May 21-23, 2014
GENERAL CHURCH HISTORY
Dr. Bob Black, Instructor
Southern Wesleyan University
P. O. Box 1020
Central, South Carolina 29630-1020
Phones: 864-644-5230 (office)
864-639-4521 (home)
Fax: 864-644-5902 / attn: B. Black
e-mail: [email protected]
Objectives
This course is designed to satisfy one of the academic requirements in the study
course leading to ordination in The Wesleyan Church. Our purpose will be . . .
(1) To gain an appreciation for the importance of the study of history in
understanding the modern world and the church of the 21st century.
(2) To survey the history of the Christian church from the New Testament
era to the present, focusing on those persons, events, and movements
which have shaped the church as we know it.
(3) To place the developing story of the church within its context in the
wider history of its times.
(4) To cultivate a historical perspective.
Requirements
Before the Seminar
(1) Read the text: Church History in Plain
Language, 4th Edition, Bruce Shelley
(2013).
(2) Prepare answers to the study guide
questions attached to this syllabus.
NOTE: Answers will not be handed in;
rough notes for your own use are
acceptable.
(3) Select a topic for an oral report which
relates to our study. Submit the Oral
Report Selection Sheet (which is
attached to this syllabus) when you have
read enough to decide on a topic that
interests you. Your topic will be
confirmed by return mail, and you may
begin your research.
(4) Prepare the oral report for presentation at
FLAME. (See attached instruction sheet
for details.)
During the Seminar
(5) Participate in all class activities and
complete all class assignments. You
must attend all class sessions to receive
credit for the course.
(6) Be ready to contribute to class
discussions, based on your prior work
with the study guide questions.
(7) Present your oral report.
(8) No extra credit work is available.
Following the Seminar
(9) Read a Christian biography of at least.
300 pp. Report by means of the book
reflection form attached to this
syllabus. Another book on church
history of similar length may be
acceptable; contact the instructor. Must
be postmarked no later than July 23,
2014.
(10) Prepare five typed devotionals based on
illustrations or quotations taken from
the history of Christianity. (See the
attached instruction sheet.) Must be
postmarked no later than July 23,
2014.
(11) Take an open-book exam. Must be
postmarked no later than July 23,
2014.
Grade Computation
Exam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20%
Oral report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20%
Study guide preparation . . . . . . . . . . 20%
Reading of text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10%
Additional reading (#9 above) . . . . . 10%
Five devotionals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20%
_______
100%
Grade Scale
93 – 100 = A
86 - 92 = B
78 - 85 = C
70 - 77 = D
0 - 69 = F
Schedule (Tentative)
Day One
Introduction to course
Report on reading of textbook
The history of the Early Church (study guide)
Oral reports: Round 1
Day Two
Distribution of study guide for Day Three
The Medieval and Reformation Church (study guides)
Oral reports: Round 2
Day Three
The Church from Wesley to the Modern Era (study guide)
Oral reports: Round 3
(Bold print indicates course requirement.)
Study Guide: The Early Church
Chapters 1-12
Church History in Plain Language
1. What Jewish holiday (holy-day) is “the birthday of the church” – the day the Christian
church started? Justify that claim.
2. What role did Stephen play in the story of the early church? What role did Paul play?
3. What does catholic literally mean? How about martyr?
4. Shelley lists three causes for persecution in the early church. What are they?
5. What did Ebionites believe? What did Docetists believe? Most importantly, what did
Gnostics believe?
6. How long did it take for the New Testament canon to be settled? What books which
ultimately made it into the canon were slow to be accepted?
7. How did bishops rise to positions of such authority in the church?
8. Christian apologists defended the faith philosophically and intellectually. In your
opinion, who has done that for the faith in recent generations?
9. Why was Diocletian important? Constantine? Theodosius? Ambrose?
10. What was the major issue at the Council of Nicea? Who were . . .
a. Arius
b. Alexander
c. Athanasius
What was the outcome?
11. Describe in a summary sentence or two the Christological heresies of . . .
a. Apollinarius
b. Nestorius
c. Eutyches
12. Contrast the hermit’s life with coenobitic monasticism. What’s the significance of . . .
a. Anthony
b. Pachomius
c. Jerome
d. Benedict of Nursia
Study Guide: The Medieval Church
Chapters 13-23
Church History in Plain Language
13. Augustine of Hippo is scheduled to preach the spring revival at your church. Write a
paragraph about him for your local paper as part of your advertising for the revival.
14. What role did these bishops of Rome play in the rise of the papacy?
a. Damasus
b. Leo the Great
c. Gregory the Great (see Chapter 17)
What does the word pope mean, literally?
15. Identify . . .
a. Eastern Orthodoxy
b. Icons and iconoclasm
c. A.D. 1054
16. Identify these leaders in church expansion and/or missions during this period.
a. Ulfilas
b. Patrick
c. Clovis
d. Augustine of Canterbury
e. Boniface
17. Why is Charlemagne important?
18. What was the goal of the Crusades? How long did they last? What were the results?
19. Identify . . .
a. Thomas Aquinas
b. Scholasticism
c. Peter Waldo
d. Inquisition
e. Mendicants
f. Friars
g. Francis of Assisi
20. What was the “Babylonian Captivity of the papacy”?
21. Trace the early stirrings of the soon-coming Reformation in the work of . . .
a. John Wyclif
b. John Hus
Study Guide: The Reformation Church
Chapters 24-31
Church History in Plain Language
22. What role did the following play in the story of Martin Luther?
a. An electrical storm
b. The Book of Romans
c. Indulgences
d. The Ninety-Five Theses
e. Excommunication
f. The Diet of Worms
g. Katherine von Bora
h. Philip Melancthon
23. What contributions did Luther make to theology and worship?
24. What does Anabaptist mean? Why were Anabaptists called “the Radical Reformation”?
Name four Anabaptist principles.
25. Who was Menno Simons, and how does his name survive still today?
26. What is “Reformed” Christianity? Identify . . .
a. Ulrich Zwingli
b. John Calvin
c. Geneva
d. Institutes of the Christian Religion
e. John Knox
27. How did Protestantism evolve in England?
28. Identify . . .
a. William Tyndale
b. John Foxe
29. What was the Catholic Counter-Reformation?
30. In Chapter 30, what’s significant about . . .
a. The name Puritan
b. The King James Version
c. Plymouth Colony
d. Oliver Cromwell
e. The English Commonwealth
Study Guide: From Wesley to the Modern Church
Chapters 32-48
Church History in Plain Language
31. What did Deists believe? Name several important Deists.
32. What was Pietism? Who led it?
33. Who were the Moravians, and how do they impact the story of the Wesleys?
34. Identify . . .
a. “A brand plucked from the burning”
b. Charles Wesley
c. The Holy Club
d. James Oglethorpe
e. Sophy Hopkey
f. May 24, 1738
g. Molly Vazeille
h. The Christmas Conference, 1784
i. Francis Asbury
35. What was the Great Awakening, and what role did the following play in it?
a. Theodore Frelinghuysen
b. William Tennant
c. Jonathan Edwards
d. George Whitefield
36. Pius IX shaped the Roman Catholic Church for generations to come. Identify and briefly
describe the significance of . . .
a. The Immaculate Conception of Mary
b. The Syllabus of Errors
c. Vatican I
d. Papal infallibility
37. What was William Wilberforce’s greatest achievement?
38. What was the Oxford Movement?
39. Why is William Carey significant in the modern missionary movement? David
Livingstone?
40. Identify . . .
a. Gasper River
b. Harriet Beecher Stowe
c. Charles Finney
41. Describe Liberal Christianity.
42. What was the Social Gospel? What impact has the Social Gospel had on America?
43. How did the Confessing Church stand up to Adolf Hitler?
44. How has Christianity in Russia fared historically since the Communist Revolution of
1917?
45. What were The Fundamentals, and who were the Fundamentalists?
46. Profile Billy Graham.
47. What are the roots of Pentecostalism? What’s Neo-Pentecostalism?
48. What is ecumenism? Describe evangelical efforts at inter-denominational cooperation.
49. How was Roman Catholicism changed by Vatican II?
50. What’s the condition of Christianity at present in . . .
a. Asia
b. Latin America
c. Africa
51. Our textbook suggests that evangelical Christianity has made three responses to hostility
toward the faith in modern culture: End Times speculation, mobilizing political clout, and
creating megachurches. Agree or disagree? Why?
52. How significant is the threat from modern Islam?
53. Discuss the spectacular growth of Christianity in “the Global South” and parts of the Far
East. What role has been played by the Charismatic Movement?
Instruction Sheet
ORAL REPORT
General Church History
(1) When you receive confirmation of your assigned topic, begin your research. Possible
sources:






A dictionary of church history
Encyclopedias
Books on the topic
Our text
Other texts in general church history
The Internet (if the website is reliable)
NOTE: Use at least three sources.
(2) The report should be approximately 5-6 minutes in length. (Reports which run
considerably longer will lose points. Take us to the heart of the subject quickly, and
make every sentence count – which, by the way, is good advice for preaching, too!)
(3) Compile and organize the information gained in research. Don’t read your entire report
from a single source.
(4) Be creative. Incredible as it may sound, some people find history boring, and you don’t
want to lose them.
(5) Good reports generally make use of a handout or a PowerPoint presentation so that
students can see as well as hear the information.
(6) At the close of your report, hand in your notes and a list of your sources. (The notes do
not need to be typed. It’s not even necessary for them to be neat, as long as they are
legible. After all, this is an oral report.)
Instruction Sheet
DEVOTIONALS FROM CHURCH HISTORY
General Church History
(1) Keep your eyes and ears open for illustrations or striking quotations from church
history which could serve as the heart of brief devotionals . . . five of them. (These may
come from your reading, from your knowledge of church history, from newspapers and
magazines, etc.)
(2) Make a spiritual point by applying the illustration to life, and write it out in full. (Stay on
the subject. A devotional is by definition short and needs only one point.)
(3) Close it with a gripping, memorable sentence.
(4) Give it a title.
(5) No cover sheet, footnotes, or bibliography will be necessary.
(6) Devotionals must be typed.
(7) Word limit: 200 words.
(8) Only one devotional per page, please.
(9) The assignment calls for five (5) of these. Must be postmarked no later than July 23,
2014.
SUGGESTION: Use these devotionals in your local church – from the pulpit, in your Sunday
School class or small group, with your student ministry, etc.
(See next page for a sample devotional.)
Sample Devotional
A Call for Maps
Every village in eighteenth-century England had its cobbler’s shop, and Hackleton was
no exception. In fact, Hackleton’s one claim to fame is centered around that shop.
In most respects it was no different from other cobbler’s shops. The same simple tools
were there, the same wooden benches, the same smell of leather. But on the wall hung a
homemade map of the world, with all of the known nations drawn in and facts about them
filling every available space. Scattered on tables and benches were books, and information
from those books soon found its way onto that unusual map.
This was William Carey’s shop. Within a few years he would leave his cobbling and his
school teaching to become a pioneer Protestant missionary to India and open the floodgates
of the modern missionary movement. Carey did more than study a map; he entered it.
We need maps, too – maps of our neighborhoods, our towns and cities, our districts, and
beyond – maps hanging in our hearts if not on our walls. We need an awareness that this
world is lost unless it knows the Savior. We need to glance up occasionally from our
involvement with the immediate to catch a glimpse of our investment in the eternal.
And somehow, in some way, we need to enter our maps as William Carey entered his.
Bob Black
(Remove and send to instructor)
ORAL REPORT SELECTION SHEET
Possible topics are listed below. Write 1, 2, and 3 beside your first, second, and third choices.
Emperor Constantine
__________
Henry VIII of England
__________
The Council of Nicea
__________
Menno Simons
__________
Athanasius
__________
James Arminius
__________
Ambrose
__________
John Knox
__________
Augustine (of Hippo)
__________
Susanna Wesley
__________
St. Patrick
__________
John Wesley
__________
The Crusades
__________
Charles Wesley
__________
Francis of Assisi
__________
George Whitefield
__________
Thomas Aquinas
__________
Jonathan Edwards
__________
John Wyclif (or Wycliffe)
__________
William Penn
__________
John Hus (or Huss)
__________
Nikolaus von Zinzendorf
__________
Martin Luther
__________
Puritans in America
__________
John Calvin
__________
The First Great Awakening
__________
______________________________________________________
Student’s name
E-mail [email protected] with your selection(s). If you prefer, send this sheet to the instructor by
mail or fax. Please include your return address. Do not begin research until you receive
confirmation of your assignment.
BOOK REFLECTION FORM
General Church History
FLAME
Title of book __________________________________________________________________
Author _______________________________________________________________________
I read:
(
) All
(
) Not all, but _______%
In the space below and on the back of this form, discuss briefly five (5) spiritual lessons
from this book which could be applied to your own life or the lives of the people in your
church.