Here is a continuation of Mr. Mbedzi 's piece on church history. Wisdom is profitable for all things.
Can you pray for the weather?
Your first reaction to this question reveals your greatest influence or default mindset.
An enthusiastic yes means you are probably a Theist – a believer in a powerful, personal God who intervenes in human affairs today.
Hesitant? You are probably a Deist – God created the world but can’t control it because he set universal/scientific laws?
No, there is no God - Atheist.
Your beliefs shape your life.
The Past 500 Years [1501 to 2000 AD]
In my opinion Church history looks like a story of Rediscovery/Renewal, Growth, Decline and back to Revival.
In the previous episode we saw church leaders doing all they can to extinguish opposing views even through persecution, assassinations and executions but they couldn’t stop the Reformation.
In 1517 AD (exactly 500 years ago) Martin Luther nails his 95 thesis document to a Germany church building door calling the Pope to answer to abuses which he believed had turned the medieval Church into a monster that early apostles could hardly recognise.
Among other things he argued that forgiveness of sins is not earned by penance or paying money to the priests – going against church practice and threatening its income.
it’s not the criticism or pulling down that makes a revolution it’s what you replace the regime with that matters as the modern Arab spring has taught us.
After reading Romans Luther rediscovered Justification by Faith - that you cannot buy forgiveness and you can’t earn it either, that Salvation and eternal life are received only as the free gift of God’s grace through the believer’s faith in Jesus Christ. ‘Believe in the lord Jesus and you will be saved’. “We are saved not by good deeds but for good deeds” he said, insisting the just shall live by Faith.
But it was the ‘nuclear bomb’ that came three years later that set a new European if not Global foundation. Earlier he criticised an insincere abusive leadership and some doctrines but this time he trashed the whole system as he threw the three canon laws and the papal forgery document into the fire.
The denominational floodgates opened and for the next 5 centuries, besides greed [and cults] the usual cause of church division has been doctrine – as zealots rise to purify or revitalise the institutional church.
To its credit, the medieval church responded by reforming itself, its practices, documenting its core beliefs in what is now known as the counter-reformation giving birth to todays refined Roman Catholic Church.
Some accuse Luther of dividing the church but he put truth ahead of unity. He translated the Bible into vernacular and put Scripture ahead of church tradition.
Martin Luther stopped proposing revolutionary changes after about 5 years. Was the reformation complete or did he stop too early?
Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin and others across Europe illuminated this era which later saw the translation, printing and distribution of the King James Bible in 1611.
Those who left into ‘purer’ doctrine are now known as Protestants – virtually every non Catholic.
These reformed churches of the 16th and 17th century brought back the emphasis of Repentance to add the sacramental/ordinances (e.g baptism) based salvation.
Church of England i.e Anglican (termed Episcopalians in America) largely maintained the same state church structure but with more liberty and later exported its model to Africa during the colonisation of Africa in the 1800s.
Over the years the protestants solidified into specific traditions.
Then arose another renewal movement i.e. Evangelicals who reacted to what they felt was a too liberal approach. Examples are Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians who emphasised Faith and the Scriptures ‘the Word’ insisting the Bible is inerrant and the only reliable source, any writings from first century to date, apocrypha and early church ‘fathers’ are not inspired and should not be used in ‘developing’ doctrine if at all.
Liberals viewed the Bible as a historical document which is open to criticism as practiced in western Bible Schools today including the evangelical ones.
*Liberal and conservative also refer to political labels in the US. Not to be confused.
These mainline or traditional denominations promoted women’s rights, reformed prisons, abolished slavery, built free public schools etc.
But it was the liberal protestants who embraced the social gospel more, aiming for “regeneration of society rather than only the conversion of individuals”.
Enter Pentecostals, the ‘evangelicals on steroids’. Beginning with just a small gathering in Asuza street led by a one eyed black American (William Seymour) in 1906 they grew into the fastest growing segment of Christianity with over 500 million adherents today according to the internationally acclaimed Pew Research Center. What the LA Times then called the fanatics, crazy babblers a century ago has now been termed the biggest social movement of the 20th century. Most died as villains in the court of public opinion and only regarded as heroes decades later.
By 1970 charismatic Catholics, Anglicans, liberals and evangelicals alike were speaking in tongues thanks in part to the role of one South African Pentecostal, David du Plesis in the Charismatic renewal.
Over the years as they multiply Pentecostals too are also falling into the trap of putting tradition ahead. Their grandchildren are the modern charismatics whose names too many to mention where superstar-spectator consumer Christianity has become the norm and where transformation is rarely an aim, or is it? Or will the today’s new and dismissed movements be heroes in a few decades?
Each of the above streams has an emphasis influenced by historical tradition. David Pawson summarises this way:
“Liberals - Repentance
Evangelicals - Faith (believe)
Sacramental – Water Baptism
Pentecostal - Holy Spirit
- All four steps are acts of both man and God. “
Calvinists emphasise the acts of God and Armenians emphasise man’s responsibility. The Bible provides for BOTH and for ALL four above.
“REPENT, and be BAPTIZED every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the HOLY SPIRIT” Peter speaking to those who had BELIEVED (Acts 2v38)
At the end its no longer a matter of denominational label as Peter said “God is no respecter of persons: but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him… “ (Acts 10v35-40) be they Catholics, reformed liberals, or charismatics. People don’t generally fit into neat categories. The ‘bad guys’ are not always bad and the ‘good guys’ are not always good.
Those into labels are narrow and argumentative e.g. a liberal demonising evangelicals/pentecostals for being more concerned with building mega-churches than feeding the homeless, who react by lambasting liberals for wasting time drilling wells without sharing ‘living water’ with the villagers.
Lately Church denominations have been forced to take positions on such issues as homosexuality and more liberals than evangelicals support gay agenda, to the extent of electing a gay bishop in a USA diocese.
Christianity [starting in middle east] came to Greece and became a philosophy, came to Italy and became an institution, to Europe and became a culture and came to America and became a business" says Torben Sondergaad
Do we need another reformation?
All in all in this Growth, Decline and Renewal it seems Someone is in control and will not bow down to majority in democracy-style relativism.
Do you personal know that Someone?
This is only a summarised helicopter view, we will look at the details of each era in the next posts.
Philip Yancey says "As I travel, I have observed a pattern, a strange historical phenomenon of God is “moving” geographically from the Middle East to Europe, to North America, to the developing world. My theory is this: God goes where He’s wanted. "
.... to be contiued