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HS503 - InMinistry Dr. Chris Armstrong
Winter 2012, Jan 9 – Mar 19 Bethel Seminary
Office: Faculty Hall, A212
E-mail:
TA – Tim Magnuson:
CHURCH HISTORY SURVEY
Course Description
This course looks at the thought, practice, and experience of Christians from the first century through the twentieth. Students will become acquainted with some of the primary and secondary sources used for understanding the church’s history. Classes are conducted in a lecture/discussion format, and student participation is encouraged.
Objectives
1. Identify and interpret key events, movements, figures, and ideas in Christian history.
2. Articulate the importance of “recovering the memory of the church” for Christians today.
3. Continue to study Christian history as a resource for life and ministry.
Texts
Noll, Mark. Turning Points, 2nd ed. (Baker Academic, 2001; 080106211X)
Evans, G. R. Faith in the Medieval World (InterVarsity Press, 2002; 830823530)
Tomlin, Graham. Luther and His World (InterVarsity Press, 2002; 830823514)
Hill, Jonathan. Faith in the Age of Reason (InterVarsity Press, 2004; 830823603)
Peterson, Susan Lynn. Timeline Charts of the Western Church (Zondervan, 1999; 310223539)
Christian History (& Biography) magazine—many issues. You will access these through a specially arranged 6-month subscription to www.christianhistory.net. The subscription costs only $5 and gives you access to every article from every issue of Christian History (issues #1-99; issues are referred to in your schedule grid with the designation “CH #”). You will access this subscription here: www.christianhistory.net/go/bethel.
Documents on Moodle
Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity, Vol. I. Grand Rapids, MI: Harper & Row, 1984.
ch. 9, 67-81, ch. 10, 82-90, ch. 11, 91-101, ch. 12, 102-108, p. 112 (chronology), ch. 13, 113-128, ch. 20, 181-188
Course Requirements
1. Quizzes
2. Relevance Papers: See Section I
3. Forum Responses and Counter-Responses: See Section II
4. Exam: See Section III
Grading
Quizzes (4 x 5%) 20%
Relevance papers (4 x 12%) 48%
Forum Responses and Counter-Responses (4 x 2.5%) 10%
Exam 20%
Evaluation (see below) 2%
EVALUATION
Owing to a change in Bethel Seminary policy, I am required to count your completion of the course evaluation at the end of the course as 2% of the final grade. I won’t be able to look at the evaluation text itself (have no fear!), but I will be able to tell whether you completed it or not, so I can add that 2% to your final grade.
PARTICIPATION
Involvement in our discussions; attendance is assumed, and mandatory! This will be used as a “straw in the wind.” That is, my observation of your involvement in class discussion will serve to push you, if your final grade is on or near a “line” between two letter-grades, toward either the higher or the lower grade. As stated in the Academic Course Policies, your completion of the course evaluation electronically at the end of the course “will be included as a factor in your final course grade.” See “Course Grading” above for how this will be calculated. All evaluations remain anonymous to the faculty.
Academic Course Policies
Please familiarize yourself with the catalog requirements in the Academic Course Policies document on the Syllabus page in Moodle. You are responsible for this information, and any academic violations, such as plagiarism, will not be tolerated.
Integrative Portfolio
This assignment has been identified as a required integrative assignment that you may wish to review and reference in future integrative coursework.
Class Schedule
Week 1 & 2
Jan 9-22 / Lecture 1: History and the early church
Lecture 2: Early church theology: from Jewish to Greek
Lecture 3: Why the early church grew
Lecture 4: Tradition and the Council of Nicea / Read Noll – Introduction, chs. 1-3, review study questions (pp. 320-26); Gonzalez readings (Moodle) due Jan 16.
Sign up for Relevance Paper Topics (Moodle) due Jan 16
Quiz 1 Due at 11:59pm on Jan 22
Week 3 & 4
Jan 23-Feb 5 / Lecture 5: The roots of Monasticism: Antony of Egypt
Lecture 6: Augustine / Read: Noll – chs. 4-5, review study questions (pp. 326-28); IVP Medieval – Whole book, due Jan 23
Forum 1 – Scripture and tradition (Noll chs 2, 3; CH 80, 85, 51, 37)
Forum 2 - Monasticism (Noll ch. 4, CH 64, 93, 60, 42)
Respondents will be assigned by Jan 23. Look on the Moodle wiki to find out who will need to respond to each relevance paper.
Post Relevance Paper by 11:59pm on Thu, Jan 26
Post Responses by 11:59pm on Sat, Jan 28
Post Counter-Responses by 11:59pm on Tues, Jan 31
Quiz 2 Due at 11:59pm on Feb 5.
Week 5 & 6
Feb 6-19 / Lecture 7: Eastern Orthodox history and theology
Lecture 8: Martin Luther’s “one needful thing”
Lecture 9: Worship in the Reformation churches / Read: Noll – chs. 6, 7, 9, review study questions (pp. 328-32); IVP Luther – whole book, due Feb 6
Forum 3 – East vs. West (Noll ch 6; CH 54, 67, 15, 44)
Forum 4 – Luther and his Legacy (Noll ch. 7; CH 34, 39)
Post Relevance Paper by 11:59pm on Thu, Feb 9
Post Responses by 11:59pm on Sat, Feb 11
Post Counter-Responses by 11:59pm on Tues, Feb 14
Quiz 3 Due at 11:59pm on Feb 19.
Week 7 & 8
Feb 20-Mar 4 / Lecture 10: The puzzle of post-Reformation division: What, then, is the church?
Lecture 11: The Enlightenment and Deism
Lecture 12: Christ and Culture: Some thoughts on the cultural translation of the gospel / Read: Noll – chs. 8,11, review study questions (pp. 330-31, 334-35); IVP Age of Reason – whole book, due Feb 20
Forum 5 – The Protestant Tree (Noll ch. 8; CH 5, 4, 12, 48)
Forum 6 – The Age of Enlightenment (Noll ch. 11; CH 76, 13, 50)
Post Relevance Paper by 11:59pm on Thu, Feb 23
Post Responses by 11:59pm on Sat, Feb 25
Post Counter-Responses by 11:59pm on Tues, Feb 28
Quiz 4 Due at 11:59pm on Mar 4.
Week 9 & 10
Mar 5-18 / Lecture 13: Pietists, Puritans, and Methodists: Reviving Faith
Lecture 14: The Modern Movements of Hands, Heart, and Head: Sheldon, Seymour, and Sayers
Lecture 15: Patron Saints for Postmoderns / Read: Noll – chs. 10, 12, 13, review study questions (pp. 332-33, 335-36) due Mar 5
Forum 7 – The Roots of Evangelicalism (Noll ch 10; CH 69, 77, 38, 23)
Forum 8 – Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Trends (Noll 13; CH 65, 79, 58, 94)
Post Relevance Paper by 11:59pm on Thu, Mar 8
Post Responses by 11:59pm on Sat, Mar 10
Post Counter-Responses by 11:59pm on Tues, Mar 13
Exam due in essay format on lectures and readings by 11:59pm Mar 18.
Study carefully! To do well on these essays you will need to do a thorough review of all the lectures and readings. See “Exam,” above for topic list.
Deadlines for forum postings and responses, quizzes, and exam are firm. All deadlines are 11:59 p.m. in your time zone on the date. Reading deadlines are suggested, but you will want to get all assigned reading for each unit completed before doing that unit’s quiz.
I. Relevance papers and Forum Responses
Readings and basic logistics:
At the beginning of the course, each student will sign-up for four topics out of the eight listed in the schedule grid and Christian History (CH) issue lists below—one each from the following pairs: 1/2, 3/4, 5/6, and 7/8. Sign-up will take place on the wiki in Moodle, is on a first-serve basis and is due by Monday, January 16. On these topics, in addition to the assigned reading in the schedule grid (Noll, the IVP History books, etc.), you will browse/read* the issues of Christian History (& Biography) related to each topic, listed above. You will access these issues online, via your www.ctlibrary.com subscription (see page one of this syllabus for details on that subscription).
Note that only one of the Noll chapters assigned for each week relates to the topic you are posting on. Nonetheless, you are expected to read both Noll chapters each week, and to review the study questions for each chapter, found at the end of the Noll book, as noted in the schedule grid. This is both because you are also acting as a respondent on the other topic, and simply for the sake of your best learning in this course (and best performance on the exam!).
*To clarify “browse/read,” above: You may certainly browse all of the listed CH(B) issues, but you will definitely need to read, carefully, at least three of the major articles in those issues as you prepare for your paper and discussion (one-pagers or “Did You Know” articles don’t count toward your three, though of course you’re welcome to read them too—and cite them in your paper if you like).
Posting your relevance paper
During each two week period beginning with weeks three and four, once you have done the readings, you will write a “relevance paper.”
1. Submit the relevance paper via the assignment link in Moodle AND post it in the corresponding Moodle forum.
2. Then read and answer, in that Moodle forum, a response to your relevance paper from another student (this is called the “counter response”).
3. Then, on the topic you are not writing about during each two week period, you will respond to a relevance paper written by another student. All of this is explained below.
Content and format of your “relevance paper”
The relevance paper takes the form of a short talk to an adult Sunday school or church small-group. In the paper, you are drawing from your readings in the CH issues (with background material from the Noll chapters and the IVP Histories) to explain to your “class” or “group” one or two good reasons they should care about the assigned topic. What spiritual, theological, or practical truths are revealed in the lives and events involved in this topic? What can Christians today learn from these people and events that they can apply in their own lives?
1100-1300 words is the required length for each paper. This is about 4 printed, double-spaced, 12-point font, 1-inch-margin pages. It is also the length of an 8- to 10-minute talk. Don’t go any shorter than 1100 words, and out of fairness to your fellow Moodle forum members, don’t go any longer than 1300. For other formal criteria for these papers, see “paper grading,” below.
It is very important that as you write your paper, you not simply repeat what Noll, the CH articles, or the IVP History authors say about your topic. What I am looking for in these papers is your own ability to process the readings and present your own interpretation and application of the topic. However, I do expect each paper to do the following:
1. Quote or paraphrase material from at least three substantial articles in your CH issue (again, one-pagers or “Did You Knows” don’t count toward your three, though you’re welcome to cite them if you want), with full citations (see below for citation format).
2. Provide at least two quotations or paraphrases from Noll or the IVP Histories, again with full citations in standard footnote format (Turabian format preferred; but whatever format you use, remain consistent throughout the paper).
A further note on citation of the CH articles: Whether you quote or paraphrase these, in each case you must cite the article’s author (where available), title, and web address in parentheses. The web address should come out “hot-linked”—see the example below, and note that the closing period or other punctuation mark goes after the second parenthesis. To do the web address part of the citation, copy the web address from your browser window and paste it into your document. Make sure you type a space after the end of the citation—that will turn your web address into a blue, clickable “hot link.” Here is an example of a citation in the correct format, in the context of a paper:
Contrary to modern stereotype, medieval monks knew their Bibles better and more deeply than even many conservative Christians do today. Every one of the monk’s days was given over to three activities: working, choral praying (especially of the Psalms), and “the prayerful reading of Holy Scripture (lectio divina).” (Patrick Henry Reardon, “Scripture Saturation,” http://www.ctlibrary.com/7834).
Paper grading
Your relevance papers will be reviewed each week and graded on a scale of 10 possible points. To be clear, I’ll be looking for papers that…
(1) are the assigned length of 1100-1300 words (1 point),
(2) make at least one coherent, well-formed, convincing interpretive argument in answer to the assigned question (“one or two good reasons your ‘adult Sunday school class’ should care about the assigned topic”) (3 points),
(3) provide appropriate, cited historical support for your argument(s) and sub-arguments from at least three of the CH articles and two of the other readings (3 points); note: “appropriate” here means that the cited material (whether paraphrased or quoted) really does support the associated argument,
(4) provide citations of that CH material using live links, in the format I describe above (1 point),
and all this in a paper that is
(5) readable—that is, well-organized, stylistically clear, and unimpeded by grammatical and mechanical problems (2 points).
More than the indicated number of points in any of the five areas may be docked in the case of significant failure in that area.
II. Forum Responses and Counter-Responses
Reading each other’s papers—and accessing citations—in Moodle forums:
After each paper is uploaded to the appropriate Moodle forum as an attachment to a posting, each student will download* a relevance paper file attached to another student’s forum post (you’ll be assigned whose paper you’ll read each week, on the opposite topic from the one that you wrote on). Then you’ll open that relevance paper file and read the paper in electronic form.