Puritan, born in 1842. He was one of America’s most influential ministers in the 1890s, but was affected by rampant liberalism of the early twentieth century. In 1892, while pastor of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, New York, he wrote The Evolution of Christianity, based on the premise that the church, faith and religion evolved in the same manner as did man. He saw evolution as the vehicle of God’s revelation. He is often considered the major popularizer of the New Theology movement.

[tags]blogrodent, church-history, churchrodent, evolution, history, lyman-abbott, liberalism, puritan, theology[/tags]

(1079-1142)

Eldest son of a minor noble of Brittany. Gave up inheritance rights to younger brothers, roamed France to sit at the feet of the great masters. Lectured in Paris. Wrote Sic et Non. A couple quotes:

"By doubting we come to inquiry, and by inquiry we arrive at the truth."

And…

"Faith has no merit with God when it is not the testimony of divine authority that leads us to it, but the evidence of human reason."

At the age of 36, Abelard was a leading intellectual in Paris when he began an illicit love affair with one of his students, 17-year-old Heloise. The affair produced a child, Astrolabe. Heloise refused to marry Peter because she knew how precious his genius was and she feared their marriage would hinder his career. Subsequently, Heloise entered a convent but her uncle accused Abelard of denying his responsiblity. Heloise’s uncle hired men who attacked Abelard and castrated him.

Abelard ‘s love for Heloise was evidenced in their many subsequent correspondences which lasted for many years.

Abelard was condemned by a church council at Soissons in 1121, and again at a church council at Sens in 1140 for heresy. He finally retired to the abbey of Cluny where he died two years later. His writings later influenced such theologians as Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther. (Also cf. Linder, et al.: Eerdmans Handbook to the History of Christianity, Eerdmans Publishing. Co., Grand Rapids, MI, 1985.)

[Significant contributions to this entry provided by Michael Switzer (mswitzer (at) netins.net)]

[tags]Abelard, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Martin-Luther, Peter, Peter-Abelard, Thomas[/tags]

(1689)

While the Independents and the Dissenting Brethren of Westminster were effective in developing and spreading a new tolerant attitude toward other faith-groups with their new denominational theory, this view of the church found only limited acceptance in England, where the Church of England still retained a favored position, even after the Act of Toleration in 1689 recognized the rights of Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists and Quakers to worship freely.

[tags]Act-of-Toleration, Baptists, BlogRodent, church-history, Church-of-England, ChurchRodent, Congregationalists, Dissenting-Brethren, history, Presbyterians, Quakers, Westminster[/tags]

Supposed founder of the church at Edessa. Supposedly one of the original seventy disciples of Jesus.

[tags]Addai, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Jesus[/tags]

(Reformation)

Lutheran warrior, King of Sweden. He entered Germany as the new leader of the Protestant cause. A series of victories carried him south as far as Munich. The "Lion of the north" died at the Battle of Lutzen in 1632, southwest of Leipzig, although his Swedish army won the battle.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Gustavus-Adolphus, history, Reformation[/tags]

A heathen god, who protected the sick and the hospitals. While a man lay sick in bed, a priest would walk the aisles chanting to this god. This presented some difficulty for the Christians who desired to help the sick and infirm.

[tags]Aesculapius, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history[/tags]

The Visigoth leader of A.D. 410 who besieged Rome with his Arian hordes. Plundered the city, excepting the churches, proclaiming himself a Christian.

[tags]Alaric, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history[/tags]

A group commonly called Cathari, meaning "pure ones." Since they were especially influential in and about the town of Albi in southern France some people called them Albigenses. Although most of what we know about the Albigenses comes from their enemies, it is likely that they filtered into Europe from Bulgaria. Like the gnostics in the early church, the Cathari held that the universe is the scene of an eternal conflict between two powers, the one good, the other evil. Matter, including the human body, is the work of this evil power, the god of the Old Testament. He had imprisoned the human soul in its earthly body. To escape from the power of the flesh the true Cathar was supposed to avoid marriage, sexual intercourse, eating of meat, and material possessions. Here was a radical poverty, but not one based on the example of Jesus so much as on the perceived nature of the universe. The Cathari rejected not only popes and bishops, but basic Christianity. They tried to escape from evil, not by repentance and faith but by dividing the self in two. Not only did the Cathari succeed in reviving the ancient dualist heresy, by 1200 they had gained the protection of the princes of Toulouse, a cultural area in southern France, and were spreading at an alarming rate. The Roman church eventually unleashed the Inquisition against the Cathari to rout them out and destroy them and the movement was brought to an end before the thirteenth century closed.

[tags]Albigenses, BlogRodent, Cathari, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Inquisition, Jesus[/tags]

An Anglo-Saxon in charge of Charlemagne’s school at Aix-la-Chapelle. Began the task of reviving learning by writing textbooks on grammar, spelling, rhetoric, and logic.

[tags]Alcuin, BlogRodent, Charlemagne, church-history, ChurchRodent, history[/tags]

A bishop who disputed Arius, pastor of Baucalis Church, over his doctrines concerning Christ’s humanity and God-hood. Around A.D. 320 called a synod at Alexandria to confront Arianism.

[tags]Alexander-Bishop-of-Alexandria, Alexander, Alexandria, Arius, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Arianism[/tags]

Bishop of Milan who deeply affected Augustine by his eloquent and intelligent messages. Threatened the Christian emperor Theodisius in Milan with excommunication for killing 7,000 Thessalonians in A.D. 390. His threat eventually humiliated the emperor, and its precedent set a pattern for the Catholic church to this day.

[tags]Ambrose, Augustine, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history[/tags]

The first foreign missionary society, founded in 1810. It was formed on the initiative of a group of students at the new Congregational Andover Theological Seminary.The leader of the group was Samuel J. Mills.

[tags]American-Board-of-Commissioners-for-Foreign-Missions, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Foreign-Missions, history[/tags]

In the early 1940s American Evangelicals created two organizations: The National Association of Evangelicals and the American Council of Christian Churches. Both were loyal to orthodox Christianity but differed in their structure and in their attitude toward conciliar ecumenism. The American Council was especially critical not only of the National Council and World Council of Churches but of all who were in any way associated with them.

[tags]American-Council-of-Christian-Churches, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, National-Association-of-Evangelicals, World-Council-of-Churches[/tags]

(See also "Schleitheim Confession")

A movement beginning on 21 January 1525 in the house of Felix Manz by men who believed that the Christian Church of the New Testament was not dictated by the secular government, i.e. separation of Church and State. Called Anabaptists by their opponents because they "re-baptized" believers, holding that baptism followed confession of personal faith in Christ, not something one does to infants to keep them saved. Their goal was the restitution of apostolic Christianity, a return to churches of true believers.

[tags]Anabaptists, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Felix-Manz, history, Schleitheim-Confession[/tags]

A revered Egyptian monk from the early fourth century, subject of Athanasius’s book Life of Saint Anthony. Regarded by many as the first monk, born in A.D. 250 in Koma, died at 105 years of age. Went into hermitage at twenty years of age, living in a tomb.

[tags]Anthony, Athanasius, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history[/tags]

The obvious example of overt anti-Semitism may be found in the Nazi regime. Nazi theoreticians developed a barbaric doctrine of anti-Semitism. To regain the lost innocence of the past, Germany, they argued, had to purge the present of its impurities. The Jews served as scapegoats. They were the source of all modern evils, the"culture-destroying race" that gave the world both capitalism and Marxism. Hitler declared that even the Christian faith was a Jewish plot.

[tags]Anti-Semitism, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history[/tags]

A pastor of Laodicea and friend of Athanasius. Approached the Christological debate from a psychological perspective. Postulated that Christ’s humanity was found in his body and soul, but that his divine nature displaced man’s animating and rational soul. The second General Council of A.D 381 in Constantinople silenced his teaching.

[tags]Apollinarius, Athanasius, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Constantinople[/tags]

Christian scholars and philosophers and writers who arose near the end of the second century to defend the Christian faith from secular attack. Included men such as Aristides, Justin Martyr, his disciple Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, the unknown author of the Letter to Diognetus and Melito, bishop of Sardis in Asia Minor.

[tags]Apologists, Aristides, Athenagoras, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Justin-Martyr, Melito, Tatian, Theophilus-of-Antioch[/tags]

A brief summary of Trinitarian and Christological belief probably from sometime before A.D. 250 designed to protect the church from heresy.

[tags]Apostles-Creed, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Creed, history[/tags]

(1224-1274)

Dominican monk of noble birth; brilliant, tireless and gentle. Honored reason above all other human attributes, and was faithful to the church as well as scholarship. Was sent from Italy to counter the spread of Greek philosophies at the universities in Paris. In Summa Theologica, he countered the tenets of Averroes, Maimonides and Aristotle point by point, refuting some points and reconciling others with Christian doctrine. Held that theology and philosophy were distinctly different, but non contradictory, that both are fountains of knowledge and truth, for both come from the same God. Held to seven Sacraments, with the Lord’s Supper being primary.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Thomas-Aquinas[/tags]

One of the first of the Christian apologists who arose near the end of the second century to counter critic’s claims that Christianity could only manage appeal to the ignorant and the low.

[tags]Aristides, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history[/tags]

Pastor of the influential Baucalis Church in Alexandria where Alexander was bishop. Around A.D. 318, Arius challenged Alexandrian teachers by asserting that Christ’s divinity was not of the same order of God’s, since he was a created Being — sort of half-God, for "the Son has a beginning, but … God is without beginning." He spread his doctrines with simple jingles. His teaching appealed to the common people and former pagans, since it resembled the Gnosticism of their youth. Quarreled with Bishop Alexander at a synod in Alexandria in A.D. 320 and won the partial support of Eusebius, the Bishop of Nicomedia. His heresy spurred the formulation and acceptance of the Nicene Creed. All bishops present, excepting Arius and two others, accepted this creed. Arius and the remaining two bishops were consequently exiled.

[tags]Alexander, Arius, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Creed, Gnosticism, history, Nicene-Creed[/tags]

(1560-1609)

A Dutch professor who tried to modify the Calvinism of his time. In 1610 his disciples produced their manifesto, the Remonstrance, affirming that election to salvation rests on faith forseen; that Christ died for all, although only believers benefit; that grace is not irresistible; and that perseverance depends on one’s own action over and above God’s help. Dutch Arminianism was rationalistic in spirit, and subsequently drifted into querying Jesus’ full deity. Some High church Anglicans came independently to an essentially Arminian view of grace, not from rationalism, but from deference to the Greek Fathers.

[tags]BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history, Jacob-Arminius, Jesus[/tags]

A member of the Sorbonne, the theological faculty of the University of Paris. Brother to Jacqueline Arnauld, abbess of a Cistercian convent called Port-Royal outside of Paris. After Cornelius Jansen’s death in 1638, he assumed the leadership of the Jansenist cause. In 1643, he challenged the Jesuits and their teaching that frequent confession could compensate for frequent sinning. Was nearly expelled from the Sorbonne for his controversy. Befriended Blaise Pascal, who helped him defend his position.

[tags]Antonine-Arnauld-II, Blaise-Pascal, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, Cornelius, history, Jesuits[/tags]

One of the earliest voices against the worldliness of the Catholic church. He urged the church to return to poverty. Pope Innocent II banished Arnold from Italy, so he fled to Paris to study under Abelard and aroused the wrath of Bernard of Clairvaux. Returned to Rome, where the people seized power while the Pope was away and placed Arnold into the leadership of the secular government. 10 years later, Pope Hadrian IV placed Rome under interdict and with Emperor Frederick Barbarossa captured Arnold and executed him in 1155.

[tags]Abelard, Arnold, Arnold-Abbot-of-Brescia, Bernard, Bernard-of-Clairvaux, BlogRodent, church-history, ChurchRodent, history[/tags]