According to the documents of

the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, the biblical authority for missions begins quite

early in Genesis 12:1-3, in which Abraham is blessed so that through him and his descendants, all the

"peoples" of the world would be blessed.

In this view, the early historical Jewish mission is that of being a people placed in the midst of the

other nations, situated so that they could proclaim the Creator God that blessed them. This view is

confirmed in many OT scriptures, (for example, Exodus 19:4-6, and Psalm 67) as well as the nature of

the temple (its outer court was "the court of the gentiles").

Several teachers including John R. W. Stott believe that a prominent prophecy in the Old Testament



often unfolds continually and is certainly manifested in three situations, an immediate historical

situation following the prophecy, a church-based intermediate situation, and an eschatological, end-of-

time situation. Of course, Gen. 12:1-3 is such a prominent passage.

One of the first Christian missionaries was St. Paul. He contextualized the gospel for the Greek and

Roman cultures, permitting it to reach beyond its Hebrew and Jewish context.

In the early Christian era, most missions were by monks. Monasteries followed disciplines and

supported missions, libraries and practical research, all of which were perceived as works to reduce

human misery and suffering, thus enhancing the reputation of God. For example, Nestorian

communities evangelized much of North Africa. Cistercians evangelized much of Northern Europe, as

well as developing most of European agriculture's classic techniques.

In the 16th century the proselyization of Asia was linked to the Portuguese colonial policy. With the

Papal bull Romanus Pontifex the patronage for the propagation of the Christian faith in Asia was given

to the Portuguese, who were rewarded with the right of conquest. The Portuguese trade with Asia was

profitable and as Jesuits came to India around 1540, the colonial government in Goa supported the

mission with incentives for baptized Christians.[1] Later, Jesuits were sent to China and further

countries in Asia. With the decline of the Portuguese power other colonial powers and Christian

organisations gain influence.

After the Reformation, for nearly a hundred years, occupied by their struggle with the Roman Catholic

Church, the Protestant churches were not missionary-sending churches. But in the centuries that

followed, the Protestant churches began sending missionaries in increasing numbers, spreading the

proclamation of the Christian message to previously unreached people. In North America,

missionaries to the native Americans included Jonathan Edwards, the well known preacher of the

Great Awakening, who in his later years retired from the very public life of his early career. He

became a missionary to the Housatonic Native Americans and a staunch advocate for them against

cultural imperialism.

As European culture has been established in the midst of indigenous peoples, the cultural distance

between Christians of differing cultures has been difficult to overcome. One early solution was the

creation of segregated "praying towns" of Christian natives. This pattern of grudging acceptance of

converts was repeated in Hawaii later when missionaries from that same New England culture went

there. In Spanish colonization of the Americas, the Catholic missionaries selected and learned among

the languages of the Amerindians and devised writing systems for them. Then they preached to them

in those languages (Quechua, Guarani, Nahuatl) instead of Spanish, to keep Indians away from

"sinful" whites. An extreme case were the Guarani Reductions, a theocratic semi-independent region

established by the Jesuits.


Around 1780, an indigent Baptist cobbler named William Carey began reading about James Cook's

Polynesian journeys. His interest grew to a furious sort of "backwards homesickness", inspiring him to

obtain Baptist orders, and eventually write his famous 1792 pamphlet, "An Enquiry into the Obligation

of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of Heathen." Far from a dry book of theology, Carey's

work used the best available geographic and ethnographic data to map and count the number of

people who had never heard the Gospel. It formed a movement that has grown with increasing speed

from his day to the present.

Carey's example was followed by a number of missions to seaside and port cities. The China

Overseas Missionaries and Moravian Church are two of the more famous.

Thomas Coke, the first bishop of the American Methodists, has been called "the Father of Methodist

Missions". After spending time in the young American republic strengthening the infant Methodist

Church alongside Episcopal colleague Francis Asbury, the British-born Coke left for mission work.

During his time in America, Coke worked vigorously to increase Methodist support of Christian

missions and raising up mission workers. Coke died while on a mission trip to India, but his legacy

among Methodists - his passion for missions - continues.

http://wpcontent.answers.com/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fc/Open_Air_Preaching_WB.jpg/200px-

Open_Air_Preaching_WB.jpg http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/style/images/magnify-

clip.pngMissionary preaching in China using The Wordless BookThe next wave of missions, starting

in the early 1850s, was to inland areas, led by Hudson Taylor with his China Inland Mission. Taylor

was later supported by Henry Grattan Guinness who founded Cliff College which exists today for the

purpose of training and equipping local and global mission.

The new wave of missions inspired by Taylor and Guinness have collectively been called "faith

missions" and owe much to the ideas and example of Anthony Norris Groves. Taylor was a thorough-

going nativist, offending the missionaries of his era by wearing Chinese clothing and speaking

Chinese at home. His books, speaking, and examples led to the formation of numerous inland

missions, and the Student Volunteer Movement (SVM), which from 1850 to about 1950 sent nearly

10,000 missionaries to inland areas, often at great personal sacrifice. Many early SVM missionaries to

areas with endemic tropical diseases left with their belongings packed in a coffin, aware that 80% of

them would die within two years.

In 1910, the Edinburgh Missionary Conference was held in Scotland. Presided over by active SVM

leader (and future Nobel Peace Prize recipient) John R. Mott, an American Methodist layperson, the

conference reviewed the state of evangelism, Bible translation, mobilization of church support, and

the training of indigenous leadership. Looking to the future, conferees worked on strategies for

worldwide evangelism and cooperation. The conference not only established greater ecumenical

cooperation in missions, but also essentially launched the modern ecumenical movement.


The next wave of missions was started by two missionaries, Cameron Townsend and Donald

McGavran, around 1935. These men realized that although earlier missionaries had reached

geographic areas, there were numerous ethnographic groups that were isolated by language, or class

from the groups that missionaries had reached. Cameron formed Wycliffe Bible Translators to

translate the Bible into native languages. McGavran concentrated on finding bridges to cross the class

and cultural barriers in places like India, which has upwards of 4,600 peoples, separated by a

combination of language, culture and caste. Despite democratic reforms, caste and class differences

are still fundamental in many cultures.

An equally important dimension of missions strategy is the indigenous method of nationals reaching

their own people. In Asia this wave of missions was pioneered by men like Dr G. D. James of

Singapore, Rev Theodore Williams of India and Dr David Cho of Korea. The "two thirds missions

movement" as it is referred to, is today a major force in missions.

Most modern missionaries and missionary societies have repudiated cultural imperialism, and elected

to focus on spreading the gospel and translating the Bible. Sometimes, missionaries have been vital

in preserving and documenting the culture of the peoples among whom they live.

Often, missionaries provide welfare and health services, as a good deed or to make friends with the

locals. Thousands of schools, orphanages, and hospitals have been established by missions. One of

the quietest, yet most far-reaching services provided by missionaries started with the Each one, teach

one literacy program begun by Dr. Frank Laubach in the Philippines in 1935. The program has since

spread around the world and brought literacy to the least enabled members of many societies.

The word "mission" was historically often applied to the building, the "mission station" in which the

missionary lives or works. In some colonies, these mission stations became a focus of settlement of

displaced or formerly nomadic people. Particularly in rural Australia, missions have become localities

or ghettoes on the edges of towns which are home to many Indigenous Australians. The word may be

seen as derogatory when used in this context.

Missions: Information from Answers.com

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Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a Postmodern WorldRichard Bauckham

cover image:

Carlisle, Grand Rapids: Paternoster Press, Baker Book House2003Andrew Perriman

review:

This is a straightforward synopsis of Richard Bauckham’s Bible and Mission: Christian Witness in a

Postmodern World. The book has some good ideas that might be worth exploring further. It understands

the problem of universalism and offers a number of perspectives on the nature of the biblical narrative

and Christian witness that may help in the development of a constructive response to postmodernism.

A hermeneutic for the kingdom of God

This is a short, focused book, originally

presented as a series of lectures in Cambridge and Ethiopia. It starts with

September 11 and an article in The Times by the Chief

Rabbi of Britain, Jonathan Sacks, addressing the problem of ‘cultural

universalism’. Sacks’ argument is that September 11 represented the collision

of two universalist cultures, two militant metanarratives: Islam and global

capitalism. His solution to the problem is an essentially postmodern call to

respect diversity, especially religious diversity: ‘God no more wants all

faiths and cultures to be the same than a loving parent wants his or her children

to be the same’ (7).

Bauckham then asks where Christianity

stands in all this. Rather than making God universal and religion particular as

Sacks does, he argues that God is both universal and particular:

‘We do not find God by abstracting God from the particularities of God’s

history with Israel’ (10).

This is central to the structure of

Christian faith. The Bible itself ‘embodies a kind of movement from the

particular to the universal’; mission is always a journey from the particular

to the universal. Bauckham sketches a narrative hermeneutic that recognizes the

force of this dynamic on three levels: i) a temporal movement from

creation to the eschatological future; ii) a spatial movement from a

particular place to the ends of the earth; and iii) a social movement

from the one to the many. In the realistic, historical narratives of scripture

this pattern is always incomplete and recurrent; the expectation of fulfilment,

however, is expressed through a ‘rich variety of narrative metaphors and

images’ (16).

The language of the New Testament ‘strongly

suggests that this universal goal has been almost or even already achieved at

the time of writing’ – Bauckham has in mind, for example, the parousia

expectation. This ‘hyperbole’, however, with its ‘anticipated closure of

history’, is offset by a ‘permanent narrative openness’: the abrupt termination


of the book of Acts is read as an example of how the story of mission is left

open-ended.

From the one to the many

Chapter two examines the movement from the

particular to the universal in relation to four biblical narrative

trajectories, the first three of which begin with a singular choice: Abraham,

Israel, David.

The trajectory that moves from

Abraham to all the families of the earth is the trajectory of blessing. The

trajectory that moves from Israel to all the nations is the trajectory of God’s

revelation of himself to the world. The trajectory that moves from God’s

enthronement of David in Zion to the ends of the earth is the trajectory of

rule, of God’s kingdom coming in all creation. (27)

The fourth trajectory begins with God

choosing not an individual but ‘the least’: the poor, the powerless, the weak,

the marginalized. The central paradigm for this trajectory is, of course, the

cross.

The claim that God

is to be encountered and salvation found in a crucified man – a man stripped of

all status and honour, dehumanized, the lowest of the low – is the offence of

the cross. This is the real scandal of particularity – not just that God’s

universal purpose pivots on one particular human being (though that was

stumbling-block enough for the philosophically educated in Paul’s day and the

Enlightenment rationalists of our own), but, much worse, that God’s universal

purpose pivots on this particular human being, the crucified one. (52)

This trajectory also has social and ethical

implications: ‘The gospel does not come to each person only in terms of some

abstracted generality of human nature, but in the realities and differences of

their social and economic situations’ (53).

Geography – sacred and symbolic

In chapter three Bauckham argues for the

idea of a ‘representative geography’ as a means of reading the universalism of

Old Testament prophecy correctly (63). The nations mentioned in the Old

Testament have their own particularity, but as such they also stand for all

peoples at all times. So when Isaiah speaks of an eschatological ‘mission’ to

Tarshish, Put, Lud, Meshech, Tubal, Javan and the coastlands, these places are

representative, Bauckham suggests, of the scope of the early Christian mission

to the Mediterranean, which in turn is representative of the whole world.

Roughly speaking, the Old Testament has a

centripetal view of mission (the nations are drawn to Zion) whereas the New

Testament model is essentially centrifugal (the disciples are sent out into the


world). There are, however, exceptions: Isaiah 66:19 speaks of ‘survivors’

being sent out to the nations; Jesus’ image of a city set on a hill in Matthew

5:14 echoes Old Testament ideas. Both movements presuppose the geographical

centrality of Jerusalem (75). But the ‘new Temple’ is the church, and as the

church spread throughout the world, the distinction between centre and

periphery, between centripetal and centrifugal movement, has become less

relevant. Bauckham suggests that ‘witness’ as a missiological paradigm transcends

both these aspects – an argument that is developed in the final chapter. In

this case, the more appropriate geographical image may be that of diaspora:

It may be that this image will come

into its own again as the church in the postmodern west reconceptualizes its

missionary relationship to a post-Christian society. The church in the west may

have to get used to the idea that its own centre in God, from which it goes out

to others in proclamation and compassion, is actually a position of social and

cultural exile or marginality. This may improve its witness to the Christ who

was himself so often found at the margins.

Witness to the truth in a postmodern and globalized world

In chapter four Bauckham develops the idea

of ‘witness’ as a paradigm for mission in a postmodern and globalized world. He

recognizes the force of the postmodern critique of metanarratives:

Is not the narrative movement of

the Bible from particularity to universality, which has been the main theme of

this book, a kind of narrative imperialism or ecclesiastical globalization, a

form of self-aggrandizement on the church’s part, by which the church

universalizes its own story, foists it on others, subjects others to it,

suppresses their own stories and deprives them of the opportunity to write

their own stories? (89)

His response is to suggest that there is an

important respect in which the biblical story is not like the modern totalizing

metanarratives that are the target of postmodernist deconstruction. The

biblical story is not one of ‘human mastery’; space must be allowed for human

freedom; history becomes comprehensible only to the extent that God reveals and

fulfils his purposes. ‘The biblical story certainly does, in an important

sense, disclose the meaning of the whole, but not in such a way as to make

history transparent to its divinely intended purpose’ (91). In effect, the

argument is that it is God who deconstructs any tendency that we may have to

make of mission a modern totalizing project: ‘In many ways… mission is not the

imposing of predetermined patterns on to history, but openness to the

incalculable ways of God in history’ (92).

Bauckham also points out that the Bible

does not have a ‘carefully plotted single story-line’; it is a ‘sprawling

collection of narratives along with much non-narrative material that stands in


a variety of relationships to the narratives’. There is no definitive,

summarizing narrative; the Bible ‘resists closure’. The high degree of

complexity and fragmentation in the biblical narrative makes it difficult to

suppress the particular ‘for the sake of a too readily comprehensible

universal’ (93).

However, when it comes to the question of

the truth of the biblical metanarrative Bauckham believes that

Christians must simply contest the postmodern ‘preference for diversity over

truth’. In the openness of history claims to truth must remain debatable, but,

paradoxically, it is those who are committed to truth claims who can be

genuinely open to dialogue. The form of assertion most appropriate to the

nature of Christian truth is ‘witness’ – ‘an extremely valuable image with

which to meet the postmodern suspicion of all metanarratives as oppressive’

(99). Witnesses ‘mediate the particularity of the biblical story and the

universality of its claim’.

Witness is understood essentially as a

telling of the biblical story or stories, rather than as a recounting of

personal experience. It is these narratives that convey the ‘qualitative

difference’ of the Christian understanding of God, that subvert the will to

power, and call into question the globalizing metanarratives of political and

cultural imperialism. ‘What Jesus projects is a counter-metanarrative…, a

narrative not of coercive power but of witness’ (107).

http://www.opensourcetheology.net/node/343

Modern missionary methods and doctrines

A Christian missionary's objective is to give an understandable presentation of their beliefs with the hope that people will choose to convert from other faiths to Christianity. As a matter of strategy, many evangelical Christians in Europe and North America now focus on what they call the "10/40 window", a band of countries between 10 and 40 degrees north latitude and reaching from western Africa through Asia. Christian missions strategist Luis Bush pinpointed the need for a major focus of evangelism in the "10/40 Window", a phrase he coined in his presentation at the missionary conference Lausanne 1989 in Manila. Sometimes referred to as the "Resistant Belt", it is an area that includes 35% of the world's land mass, 90% of the world's poorest peoples and 95% of those who have yet to hear anything about Christianity.

In modern missionary strategy, mission stations and/or Mission hospitals are deprecated, because they were historically ineffective. Mission stations normally created disaffected individual converts, often seen as an outcast by their family and culture. In many cases, the only source of converts to a mission station were the orphans raised in the station's orphanage. Also, many mission station's converts were so alienated from surrounding cultures that they were unable to get work outside the mission station, let alone act as cultural ambassadors for Christianity. In


some cases, these paid "rice bowl Christians" actively impeded Christian conversion in the mission's schools and orphanages so that their own incomes would not be reduced as more Christians came to depend on the mission station.

Modern pioneering missionary doctrines now focus on inserting a culturally adapted seed of Christian doctrines into a self-selected, self-motivated group of native believers, without removing the natives from their culture in any way.

Modern mission techniques are sufficiently refined that within ten to fifteen years, most native churches are natively pastored, managed, taught, self-supporting and evangelizing. The process can be substantially faster if a preexisting translation of the Bible and higher pastoral education are already available, perhaps left-over from earlier, less effective missions.

A key approach is to let native cultural groups decide to adopt Christian doctrines and benefits, when (as in most cultures) such major decisions are normally made by groups. In this way, opinion leaders in the groups can persuade much or most of the groups to convert. When combined with training in church planting and other modern missionary doctrine, the result is an accelerating, self-propelled conversion of large portions of the culture.

A typical modern mission is a co-operative effort by many different ministries, often including several coordinating ministries, often with separate funding sources. One typical effort proceeded as follows:

1. A missionary radio group recruits, trains and broadcasts in the main dialect of the target culture's language. Broadcast content is carefully adapted to avoid syncretism yet help the Christian Gospel seem like a native, normal part of the target culture. Broadcast content often includes news, music, entertainment and education in the language, as well as purely Christian items.

2. Broadcasts might advertise programs, inexpensive radios (possibly spring-wound), and a literature ministry that sells a Christian mail-order correspondence course at nominal costs. The literature ministry is key, and is normally a separate organization from the radio ministry. Modern literature missions are shifting to web-based content where it makes sense (as in Western Europe and Japan).

3. When a person or group completes a correspondence course, they are invited to contact a church-planting missionary group from (if possible) a related cultural group. The church-planting ministry is usually a different ministry from either the literature or radio ministries. The church-planting ministry usually requires its missionaries to be fluent in the target language, and trained in modern church-planting techniques.

4. The missionary then leads the group to start a church. Churches planted by these groups are usually a group that meets in a house. The object is the minimum organization that can perform the required character development and spiritual growth. Buildings, complex ministries and other expensive items are mentioned, but deprecated until the group naturally achieves the size and budget to afford them. The crucial training is how to set up a church (meet to study the Bible, and perform communion and worship), and how to become a Christian (the finer points of obeying God), usually in that order.


5. A new generation of churches is created, and the growth begins to accelerate geometrically. Frequently, daughter churches are created only a few months after a church's creation. In the fastest-growing Christian movements, the pastoral education is "pipelined", flowing in a just-in-time fashion from the central churches to daughter churches. That is, planting of churches does not wait for the complete training of pastors.

The most crucial part of church planting is selection and training of leadership. Classically, leadership training required an expensive stay at a seminary, a Bible college. Modern church planters deprecate this because it substantially slows the growth of the church without much immediate benefit. Modern mission doctrines replace the seminary with programmed curricula or (even less expensive) books of discussion questions, and access to real theological books. The materials are usually made available in a major trading language in which most native leaders are likely to be fluent. In some cases, the materials can be adapted for oral use.

It turns out that new

pastors' practical needs for theology are well addressed by a combination of practical procedures for church planting, discussion in small groups, and motivated Bible-based study from diverse theological texts. As a culture's church's wealth increases, it will naturally form classic seminaries on its own.

Another related mission is Bible translation. The above-mentioned literature has to be translated. Missionaries actively experiment with advanced linguistic techniques to speed translation and literacy. Bible translation not only speeds a church's growth by aiding self-training, but it also assures that Christian information becomes a permanent part of the native culture and literature. Some ministries also use modern recording techniques to reach groups with audio that could not be soon reached with literature.

AC 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Christianity


Early Christianity (~33–325)

Main article: History of early Christianity

Early Christianity refers to the period when the religion spread in the Greek/Roman world and beyond, from its beginnings as a 1st century Jewish sect (see the Gospel according to the Hebrews),[12] to the end of imperial persecution of Christians after the ascension of Constantine the Great in AD 313, to the First Council of Nicaea in 325. It may be divided into two distinct phases: the apostolic period, when the first apostles were alive and organising the Church, and the post-apostolic period, when an early episcopal structure developed, whereby bishoprics were governed by bishops (overseers).

The diversity of early Christianity can be documented from the New Testament record itself. The first three "synoptic" gospels give a significantly different view of Jesus than the fourth (the Gospel of John), although ultimately the Church decided to accept all of them. The Book of Acts, although it attempts to tone things down to a more eirenic account, admits conflicts between Hebrews and Hellenists, Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, Pharisaic Christians and non-Pharisaic Christians. The letters of Paul, Peter, John, and Jude all testify to intra-Church conflicts over both leadership and theology, sometimes resulting in schisms and mutual anathemas; and the Book of Revelation tells a similar story. Far from being an ideal model of Christian unity, the first century Church was a battleground of competing personalities and competing ideologies--and according to Clement, it was precisely this kind of conflict which led to the deaths of Peter and Paul at Rome, and the slaughter of a "vast multitude" of Roman Christians at the hand of Nero.

[edit] Apostolic Church

Main article: Apostolic Age

See also: Cenacle

The Apostolic Church, called by some the Primitive Church, was the community led by Jesus' apostles and his relatives.[13] According to the Great Commission, the resurrected Jesus commanded the disciples to spread his teachings to all the world. The primary source of information for this period is the Acts of the Apostles, which gives a history of the Church from the Great Commission (1:3–11), Pentecost (2) and the establishment of the Jerusalem Church to the spread of the religion among the gentiles (10)[14], Paul's conversion (9, 22, 26) and eventual imprisonment (house arrest: 28:30–31) in Rome in the mid-first century.[15]

The first Christians were essentially all ethnically Jewish or Jewish Proselytes. In other words, Jesus preached to the Jewish people and called from them his first disciples, though the earliest documented "group" of appointed evangelisers, called the Seventy Disciples, was not specifically ethnically Jewish and the Great Commission is specifically directed at "all nations". An early difficulty arose concerning the matter of Gentile (non-Jewish) converts as to whether they had to "become Jewish" (usually referring to circumcision and adherence to dietary law, see also Judaisers) as part of becoming Christian. Circumcision was considered repulsive during the period of Hellenization of the Eastern Mediterranean [16] . The decision of Peter, as evidenced by conversion of the Centurion Cornelius,[17] was that they did not, and the matter was further addressed with the Council of Jerusalem, see also Primacy of Simon


Peter. See Biblical law in Christianity for the modern debate. For the parallel in Judaism, see Noahide Law.

The doctrines of the apostles brought the Early Church into conflict with some Jewish religious authorities. This eventually led to their expulsion from the synagogues, (see also Council of Jamnia) Acts records the martyrdom of SS. Stephen and James the Great. Thus, Christianity acquired an identity distinct from Rabbinic Judaism, see also List of events in early Christianity and Christianity and Judaism. The name "Christian" (Greek Χριστιανός) was first applied to the disciples in Antioch, as recorded in Acts 11:26.[18]

[edit] Worship of Jesus

Christ Jesus,[19] the Good Shepherd, 3rd century.

The Ten Commandments on a monument on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol. The third non-indented commandment listed is "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy", but see also Biblical law in Christianity.

The sources for the beliefs of the apostolic community include the Gospels and New Testament Epistles. The very earliest accounts are contained in these texts, such as early Christian creeds and hymns, as well as accounts of the Passion, the empty tomb, and


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Resurrection appearances; often these are dated to within a decade or so of the crucifixion of Jesus, originating within the Jerusalem Church.[20]

The earliest Christian creeds and hymns express belief in the risen Jesus, e.g., that preserved in 1 Corinthians 15:3–4 quoted by Paul: "For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures."[21] The antiquity of the creed has been located by many scholars to less than a decade after Jesus' death, originating from the Jerusalem apostolic community,[22] and no scholar dates it later than the 40s.[23] Other relevant and very early creeds include 1 John 4:2 ,[24] 2 Timothy 2:8 ,[25] Romans 1:3–4,[26] and 1 Timothy 3:16 , an early creedal hymn.[27]

[edit] Jewish continuity

See also: anti-Judaism, Jewish Christian, Biblical law in Christianity, Sabbath in the Bible, Sabbath in Christianity, and Paul of Tarsus and Judaism

Early Christianity retained some of the doctrines and practices of first-century Judaism while rejecting others. They held the Jewish scriptures to be authoritative and sacred, employing mostly the Septuagint or Targum translations, later called the Old Testament, a term associated with Supersessionism, and added other texts as the New Testament canon developed. Christianity also continued other Judaic practices: baptism [28] , liturgical worship, including the use of incense, an altar, a set of scriptural readings adapted from synagogue practice, use of sacred music in hymns and prayer, and a religious calendar, as well as other distinctive features such as an exclusively male priesthood, and ascetic practices (fasting etc.). Circumcision was rejected as a requirement at the Council of Jerusalem, c. 50. Sabbath observance was modified, perhaps as early as Ignatius' Epistle to the Magnesians 9.1[29]. Quartodecimanism (observation of the Paschal feast on Nisan 14, the day of preparation for Passover) was formally rejected at the First Council of Nicaea.

The early Christians in the first century believed Yahweh to be the Only true God, the God of Israel, and considered Jesus to be the Messiah (Christ) prophesied in the Old Testament. Alister McGrath, a proponent of palaeo-orthodoxy, claimed that many of the Jewish Christians were fully faithful religious Jews, only differing in their acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah.[30]

[edit] Ecclesiastical structure

The Apostolic Church hierarchy was organised into Overseers (Bishop, Elder, Presbyter) and Servants (Deacons). Clement, a Bishop of Rome, refers to the leaders of the Corinthian church as bishops and presbyters indifferently. He writes that the bishops are to lead God's flock by virtue of the chief Shepherd - Jesus Christ.

Important bishops of the Apostolic Era include Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch, who, along with Polycarp of Smyrna, reportedly knew and studied under the apostles personally and are therefore called Apostolic Fathers.

[edit] Post-Apostolic Church


St. Lawrence before Emperor Valerianus (martyred 258) by Fra Angelico

The post-apostolic period concerns the time roughly after the death of the apostles when bishops emerged as overseers of urban Christian populations, and continues during the time of persecutions until the legalisation of Christian worship with the advent of Constantine the Great. The earliest recorded use of the terms Christianity (Greek Χριστιανισμός) and Catholic (Greek καθολικός), dates to this period, attributed to Ignatius of Antioch c. 107.[31]

[edit] Persecutions

Main article: Persecution of Christians in the New Testament

Main article: Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire

From the beginning, Christians were subject to various persecutions. This involved even death for Christians such as Stephen (Acts 7:59) and James, son of Zebedee (12:2). Larger-scale persecutions followed at the hands of the authorities of the Roman Empire, beginning with the year 64, when, as reported by the Roman historian Tacitus, the Emperor Nero blamed them for that year's great Fire of Rome.

According to Church tradition, it was under Nero's persecution that Saints Peter and Paul were each martyred in Rome. Similarly, several of the New Testament writings mention persecutions and stress endurance through them. For 250 years Christians suffered from sporadic persecutions for their refusal to worship the Roman emperor, considered treasonous and punishable by execution. In spite of these at-times intense persecutions, the Christian religion continued its spread throughout the Mediterranean Basin.

[edit] Ecclesiastical structure

By the late first and early second century, a hierarchical and episcopal structure becomes clearly visible. Post-apostolic bishops of importance are Polycarp of Smyrna and Irenaeus of Lyons. This structure was based on the doctrine of Apostolic Succession where, by the ritual of the laying on of hands, a bishop becomes the spiritual successor of the previous bishop in a


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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lawrence-before-Valerianus.jpg

line tracing back to the apostles themselves. Each Christian community also had presbyters, as was the case with Jewish communities, who were also ordained and assisted the bishop; as Christianity spread, especially in rural areas, the presbyters exercised more responsibilities and took distinctive shape as priests. Lastly, deacons also performed certain duties, such as tending to the poor and sick.

[edit] Early Christian writings

Main article: Ante-Nicene Fathers

As Christianity spread, it acquired certain members from well-educated circles of the Hellenistic world; they sometimes became bishops but not always. They produced two sorts of works: theological and "apologetic", the latter being works aimed at defending the faith by using reason to refute arguments against the veracity of Christianity. These authors are known as the Church Fathers, and study of them is called Patristics. Notable early Fathers include Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyons, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Origen of Alexandria, etc.

[edit] Early iconography

Virgin and Child. Wall painting from the early catacombs, Rome, 4th century.Main article: Early Christian art

Christian art only emerged relatively late, and the first known Christian images emerge from about AD 200,[32] though there is some literary evidence that small domestic images were used earlier. Although many Hellenised Jews seem, as at the Dura-Europos synagogue, to have had images of religious figures, the traditional Mosaic prohibition of "graven images" no doubt retained some effect, see also Idolatry in Christianity. This early rejection of images, although never proclaimed by theologians, and the necessity to hide Christian practise from persecution, leaves us with few archaeological records regarding early Christianity and its evolution.[33] The oldest Christian paintings are from the Roman Catacombs, dated to about AD 200, and the oldest Christian sculptures are from sarcophagi, dating to the beginning of the 3rd century.[33]

[edit] Early heresies

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (December 2007)

Main article: Christian heresy#Early Christian heresies


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The New Testament itself speaks of the importance of maintaining orthodox doctrine and refuting heresies, showing the antiquity of the concern.[34] Because of the biblical proscription against false prophets (notably the Gospels of Matthew and Mark) Christianity has always been preoccupied with the "correct", or orthodox, interpretation of the faith. Indeed one of the main roles of the bishops in the early Church was to determine the correct interpretations and refute contrarian opinions (referred to as heresy). As there were differing opinions among the bishops, defining orthodoxy would consume the Church for some time (and still does, hence, "denominations").

In his book Orthodoxy, Christian Apologist and writer G. K. Chesterton asserts that there have been substantial disagreements about faith from the time of the New Testament and Jesus. He pointed out that the Apostles all argued against changing the teachings of Christ as did the earliest church fathers including Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr and Polycarp (see false prophet, the antichrist, the gnostic Nicolaitanes from the Book of Revelation and Man of Sin). Jesus also refers to false prophets (Mark 13:21–23) and the "darnel" (Matthew 13:25–30, 13:36–43) of the flock and how their distortion of the Christian faith is to be rejected.

The earliest controversies were generally Christological in nature; that is, they were related to Jesus' (eternal) divinity or humanity. Docetism held that Jesus' humanity was merely an illusion, thus denying the incarnation. Arianism held that Jesus, while not merely mortal, was not eternally divine and was, therefore, of lesser status than God the Father (John 14:28). Trinitarianism held that God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit were all strictly one being with three hypostases. Many groups held dualistic beliefs, maintaining that reality was composed into two radically opposing parts: matter, usually seen as evil, and spirit, seen as good. Others held that both the material and spiritual worlds were created by God and were therefore both good, and that this was represented in the unified divine and human natures of Christ.[35]

The development of doctrine, the position of orthodoxy, and the relationship between the various opinions is a matter of continuing academic debate. Since most Christians today subscribe to the doctrines established by the Nicene Creed, modern Christian theologians tend to regard the early debates as a unified orthodox position (see also Proto-orthodox Christianity and Palaeo-orthodoxy) against a minority of heretics. Other scholars, drawing upon, among other things, distinctions between Jewish Christians, Pauline Christians, and other groups such as Gnostics and Marcionites, argue that early Christianity was fragmented, with contemporaneous competing orthodoxies.[36]

[edit] Biblical canon

Main article: Biblical canon (Christian)

See also: Deuterocanonical books, Biblical Apocrypha, and Antilegomena


A folio from P46, an early 3rd century collection of Pauline epistles.

The Biblical canon is the set of books Christians regard as divinely inspired and thus constituting the Christian Bible. Though the Early Church used the Old Testament according to the canon of the Septuagint (LXX), the apostles did not otherwise leave a defined set of new scriptures; instead the New Testament developed over time.

The writings attributed to the apostles circulated amongst the earliest Christian communities. The Pauline epistles were circulating in collected form by the end of the first century AD. Justin Martyr, in the early second century, mentions the "memoirs of the apostles", which Christians called "gospels" and which were regarded as on par with the Old Testament.[37] A four gospel canon (the Tetramorph) was in place by the time of Ireanaeus, c. 160, who refers to it directly.[38] By the early 200's, Origen of Alexandria may have been using the same 27 books as in the modern New Testament, though there were still disputes over the canonicity of Hebrews, James, II Peter, II and III John, and Revelation,[39] see also Antilegomena. Likewise the Muratorian fragment shows that by 200 there existed a set of Christian writings somewhat similar to what is now the New Testament, which included the four gospels.[40] Thus, while there was a good measure of debate in the Early Church over the New Testament canon, the major writings were accepted by almost all Christians by the middle of the second century.[41]

In his Easter letter of 367, Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, gave a list of exactly the same books as what would become the New Testament canon,[42] and he used the word "canonised" (kanonizomena) in regards to them.[43] The African Synod of Hippo, in 393, approved the New Testament, as it stands today, together with the Septuagint books, a decision that was repeated by Councils of Carthage in 397 and 419.[44] These councils were under the authority of St. Augustine, who regarded the canon as already closed.[45] Pope Damasus I's Council of Rome in 382, if the Decretum Gelasianum is correctly associated with it, issued a biblical canon identical to that mentioned above,[42] or if not the list is at least a sixth century compilation.[46] Likewise, Damasus's commissioning of the Latin Vulgate edition of the Bible, c. 383, was instrumental in the fixation of the canon in the West.[47] In 405, Pope Innocent I sent a list of the sacred books to a Gallic bishop, Exsuperius of Toulouse. When these bishops and councils spoke on the matter, however, they were not defining something new, but instead "were ratifying what had already become the mind of the Church."[48] Thus, from the fourth century, there existed unanimity in the West concerning the New Testament canon (as it is today),[49] and by the fifth century the East, with a few exceptions, had come to accept the


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Book of Revelation and thus had come into harmony on the matter of the canon.[50] Nonetheless, a full dogmatic articulation of the canon was not made until the Council of Trent of 1546 for Roman Catholicism,[51] the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563 for the Church of England, the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 for Calvinism, and the Synod of Jerusalem of 1672 for the Greek Orthodox.

[edit] Church of the Roman Empire (313–476)

Spread of Christianity to AD 325 Spread of Christianity to AD 600

Christianity in Late Antiquity begins with the ascension of Constantine to the Emperorship of Rome in the early fourth century, and continues until the advent of the Middle Ages. The terminus of this period is variable because the transformation to the sub-Roman period was gradual and occurred at different times in different areas. It may generally be dated as lasting to the late sixth century and the re-conquests of Justinian, though a more traditional date is 476, the year that Romulus Augustus, traditionally considered the last western emperor, was deposed.

[edit] Christianity legalised

In April 311, Galerius, who had previously been one of the leading figures in the persecutions, issued an edict permitting the practice of the Christian religion under his rule.[52]

In 313 Constantine I and Licinius announced toleration of Christianity in the Edict of Milan. Constantine would become the first Christian emperor. By 391, under the reign of Theodosius I, Christianity had become the state religion. Constantine I, the first emperor to embrace Christianity, was also the first emperor to openly promote the newly legalised religion.

[edit] Constantine the Great

See also: Constantine I and Christianity

The Emperor Constantine I was exposed to Christianity by his mother, Helena. There is scholarly controversy, however, as to whether Constantine adopted his mother's humble Christianity in his youth, or whether he adopted it gradually over the course of his life.[53]


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Head of Constantine's colossal statue at Musei Capitolini

Christian sources record that Constantine experienced a dramatic event in 312 at the Battle of Milvian Bridge, after which Constantine would claim the emperorship in the West. According to these sources, Constantine looked up to the sun before the battle and saw a cross of light above it, and with it the Greek words "ΕΝ ΤΟΥΤΩ ΝΙΚΑ" ("by this, conquer!", often rendered in the Latin "in hoc signo vinces"); Constantine commanded his troops to adorn their shields with a Christian symbol (the Chi-Ro), and thereafter they were victorious.[54] How much Christianity Constantine adopted at this point is difficult to discern; most influential people in the empire, especially high military officials, were still pagan, and Constantine's rule exhibited at least a willingness to appease these factions. The Roman coins minted up to eight years subsequent to the battle still bore the images of Roman gods.[53] Nonetheless, the accession of Constantine was a turning point for the Christian Church. After his victory, Constantine supported the Church financially, built various basilicas, granted privileges (e.g., exemption from certain taxes) to clergy, promoted Christians to high ranking offices, and returned property confiscated during the Great Persecution of Diocletian.[55] Between 324 and 330, Constantine built, virtually from scratch, a new imperial capital at Byzantium on the Bosphorus (it came to be named for him: Constantinople)–the city employed overtly Christian architecture, contained churches within the city walls (unlike "old" Rome), and had no pagan temples.[56] In accordance with the prevailing customs, Constantine was baptised on his deathbed.

Constantine also played an active role in the leadership of the Church. In 313, he issued the Edict of Milan, legalising Christian worship. In 316, he acted as a judge in a North African dispute concerning the Donatist controversy. More significantly, in 325 he summoned the Council of Nicaea, effectively the first Ecumenical Council (unless the Council of Jerusalem is so classified), to deal mostly with the Arian controversy, but which also issued the Nicene Creed, which among other things professed a belief in One Holy Catholic Apostolic Church, the start of Christendom. The reign of Constantine established a precedent for the position of the Christian Emperor in the Church. Emperors considered themselves responsible to God for the spiritual health of their subjects, and thus they had a duty of maintain orthodoxy.[57] The emperor did not decide doctrine — that was the responsibility of the bishops — rather his


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role was to enforce doctrine, root out heresy, and uphold ecclesiastical unity.[58] The emperor ensured that God was properly worshiped in his empire; what proper worship consisted of was the responsibility of the church. This precedent would continue until certain emperors of the fifth and six centuries sought to alter doctrine by imperial edict without recourse to councils, though even after this Constantine's precedent generally remained the norm.[59]

Icon depicting Emperor Constantine (centre) and the Fathers of the First Council of Nicaea (325) as holding the Nicene Creed in its 381 form.

The reign of Constantine did not bring the total unity of Christianity within the Empire. His successor in the East, Constantius II, was an Arian who kept Arian bishops at his court and installed them in various sees, expelling the orthodox bishops.

Constantius's successor, Julian, known in the Christian world as Julian the Apostate, was a philosopher who upon becoming emperor renounced Christianity and embraced a Neo-platonic and mystical form of paganism shocking the Christian establishment. Intent on re-establishing the prestige of the old pagan beliefs, he modified them to resemble Christian traditions such as the episcopal structure and public charity (hitherto unknown in Roman paganism). Julian eliminated most of the privileges and prestige previously afforded to the Christian Church. His reforms attempted to create a form of religious heterogeneity by, among other things, reopening pagan temples, accepting Christian bishops previously exiled as heretics, promoting Judaism, and returning Church lands to their original owners. However, Julian's short reign ended when he died while campaigning in the East.

Christianity came to dominance during the reign of Julian's successors, Jovian, Valentinian I, and Valens (the last Eastern Arian Christian Emperor). On February 27, 380, Theodosius I issued the edict De Fide Catolica establishing "Catholic Christianity"[60] as the exclusive official state religion, outlawed other faiths, and closed pagan temples.(Theodosian Code XVI.1.2; and Sozomen, "Ecclesiastical History", VII, iv.[61])[62] Additional prohibitions were passed by Theodosius I in 391 further proscribing remaining pagan practices.

[edit] Diocesan structure

After legalisation, the Church adopted the same organisational boundaries as the Empire: geographical provinces, called dioceses, corresponding to imperial governmental territorial division. The bishops, who were located in major urban centres as per pre-legalisation


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tradition, thus oversaw each diocese. The bishop's location was his "seat", or "see"; among the sees, five held special eminence: Rome, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. The prestige of these sees depended in part on their apostolic founders, from whom the bishops were therefore the spiritual successors, e.g., St. Mark as founder of the See of Alexandria, St. Peter of the See of Rome, etc. There were other significant elements: Jerusalem was the location of Christ's death and resurrection, the site of a first century council, etc., see also Jerusalem in Christianity. Antioch was where Jesus' followers were first labelled as Christians, it was used in a derogatory way to berate the followers of Jesus the Christ. Rome was where SS. Peter and Paul had been martyred (killed), Constantinople was the "New Rome" where Constantine had moved his capital c. 330, and, lastly, all these cities had important relics.

[edit] Papacy and primacy

Main article: Primacy of the Roman Pontiff

See also: History of the Papacy

The Pope is the Bishop of Rome and the office is the "papacy." As a bishopric, its origin is consistent with the development of an episcopal structure in the first century. The papacy, however, also carries the notion of primacy: that the See of Rome is pre-eminent amongst all other sees. The origins of this concept are historically obscure; theologically, it is based on three ancient Christian traditions: (1) that the apostle Peter was pre-eminent among the apostles, see Primacy of Simon Peter, (2) that Peter ordained his successors for the Roman See, and (3) that the bishops are the successors of the apostles (apostolic succession). As long as the Papal See also happened to be the capital of the Western Empire, the prestige of the Bishop of Rome could be taken for granted without the need of sophisticated theological argumentation beyond these points; after its shift to Milan and then Ravenna, however, more detailed arguments were developed based on Matthew 16:18–19 etc.[63] Nonetheless, in antiquity the Petrine and Apostolic quality, as well as a "primacy of respect", concerning the Roman See went unchallenged by emperors, eastern patriarchs, and the Eastern Church alike.[64] The Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381 affirmed the primacy of Rome.[65] Though the appellate jurisdiction of the Pope, and the position of Constantinople, would require further doctrinal clarification, by the close of Antiquity the primacy of Rome and the sophisticated theological arguments supporting it were fully developed. Just what exactly was entailed in this primacy, and its being exercised, would become a matter of controversy at certain later times.

[edit] Ecumenical Councils

Main article: First seven Ecumenical Councils

During this era, several Ecumenical Councils were convened. These were mostly concerned with Christological disputes. The two Councils of Nicaea (325, 382) condemned Arian teachings as heresy and produced a creed (see Nicene Creed). The Council of Ephesus condemned Nestorianism and affirmed the Blessed Virgin Mary to be Theotokos ("God-bearer" or "Mother of God"). Perhaps the most significant council was the Council of Chalcedon that affirmed that Christ had two natures, fully God and fully man, distinct yet always in perfect union. This was based largely on Pope Leo the Great's Tome. Thus, it condemned Monophysitism and would be influential in refuting Monothelitism. However,


not all denominations accepted all the councils, for example Nestorianism and the Assyrian Church of the East split over the Council of Ephesus of 431, Oriental Orthodoxy split over the Council of Chalcedon of 451, Pope Sergius I rejected the Quinisext Council of 692 (see also Pentarchy), and the Fourth Council of Constantinople of 869–870 and 879–880 is disputed by Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

[edit] Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers

The early Church Fathers have already been mentioned above; however, Late Antique Christianity produced a great many renowned Fathers who wrote volumes of theological texts, including SS. Augustine, Gregory Nazianzus, Cyril of Jerusalem, Ambrose of Milan, Jerome, and others. What resulted was a golden age of literary and scholarly activity unmatched since the days of Virgil and Horace. Some of these fathers, such as John Chrysostom and Athanasius, suffered exile, persecution, or martyrdom from heretical Byzantine Emperors. Many of their writings are translated into English in the compilations of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers.

[edit] The Pentarchy

By the fifth century, the ecclesiastical had evolved a hierarchical "pentarchy" or system of five sees (patriarchates), with a settled order of precedence, had been established. Rome, as the ancient centre and once largest city of the empire, was understandably given the presidency or primacy of honour within the pentarchy into which Christendom was now divided; though it was and still held that the patriarch of Rome was the first among equals. Constantinople was second in precedence as the new capital of the empire.

The list below are the five Pentarchs of the original Pentarchy of the Roman Empire.

Rome (Sts. Peter and Paul), i.e., the Pope, the only Pentarch in the Western Roman Empire.

Constantinople (St. Andrew), currently in Turkey Alexandria (St. Mark), currently in Egypt Antioch (St. Peter), currently in Syria Jerusalem (St. James), currently in Israel/Palestine, see also Jerusalem in Christianity

[edit] Monasticism

Main article: Christian monasticism

Monasticism is a form of asceticism whereby one renounces worldly pursuits (in contempu mundi) and concentrates solely on heavenly and spiritual pursuits, especially by the virtues humility, poverty, and chastity. It began early in the Church as a family of similar traditions, modeled upon Scriptural examples and ideals, and with roots in certain strands of Judaism. St. John the Baptist is seen as the archetypical monk, and monasticism was also inspired by the organisation of the Apostolic community as recorded in Acts of the Apostles.

There are two forms of monasticism: eremetic and cenobitic. Eremetic monks, or hermits, live in solitude, whereas cenobitic monks live in communities, generally in a monastery, under a rule (or code of practice) and are governed by an abbot. Originally, all Christian


monks were hermits, following the example of Anthony the Great. However, the need for some form of organised spiritual guidance lead Saint Pachomius in 318 to organise his many followers in what was to become the first monastery. Soon, similar institutions were established throughout the Egyptian desert as well as the rest of the eastern half of the Roman Empire. Central figures in the development of monasticism were, in the East, St. Basil the Great, and St. Benedict in the West, who created the famous Benedictine Rule, which would become the most common rule throughout the Middle Ages.

[edit] Growing tensions between East and West

Main article: East-West Schism

The cracks and fissures in Christian unity which led to the Great Schism started to become evident as early as the fourth century. Although 1054 is the date usually given for the beginning of the Great Schism, there is, in fact, no specific date on which the schism occurred. What really happened was a complex chain of events whose climax culminated with the sacking of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204.

The events leading to schism were not exclusively theological in nature. Cultural, political, and linguistic differences were often mixed with the theological. Any narrative of the schism which emphasises one at the expense of the other will be fragmentary. Unlike the Copts or Armenians who broke from the Church in the fifth century, the eastern and western parts of the Church remained loyal to the faith, from their perspective, and to the authority of the seven ecumenical councils. They were united, by virtue of their common faith and tradition, in one Church.

Nonetheless, the transfer of the Roman capital to Constantinople inevitably brought mistrust, rivalry, and even jealousy to the relations of the two great sees, Rome and Constantinople. It was easy for Rome to be jealous of Constantinople at a time when it was rapidly losing its political prominence. In fact, Rome refused to recognise the conciliar legislation which promoted Constantinople to second rank. But the estrangement was also helped along by the German invasions in the West, which effectively weakened contacts. The rise of Islam with its conquest of most of the Mediterranean coastline (not to mention the arrival of the pagan Slavs in the Balkans at the same time) further intensified this separation by driving a physical wedge between the two worlds. The once homogenous unified world of the Mediterranean was fast vanishing. Communication between the Greek East and the Latin West by the 600s had become dangerous and practically ceased.[66]

Two basic problems — the nature of the primacy of the bishop of Rome and the theological implications of adding a clause to the Nicene Creed, known as the filioque clause — were involved. These doctrinal issues were first openly discussed in Photius's patriarchate.

By the fifth century, Christendom was divided into a pentarchy of five sees with Rome accorded a primacy. The four Eastern sees of the pentarchy, considered this determined by canonical decision and did not entail hegemony of any one local church or patriarchate over the others. However, Rome began to interpret her primacy in terms of sovereignty, as a God-given right involving universal jurisdiction in the Church. The collegial and conciliar nature of the Church, in effect, was gradually abandoned in favour of supremacy of unlimited papal power over the entire Church. These ideas were finally given systematic expression in the


West during the Gregorian Reform movement of the eleventh century. The Eastern churches viewed Rome's understanding of the nature of episcopal power as being in direct opposition to the Church's essentially conciliar structure and thus saw the two ecclesiologies as mutually antithetical.

This fundamental difference in ecclesiology would cause all attempts to heal the schism and bridge the divisions to fail. Rome based her claims to "true and proper jurisdiction" (as the Vatican Council of 1870 put it) on the primacy of Simon Peter. This "Roman" exegesis of Mathew 16:18, however, was unacceptable to the patriarchs of Eastern Orthodoxy.[citation needed] For them, specifically, St. Peter's primacy could never be the exclusive prerogative of any one bishop. All bishops must, like St. Peter, confess Jesus as the Christ and, as such, all are St. Peter's successors. The churches of the East gave the Roman See, primacy but not supremacy. The Pope being the first among equals, but not infallible and not with absolute authority.[67]

The other major irritant to Eastern Christendom was the Western use of the filioque clause—meaning "and the Son"—in the Nicene Creed . This too developed gradually and entered the Creed over time. The issue was the addition by the West of the Latin clause filioque to the Creed, as in "the Holy Spirit... who proceeds from the Father and the Son," where the original Creed, sanctioned by the councils and still used today, by the Eastern Orthodox simply states "the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father." The Eastern Church argued that the phrase had been added unilaterally and, therefore, illegitimately, since the East had never been consulted.[68] In the final analysis, only another ecumenical council could introduce such an alteration. Indeed the councils, which drew up the original Creed, had expressly forbidden any subtraction or addition to the text.

In addition to this ecclesiological issue, the Eastern Church also considered the filioque clause unacceptable on dogmatic grounds. Theologically, the Latin interpolation was unacceptable since it implied that the Spirit now had two sources of origin and procession, the Father and the Son, rather than the Father alone.[69] In short, the balance between the three persons of the Trinity was altered and the understanding of the Trinity and God confused.[69] The result, the Eastern Church believed, then and now, was theologically indefensible.

[edit] Church of the Early Middle Ages (476–800)

Mosaic of Justinian I in the church of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy


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The Church in the Early Middle Ages covers the time from the deposition of the last Western Emperor in 476 and his replacement with a barbarian king, Odoacer, to the coronation of Charlemagne as "Emperor of the Romans" by Pope Leo III in Rome on Christmas Day, 800. The year 476, however, is a rather artificial division.[70] In the East, Roman imperial rule continued through the period historians now call the Byzantine Empire. Even in the West, where imperial political control gradually declined, distinctly Roman culture continued long afterwards; thus historians today prefer to speak of a "transformation of the Roman world" rather than a "fall of the Roman Empire." The advent of the Early Middle Ages was a gradual and often localised process whereby, in the West, rural areas became power centres whilst urban areas declined. With the Muslim invasions of the seventh century, the Western (Latin) and Eastern (Greek) areas of Christianity began to take on distinctive shapes. Whereas in the East the Church maintained its structure and character and evolved more slowly, in the West the Bishops of Rome (i.e., the Popes) were forced to adapt more quickly and flexibly to drastically changing circumstances. In particular whereas the bishops of the East maintained clear allegiance to the Eastern Roman Emperor, the Bishop of Rome, while maintaining nominal allegiance to the Eastern Emperor, was forced to negotiate delicate balances with the "barbarian rulers" of the former Western provinces. Although the greater number of Christians remained in the East, the developments in the West would set the stage for major developments in the Christian world during the later Middle Ages.

[edit] Spread beyond the Roman Empire

Christians and Pagans, a painting by Sergei Ivanov

As the political boundaries of the Western Roman Empire diminished and then collapsed, Christianity spread beyond the old borders of the Empire and into lands that had never been Romanised.

[edit] Ireland and Irish missionaries

Beginning in the fifth century, a unique culture developed around the Irish Sea consisting of what today would be called Wales and Ireland. In this environment, Christianity spread from Roman Britain to Ireland, especially aided by the missionary activity of St. Patrick. Patrick had been captured into slavery in Ireland and, following his escape and later consecration as bishop, he returned to the isle that had enslaved him so that he could bring them the Gospel. Soon, Irish missionaries such as SS. Columba and Columbanus spread this Christianity, with its distinctively Irish features, to Scotland and the Continent. One such feature was the system of private penitence, which replaced the former practice of penance as a public rite.[71]

[edit] Anglo-Saxons (English)


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Although southern Britain had been a Roman province, in 407 the imperial legions left the isle, and the Roman elite followed. Some time later that century, various barbarian tribes went from raiding and pillaging the island to settling and invading. These tribes are referred to as the "Anglo-Saxons", predecessors of the English. They were entirely pagan, having never been part of the Empire, and although they experienced Christian influence from the surrounding peoples, they were converted by the mission of St. Augustine sent by Pope Gregory the Great. Later, under Archbishop Theodore, the Anglo-Saxons enjoyed a golden age of culture and scholarship. Soon, important English missionaries such as SS. Wilfrid, Willibrord, Lullus and Boniface would begin evangelising their Saxon relatives in Germany.

[edit] Franks

See also: Franks and Merovingian

Saint Remigius baptises Clovis.

The largely Christian Gallo-Roman inhabitants of Gaul (modern France) were overrun by Germanic Franks in the early 5th century. The native inhabitants were persecuted until the Frankish King, Clovis I converted from paganism to Roman Catholicism in 496. Clovis insisted that his fellow nobles follow suit, strengthening his newly-established kingdom by uniting the faith of the rulers with that of the ruled.

[edit] Netherlands and non-Frankish Germany

In 698 the Northumbrian Benedictine monk, St Willibrord was commissioned by Pope Sergius I as bishop of the Frisians in what is now the Netherlands. Willibrord established a church in Utrecht.

Much of Willibrord's work was wiped out when the pagan Radbod, king of the Frisians destroyed many Christian centres between 716 and 719. In 717, the English missionary Boniface was sent to aid Willibrord, re-establishing churches in Frisia and continuing to preach throughout the pagan lands of Germany. Boniface was killed by pagans in 754.


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[edit] Scandinavia

Early evangelisation in Scandinavia was begun by Ansgar, Archbishop of Bremen, "Apostle of the North". Ansgar, a native of Amiens, was sent with a group of monks to Jutland Denmark in around 820 at the time of the pro-Christian Jutish king Harald Klak. The mission was only partially successful, and Ansgar returned two years later to Germany, after Harald had been driven out of his kingdom. In 829 Ansgar went to Birka on Lake Mälaren, Sweden, with his aide friar Witmar, and a small congregation was formed in 831 which included the king's own steward Hergeir. Conversion was slow, however, and most Scandinavian lands were only completely Christianised at the time of rulers such as Saint Canute IV of Denmark and Olaf I of Norway in the years following AD 1000.

863 Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius sent by the Patriarch of Constantinople to evangelise the Slavic peoples. They translate the Bible into Slavonic.

[edit] Early Medieval Papacy

The city of Rome was embroiled in the turmoil and devastation of Italian peninsular warfare during the Early Middle Ages. Emperor Justinian I attempted to reassert imperial dominion in Italy against the Gothic aristocracy. The subsequent campaigns were more or less successful, and the Imperial Exarchate was established in Ravenna to oversee Italy, though actually imperial influence was often limited. However, the weakened peninsula then experienced the invasion of the Lombards, and the resulting warfare essentially left Rome to fend for itself. Thus the popes, out of necessity, found themselves feeding the city with grain from papal estates, negotiating treaties, paying protection money to Lombard warlords, and, failing that, hiring soldiers to defend the city.[72] Eventually, the failure of the Empire to send aid resulted in the popes turning for support from other sources, most especially the Franks.

[edit] Carolingian Renaissance

Main article: Carolingian Renaissance

See also: Carolingian

The Carolingian Renaissance was a period of intellectual and cultural revival during the late 8th and 9th centuries, mostly during the reigns of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious. There was an increase of literature, the arts, architecture, jurisprudence, liturgical and scriptural studies. The period also saw the development of Carolingian minuscule, the ancestor of modern lower-case script, and the standardisation of Latin which had hitherto become varied and irregular (see Medieval Latin). To address the problems of illiteracy among clergy and court scribes, Charlemagne founded schools and attracted the most learned men from all of Europe to his court, such as Theodulf, Paul the Deacon, Angilbert, Paulinus of Aquileia, and Alcuin of York.

[edit] Church of the High Middle Ages (800–1499)

The High Middle Ages is the period from the coronation of Charlemagne in 800 to the close of the fifteenth century, which saw the fall of Constantinople (1453), the end of the Hundred


Years War (1453), the discovery of the New World (1492), and thereafter the Protestant Reformation (1515).

[edit] Conversion of East and South Slavs

St. Cyril and St. Methodius Monument on Mt. Radhošť

Though by 800 Western Europe was ruled entirely by Christian kings, Eastern Europe remained an area of missionary activity. For example, in the ninth century SS. Cyril and Methodius had extensive missionary success in Eastern Europe among the Slavic peoples, translating the Bible and liturgy into Slavonic. The Baptism of Kiev in the 988 spread Christianity throughout Kievan Rus', establishing Christianity among the Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

In the ninth and tenth centuries, Christianity made great inroads into Eastern Europe, including Kievan Rus'. The evangelisation, or Christianisation, of the Slavs was initiated by one of Byzantium's most learned churchmen — the Patriarch Photius. The Byzantine emperor Michael III chose Cyril and Methodius in response to a request from Rastislav, the king of Moravia who wanted missionaries that could minister to the Moravians in their own language. The two brothers spoke the local Slavonic vernacular and translated the Bible and many of the prayer books. As the translations prepared by them were copied by speakers of other dialects, the hybrid literary language Old Church Slavonic was created.

Methodius later went on to convert the Serbs. Some of the disciples returned to Bulgaria where they were welcomed by the Bulgarian Tsar Boris I who viewed the Slavonic liturgy as a way to counteract Greek influence in the country. In a short time the disciples of Cyril and Methodius managed to prepare and instruct the future Slavic clergy into the Glagolitic alphabet and the biblical texts. Methodius and Cyril were mainly living and working in the Macedonian city of Ohrid, which they made the religious capital of the Balkans.[citation needed]

Bulgaria was officially recognised as a patriarchate by Constantinople in 945, Serbia in 1346, and Russia in 1589. All these nations, however, had been converted long before these dates.

The missionaries to the East and South Slavs had great success in part because they used the people's native language rather than Latin as the Roman priests did, or Greek.

[edit] Mission to Great Moravia

When Rastislav, the king of Great Moravia and a known wizard, asked Byzantium for teachers who could minister to the Moravians in their own language, Byzantine emperor Michael III chose two brothers, Cyril and Methodius. As their mother was a Slav from the


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hinterlands of Thessaloniki, the two brothers had been raised speaking the local Slavonic vernacular. Once commissioned, they immediately set about creating an alphabet, the Cyrillic alphabet; they then translated the Scripture and the liturgy into Slavonic. This Slavic dialect became the basis of Old Church Slavonic which later evolved into Church Slavonic which is the common liturgical language still used by the Russian Orthodox Church and other Slavic Orthodox Christians. The missionaries to the East and South Slavs had great success in part because they used the people's native language rather than Latin or Greek. In Great Moravia, Constantine and Methodius encountered Frankish missionaries from Germany, representing the western or Latin branch of the Church, and more particularly representing the Holy Roman Empire as founded by Charlemagne, and committed to linguistic, and cultural uniformity. They insisted on the use of the Latin liturgy, and they regarded Moravia and the Slavic peoples as part of their rightful mission field.

When friction developed, the brothers, unwilling to be a cause of dissension among Christians, travelled to Rome to see the Pope, seeking an agreement that would avoid quarrelling between missionaries in the field. Constantine entered a monastery in Rome, taking the name Cyril, by which he is now remembered. However, he died only a few weeks thereafter.

Pope Adrian II gave Methodius the title of Archbishop of Sirmium (now Sremska Mitrovica in Serbia) and sent him back in 869, with jurisdiction over all of Moravia and Pannonia, and authorisation to use the Slavonic Liturgy. Soon, however, Prince Ratislav, who had originally invited the brothers to Moravia, died, and his successor did not support Methodius. In 870 the Frankish king Louis and his bishops deposed Methodius at a synod at Ratisbon, and imprisoned him for a little over two years. Pope John VIII secured his release, but instructed him to stop using the Slavonic Liturgy.

In 878, Methodius was summoned to Rome on charges of heresy and using Slavonic. This time Pope John was convinced by the arguments that Methodius made in his defence and sent him back cleared of all charges, and with permission to use Slavonic. The Carolingian bishop who succeeded him, Witching, suppressed the Slavonic Liturgy and forced the followers of Methodius into exile. Many found refuge with King Boris of Bulgaria (852–889), under whom they reorganised a Slavic-speaking Church. Meanwhile, Pope John's successors adopted a Latin-only policy which lasted for centuries.

[edit] Conversion of the Serbs and Bulgarians

Methodius later went on to convert the Serbs. Some of the disciples, namely St. Kliment, St. Naum who were of noble Bulgarian descent and St. Angelaruis, returned to Bulgaria where they were welcomed by the Bulgarian Tsar Boris I who viewed the Slavonic liturgy as a way to counteract Greek influence in the country. In a short time the disciples of Cyril and Methodius managed to prepare and instruct the future Slav Bulgarian clergy into the Glagolitic alphabet and the biblical texts and in AD 893, Bulgaria expelled its Greek clergy and proclaimed the Slavonic language as the official language of the church and the state.

[edit] Conversion of the Rus'


Baptism of Vladimir

The success of the conversion of the Bulgarians facilitated the conversion of other East Slavic peoples, most notably the Rus', predecessors of Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians, as well as Rusyns. By the beginning of the eleventh century most of the pagan Slavic world, including Russia, Bulgaria and Serbia, had been converted to Byzantine Christianity.

The traditional event associated with the conversion of Russia is the baptism of Vladimir of Kiev in 989, on which occasion he was also married to the Byzantine princess Anna, the sister of the Byzantine Emperor Basil II. However, Christianity is documented to have predated this event in the city of Kiev and in Georgia.

Today the Russian Orthodox Church is the largest of the Orthodox Churches.

[edit] Iconoclasm

Andrei Rublev's TrinityMain article: Iconoclasm (Byzantine)

Iconoclasm as a movement began within the Eastern Christian Byzantine church in the early 8th century, following a series of heavy military reverses against the Muslims. Sometime between 726–730 the Byzantine Emperor Leo III the Isaurian ordered the removal of an


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image of Jesus prominently placed over the Chalke gate, the ceremonial entrance to the Great Palace of Constantinople, and its replacement with a cross. This was followed by orders banning the pictorial representation of the family of Christ, subsequent Christian saints, and biblical scenes. In the West, Pope Gregory III held two synods at Rome and condemned Leo's actions. In Leo's realms, the Iconoclast Council at Hieria, 754 ruled that the culture of holy portraits (see icon) was not of a Christian origin and therefore heretical.[73] The movement destroyed much of the Christian church's early artistic history, to the great loss of subsequent art and religious historians. The iconoclastic movement itself was later defined as heretical in 787 under the Seventh Ecumenical council, but enjoyed a brief resurgence between 815 and 842.

[edit] Monastic Reform Movement

A view of the Abbey of Cluny.

From the 6th century onward most of the monasteries in the West were of the Benedictine Order. Owing to the stricter adherence to a reformed Benedictine rule, the abbey of Cluny became the acknowledged leader of western monasticism from the later 10th century. A sequence of highly competent abbots of Cluny were statesmen on an international level. The monastery of Cluny itself became the grandest, most prestigious and best endowed monastic institution in Europe. Cluny created a large, federated order in which the administrators of subsidiary houses served as deputies of the abbot of Cluny and answered to him. Free of lay and episcopal interference, responsible only to the papacy, the Cluniac spirit was a revitalising influence on the Norman church. The height of Cluniac influence was from the second half of the 10th century through the early 12th.

The next wave of monastic reform came with the Cistercian Movement. The first Cistercian abbey was founded by Robert of Molesme in 1098, at Cîteaux Abbey. The keynote of Cistercian life was a return to a literal observance of the Rule of Saint Benedict. Rejecting the developments that the Benedictines had undergone, they tried to reproduce the life exactly as it had been in Saint Benedict's time, indeed in various points they went beyond it in austerity. The most striking feature in the reform was the return to manual labour, and especially to field-work, which became a special characteristic of Cistercian life.


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Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, in a medieval illuminated manuscript.

Inspired by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the Cistercians became the main force of technological diffusion in medieval Europe. By the end of the 12th century the Cistercian houses numbered 500; in the 13th a hundred more were added; and at its height in the 15th century, the order claimed to have close to 750 houses. Most of these were built in wilderness areas, and played a major part in bringing such isolated parts of Europe into economic cultivation.

[edit] Mendicant orders

See also: Franciscan and Dominican Order

A third level of monastic reform was provided by the establishment of the Mendicant orders. Commonly known as Friars mendicants are members of religious communities that live under a monastic rule but, rather than residing in the seclusion of a monastery, they emphasise public evangelism and are thus known for preaching, missionary activity, and education, as well as the traditional vows of poverty chastity and obedience. Beginning in the 12th century, the Franciscan order was instituted by the followers of St. Francis, and thereafter the Dominican order was begun by St. Dominic.

[edit] Investiture Controversy

Main article: Investiture Controversy

Henry IV at the gate of Canossa, by August von Heyden

The Investiture Controversy, or Lay investiture controversy, was the most significant conflict between secular and religious powers in medieval Europe. It began as a dispute in the 11th


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century between the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, and Pope Gregory VII concerning who would appoint bishops (investiture). The end of lay investiture threatened to undercut the power of the Empire and the ambitions of noblemen for the benefit of Church reform.

Bishops collected revenues from estates attached to their bishopric. Noblemen who held lands (fiefdoms) hereditarily passed those lands on within their family. However, because bishops had no legitimate children, when a bishop died it was the king's right to appoint a successor. So, while a king had little recourse in preventing noblemen from acquiring powerful domains via inheritance and dynastic marriages, a king could keep careful control of lands under the domain of his bishops. Kings would bestow bishoprics to members of noble families whose friendship he wished to secure. Furthermore, if a king left a bishopric vacant, then he collected the estates' revenues until a bishop was appointed, when in theory he was to repay the earnings. The infrequence of this repayment was an obvious source of dispute. The Church wanted to end this lay investiture because of the potential corruption, not only from vacant sees but also from other practices such as simony. Thus, the Investiture Contest was part of the Church's attempt to reform the episcopate and provide better pastoral care.

Pope Gregory VII issued the Dictatus Papae, which declared that the pope alone could appoint or depose bishops, or translate them to other sees. Henry VI's rejection of the decree lead to his excommunication and a ducal revolt; eventually Henry received absolution after dramatic public penance barefoot in Alpine snow and cloaked in a hairshirt (see Walk to Canossa), though the revolt and conflict of investiture continued. Likewise, a similar controversy occurred in England between King Henry I and St. Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, over investiture and ecclesiastical revenues collected by the king during an episcopal vacancy. The English dispute was resolved by the Concordat of London, 1107, where the king renounced his claim to invest bishops but continued to require an oath of fealty from them upon their election. This was a partial model for the Concordat of Worms (Pactum Calixtinum), which resolved the Imperial investiture controversy with a compromise that allowed secular authorities some measure of control but granted the selection of bishops to their cathedral canons. As a symbol of the compromise, lay authorities invested bishops with their secular authority symbolised by the lance, and ecclesiastical authorities invested bishops with their spiritual authority symbolised by the ring and the staff.

[edit] Sanctification of knighthood

See also: Peace and Truce of God, Paladin, and Chivalry

The nobility of the Middle Ages was a military class; in the Early Medieval period a king (rex) attracted a band of loyal warriors (comes) and provided for them from his conquests. As the Middle Ages progressed, this system developed into a complex set of feudal ties and obligations. As Christianity had been accepted by barbarian nobility, the Church sought to prevent ecclesiastical land and clergymen, both of which came from the nobility, from embroilment in martial conflicts. By the early eleventh century, clergymen and peasants were granted immunity from violence — the Peace of God (Pax Dei). Soon the warrior elite itself became "sanctified", for example fighting was banned on holy days — the Truce of God (Treuga Dei). The concept of chivalry developed, emphasising honour and loyalty amongst knights, and, with the advent of Crusades, holy orders of knights were established who perceived themselves as called by God to defend Christendom against Muslim advances in Spain, Italy, and the Holy Land, and pagan strongholds in Eastern Europe.


[edit] Crusades

Main article: Crusades

The Crusades were a series of military conflicts conducted by Christian knights for the defence of Christians and for the expansion of Christian domains. Generally, the crusades refer to the campaigns in the Holy Land against Muslim forces sponsored by the Papacy. There were other crusades against Islamic forces in southern Spain, southern Italy, and Sicily, as well as the campaigns of Teutonic knights against pagan strongholds in Eastern Europe (see Northern Crusades). A few crusades such as the Fourth Crusade were waged within Christendom against groups that were considered heretical and schismatic (also see the Battle of the Ice and the Albigensian Crusade).

View over the walls of Krak des Chavaliers, near impenetrable crusaders' fortress.

The Holy Land had been part of the Roman Empire, and thus Byzantine Empire, until the Islamic conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries. Thereafter, Christians had generally been permitted to visit the sacred places in the Holy Land until 1071, when the Seljuk Turks closed Christian pilgrimages and assailed the Byzantines, defeating them at the Battle of Manzikert. Emperor Alexius I asked for aid from Pope Urban II (1088–1099) for help against Islamic aggression. He probably expected money from the pope for the hiring of mercenaries. Instead, Urban II called upon the knights of Christendom in a speech made at the Council of Clermont on 27 November 1095, combining the idea of pilgrimage to the Holy Land with that of waging a holy war against infidels.

The First Crusade captured Antioch in 1099 and then Jerusalem. The Second Crusade occurred in 1145 when Edessa was retaken by Islamic forces. Jerusalem would be held until 1187 and the Third Crusade, famous for the battles between Richard the Lionheart and Saladin. The Fourth Crusade, begun by Innocent III in 1202, intended to retake the Holy Land but was soon subverted by Venetians who used the forces to sack the Christian city of Zara. Innocent excommunicated the Venetians and crusaders.[citation needed] Eventually the crusaders arrived in Constantinople, but due to strife which arose between them and the Byzantines[citation needed], rather than proceed to the Holy Land the crusaders instead sacked Constantinople and other parts of Asia Minor effectively establishing the Latin Empire of Constantinople in Greece and Asia Minor. This was effectively the last crusade sponsored by the papacy; later crusades were sponsored by individuals. Thus, though Jerusalem was held for nearly a century and other strongholds in the Near East would remain in Christian possession much longer, the crusades in the Holy Land ultimately failed to establish permanent Christian kingdoms. Islamic expansion into Europe would renew and remain a threat for centuries culminating in the campaigns of Suleiman the Magnificent in the sixteenth century. On the other hand, the crusades in southern Spain, southern Italy, and


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Sicily eventually lead to the demise of Islamic power in the regions; the Teutonic knights expanded Christian domains in Eastern Europe, and the much less frequent crusades within Christendom, such as the Albigensian Crusade, achieved their goal of maintaining doctrinal unity.[74]

[edit] High Medieval Papacy

This section requires expansion.

Pope Boniface VIII , and Unam Sanctam

[edit] Medieval Inquisition

The Medieval Inquisition is a series of Inquisitions (Roman Catholic Church bodies charged with suppressing heresy) from around 1184, including the Episcopal Inquisition (1184–1230s) and later the Papal Inquisition (1230s). It was in response to movements within Europe considered apostate or heretical to Western Catholicism, in particular the Cathars and the Waldensians in southern France and northern Italy. These were the first inquisition movements of many that would follow. The inquisitions in combination with the Albigensian Crusade were fairly successful in ending heresy.

[edit] Rise of universities

Modern western universities have their origins directly in the Medieval Church. They began as cathedral schools, and all students were considered clerics. This was a benefit as it placed the students under ecclesiastical jurisdiction and thus imparted certain legal immunities and protections. The cathedral schools eventually became partially detached from the cathedrals and formed their own institutions, the earliest being the University of Paris (c. 1150), the University of Bologna (1088), and the University of Oxford (1096). Universities as institutions that issue academic degrees were inspired by Islamic madrasah's founded in the ninth century.[75] For instance, the University of Al Karaouine in Fez, Morocco is thus recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest degree-granting university in the world with its founding in 859 by the princess Fatima al-Fihri.

[edit] Photian schism

Main article: Photian schism

In the 9th century AD, a controversy arose between Eastern (Byzantine, later Orthodox) and Western (Latin, Roman Catholic) Christianity that was precipitated by the opposition of the Roman Pope John VII to the appointment by the Byzantine emperor Michael III of Photius I to the position of patriarch of Constantinople. Photios was refused an apology by the pope for previous points of dispute between the East and West. Photius refused to accept the supremacy of the pope in Eastern matters or accept the filioque clause. The Latin delegation at the council of his consecration pressed him to accept the clause in order to secure their support.


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The controversy also involved Eastern and Western ecclesiastical jurisdictional rights in the Bulgarian church, as well as a doctrinal dispute over the Filioque ("and from the Son") clause. That had been added to the Nicene Creed by the Latin church, which was later the theological breaking point in the ultimate Great East-West Schism in the eleventh century.

Photius did provide concession on the issue of jurisdictional rights concerning Bulgaria and the papal legates made do with his return of Bulgaria to Rome. This concession, however, was purely nominal, as Bulgaria's return to the Byzantine rite in 870 had already secured for it an autocephalous church. Without the consent of Boris I of Bulgaria, the papacy was unable to enforce any its claims.

[edit] East-West Schism

Main article: East-West Schism

In the 11th century the Great Schism took place between Rome and Constantinople, which led to separation of the Church of the West, the Roman Catholic Church, and the Eastern Orthodox Church. There were doctrinal issues like the filioque clause and the authority of the Pope involved in the split, but these were exacerbated by cultural and linguistic differences between Latins and Greeks. Prior to that, the Eastern and Western halves of the Church had frequently been in conflict, particularly during periods of iconoclasm and the Photian schism.[1]

The East-West Schism, or Great Schism, separated the Church into Western (Latin) and Eastern (Greek) branches, i.e., Western Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. It was the first major division since certain groups in the East rejected the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon (see Oriental Orthodoxy), and was far more significant. Though normally dated to 1054, the East-West Schism was actually the result of an extended period of estrangement between Latin and Greek Christendom over the nature of papal primacy and certain doctrinal matters like the filioque, but intensified by cultural and linguistic differences.

The "official" schism in 1054 was the excommunication of Patriarch Michael Cerularius of Constantinople, followed by his excommunication of papal legates. Attempts at reconciliation were made in 1274 (by the Second Council of Lyon) and in 1439 (by the Council of Basel), but in each case the eastern hierarchs who consented to the unions were repudiated by the Orthodox as a whole, though reconciliation was achieved between the West and what are now called the "Eastern Rite Catholic Churches." More recently, in 1965 the mutual excommunications were rescinded by the Pope and the Patriarch of Constantinople, though schism remains.

Both groups are descended from the Early Church, both acknowledge the apostolic succession of each other's bishops, and the validity of each other's sacraments. Though both acknowledge the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy understands this as a primacy of honour with limited or no ecclesiastical authority in other dioceses.

The Orthodox East perceived the Papacy as taking on monarch type characteristics that were not in line with the church's tradition.


The final breach is often considered to have arisen after the capture and sacking of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. Crusades against Christians in the East by Roman Catholic crusaders was not exclusive to the Mediterranean though (see also the Northern Crusades and the Battle of the Ice). The sacking of Constantinople and the Church of Holy Wisdom and establishment of the Latin Empire as a seeming attempt to supplant the Orthodox Byzantine Empire in 1204 is viewed with some rancour to the present day. Many in the East saw the actions of the West as a prime determining factor in the weakening of Byzantium. This led to the Empire's eventual conquest and fall to Islam. In 2004, Pope John Paul II extended a formal apology for the sacking of Constantinople in 1204; the apology was formally accepted by Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople. Many things that were stolen during this time: holy relics, riches, and many other items, are still held in various Western European cities, particularly Venice.

[edit] Hesychast Controversy

Main article: Hesychasm

Gregory Palamas

About the year 1337 Hesychasm attracted the attention of a learned member of the Orthodox Church, Barlaam of Calabria who at that time held the office of abbot in the Monastery of St Saviour's in Constantinople and who visited Mount Athos. Mount Athos was then at the height of its fame and influence under the reign of Andronicus III Palaeologus and under the 'first-ship' of the Protos Symeon. On Mount Athos, Barlaam encountered Hesychasts and heard descriptions of their practices, also reading the writings of the teacher in Hesychasm of St Gregory Palamas, himself an Athonite monk. Trained in Western Scholastic theology, Barlaam was scandalised by Hesychasm and began to combat it both orally and in his writings. As a private teacher of theology in the Western Scholastic mode, Barlaam propounded a more intellectual and propositional approach to the knowledge of God than the Hesychasts taught. Hesychasm is a form of constant purposeful prayer or experiential prayer, explicitly referred to as contemplation. Descriptions of the Hesychast practices can be found in the Philokalia, The Way of a Pilgrim, and St. John Climacus' The Ladder of Divine Ascent.


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Barlaam took exception to, as heretical and blasphemous, the doctrine entertained by the Hesychasts as to the nature of the uncreated light, the experience of which was said to be the goal of Hesychast practice. It was maintained by the Hesychasts to be of divine origin and to be identical to that light which had been manifested to Jesus' disciples on Mount Tabor at the Transfiguration. This Barlaam held to be polytheistic, inasmuch as it postulated two eternal substances, a visible and an invisible God.

On the Hesychast side, the controversy was taken up by St Gregory Palamas, afterwards Archbishop of Thessalonica, who was asked by his fellow monks on Mt Athos to defend Hesychasm from the attacks of Barlaam. St Gregory himself, was well-educated in Greek philosophy. St Gregory defended Hesychasm in the 1340s at three different synods in Constantinople, and he also wrote a number of works in its defence.

In these works, St Gregory Palamas uses a distinction, already found in the 4th century in the works of the Cappadocian Fathers, between the energies or operations (Gr. energeies) of God and the essence (ousia) of God (see the Essence-Energies distinction). St Gregory taught that the energies or operations of God were uncreated. He taught that the essence of God can never be known by his creations even in the next life, but that his uncreated energies or operations can be known both in this life and in the next, and convey to the Hesychast in this life and to the righteous in the next life a true spiritual knowledge of God (see theoria). In Palamite theology, it is the uncreated energies of God that illumine the Hesychast who has been vouchsafed an experience of the Uncreated Light. Palamas referred to this experience as an apodictic (see Aristotle) validation of God rather than a scholastic contemplative or dialectical validation of God.

In 1341 the dispute came before a synod held at Constantinople and was presided over by the Emperor Andronicus; the synod, taking into account the regard in which the writings of the pseudo-Dionysius were held, condemned Barlaam, who recanted and returned to Calabria, afterwards becoming a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church.

One of Barlaam's friends, Gregory Akindynos, who originally was also a friend of St Gregory Palamas, took up the controversy, and three other synods on the subject were held, at the second of which the followers of Barlaam gained a brief victory. But in 1351 at a synod under the presidency of the Emperor John VI Cantacuzenus, Hesychast doctrine was established as the doctrine of the Orthodox Church.

Up to this day, the Roman Catholic Church has never fully accepted Hesychasm, especially the distinction between the energies or operations of God and the essence of God, and the notion that those energies or operations of God are uncreated. In Roman Catholic theology as it has developed since the Scholastic period circa 1100–1500, the essence of God can be known, but only in the next life; the grace of God is always created; and the essence of God is pure act, so that there can be no distinction between the energies or operations and the essence of God (see, e.g., the Summa Theologiae of St Thomas Aquinas). Some of these positions depend on Aristotelian metaphysics.

The contemporary historians Cantacuzenus and Nicephorus Gregoras deal very copiously with this subject, taking the Hesychast and Barlaamite sides respectively. Respected fathers of the church have held that these councils that agree that experiential prayer is Orthodox, refer to these as councils as Ecunemical Councils Eight and Nine. Father John S. Romanides,


Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos, and the Very Rev. Prof. Dr. George Metallinos, Professor of theology at Athens Greece (see gnosiology).

[edit] Age of captivity

In 1453, Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire. By this time Egypt had been under Muslim control for some seven centuries, but Orthodoxy was very strong in Russia which had recently acquired an autocephalous status; and thus Moscow called itself the Third Rome, as the cultural heir of Constantinople.

Under Ottoman rule, the Greek Orthodox Church acquired substantial power as an autonomous millet. The ecumenical patriarch was the religious and administrative ruler of the entire "Greek Orthodox nation" (Ottoman administrative unit), which encompassed all the Eastern Orthodox subjects of the Empire.

Stavronikita monastery, South-East view

[edit] Isolation from the West

As a result of the Ottoman conquest of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, and the Fall of Constantinople, the entire Orthodox communion of the Balkans and the Near East became suddenly isolated from the West. For the next four hundred years, it would be confined within a hostile Islamic world, with which it had little in common religiously or culturally. The Russian Orthodox Church was the only part of the Orthodox communion which remained outside the control of the Ottoman empire. It is, in part, due to this geographical and intellectual confinement that the voice of Eastern Orthodoxy was not heard during the Reformation in sixteenth century Europe. As a result, this important theological debate often seems strange and distorted to the Orthodox. They never took part in it and thus neither Reformation nor Counter-Reformation is part of their theological framework.

[edit] Religious Rights under the Ottoman Empire

Further information: Islam and anti-Christian persecution


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The new Ottoman government that arose from the ashes of Byzantine civilisation was neither primitive nor barbaric. Islam not only recognised Jesus as a great prophet, but tolerated Christians as another People of the Book. As such, the Church was not extinguished nor was its canonical and hierarchical organisation significantly disrupted. Its administration continued to function. One of the first things that Mehmet the Conqueror did was to allow the Church to elect a new patriarch, Gennadius Scholarius. The Hagia Sophia and the Parthenon, which had been Christian churches for nearly a millennium were, admittedly, converted into mosques, yet countless other churches, both in Constantinople and elsewhere, remained in Christian hands. Moreover, it is striking that the patriarch's and the hierarchy's position was considerably strengthened and their power increased. They were endowed with civil as well as ecclesiastical power over all Christians in Ottoman territories. Because Islamic law makes no distinction between nationality and religion, all Christians, regardless of their language or nationality, were considered a single millet, or nation. The patriarch, as the highest ranking hierarch, was thus invested with civil and religious authority and made ethnarch, head of the entire Christian Orthodox population. Practically, this meant that all Orthodox Churches within Ottoman territory were under the control of Constantinople. Thus, the authority and jurisdictional frontiers of the patriarch were enormously enlarged.

However, these rights and privileges (see Dhimmitude), including freedom of worship and religious organisation, were often established in principle but seldom corresponded to reality. The legal privileges of the patriarch and the Church depended, in fact, on the whim and mercy of the Sultan and the Sublime Porte, while all Christians were viewed as little more than second-class citizens. Moreover, Turkish corruption and brutality were not a myth. That it was the "infidel" Christian who experienced this more than anyone else is not in doubt. Nor were pogroms of Christians in these centuries unknown (see Greco-Turkish relations).[76][77] Devastating, too, for the Church was the fact that it could not bear witness to Christ. Missionary work among Moslems was dangerous and indeed impossible, whereas conversion to Islam was entirely legal and permissible. Converts to Islam who returned to Orthodoxy were put to death as apostates. No new churches could be built and even the ringing of church bells was prohibited. Education of the clergy and the Christian population either ceased altogether or was reduced to the most rudimentary elements.

[edit] Corruption

The Orthodox Church found itself subject to the Turkish system of corruption. The patriarchal throne was frequently sold to the highest bidder, while new patriarchal investiture was accompanied by heavy payment to the government. In order to recoup their losses, patriarchs and bishops taxed the local parishes and their clergy. Nor was the patriarchal throne ever secure. Few patriarchs between the fifteenth and the nineteenth centuries died a natural death while in office. The forced abdications, exiles, hangings, drownings, and poisonings of patriarchs are well documented. But if the patriarch's position was precarious so was the hierarchy's. The hanging of patriarch Gregory V from the gate of the patriarchate on Easter Sunday 1821 was accompanied by the execution of two metropolitans and twelve bishops.

[edit] Devshirmeh

Main article: Devshirmeh


Devshirmeh was the system of the collection of young boys from conquered Christian lands by the Ottoman sultans as a form of regular taxation in order to build a loyal army (formerly largely composed of war captives) and the class of (military) administrators called the "Janissaries", or other servants such as tellak in hamams. The word devşirme means "collecting, gathering" in Ottoman Turkish. Boys delivered to the Ottomans in this way were called ghilmán or acemi oglanlar ("novice boys").

[edit] Western Schism

Main article: Western Schism

See also: Avignon Papacy

The Western Schism, or Papal Schism, was a prolonged period of crisis in Latin Christendom from 1378 to 1416, when there were two or more claimants to the See of Rome and there was conflict concerning the rightful holder of the papacy. The conflict was political, rather than doctrinal, in nature.

In 1309, Pope Clement V, due to political considerations, moved to Avignon in southern France and exercised his pontificate there. For sixty-nine years popes resided in Avignon rather than Rome. This was not only an obvious source of not only confusion but of political animosity as the prestige and influence of city of Rome waned without a resident pontiff. Though Pope Gregory XI, a Frenchman, returned to Rome in 1378, the strife between Italian and French factions intensified, especially following his subsequent death. In 1378 the conclave, elected an Italian from Naples, Pope Urban VI; his intransigence in office soon alienated the French cardinals, who withdrew to a conclave of their own, asserting the previous election was invalid since its decision had been made under the duress of a riotous mob. They elected one of their own, Robert of Geneva, who took the name Pope Clement VII. By 1379, he was back in the palace of popes in Avignon, while Urban VI remained in Rome.

For nearly forty years, there were two papal curias and two sets of cardinals, each electing a new pope for Rome or Avignon when death created a vacancy. Each pope lobbied for support among kings and princes who played them off against each other, changing allegiance according to political advantage. In 1409, a council was convened at Pisa to resolve the issue. The council declared both existing popes to be schismatic (Gregory XII from Rome, Benedict XIII from Avignon) and appointed a new one, Alexander V. But the existing popes refused to resign and thus there were three papal claimants. Another council was convened in 1414, the Council of Constance. In March 1415 the Pisan pope, John XXIII, fled from Constance in disguise; he was brought back a prisoner and deposed in May. The Roman pope, Gregory XII, resigned voluntarily in July. The Avignon pope, Benedict XIII, refused to come to Constance; nor would he consider resignation. The council finally deposed him in July 1417. The council in Constance, having finally cleared the field of popes and antipopes, elected Pope Martin V as pope in November.

[edit] Church and the Italian Renaissance (1399–1599)


Michelangelo's Pietà in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican CitySee also: Italian Renaissance and Christian Humanism

The Renaissance was a period of great cultural change and achievement, marked in Italy by a classical orientation and an increase of wealth through mercantile trade. The City of Rome, the Papacy, and the Papal States were all affected by the Renaissance. On the one hand, it was a time of great artistic patronage and architectural magnificence, where the Church pardoned such artists as Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Bramante, Raphael, Fra Angelico, Donatello, and da Vinci. On the other hand, wealthy Italian families often secured episcopal offices, including the papacy, for their own members, some of whom were known for immorality, such as Alexander VI and Sixtus IV.

In addition to being the head of the Church, the Pope became one of Italy's most important secular rulers, and pontiffs such as Julius II often waged campaigns to protect and expand their temporal domains. Furthermore, the popes, in a spirit of refined competition with other Italian lords, spent lavishly both on private luxuries but also on public works, repairing or building churches, bridges, and a magnificent system of aqueducts in Rome that still function today. It was during this time that St. Peter's Basilica, perhaps the most recognised Christian church, was built on the site of the old Constantinian basilica. It was also a time of increased contact with Greek culture, opening up new avenues of learning, especially in the fields of philosophy, poetry, classics, rhetoric, and political science, fostering a spirit of humanism–all of which would influence the Church.

[edit] Protestant Reformation (1521–1579)

Main articles: Protestant Reformation and Protestantism

In the early 16th century, movements were begun by two theologians, Martin Luther and Huldrych Zwingli, that aimed to reform the Church; these reformers are distinguished from previous ones in that they considered the root of corruptions to be doctrinal (rather than simply a matter of moral weakness or lack of ecclesiastical discipline) and thus they aimed to change contemporary doctrines to accord with what they perceived to be the "true gospel." The word Protestant is derived from the Latin protestatio meaning declaration which refers to the letter of protestation by Lutheran princes against the decision of the Diet of Speyer in 1529, which reaffirmed the edict of the Diet of Worms against the Reformation.[78] Since that time, the term has been used in many different senses, but most often as a general term refers to Western Christianity that is not subject to papal authority..[78] The term "Protestant" was not


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originally used by Reformation era leaders; instead, they called themselves "evangelical", emphasising the "return to the true gospel (Greek: euangelion)."[79]

The beginning of the Protestant Reformation is generally identified with Martin Luther and the posting of the 95 Theses on the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany. Early protest was against corruptions such as simony, episcopal vacancies, and the sale of indulgences. The Protestant position, however, would come to incorporate doctrinal changes such as sola scriptura and sola fide. The three most important traditions to emerge directly from the Protestant Reformation were the Lutheran, Reformed (Calvinist, Presbyterian, etc.), and Anglican traditions, though the latter group identifies as both "Reformed" and "Catholic", and some subgroups reject the classification as "Protestant."

The Protestant Reformation may be divided into two distinct but basically simultaneous movements, the Magisterial Reformation and the Radical Reformation. The Magisterial Reformation involved the alliance of certain theological teachers (Latin: magistri) such as Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, Cranmer, etc. with secular magistrates who cooperated in the reformation of Christendom. Radical Reformers, besides forming communities outside state sanction, often employed more extreme doctrinal change, such as the rejection of tenants of the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon. Often the division between magisterial and radical reformers was as or more violent than the general Catholic and Protestant hostilities.

The Protestant Reformation spread almost entirely within the confines of Northern Europe, but did not take hold in certain northern areas such as Ireland and parts of Germany. By far the magisterial reformers were more successful and their changes more widespread than the radical reformers. The Catholic response to the Protestant Reformation is known as the Counter Reformation, or Catholic Reformation, which resulted in a reassertion of traditional doctrines and the emergence of new religious orders aimed at both moral reform and new missionary activity. The Counter Reformation reconverted approximately 33% of Northern Europe to Catholicism and initiated missions in South and Central America, Africa, Asia, and even China and Japan. Protestant expansion outside of Europe occurred on a smaller scale through colonisation of North America and areas of Africa.

[edit] Martin Luther

Main article: Martin Luther

See also: Theology of Martin Luther

Martin Luther, by Lucas Cranach the Elder


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Martin Luther was an Augustinian friar and professor at the University of Wittenberg. In 1517, he published a list of 95 Theses, or points to be debated, concerning the illicitness of selling indulgences. Luther had a particular disdain for Aristotelian philosophy, and as he began developing his own theology, he increasingly came into conflict with Thomistic scholars, most notably Cardinal Cajetan.[80] Soon, Luther had begun to develop his theology of justification, or process by which one is "made right" (righteous) in the eyes of God. In Catholic theology, one is made righteous by a progressive infusion of grace accepted through faith and cooperated with through good works. Luther's doctrine of justification differed from Catholic theology in that justification rather meant "the declaring of one to be righteous", where God imputes the merits of Christ upon one who remains without inherent merit.[81] In this process, good works are more of an unessential byproduct that contribute nothing to one's own state of righteousness. Conflict between Luther and leading theologians lead to his gradual rejection of authority of the Church hierarchy. In 1520, he was condemned for heresy by the papal bull Exsurge Domine, which he burned at Wittenberg along with books of canon law.[82]

[edit] Ulrich Zwingli

Main article: Huldrych Zwingli

Ulrich Zwingli, wearing the scholar's cap.

Ulrich Zwingli was a Swiss scholar and parish priest who was likewise influential in the beginnings of the Protestant Reformation. Zwingli claimed that his theology owed nothing to Luther, and that he had developed it in 1516, before Luther's famous protest, though his doctrine of justification was remarkably similar to that of the German friar.[83] In 1518, Zwingli was given a post at the wealthy collegiate church of the Grossmünster in Zürich, where he would remain until his death at a relatively young age. Soon he had risen to prominence in the city, and when political tension developed between most of Switzerland and the Catholic Habsburg Emperor Charles V. In this environment, Zwingli began preaching his version of reform, with certain points as the aforementioned doctrine of justification, but others (with which Luther vehemently disagreed) such as the position that veneration of icons was actually idolatry and thus a violation of the first commandment, and the denial of the real presence in the Eucharist.[84] Soon the city council had accepted Zwingli's doctrines and Zürich became a focal point of more radical reforming movements, and certain admires and followers of Zwingli pushed his message and reforms far further than even he had intended, such as rejecting infant baptism.[85] This split between Luther and Zwingli formed the essence of the Protestant division between Lutheran and Reformed theology. Meanwhile, political tensions increased; Zwingli and the Zürich leadership imposed an economic blockade on the


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inner Catholic states of Switzerland, which lead to a battle in which Zwingli, in full armor, was slain along with his troops.

[edit] John Calvin

Main article: John Calvin

See also: Calvinism

John Calvin was a French cleric and doctor of law turned Protestant reformer. He belonged to the second generation of the Reformation, publishing his theological tome, the Institutes of the Christian Religion, in 1536 (later revised), and establishing himself as a leader of the Reformed church in Geneva, which became an "unofficial capital" of Reformed Christianity in the second half of the sixteenth century. He exerted a remarkable amount of authority in the city and over the city council, such that he has (rather ignominiously) been called a "Protestant pope." Calvin established an eldership together with a "consistory", where pastors and the elders established matters of religious discipline for the Genevan population.[86] Calvin's theology is best known for his doctrine of (double) predestination, which held that God had, from all eternity, providentially foreordained who would be saved (the elect) and likewise who would be damned (the reprobate). Predestination was not the dominant idea in Calvin's works, but it would seemingly become so for many of his Reformed successors.[87]

[edit] English Reformation

See also: English Civil War

Statue of Richard Hooker, whose emphases on reason, tolerance and inclusiveness influenced Anglicanism.

Unlike other reform movements, the English Reformation began by royal influence. Henry VIII considered himself a thoroughly Catholic King, and in 1521 he defended the papacy against Luther in a book he commissioned entitled, The Defence of the Seven Sacraments, for which Pope Leo X awarded him the title Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith). However, the king came into conflict with the papacy when he wished to annul his marriage with Catherine of Aragon, for which he needed papal sanction. Catherine, among many other noble relations, was the aunt of Emperor Charles V, the papacy's most significant secular supporter. The ensuing dispute eventually lead to a break from Rome and the declaration of the King of England as head of the English Church. England would later experience periods of frenetic and eclectic reforms contrasted by periods led by staunch conservatives. Monarchs such as Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth I, and Archbishops of Canterbury such as Thomas


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Cranmer and William Laud pushed the Church of England in many directions over the course of only a few generations. What emerged was a state church that considered itself both "Reformed" and "Catholic" but not "Roman" (and hesitated from the title "Protestant"), and other "unofficial" more radical movements such as the Puritans.

[edit] Counter-Reformation

Main article: Counter-Reformation

The Counter-Reformation, or Catholic Reformation, was the response of the Catholic Church to the Protestant Reformation. The essence of the Counter-Reformation was a renewed conviction in traditional practices and the upholding of Catholic doctrine as the source of ecclesiastic and moral reform, and the answer to halting the spread of Protestantism. Thus it experienced the founding of new religious orders, such as the Jesuits, the establishment of seminaries for the proper training of priests, renewed worldwide missionary activity, and the development of new yet orthodox forms of spirituality, such as that of the Spanish mystics and the French school of spirituality. The entire process was spearheaded by the Council of Trent, which clarified and reasserted doctrine, issued dogmatic definitions, and produced the Roman Catechism.

Though Ireland, Spain, France, and elsewhere featured significantly in the Counter-Reformation, its heart was Italy and the various popes of the time, who established the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (the list of prohibited books) and the Roman Inquisition, a system of juridical tribunals that prosecuted heresy and related offences. The Papacy of St. Pius V (1566–1572) was known not only for its focus on halting heresy and worldly abuses within the Church, but also for its focus on improving popular piety in a determined effort to stem the appeal of Protestantism. Pius began his pontificate by giving large alms to the poor, charity, and hospitals, and the pontiff was known for consoling the poor and sick, and supporting missionaries. The activities of these pontiffs coincided with a rediscovery of the ancient Christian catacombs in Rome. As Diarmaid MacCulloch stated, "Just as these ancient martyrs were revealed once more, Catholics were beginning to be martyred afresh, both in mission fields overseas and in the struggle to win back Protestant northern Europe: the catacombs proved to be an inspiration for many to action and to heroism."[88]

[edit] The Council of Trent

Main article: Council of Trent

The Council in Santa Maria Maggiore church; Museo Diocesiano Tridentino, Trento


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The Council of Trent (1545–1563), initiated by Pope Paul III (1534–1549) addressed issues of certain ecclesiastical corruptions such as simony, absenteeism, nepotism, and other abuses, as well as the reassertion of traditional practices and the dogmatic articulation of the traditional doctrines of the Church, such as the episcopal structure, clerical celibacy, the seven Sacraments, transubstantiation (the belief that during mass the consecrated bread and wine truly become the body and blood of Christ), the veneration of relics, icons, and saints (especially the Blessed Virgin Mary), the necessity of both faith and good works for salvation, the existence of purgatory and the issuance (but not the sale) of indulgences, etc. In other words, all Protestant doctrinal objections and changes were uncompromisingly rejected. The Council also fostered an interest in education for parish priests to increase pastoral care. Milan's Archbishop Saint Charles Borromeo (1538–1584) set an example by visiting the remotest parishes and instilling high standards.

[edit] Age of Discovery (1492–1769)

The Age of Discovery began with the voyage of Christopher Columbus c. 1492. It is characterised by European colonisation of missionary activity.

[edit] Christian missionaries

[edit] Catholic missions

During the Age of Discovery, the Roman Catholic Church established a number of Missions in the Americas and other colonies in order to spread Christianity in the New World and to convert the indigenous peoples. At the same time, missionaries such as Francis Xavier as well as other Jesuits, Augustinians, Franciscans and Dominicans were moving into Asia and the Far East. The Portuguese sent missions into Africa. While some of these missions were associated with imperialism and oppression, others (notably Matteo Ricci's Jesuit mission to China) were relatively peaceful and focused on integration rather than cultural imperialism.

[edit] Protestant colonisation

The most famous colonisation by Protestants in the New World was that of English Puritans in North America. Unlike the Spanish or French, the English colonists made surprisingly little effort to evangelise the native peoples.[89] The Puritans, or pilgrims, left England so that they could live in an area with Puritanism established as the exclusive civic religion. Though they had left England because of the suppression of their religious practice, most Puritans had thereafter originally settled in the Low Countries but found the licentiousness there, where the state hesitated from enforcing religious practice, as unacceptable, and thus they set out for the New World and the hopes of a Puritan utopia.

[edit] Church and the Enlightenment (1580–1800)

[edit] Trial of Galileo


Galileo before the Holy Office, a 19th century painting by Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury

The Galileo affair, in which Galileo Galilei came into conflict with the Roman Catholic Church over his support of Copernican astronomy, is often considered a defining moment in the history of the relationship between religion and science.

In 1610, Galileo published his Sidereus Nuncius (Starry Messenger), describing the surprising observations that he had made with the new telescope. These and other discoveries exposed major difficulties with the understanding of the heavens that had been held since antiquity, and raised new interest in radical teachings such as the heliocentric theory of Copernicus.

In reaction, many scholars maintained that the motion of the Earth and immobility of the Sun were heretical, as they contradicted some accounts given in the Bible as understood at that time. Galileo's part in the controversies over theology, astronomy and philosophy culminated in his trial and sentencing in 1633, on a grave suspicion of heresy. But perhaps the real reason for his sentencing was that he had in his book insulted the Pope and that Copernican astronomy did not have enough scientific evidence (although he had astronomical data, the idea that the earth moved was not supported by any common sense observations until the Theory of Universal Gravity).

[edit] French Revolution

Main article: French Revolution

This section requires expansion.

French Republican Calendar and anti-clerical measures.

[edit] Miscellaneous

Holy League Battle of Vienna Cardinal Richelieu Louis XIV of France

[edit] Revivalism (1720–1906)

Main article: Revivalism


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Revivalism refers to the Calvinist and Wesleyan revival, called the Great Awakening, in North America which saw the development of evangelical Congregationalist, Presbyterian, Baptist, and new Methodist churches. When the movement eventually waned, it gave rise to new Restorationist movements.

[edit] Great Awakenings

Main articles: First Great Awakening, Second Great Awakening, and Third Great Awakening

The First Great Awakening was a wave of religious enthusiasm among Protestants in the American colonies c. 1730–1740, emphasising the traditional Reformed virtues of Godly preaching, rudimentary liturgy, and a deep sense of personal guilt and redemption by Christ Jesus. Historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom saw it as part of a "great international Protestant upheaval" that also created Pietism in Germany, the Evangelical Revival, and Methodism in England.[90] It centred on reviving the spirituality of established congregations, and mostly affected Congregational, Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, German Reformed, Baptist, and Methodist churches, while also spreading within the slave population. The Second Great Awakening (1800–1830s), unlike the first, focused on the unchurched and sought to instil in them a deep sense of personal salvation as experienced in revival meetings. It also sparked the beginnings of Restorationist groups such as the Mormons and the Holiness movement. The Third Great Awakening began from 1857 and was most notable for taking the movement throughout the world, especially in English speaking countries. The final group to emerge from the "great awakenings" in North America was Pentecostalism, which had its roots in the Methodist, Wesleyan, and Holiness movements, and began in 1906 on Azusa Street, in Los Angeles. Pentecostalism would later lead to the Charismatic movement.

[edit] Restorationism

Main article: Restorationism

See also: Dispensationalism and Restoration Movement

Restorationism refers to various unaffiliated movements that considered contemporary Christianity, in all its forms, to be a deviation from the true, original Christianity, which these groups then attempted to "Reconstruct", often using the Book of Acts as a "guidebook" of sorts. Restorationism developed out of the Second Great Awakening and is historically connected to the Protestant Reformation,[91] but differs in that Restorationists do not usually describe themselves as "reforming" a Christian church continuously existing from the time of Jesus, but as restoring the Church that they believe was lost at some point. The name Restoration is also used to describe the Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and the Jehovah's Witness Movement.

[edit] Contemporary history (1848-present)

The history of the Church in contemporary times covers the period from the revolutions of 1848 to today.

[edit] Contemporary Eastern Orthodoxy

[edit] Russian Orthodox Church in the Russian EmpirePage | 73

LG US 116736: Describe the nature, history and different methods of Christian Mission. .23/04/08

Churches of the Moscow Kremlin, as seen from the Balchug

The Russian Orthodox Church held a privileged position in the Russian Empire, expressed in the motto, Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Populism, of the late Russian Empire. At the same time, it was placed under the control of the Tsar by the Church reform of Peter I in 18th century. Its governing body was Most Holy Synod, which was run by an official (titled Ober-Procurator) appointed by the Tsar himself.

The church was involved in the various campaigns of russification,[92] and accused of the involvement in anti-Jewish pogroms.[93] In the case of anti-Semitism and the anti-Jewish pogroms, no evidence is given of the direct participation of the church, and many Russian Orthodox clerics, including senior hierarchs, openly defended persecuted Jews, at least from the second half of the nineteenth century.[94] Also, the Church has no official position on Judaism as such.[94][95]

The Church was allowed to impose taxes on the peasants.[citation needed]

The Church, like the Tsarist state was seen as an enemy of the people by the Bolsheviks and other Russian revolutionaries.

[edit] Russian Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union

The Russian Orthodox Church collaborated with the White Army in the Russian Civil War (see White movement) after the October Revolution. This may have further strengthened the Bolshevik animus against the church. According to Lenin, a communist regime cannot remain neutral on the question of religion but must show itself to be merciless towards it. There was no place for the church in Lenin's classless society.[dubious – discuss]

Before and after the October Revolution of 7 November 1917 (October 25 Old Calendar) there was a movement within the Soviet Union to unite all of the people of the world under Communist rule (see Communist International). This included the Eastern European bloc countries as well as the Balkan States. Since some of these Slavic states tied their ethnic heritage to their ethnic churches, both the peoples and their church where targeted by the Soviet.[96][97] The Soviets' official religious stance was one of "religious freedom or tolerance", though the state established atheism as the only scientific truth.[citation needed] Criticism of atheism was strictly forbidden and sometimes lead to imprisonment.[98]

The Soviet Union was the first state to have as an ideological objective the elimination of religion. Toward that end, the Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated atheism in the schools. Actions toward particular religions, however, were determined by State interests, and most organised religions were


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never outlawed. Some actions against Orthodox priests and believers along with execution included torture being sent to prison camps, labour camps or mental hospitals.[99][100] The result of this militant atheism was to transform the Church into a persecuted and martyred Church. In the first five years after the Bolshevik revolution, 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed.[101] This included people like the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna who was at this point a monastic. Along with her murder was Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich Romanov; the Princes Ioann Konstantinovich, Konstantin Konstantinovich, Igor Konstantinovich and Vladimir Pavlovich Paley; Grand Duke Sergei's secretary, Fyodor Remez; and Varvara Yakovleva, a sister from the Grand Duchess Elizabeth's convent. They were herded into the forest, pushed into an abandoned mineshaft and grenades were then hurled into the mineshaft. Her remains were buried in Jerusalem, in the Church of Maria Magdalene.

Christ the Saviour Cathedral Moscow after reconstruction

The main target of the anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and 1930s was the Russian Orthodox Church, which had the largest number of faithful. Nearly its entire clergy, and many of its believers, were shot or sent to labor camps. Theological schools were closed, and church publications were prohibited. In the period between 1927 and 1940, the number of Orthodox Churches in the Russian Republic fell from 29,584 to less than 500. Between 1917 and 1940, 130,000 Orthodox priests were arrested. Of these, 95,000 were put to death, executed by firing squad.[citation needed] Father Pavel Florensky was one of the New-martyrs of this particular period.

After Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, Joseph Stalin revived the Russian Orthodox Church to intensify patriotic support for the war effort. By 1957 about 22,000 Russian Orthodox churches had become active. But in 1959 Nikita Khrushchev initiated his own campaign against the Russian Orthodox Church and forced the closure of about 12,000 churches. By 1985 fewer than 7,000 churches remained active.[102] Members of the church hierarchy were jailed or forced out, their places taken by docile clergy, many of whom had ties with the KGB.[citation needed]

In the Soviet Union, in addition to the methodical closing and destruction of churches, the charitable and social work formerly done by ecclesiastical authorities was taken over by the state. As with all private property, Church owned property was confiscated into public use. The few places of worship left to the Church were legally viewed as state property which the


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Russia-Moscow-Cathedral_of_Christ_the_Saviour-3.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Russia-Moscow-Cathedral_of_Christ_the_Saviour-3.jpg

government permitted the church to use. After the advent of state funded universal education, the Church was not permitted to carry on educational, instructional activity for children. For adults, only training for church-related occupations was allowed. Outside of sermons during the celebration of the divine liturgy it could not instruct or evangelise to the faithful or its youth. Catechism classes, religious schools, study groups, Sunday schools and religious publications were all illegal and or banned. This persecution continued, even after the death of Stalin until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. This caused many religious tracts to be circulated as illegal literature or samizdat.[99] Since the fall of the Soviet Union there have been many New-martyrs added as Saints from the yoke of atheism.

[edit] Diaspora emigration to the West

One of the most striking developments in modern historical Orthodoxy is the dispersion of Orthodox Christians to the West. Emigration from Greece and the Near East in the last hundred years has created a sizable Orthodox diaspora in Western Europe, North and South America, and Australia. In addition, the Bolshevik Revolution forced thousands of Russian exiles westward. As a result, Orthodoxy's traditional frontiers have been profoundly modified. Millions of Orthodox are no longer geographically "eastern" since they live permanently in their newly adopted countries in the West. Nonetheless, they remain Eastern Orthodox in their faith and practice.

[edit] Fascism

Fascism describes certain related political regimes in 20th century Europe, especially the Nazi Germany of Hitler, the Fascist Italy of Mussolini and the falangist Spain of Franco.

[edit] Nazism

The position of Christians in Nazi Fascism is highly complex.

Regarding the matter, historian Derek Holmes wrote, “There is no doubt that the Catholic districts, resisted the lure of National Socialism [Nazism] far better than the Protestant ones.”[103] Pope Pius XI declared - Mit brennender Sorge - that Fascist governments had hidden "pagan intentions" and expressed the irreconcilability of the Catholic position and Totalitarian Fascist State Worship, which placed the nation above God and fundamental human rights and dignity. His declaration that “Spiritually, [Christians] are all Semites” prompted the Nazis to give him the title “Chief Rabbi of the Christian World.”[104]

Catholic priests were executed in concentration camps alongside Jews; for example, 2,600 Catholic Priests were imprisoned in Dachau, and 2,000 of them were executed. A further 2,700 Polish priests were executed (a quarter of all Polish priests), and 5,350 Polish nuns were either displaced, imprisoned, or executed.[105] Many Catholic laypeople and clergy played notable roles in sheltering Jews during the Holocaust, including Pope Pius XII (1876–1958). The head rabbi of Rome became a Catholic in 1945 and, in honour of the actions the Pope undertook to save Jewish lives, he took the name Eugenio (the pope's first name).[106] A former Israeli consul in Italy claimed: “The Catholic Church saved more Jewish lives during the war than all the other churches, religious institutions, and rescue organisations put together.”[107]


The relationship between Nazism and Protestantism, especially the German Lutheran Church, was complex. Though the majority of Protestant church leaders in Germany supported the Nazis' growing anti-Jewish activities, some, such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a Lutheran pastor) were strongly opposed to the Nazis. Bonhoeffer was later found guilty in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler and executed.

[edit] Italian Fascism

Pope Pius XI moderately sceptic.[citation needed] G. K. Chesterton friendly but critical.[citation needed]

[edit] Spanish Civil War

Roman Catholics internationally mainly either neutral or on Franco's side, due to Azaña's de facto toleration of anti-clerical violence in and just before this conflict.[citation needed]

[edit] Dollfuss in Austria

was the ideal politician realising Quadragesimo Anno to Pope Pius XI.

[edit] International Christianity

In the twentieth century, Christianity has gained a wider representation in all parts of the world and at the beginning of the 21st century China is estimated to be the third largest Christian nation on earth, with the future prospect of Christianity eventually becoming a Sino-centric religion[108].

I suspect that even the most enthusiastic accounts err on the downside, and that Christianity will have become a Sino-centric religion two generations from now. China may be for the 21st century what Europe was during the 8th-11th centuries, and America has been during the past 200 years: the natural ground for mass evangelisation. If this occurs, the world will change beyond our capacity to recognise it. Islam might defeat the western Europeans, simply by replacing their diminishing numbers with immigrants, but it will crumble beneath the challenge from the East. – Spengler [108]

[edit] Modern trends in Christian theology

[edit] Modernism and liberal Christianity

Main article: Liberal Christianity

Liberal Christianity, sometimes called liberal theology, is an umbrella term covering diverse, philosophically-informed religious movements and moods within late 18th, 19th and 20th century Christianity. The word "liberal" in liberal Christianity does not refer to a leftist political agenda or set of beliefs, but rather to the freedom of dialectic process associated with continental philosophy and other philosophical and religious paradigms developed during the Age of Enlightenment.

[edit] Fundamentalism

Main article: Christian fundamentalism


Fundamentalist Christianity, is a movement that arose mainly within British and American Protestantism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in reaction to modernism and certain liberal Protestant groups that denied doctrines considered fundamental to Christianity yet still called themselves "Christian." Thus, fundamentalism sought to re-establish tenets that could not be denied without relinquishing a Christian identity, the "fundamentals": inerrancy of the Bible, Sola Scriptura, the Virgin Birth of Jesus, the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, the bodily Resurrection of Jesus, and the imminent return of Jesus Christ.

[edit] Second Vatican Council

Main article: Second Vatican Council

On 11 October 1962 Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council, the 21st ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. The council was "pastoral" in nature, emphasising and clarifying already defined dogma, revising liturgical practices, and providing guidance for articulating traditional Church teachings in contemporary times. The council is perhaps best known for its instructions that the Mass may be celebrated in the vernacular as well as in Latin.

[edit] Ecumenism

Main article: Ecumenism

Ecumenism broadly refers to movements between Christian groups to establish a degree of unity through dialogue. "Ecumenism" is derived from Greek οἰκουμένη (oikoumene), which means "the inhabited world", but more figuratively something like "universal oneness." The movement can be distinguished into Catholic and Protestant movements, with the latter characterised by a redefined ecclesiology of "denominationalism" (which the Catholic Church, among others, rejects).

[edit] Catholic ecumenism

Main article: Catholic Church and ecumenism

Over the last century, a number of moves have been made to reconcile the schism between the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox churches. Although progress has been made, concerns over papal primacy and the independence of the smaller Orthodox churches has blocked a final resolution of the schism.

On 30 November 1894, Pope Leo XIII published the Apostolic Letter Orientalium Dignitas (On the Churches of the East) safeguarding the importance and continuance of the Eastern traditions for the whole Church. On 7 December 1965, a Joint Catholic-Orthodox Declaration of His Holiness Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras I was issued lifting the mutual excommunications of 1054.

Some of the most difficult questions in relations with the ancient Eastern Churches concern some doctrine (i.e. Filioque, Scholasticism, functional purposes of asceticism, the essence of God, Hesychasm, Fourth Crusade, establishment of the Latin Empire, Uniatism to note but a few) as well as practical matters such as the concrete exercise of the claim to papal primacy and how to ensure that ecclesiastical


union would not mean mere absorption of the smaller Churches by the Latin component of the much larger Catholic Church (the most numerous single religious denomination in the world), and the stifling or abandonment of their own rich theological, liturgical and cultural heritage.

With respect to Catholic relations with Protestant communities, certain commissions were established to foster dialogue and documents have been produced aimed at identifying points of doctrinal unity, such as the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification produced with the Lutheran World Federation in 1999.

Ecumenism within Protestantism

Ecumenical movements within Protestantism have focused on determining a list of doctrines and practices essential to being Christian and thus extending to all groups which fulfil these basic criteria a (more or less) co-equal status, with perhaps one's own group still retaining a "first among equal" standing. This process involved a redefinition of the idea of "the Church" from traditional theology. This ecclesiology, known as denominationalism, contends that each group (which fulfils the essential criteria of "being Christian") is a sub-group of a greater "Christian Church", itself a purely abstract concept with no direct representation, i.e., no group, or "denomination", claims to be "the Church." Obviously, this ecclesiology is at variance with other groups that indeed consider themselves to be "the Church." The "essential criteria" generally consist of belief in the Trinity, belief that Jesus Christ is the only way to have forgiveness and eternal life, and that He died and rose again bodily.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_chov.htm

First century CE:

During the first six decades of the first century CE, Judaism was composed of about two dozen competing factions: Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, Zealots, followers of John the Baptist, followers of Yeshua of Nazareth (Iesous in Greek, Iesus in Latin, Jesus in English), followers of other charismatic leaders, etc. All followed common Jewish practices, such as observing dietary restrictions, worshiping at the Jerusalem temple, sacrificing animals, observing weekly sabbaths, etc.

Yeshua of Nazareth (a.k.a. Jesus Christ) conducted a short ministry (one year, in the Galillee according to the synoptic gospels; perhaps three years, mainly in Judea according to the Gospel of John). His teachings closely matched those of Beit Hillel (the House of Hillel). Hillel was a great Jewish rabbi who lived in the second half of the 1st century BCE one or two generations before Yeshua's birth.

Yeshua was charged with what would be called "aggravated assault" under today's law, for his attack on merchants in the Temple. This was apparently considered treason or insurrection by the occupying Roman forces. (Crucifixion, when used on a non-slave such as Jesus, was restricted to these two crimes.) He was executed by a detail of Roman soldiers, perhaps during the springtime, sometime in the late 20's or early 30's CE. Most historians date the event in April of either the year 30 or 33. According to the Gospels, his disciples initially returned to their homeland of Galilee immediately following their leader's death.


Four decades later, in 70 CE the Roman Army attacked Jerusalem and destroyed the central focus of Jewish life: the temple. This was an absolutely devastating blow at the time; Jewish life was totally disrupted. Jews were no longer able to worship at the Temple. Out of this disaster emerged two main movements: rabbinical Judaism centered in local synagogues, and the Christian movement.

There was great diversity within the Christian movement during the first few decades after Jesus' execution. Some of Jesus' followers (and those who never met Jesus but who were inspired by his teachings) settled in Jerusalem. But others spread across the known world, teaching very different messages. "Even in the same geographical area and sometimes in the same cities, different Christian teachers taught quite different gospels and had quite different views of who Jesus was and what he did." 1

The characteristics of mission in each period are

described and explained with reference to the social,

political and historical context.

Check Point

Not everyth


Wrap-Up



Self Assessment


The main characteristics of different periods of Christian mission are described in accordance with recognized scholarship.

SO 2

AC 1

The characteristics of mission in each period are described and explained with reference to the social, political and historical context.

SO 2

AC 2


Chapter 3: Compare different methods and approaches to

mission.

Specific Outcome

On completion of this chapter the learner must be able to compare different methods and approaches to mission.

Assessment Criteria

The different methods and approaches to Mission are described in terms of similarities and differences.The strengths and weaknesses of each method and approach to Mission are described with reference to their impact.

The different methods and approaches to Mission are

described in terms of similarities and differences.

Strategy: The Implementation of Missions

Strategies form the final tier of missiology. The arrows in the diagram on the home page reflect how the formulation of Christian strategy begins with the desires and perspectives of God, then considers the reality of the social situation, and finally constructs strategies compatible with these understandings and commitments. This bottom-up methodology guides missionaries to construct strategies which are both godly and relevant. Strategies, therefore, must not be rooted in mere pragmatism but developed upon the basis of theological insights and cultural understandings. Strategies without a firm theology and realistic cultural understandings are like sloughed-off snake skins--empty and useless. There is no life in pure methodology. Effective strategy grows out of theological and social science considerations.

Strategy is indispensable to the doing of any task. For example, students cannot do research without many strategy decisions. Students must first determine the exact



focus of their topic. They will ask, "How do I determine my topic? How do I uncover the significant resources on my topic? How should research for the paper be categorized and filed--on note cards, under headings on one continuous sheet of paper, or on various files on a computer disk? What style of writing do I choose--narrative, deductive, inductive? When do I research--in early morning, afternoon, or evening?" Without making such methodological decisions, the student would be unable to write a research paper. Although the ultimate purpose of the paper may be to seek some eternal truth, significant strategy decisions must be made along the way.

Some theologians deal with the bottom two layers of missiology but seem to have no need for the third layer. They may feel that the message of the gospel can speak for itself, and they are so concerned for the content of Christianity that they exclude its practice. Some missionaries, on the other hand, disengage strategical considerations from their theological undergirding. They become mere pragmatists desiring success as measured by the number of people converted and churches started. The following definition of strategy guides missionaries to eliminate these two extremes.

Definition of Strategy

Because missions must begin with the wishes of sovereign God yet function within the context of a social situation, strategy is defined as the practical working out of the will of God within a cultural context. Missionaries ask, "How does God desire that we minister within this context?" Seeking God's will for the culture, they work with national leaders to develop creative, God-centered, biblically-critiqued strategies with well-defined goals.

Paul's letter to Titus illustrates the development of strategy for a specific cultural context. Titus was ministering among a demoralized culture where no central government existed, the economy had disintegrated, and insolence and arrogance reigned. A prophet, quoted by Paul, characterized his own people as "liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons" (Titus 1:12). Even the Christians on Crete were described as "rebellious people, mere talkers and deceivers" who were "teaching things they ought not to teach" (Titus 1:10-11). Paul suggested to Timothy an appropriate strategy for working in this demoralized culture. He directed Titus not to handle all the problems of the Cretan church by himself and to avoid petty arguments because they were "unprofitable and useless" (Titus 3:9). Rather, he was to appoint elders in every town, who would then determine God-ordained solutions to Cretan dilemmas. Throughout the process Titus was to remember that conversion is of God and that all were once foolish and disobedient, enslaved by passions and desires, but have been saved by God's mercy (Titus 3:3-7). Titus was to "stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good" (Titus 3:8). Because of the demands of the gospel and the demoralization of the cultural milieu, Paul calls Titus to a focused ministry of mentoring, training, and ordaining Cretan leaders

Old Testament leaders were also concerned about strategy. Jethro saw that Moses was being worn out by the impossible task of judging all the disputes of Israel and that the people were also growing tired because of the lengthy proceedings. He, therefore, proposed a strategy for dealing with the situation. Moses was to appoint


trustworthy, godly officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens to judge the people. Only difficult cases would be brought to Moses (Ex. 18:13-26). With such a strategic organizational model, Moses could more effectively judge the people of Israel.

The book of Proverbs provides numerous reflections and pieces of advice from godly people concerning effective planning:

"The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps" (Prov. 16:9 NASB)."Every prudent man acts out of knowledge, but a fool exposes his folly" (Prov. 13:16)."Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed" (Prov. 15:22)."Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed" (Prov. 16:3)."Make plans by seeking advice; if you wage war, obtain guidance" (Prov. 20:18).

These verses express what Dayton and Fraser call "the tension of a paradox. God is in control and is sovereign; yet humans are free and responsible" (Dayton and Fraser 1990, 11). Making plans while praying and searching for God's will is not a denial of divine sovereignty but an acceptance that God works through faithful servants.

Christian strategies must leave room for the sovereignty of God. Humans are not self-sufficient or able to predict all eventualities. Who could have predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of Eastern Europe to the Gospel? In 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev vowed that he would accomplish what his predecessors failed to achieve: "the elimination of religious belief in the Soviet Union" (Johnstone 1986, 60). As recently as January 1989, the East German official who had been in charge of the actual building of the Berlin Wall in 1961 said that he could visualize the wall remaining for another hundred years. From a human perspective the wall was impenetrable. But as God used Nebuchadnezzer to deport an unfaithful Jewish nation and Cyrus to return these people from captivity, so God has used Gorbachev to open parts of the world closed to the gospel. Should we not, likewise, expect God to shake the Muslim world and continue to open China to the gospel?

Few churches would question the urgency for the gospel to be proclaimed to the entire world, yet most Christians do not evangelize. This occurs because Christians have not been motivated by the message of God to make specific goals or strategies to evangelize. Having no goals is comfortable; without goals, there is no failure. If the gospel is ever to be proclaimed in all the world, Christians must feel God's compassion for the lost, understand the cultures of people among whom they live, and make specific plans for reaching them with the gospel, for nurturing them to maturity, and for training them in Christian leadership.

It is naive for missionaries to assume that all they need to do is to exegete scripture, empathetically communicate with people and learn the local language. Although biblical, communicative, and linguistic skills are imperative to the missionary task, they do not displace the need for missiological strategy. Many movements stagnate


because Christian leaders have not developed the creative capacities for strategic planning.

Types of Strategies

For the sake of clarity strategies might be grouped under four general headings:

1. standard-solution strategies,2. being-in-the-way strategies, 3. planning-so-far strategies, and 4. unique-solution strategies.

Each of these four types of strategies has its own strengths and weaknesses and a degree of validity. However, unique solutions are needed if the goal of missions is to nurture initial believers to maturity in cohesive, reproducing churches with trained leaders and not merely to baptize individuals.

Standard Solution Strategies

Standard solution strategies assume that one approach can be used in every context of the world; it is the one-size-fits-all mentality. Evangelists develop methods that effectively work in particular contexts and then apply them to every situation. One example is the World Literature Crusade. This organization attempts to put a piece of Christian literature into the hands of every person in every city in the world. The assumption is that all people can read and make a decision for Christ if they are exposed to the right kind of literature. This approach also takes for granted that all people have the same problems and think in exactly the same ways. Churches of Christ developed a program called One Nation under God. In this program an advertisement in Reader's Digest announced a nationwide mailing of 100 million booklets called One Nation Under God. Campaigns and campaign meetings were scheduled in every major center to reap a harvest of souls touched by the message of the booklet. The printed material has now been translated into various other languages, and the program exported to other areas of the world. While this standard solution approach encouraged many local churches to cooperate, little long-term response was generated because of lack of particularized application and training and the lack of impact of such a generalized approach.

The strength of the standard solution approaches is that they reach many people in a short period of time. Awareness of the gospel or the church is enhanced, and doors are usually opened to a few new people.

These approaches, however, do not take into consideration that cultures vary and that different approaches are needed in different contexts. They fail to account for people's cultural and social differences. Social contexts vary just as electricity varies in voltage and in the apparatuses used to harness it: Machines of 240 voltage cannot be powered by 110-voltage systems, and two-pronged strategies will not be able to access power in three-pronged contexts. The voltage and prongs must be adapted to the context.

Thus standard solution approaches typically reach many people but do not impact them significantly except where there is a spiritual vacuum. Standard solution strategies must be coupled with other types of strategies.


Being-in-the-Way Strategies

Being-in-the-way strategies emphasize the role of God in missions and evangelism and assume that human planning negates the divine role. Christians are not to worry about the future but simply be used by God. Long-range planning is not important; it is God's business.

There is much truth in this approach. God does lead in powerful and unexpected ways. God put Philip in the way of the Ethiopian, and the Ethiopian became a Christian (Acts 8:26-40). God directed Peter to teach Cornelius and his household (Acts 10:1-48).

Unfortunately, this strategy eliminates the possibility of failure and negates personal responsibility. If things go wrong, it is because God has other plans. When a summer campaign in Central Europe had low attendance, one missionary remarked that God sent only as many people as the missionaries could effectively handle. In reality, the missionaries had done very little to organize and publicize the campaign.

The strength of this philosophy is confidence in the working of God; its weakness is the negation of the need for long-range planning and training.

Plan-so-Far Strategies

Plan-so-far strategies focus on beginnings rather than outcomes. Those who use this approach believe that if they plan to begin a work, God will do the rest. Plans are made to "hold a campaign" or have a "Bring Your Friend" day. During the early 1990s North American campaigners went into receptive areas of Eastern Europe. They attempted to plant a church through public lectures, distribution of tracts, teaching English as a second language, and personal Bible studies conducted through translators. Almost invariably the short-term workers left soon after the campaign, and little organized follow-up occurred. The focus was on converting the lost without a concurrent plan to nurture the lost to come under the kingdom of God. The most significant long-term problem of missions is reversion, not conversion. Much more thought and effort must be put into nurturing new converts to fully come into the kingdom of God rather than merely converting people and leaving them.

Plan-so-far strategies, however, have one strength. They sometimes make beachheads into areas where the Gospel would not otherwise go. Long-term missionaries, using unique solution strategies can then follow. For example, Partners in Progress, a medical missions organization overseen by the Sixth and Izard Church of Christ in Little Rock, Arkansas, has opened countries as diverse as Guyana, Romania, and Laos to missionaries of Churches of Christ. In each case the compassion of God expressed through medical missions teams opened the nations to long-term Christian missions.

Unique Solution Strategies

Unique solution strategies are based on the assumption that cultures and situations are different and each one requires its own special strategy. Dayton and Fraser write,

People and culture are not like standardized machines that have interchangeable parts. We cannot simply use an evangelism approach that has worked in one context


in another and expect the same results. Strategies must be as unique as the peoples to whom they apply.

Ideally, Christian missionaries who use unique solution strategies examine strategies that others have used in various contexts but do not copy them verbatim. These experiences, rather, become the reservoir out of which they are led by God to form unique strategy models appropriate for their own context. Some ideas are prayerfully borrowed and reshaped to fit the new context; other ideas are innovated as the community of believers determines how they should practically work out the ramifications of the kingdom of God for their context. Unique solution strategies tend to be holistic in the sense that they emphasize both conversion and nurturing, and because of this, they lead to germinal churches. Because people are unique, strategies must also be unique.

In many ways strategizing for the mission of God is like preparing to preach a sermon. The preacher must prayerfully consider the biblical themes which his congregation needs, properly exegete scriptures which speak to these themes, ardently look for metaphors and illustrations which make these themes live, and fervently pray for God's empowerment in delivering the sermon. Planning the sermon is a testimony of faithfulness to God. A well-developed strategy, reflecting the same interaction between the will of God and the condition of the culture, is an acknowledgement of the sovereignty of God, not a negation of it.

http://www.missiology.org/strategy.htm

Overseas Missions: Its' Motivation

Missions is the pulsating heartthrob of Christianity. Strangely, some complain about how wrong Christians are because we “proselytize” others to Christ. However, in the secular world proselytizing is called marketing and recruiting, and it is ok. Is there a double standard?

For example, if a university recruits students and takes their money, it is fine. But, if Christians recruit converts to Jesus Christ who alone can save them from their sin and give them eternal life - then it is bad. Humm.

So…why do it? Why should you or I make the outrageous decisions to uproot our family and move to another country to win others to Christ?

Jesus Christ: the First Overseas Missionary

Jesus set the example. The Bible teaching about overseas missions points out that Jesus “descended from heaven” so as to “seek and to save that which was lost (John 3:13; Luke 19:10).

Jesus gave the orders. Following the assemblage of His leadership team, Jesus said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you become fishers of men” (Mark 1:16). He made it clearer when He commanded them, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Matthew 28:19). This is the Great Commission.


His disciples understood the imperative nature of Jesus’ command as seen in Peter’s words, “And He ordered us to preach to the people” (Acts 10:42a).

Although there may be many motives for foreign Christian missions, the basic one is obedience. Maybe you and I are not called by God to move to another country, but we are obligated to support the cause of foreign missions with whatever recourses and opportunities God grants us.

Overseas Missions: Its' Methods

The Bible teaching about overseas missions unveils many methods of missionary work. Missionary history has also disclosed successful methods. Here are some to give you ideas of how to do missions.

Bible Distribution

This is probably the most basic method of overseas missions. Wycliffe Bible Translators and Gideon’s International and various Bible societies and publishers distribute over 100 million copies every year.

Of course, the starting place is to learn and translate the Bible into a target foreign language. And, learning the new language and culture is the first hurdle missionaries must overcome.

Church Planting

Paul planted local churches during his missionary journeys. The record reveals, “And after some days Paul said to Barnabas, ‘Let us return and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are…And he was traveling through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches” (Acts 15:36, 41).

Public Evangelism

Paul engaged in this method as seen by his efforts in Athens. The writer records, “So he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the market place every day with those who happened to be present” (Acts 17:17).

Schools

The Bible teaching about overseas missions indicates schools were used. We read that Paul, “withdrew from them and took away the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. And this took place for two years, so that all who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:9b, 10).

Paul started a two year Bible college. Through the years missionaries have formed schools from kinder garden through university and seminary level.

Medical

All humanitarian work could be stuffed under this category. Paul gives an example, “Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia so do you also” (1 Corinthians 16:1).


Paul was referring to the plight of Christians back in Jerusalem who were suffering under persecution or famine. He was collecting money for their welfare.

Christians have built countless hospitals around the world. You probably have something like a “St. Luke's,” or St. Joseph's” hospital in your town.

Others

Other means used in overseas missions include radio, correspondence courses, TV, films, internet, small Bible studies, and so called “tent making” ministries. This latter method is where missionaries take secular jobs (or become students) in foreign countries, and evangelize in ways acceptable or tolerated by the host country.

Strategies must be a carefully calibrated combination of courage, boldness, obedience and trust in God, wisdom, and effectiveness.

Do you want to be a missionary? Then, be sure of God’s calling, count the cost, get the educational, cultural, and financial preparation – and all the best to you.

1John 1:14

2Luke 19:10

3Philippians 2:6-8

Cross Cultural Missions Jesus Style

There are many kinds of missionaries in the world today. They behave in various ways according to their cultural, denominational, regional and a whole host of other backgrounds.

With these various missionaries come various methods and approaches to missions. The question that will be considered here is, “What was Jesus’ approach to missions?” We will also answer why and how missionaries should imitate Jesus in their approach to missions.

Jesus: The Perfect Missionary

In order to understand Jesus as a missionary, we must look to the Bible and see how he exemplified the “perfect missionary” for us. Examine John 1:1-2: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” Here we find the answer to the question of who Jesus is and where He came from. Later in this chapter it is clear that Jesus is the Word spoken of here. The Word was with God the Father in the beginning and the Word is God.


Jesus is God and He came from the Father. Well, if Jesus came from the Father, who did He go to? The answer is He came to us (humankind):

“The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.”1 Since Jesus in a sense has come from another culture and His job is to seek and save the lost2, then he is in a sense a real missionary. He left His own culture and entered ours. In what way did He leave his culture? A reading of Phillipians 2 gives us insight into what Jesus did to become incarnate:

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross!3 Jesus emptied himself or made himself nothing in order to dwell among us. This is at the heart of the incarnation. It is not just physically taking on a body. It entails that He would limit His divine attributes by becoming man. This is not to say that He was less than God in any way. Jesus was and is fully God and fully man. Theologians call this the hypostatic union of Christ. Although being fully God, Jesus obviously had to go through the process of birth, growing up, life, death and all the trials we experience as human beings in our finite and fragile states. Jesus did not choose to hold on to the things that He could have as God’s Son. He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but took on the nature of a servant and the form of a man. As 4Hebrews 4:15

5Sherwood G. Lingenfelter and Marvin K. Mayers, Ministering Cross Culturally (Grand Rapids: Baker Books,

1986).

a result we are able to say with the author of Hebrews “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness’, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet was without sin.” He was able to identify with us in every way except that He had no sin, and now as a result, we can come before Him with confidence.

Incarnational Missions

In their book Ministering Cross Culturally, Sherwood Lingenfelter and Marvin Mayers describe the incarnational approach to cross-cultural evangelism. This approach is based upon Jesus’ example of “emptying” himself for the sake of bringing salvation to humankind. An analogy can be made between Jesus’ approach to that task and our approach to missions. In the same way that Jesus was willing to limit Himself, we should be willing to limit ourselves. As an American, I have certain notions about individualism, freedom and what it means to be happy or content.

Other cultures may not recognize these or may not even be able to comprehend them. When I go to a culture where decisions are made in group contexts with the group having the last word, I should deny my American individual outlook in order to make the gospel more comprehensible to them. I don’t want to compromise the truth


of the message, but I must be willing to let go of cultural tendencies that would inhibit their response to Christ. Lingenfelter uses another example.

In the Yap culture (where he served as a missionary), they view time differently than the average westerner. He points out that many cultures, if not all, have some sense of how long they will wait for someone or something before they will become frustrated. If you have an appointment with your friend at 1pm and I don’t show up at exactly one, my friend will forgive me. He will wait for me longer. At about 1:05 he will start to become anxious. At 1:10, his anxiety may increase.

But if he waits until 1:20 or so, he will be pretty mad. He will still forgive me if I have a good excuse. If I don’t show up after 30 minutes, he will probably be angry and leave, having given up on me. In the Yap culture, the case would be very much different. If I had an appointment for say 4:30 and didn’t show up right then it would be no problem. In fact my friend may have not even arrived yet. If 15 minutes pass, it’s still fine. Half an hour would be fine. Even an hour would be fine. But if I were to show up later than this, he may become slightly anxious. At two hours he may become even more anxious. A Yapese person would probably wait 4 hours or so before giving up on me! What a different view of time. If I were in Yapese culture and waiting 4 hours for someone, I would be incredibly frustrated. But I must examine my response to such a situation. Is my cultural view of time an ideal for everyone to follow? For me to think so would be ethnocentric. Most of what makes up culture is not right or wrong, it’s just different. Now I don’t mean to say that there are not many things in cultures that are morally wrong (e.g. burning widows, infanticide, or prostitution), but we need to ask ourselves as missionaries what are and are not universal norms. As a missionary going to another culture, I must follow Jesus’ example and seek to identify with the people as much as I can and still be myself. That means that if a Yapese person shows up two hours late, I should understand him from his culture and no criticize him for it. It will prove in the long run to be a great help in my ministry to him and others in that culture. This will not be easy and will take some “emptying” of myself, but it is what I must do because Jesus is my supreme example. If I am successful, that person and culture will respect me and learn to trust me. If I try and force my cultural values upon him unnecessarily, he will resent me as an outsider and may reject the gospel, not because of Christ but because of me.

We should strive as Jesus did to meet people where they are at, to incarnate ourselves into their lives and situations.

Jesus did a good job of this with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). He spoke to her felt needs and confronted her with what was happening in her life and culture. He chose to associate with her though she was a Samaritan and he was a Jew. He reached out to her instead of expecting her to reach out to Him. People in other cultures need to be sought out in this same way by us. We need to present the gospel and focus on their felt needs and problems, while at the same time not forgetting God’s view of what they need.

Contextualizing the Gospel Message

In bringing the gospel to another culture, we need to seek to make it meaningful to them.


This is called contextualization. We must contextualize the message. In order to understand this concept, it will be helpful to understand what “form” and “meaning” are. A form is a behavior, activity or symbol that expresses a meaning in a particular culture. A meaning is what it is what is valued and that which the form expresses. One example is the meaning “showing God respect and honor while praying.” There are many forms to express this. Two common ones may be considered here. One is praying on your knees with your head bowed. Another would be praying while standing up with your hands raised to the heavens. Both are acceptable forms for the one meaning. Neither is right or wrong, just different.

In the process of contextualization the missionary will want to find cultural forms which are meaningful for that group. Sometimes there may be misunderstandings when using their forms, because there is not always a one to one correspondence to the biblical meaning. But they will serve the missionary in communicating more effectively those meanings than if the forms were not used and we instead used our own forms which are totally foreign. In cases where there are misunderstandings, the missionaries can explain the areas of correspondence and the areas of divergence between their meanings associated with those forms and the biblical meanings that should be held to.

This will help to lessen the possibility of syncretism, the meshing of biblical meanings and ideas with cultural meanings and ideas that are contrary to scripture. An example would be tribal Africans who have embraced Christianity but who still sacrifice to demons or evil spirits.

Syncretism is an unacceptable circumstance for orthodox Christianity and must be avoided. Good cross-cultural communication will help alleviate this problem. When indigenous Christians understand biblical meanings, they will not want to corrupt the truth they now hold to and understand. The incarnational model of cross-cultural evangelism and missions will help missionaries to better communicate these truths.

The apostle Paul knew how to approach other cultures with an incarnational model.

When in Athens, Paul came across a group of Greek philosophers and presented the gospel in a way they could readily understand. He saw an idol in the city with the inscription “To An Unknown God” and pointed it out to them. Paul then used this as a redemptive analogy to help them understand the gospel. Let’s take a look at what a redemptive analogy is, and then we will see how Paul used one to help reach the Athenian Greeks in an incarnational way.

Recognizing The Signs

Don Richardson, in his books Peace Child and Eternity in their Hearts, develops the ideas of concept fulfillment and redemptive analogy. Many cultures in the world have some myth or concept in their social structure that can be fulfilled by a Christian concept. In Peace Child the Sawi people in Irian Jaya had a tradition that would bring peace to warring tribes. If they gave a “peace child” they would have made peace between themselves. Richardson introduced the idea that Jesus is a peace child from God to man and we are now reconciled to God. This is a redemptive analogy. The idea of concept fulfillment is illustrated by Richardson in an article called Concept Fulfillment. He gave the example from a people called the Karen in Burma. They had an ancient legend which stated that one day a teacher of truth would


appear holding a black object under his arm. Well, the first missionary who came to them was carrying a black leather Bible under his arm and shared the gospel to that group. They were instantly interested and many came to Christ among the Karen.

Paul took the Athenian Greek concept of an unknown god and used it as an analogy to show them who the real God is. He told them that this God they worship as unknown is really the

Creator of the universe. He also corrected some of their misconceptions of who God is by telling them that He does not live in temples made by human hands and so forth. Then he further contextualized the message by comparing God to the Greek idea of being. Starting with Parmenides, the Greeks had been developing a metaphysical (in the philosophical sense) idea of ultimate reality: being. Parmenides called being “the One.” Plato called it “Idea” or “Form.”

Aristotle called it “Perfect Actuality.” Paul used this Greek concept to shed light on what he was trying to communicate as to who God is. This was a good approach because Jesus had used it with the Jews. Jesus said that He was the Bread of Life. This refers back to the Jewish concept of “manna” which God gave to them in the wilderness with Moses. Some of the Greeks became followers of Jesus that day!

Conclusion

Having examined the example of Jesus, we need to learn from Him. His approach to cross-cultural evangelism was an incarnational one. If we seek to be like Him, then our approach will model His. We should seek to become as much like the people we minister to as we can. If God can become man for our sake, certainly we attempt to make any cultural changes necessary to reach out to our fellow man with the Good News. And I believe God will bless us if we make this our goal.

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The strengths and weaknesses of each method and

approach to Mission are described with reference to

their impact.

Check Point


Not everyth


Wrap-Up



Self Assessment


The different methods and approaches to Mission are described in terms of similarities and differences.

SO 3

AC 1

The strengths and weaknesses of each method and approach to Mission are described with reference to their impact.

SO 3

AC 2


Describe Nature and History Christian Missions

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Transcript of Describe Nature and History Christian Missions