Church History at Redeemer
It has been well said that people make history, but they do not make the history that they choose. All human beings act in particular times, in particular places, and for a variety of different reasons. The aim of the Church History department is to teach students to understand the way in which human action is shaped by historical, social, economic, cultural, and theological concerns; and by so doing to allow the students to understand better their own positions as those who act in context. Though we live in an anti-historical age, the Church History department is committed to helping students realize the liberating importance of having a solid grasp of those historical trajectories which shape, often in hidden ways, the life of the church in the present. To that end, the Church History curriculum enables students:
- To recognize the ambiguities and complexities of human history
- To examine themselves in the light of the past
- To engage with an epistemologically self-conscious historical methodology
- To see how the church’s testimony to Christ has been preserved and articulated through the ages
- To recognize turning points in the history of the church
- To identify major types and paradigms of Christian vision in societies past and present
- To be well acquainted with the Reformed heritage
- To recognize global patterns in the spread of the gospel through missions
- To cultivate a modesty with regard to their own times and cultures by setting these within the perspective of the great sweep of church history
- To be inspired by what they learn to proclaim God’s grace to today’s world.
CH211 Ancient Church History
Purpose: To introduce students to the major events, personalities, and ideas which shaped the life and thought of the early church; to encourage students to think historically about the church’s past; to enable students to read the major texts of the early church Fathers for themselves. Topics and personalities covered include the first-century background, the Apostolic Fathers, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, trinitarian and christological debates, Augustine, the rise of monasticism, and martyrdom. 2 semester hours. (M.Div. requirement)
CH223 Medieval Church History
Purpose: To introduce students to the major events, people, and ideas, which shaped the doctrine and life of the medieval church; to introduce students to some major writings of the time; to help students understand how the philosophical and theological issues of the late Middle Ages helped shape the direction and focus of the Protestant and Reformed heritage. Topics and people covered include the re-evangelization of northern Europe, the increasing centralization of the church, the roles of tradition and canon law, the development of theories of the atonement, the influence of Aristotelian and anti-Aristotelian philosophy on the development of views of the application of redemption, the dissolution of the medieval world and the humanistic response as providing the context for the Reformation; Charlemagne, saints Boniface, Anselm, Abelard, Francis, Dominic, Thomas and Scotus, Ockham, Erasmus. 2 semester hours. (M.Div. requirement)
CH311 Reformation Church
Purpose: to introduce students to the major events, personalities, and ideas which shaped the Reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to encourage students to think historically about the church’s past, to enable students to read major theological texts from the Reformation for themselves. Topics and personalities covered include the late medieval context, Martin Luther, John Calvin, justification by faith, anabaptism, the Catholic Reformation, the Anglican settlements, and the rise of Puritanism. 3 semester hours. (M.Div. requirement)
CH323 The Church in the Modern Age
Purpose: to introduce students to the major events, people, and cultural developments which shaped the doctrine and life of the post-Reformation church; to introduce students to some major writings of the time; to introduce students to the challenges to the Christian faith from new directions in the social, political, and philosophical climate; to relate American history and culture to modern Christianity; to introduce students to the globalization of Christianity in the modern missionary movement; to help students understand the continuing relevance of Calvinism and its ongoing discovery of biblical truth. Topics and people covered include the Enlightenment and Deism, Awakening methods and theology, the role of small groups, Romanticism, divisions and realignments within Protestantism and Calvinism, American Presbyterianism, Fundamentalism, Modernism, Neo-orthodoxy, New Evangelicalism, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and the Presbyterian Church of America; Erskine, Zinzendorf, Spener, Wesley, Whitefield, Edwards, Witherspoon, Schleiermacher, Ritschl, Hodge, Kuyper, Barth, and Machen. 4 semester hours. (M.Div. requirement)
CH 461 American Presbyterianism
Purpose: To explore developments from the colonial period till the present, including interactions with the American philosophical and cultural climate; to study the nature and role of revival in the church and society. Special attention to Southern and New England concerns, responses to urbanization, and the rise of Liberalism. 2 semester hours. (Elective)
