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This week in Christian History

burnt said:
Well I certainly am not an authority on any one tradition, but am painfully aware of some of the more well known turbulence that mainstream and subsequent expressions of faith have encountered. And I would like to see no one so unfortunate as to have experienced the pain and wounding of excommunication, as many have in the history of the faith, and some for wrong reasons.

However, as far as divisions or unity in the church are concerned, I do believe this - our western society is on a determined path of increased secularism and now-overt hatred of Christianity.

Therefore, I see that instead of the 911 years that it took for the two halves of the Catholic Church to even tentatively bridge their differences, Christians everywhere and of every denomination will practically overnight to be forced to acknowledge what it is that unifies them in true faith - the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the risen Son of God.

If this discussion can move those of us who profess Christian faith even one tiny step closer to recognizing the common bond between us, it should be considered a giant step forward for the church.
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Amen Brother.
 
wow,the deeper this gets,the more interesting i find it.
i reck'n murder and martyrdom happened then and still happens today.
whether it be the story of cain and abel,jealous preachers,witch hunters,saint valentine or the pope himself---i have to remind myself of
Saint John chapter1-verse 1
 
balestabber said:
wow,the deeper this gets,the more interesting i find it.
i reck'n murder and martyrdom happened then and still happens today.
whether it be the story of cain and abel,jealous preachers,witch hunters,saint valentine or the pope himself---i have to remind myself of
Saint John chapter1-verse 1
Click to expand...

There's no denying that many people have been killed over the ages in the name of "defending the faith" or "keeping the faith pure". My Church as guilty as the next. Even during the middle of the reformation reformers were killing members of another reformers group. And today we spend more time and enery "stealing sheep" than seeking the lost sheep.
 
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/thisweekinchristianhistory/

A few weeks ago we recalled that it was in the mid to late 1300's that John Wycliffe was instrumental in the translation of the Bible into English. In today's look back at history, we see that ~160 years later, the British Parliament put restrictions on who could read that English language Bible - had we lived back then, most of us would not have been allowed the "right" . . .

Then in 1604 a Puritan calls for this - " . . . that there might bee a newe translation of the Bible, as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek." . . .

January 17, 356 (traditional date): Antony of Egypt, regarded as the founder of Christian monasticism, dies at age 105 . . . the monastic movement began in response to the utter secularization of Christianity when it became the state religion. Where does the state of the western Church today fit in the continuum between the two extremes?

1377 - divisive troubles for the Church of Rome/Avignon

1525 - debate over "infant or adult" baptism, Zwingli vs. Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz, two Anabaptist forerunners who are eventually killed for their views, for more on this read here -
http://www.enjoyinggodministries.com/article/19-zwingli-and-anabaptists/

Hey BMr, one just for you - "January 19, 1086: Canute the Great, the king of Denmark, is killed by his subjects. . ." (tell us about the KC brand?)

Many more markers along the road to read of in this week's look in the rear-view mirror, some bright, some very dark.
 
The KC brand came with the place my Grandpa bought from a man by the name of Jack Canute. Canute was the neighbor everybody fought with. He used to leave the gates open going down to the Big muddy post for the mail and the rancher there would lay up in the rocks with a rifle waiting for him. HE plowed a fire guard behind his house, but not on his own property. In fact I had some cows to coax down to a gate just yesterday and I couldn't get up the hill to them because those fire guard furrows have eroded so bad in the last 60 years they are 4 feet deep in places. My Dad had bought another part of a ranch and some hay came with it. Before they could get up there with a couple of teams to fork the hay on the racks and haul it home Canute had turned his cows into the stacks. Dad said he was so mad he swung his pitch fork and let it go and it stuck in the side of a cow. Then he was worried how he was going to get it out. The stories go on and on about a miserable old neighbor that's been gone close 60 years.
I was always told the KC stood for King Canute but until you started posting "This week in Christian History" I thought Canute was a Scottish King. Guess I didn't know my history very well.
 
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/thisweekinchristianhistory/

Jan. 25, 98 - A new Emperor, Trajan, is installed in Rome - he instituted "the Alimenta", a form of social assistance for the poorest of Italy. Trajan would have been a contemporary of some of the apostles and early church leaders. He ordered a Roman Senator, Pliny the Younger, to 'investigate a new superstition, "Christianity."'

Part of Pliny's finding - "...For whatever the nature of their creed might be, I could at least feel no doubt that contumacy and inflexible obstinacy deserved chastisement..." Wow, stand up for what you believe and you suffer the consequences! Many of these early believers suffered a degree persecution for their faith, sometimes death, yet overall Trajan earned a reputation as a "just" ruler. What commitment do you and I show to our faith in Christ?

More here - http://www.allaboutthejourney.org/pliny-the-younger.htm

"January 28, 814: Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, dies. He was, in his day, not only one of the greatest political rulers of all time, he was, in his day, more influential in church matters than the pope. He saw his task as secular ruler "to defend with our arms the holy Church of Christ against attacks by the heathen from any side and against devastation by the infidels." It is interesting to contemplate how Jesus Christ would have viewed the efforts of Charlemagne . . .

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burnt said:
"January 28, 814: Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, dies. He was, in his day, not only one of the greatest political rulers of all time, he was, in his day, more influential in church matters than the pope. He saw his task as secular ruler "to defend with our arms the holy Church of Christ against attacks by the heathen from any side and against devastation by the infidels." It is interesting to contemplate how Jesus Christ would have viewed the efforts of Charlemagne . . .
[/i]
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Like many Charlemagne saw himself as "defender of the faith". The infidels most likely refers to the Muslim advance at that time. But Charlemagne also saw himself as the one who could conquer and "expand" Christianity into the conqured lands...What he did was not totally unlike what the "Christian" settlers in the new world did to the native Americans.
 
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/thisweekinchristianhistory/

Finally it's up and working!

"January 31, 1561: Anabaptist leader Menno Simons, for whom Mennonites are named, dies in Wustenfeld, Germany". . . this was 25 years after he left the Roman Catholic church and became the "founder" of the Mennonites, the tradition which is my formative background.

This week remembers the death of Gutenburg and the birth of the composer Mendelssohn . . .

The great evangelist D.L. Moody is born in 1837 and his preaching and writing was heard and read by an estimated 100,000,000 people, being referenced yet today!

"February 5, 1864: Having already established herself as a poet, 44-year-old Fanny Crosby pens her first hymn. She went on to write 8,000 more before her death 50 years later." Did you know that Fanny Crosby was blind?
 
burnt said:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/thisweekinchristianhistory/

Finally it's up and working!

"January 31, 1561: Anabaptist leader Menno Simons, for whom Mennonites are named, dies in Wustenfeld, Germany". . . this was 25 years after he left the Roman Catholic church and became the "founder" of the Mennonites, the tradition which is my formative background.This week remembers the death of Gutenburg and the birth of the composer Mendelssohn . . .

The great evangelist D.L. Moody is born in 1837 and his preaching and writing was heard and read by an estimated 100,000,000 people, being referenced yet today!

"February 5, 1864: Having already established herself as a poet, 44-year-old Fanny Crosby pens her first hymn. She went on to write 8,000 more before her death 50 years later." Did you know that Fanny Crosby was blind?
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burnt...are you still a practicing Mennonite? We have a pretty good size Mennonite community down here in central Texas. The ones I've met are very nice folks. But they multiply almost as fast as we Catholics :lol2:
 
Martin Jr. said:
www.davidmacd.com/catholic/timeline_of_catholic_church.htm

Here is a timeline of the church for the first 500 years. There is a timeline of the bible at the end.
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Good link Martin, thanks. For those that sometimes accuse US of adding books to the bible hopefully they will more fully understand that books were actually removed from the bible. Center column references to the deutrocanonical books can be found even in the KJV right up thru the early 20th century.
 
TexasBred said:
burnt said:
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/thisweekinchristianhistory/

Finally it's up and working!

"January 31, 1561: Anabaptist leader Menno Simons, for whom Mennonites are named, dies in Wustenfeld, Germany". . . this was 25 years after he left the Roman Catholic church and became the "founder" of the Mennonites, the tradition which is my formative background.This week remembers the death of Gutenburg and the birth of the composer Mendelssohn . . .

The great evangelist D.L. Moody is born in 1837 and his preaching and writing was heard and read by an estimated 100,000,000 people, being referenced yet today!

"February 5, 1864: Having already established herself as a poet, 44-year-old Fanny Crosby pens her first hymn. She went on to write 8,000 more before her death 50 years later." Did you know that Fanny Crosby was blind?
Click to expand...

burnt...are you still a practicing Mennonite? We have a pretty good size Mennonite community down here in central Texas. The ones I've met are very nice folks. But they multiply almost as fast as we Catholics :lol2:
Click to expand...

"Still a practicing Mennonite?" Well the setting in which I grew up wouldn't say so! :lol2: :lol2: :lol2: Although there are still a lot of "practicing Mennonites' today, I would be inclined to emphasize the "practicing" part, because, for the most part, they seem to have lost sight of what Menno Simons was actually about! :lol2: And if some of them were to read this, they would again probably think they were justified in not serving me communion! O.K., enough with the bashing, boy!

But TexasBred, your question raises a point which touches the heart of one reason why I felt compelled to start doing this Christian history segment.

Because your question brings to memory an unforgettable story told by a (very conservative Mennonite!) preacher that I heard over 30? years ago.

He was speaking to a large gathering which had come to hear of his travels in the Soviet Union at a time when the communist state was inflicting significant persecution on believers and possession of Bibles was forbidden. He purpose for traveling there was to take Bibles in to distribute to unregistered gatherings of Christians, an "illegal" activity itself.

He told of meeting with the leading figure of one such gathering whose outward appearance suggested that he might hold Mennonite beliefs. He asked the man "Bist du Mennonitten?", German for "Are you Mennonite?"

A period of silence followed his quiet question. Thinking the man had not heard him, he repeated the question a little louder, "Bist du Mennonitten?"

Again, there was a prolonged, uncomfortable silence. Eventually, the other man slowly turned to him and asked, still in German, "Are you a believer?" The look of pain on the face of the pastor from the underground church was like a dagger going through the heart of the Western traveler. I wonder if our proudly held "divisions" might not do the same to the heart of Christ.

I am currently reading a book entitled "The Body Broken", by Robert Benson. It is a heart-rending story about Benson's experience of the "Church" in its varied traditions and expressions thereof, and how those varied expressions divide believers. (I highly recommend reading it)

The way he describes some of his perceptions of how we ALL have fragmented the body of Christ literally brought me to tears at times. To think that Christ prayed to the Father that his followers would " . . . be one, even as as you and I are one . . ." , well, doesn't that kinda show how important it is to recognize and strive to reinforce our common bond in his family, if we claim God as our Father and Christ as Savior?

That we are missing something that should bring us together, rather than divide us? The grim irony of making the Eucharist or Communion service an "exclusive" event? Will there be separate "congregations" in the Afterlife?

But in our human obstinacy and need to be "right", we have splintered the body of Christ into thousands of denominational traditions and given the enemies of faith a legitimate reason to say that we are irrelevant (not to mention some of the horror stories of evil happenings that seem to trouble any tradition).

So, perhaps the more challenging question would be "Am I a practicing disciple". Cuz when I stand before God someday, I don't think he will be asking me if I followed the rules of one so-called "church" or another, or if I was a " . . . nice folk . . .".

It's gonna hit a little deeper than that.

(And to think that all you did to trigger this "book" is ask if I'm a practicing Mennonite . . . :lol2: :cowboy: )
 
But can we truly assemble as "one" in Christ and receive the Holy Eucharist unless we all profess the same beliefs?

God will only be concerned wtih "What did we do with Jesus". Yet in our separation we disregard his sacrifice for "All".
 
my great-grandfather was a preacher.was always told he had and read a Gutenburg Bible.i have only seen one.
very interesting,thanks again
 

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