Church History in Five Minutes
On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was given to the first Christians to empower them to witnesses to the ends of the earth. Persecution pushed them out of the Jerusalem nest to reach the Roman Empire and beyond (Sudan, India, England?). Persecution, often horrendous, kept Church organization simple and loose, but the Church grew because “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church” (Tertullian).
Christianity was legalized in AD 311 and then became the state religion by the Emperor Constantine when he had a vision of a cross with the inscription, “in this sign, conquer.” The Church then had leisure to develop structure which was constantly infected with lust for political power. Theological controversies, like the doctrine of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ, were decided by synod and council (most notably the 7 Ecumenical Councils). Even these councils were not immune to political power struggles. Church authority in the West (including North Africa) became centralized in Rome and eventually in the person of the Bishop of Rome, the Pope. In the east, ritual and practice and some small points of theology developed differently. Ill will and the lust for power blew these small differences into the grounds for a Schism between east and west in 1054 when the Pope’s delegates excommunicated the Eastern Church which in turn anathematized the delegates from the west, viewing the Pope as an anti-Christian usurper.
The West developed the medieval Church-State synthesis. The monastic movements flourished, as did scholastic theology, and feudalism. On Oct 31, 1517, Martin Luther challenged debate on 95 theses which he posted on the church door in Wittenberg. While Luther was hoping for a reformation of the Church, stripping away the anti-Biblical theology and practice, what occurred was a split in the Western Church into Protestant (urging changes) and Roman Catholic (or anti-reformist).
The protestants divided into two groups: the Radical Reformers (e.g., Mennonite) and the Magisterial Reformers, which include three groups: the Lutheran (after Luther); the Anglican (after Cramner, et al); and the Reformed (after Zwingli, et al). The most notable of the Reformed theologians was John Calvin, thus another named for the Reformed faith is Calvinism.
The Reformation took hold in the 16th century because of the power of the doctrine of justification by faith, the power of the Bible preached directly, as well as the fact that power political rulers protected the church and its leaders. Unlike the USA where four churches can share an intersection, in those days the type of church throughout a duchy was the same as determined by the Duke. Calvinism took strongest hold among the developing middle class in European Cities, most notably in France, Holland, Germany and England. Under the preaching of John Knox, Calvinism spread to every area of society in Scotland—city, rural, rich and poor.
The Reformed were influential early in this country. The English separatists and puritans founded the congregational churches of New England, the German Reformed were small but influential in Pennsylvania and the Dutch (RCA, CRC) settled in New York and later Michigan. Some of the French Reformed (Huguenots) came here fleeing persecution. The Scots brought Presbyterianism to the original colonies and especially through Appalachia. Presbyterian churches have split, regrouped and realigned (sometimes without even changing names). The largest split in the Presbyterian church was into “northern” and “southern” at the time of the War Between the States. The PCA is an American denomination formed largely from an exodus from the PCUS (the “southern” Presbyterian church) in 1973. It has grown steadily in numbers and churches as people were looking for a church that emphasizes faithfulness to the infallible Word of God, and doctrines of salvation by grace through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.