Introduction
Church history, and history in general, can be challenging to teach. Unlike a discipline like philosophy or systematic theology, where the focus is on key ideas that are analyzed and about which arguments are made, teaching history involves the communication of a great deal of factual information--details about what has happened in the past. And so much stuff has happened in the past! How does one communicate it all? How does one organize all the data? How does one make the presentation of these facts engaging and meaningful? Church history is fascinating, and it is easy to be enthusiastic about it, but it can be difficult to figure out how to package and convey the facts of history without getting bogged down in detailed minutia or overwhelming one's students.
Much could be said about the challenge of teaching history, but I bring this up here simply as background for explaining this historical narrative I am now publishing in this blog. I felt that it would help me to organize my own presentation of Church history if I produced a written narrative that I and my students could draw upon, a narrative that reflects my own understanding of that history and its basic structure. So that is what this is. This is Church history as I tend to think about it, and it forms the structure of what I want to teach people about it.
I am not a historian. That is, while I enjoy reading and thinking about history (Church history in particular) and teaching it, I do not consider myself to have the kind of personality, interests, skills, calling, etc., that would draw a person into making history per se a central theme in their life's work. The central themes of my life's work are theology, philosophy, and apologetics. So this historical narrative is the work of a theologian, philosopher, and apologist, and it is good to keep that in mind. Also, of course, I am an individual person with my own idiosyncracies and my own skills, knowledge, and interests. I have written a narrative that reflects who I am. I do not claim to have presented a complete history. For one thing, this narrative, as it will be used in my classes, is intended to be accompanied by a class textbook. The textbook we are currently using is The Compact History of the Catholic Church, by Alan Schreck, revised edition (Cincinnatti, OH: Servant Books, 2009). That's one reason I have called this narrative a Church history companion instead of just a Church history. I've divided up the history into eight units, corresponding to eight different periods of Church history. (I also plan to add an additional section devoted to keeping up with new events and emerging trends as history continues.) I've tried to give a basic account of the basic ethos and some of the central themes of each period--that is, what was going on in the world, how the Church developed in that period, how each period fits together with the others in the overall story, etc. But, like I said, I don't claim that my history is complete. I suppose no history can ever be complete. But my history reflects my peculiar interests and knowledge. So I talk a lot about theological trends and advances and changes in the philosophy of the surrounding culture. I do a lot of theology, philosophy, and apologetics in these pages. I take opportunities when I get them to discuss and try to explain theological and philosophical issues--like the Trinity, the nature of Christ, free will and grace, civil law and freedom of conscience, etc. I analyze ideas and ways of thinking that I find in each period. I have often had in mind criticisms that are made against Catholicism and tried to address them as the occasion has arisen. So there is certainly a heavily intellectual cast to my history, though I do throw in matters of human interest when I am aware of them and have found them interesting. But even when covering areas that are within more central circles of my own interests and knowledge, of course I have not tried to be complete. This is a companion text for a high school Church history class, not an exhaustive treatise on any particular issue, so I've sometimes stuck to the basics when, in other contexts, I might have been interested in going further and providing more details and more nuance--whether in terms of history, theology, philosophy, or apologetics.
So this history reflects my own interests. But I have tried to balance that a bit by including lots of references, some of which go in directions I myself was not interested to try to go in, did not have time/space to go in, or did not feel qualified to try to go in in the main body of the text. And these references also function in general as supplements to my material. One thing in particular I would encourage readers to do is to look up the lives of some of the saints I mention in each period. Looking at these lives will very much help to balance out the intellectualism of my focus with the concrete, practical realities of these biographies. Also, I don't want to give people the impression that Christianity and Catholic history has all been simply about intellectual ideas and theological developments. These are important, but they are only one part of the picture. They are the part of the picture that I am best at describing, and so they play a large role in my narrative. But reading about the saints can help show how Christianity is about loving God and serving one's neighbor in sacrificial love and devotion. Sometimes I've given specific links to particular saints (and, of course, I have described the stories of several saints in the text of the narrative). When I haven't, you might start with the Wikipedia article for a particular saint. Wikipedia is often a good place to start for such things.
I should also note what should already be evident from reading this introduction: My approach in the narrative is informal. Hopefully, the whole thing is reasonably well-written, I've cited my sources, etc., but my general tone is informal.
There are tons of references in this narrative. I have used many sources, some I am aware of and many that I have absorbed information from and forgotten over the years. I have tried to reference my sources. Sometimes I have done so by mentioning them in the body of the text as I discuss a subject; other times I have mentioned them at the end of a section in the place where I put additional references. For basic, uncontroversial factual information (dates, how to spell names, mundane historical details I was not previously aware of or couldn't remember off the top of my head, etc.), I have often made a great deal of use of Wikipedia. I have not always cited every Wikipedia page I have looked at in any way or to any degree in the course of my reading up on things, but one can generally assume that whenever I don't give a specific reference for some detail, the information most likely either came from my own store of knowledge I already had going into my writing (which was substantial for some areas, since I have been studying some aspects of Church history for some time) or from Wikipedia. It may also have come from the Catholic Encyclopedia, as I've made significant general use of it as well as I've written this narrative.
(By the way, I know the current academic fad is to dis Wikipedia. I don't agree with this. The fear is that people will use Wikipedia uncritically. No doubt many do. But if they use Wikipedia uncritically, they'll use everything else uncritically too, which will be just as problematic. The problem is with the uncritical use of any sources, not the use of Wikipedia. Of course Wikipedia is not always right. Of course it can be biased or imbalanced. But so can everything else. But Wikipedia has the advantage, with many of its subjects, of being constantly monitored by hoards of nerds who are determined to get every detail perfect. For a lot of subjects, then, particularly when we are dealing with non-controversial, basically-agreed-upon information, Wikipedia is probably the most useful easily-accessible source out there. So yes, I use it a lot--though not uncritically--just as everyone else does. And I'm not afraid to admit it. 😊)
Of course, this history is told from a Catholic perspective. After all, I am a Catholic writing this primarily as a Catholic high school theology teacher. But I always strive to be fair and accurate, even if I sometimes draw conclusions on controversial issues that not everyone would agree with. (But, again, the history is not complete. There are areas where I've given a basic assessment or summary on some issue without necessarily going into all the nuances and details that would be necessary to truly, fully, do the theme justice.)
As I've said, the primary inspiration for writing this has been my own desire to create a narrative to help in my teaching of Church history at a Catholic high school. However, since I'm publishing this on my blog, it's safe to assume I'm intending to make this available to the general public as well. I hope many will find it helpful.
There are some resources I recommend you might keep on hand as you read through (or read parts of) this narrative, in addition to all the resources mentioned, referenced, and linked to throughout the text of the narrative. The Bible, of course, is good to have on hand, since it's the Word of God and also of great historical value. In terms of Church history, you've got the gospels which tell us about the life of Christ, and the Book of Acts is especially helpful for Unit 1 which focuses on the times of the apostles. I've already mentioned the value of Wikipedia for basic information. It would also be helpful to keep on hand a list of the Popes through history. Since the Pope is the head on earth of the Catholic Church, the various pontificates of the Popes through history make for a nice standard to determine where we are in time (just as we help measure periods of English history by reference to the kings and queens of England, or American history by the presidents, etc.). It's also helpful to keep track of the ecumenical councils going on in each period (see here and here), although I refer to them (in more or less detail) in the narrative as well. This is a really nice world history map that allows you to put in any year (from 3000 BC to the present day) to see what the political map of the world looks like in that day. You can scroll in further or move further away. This is an interesting map that allows you to watch the political changes in the world through time (from 3000 BC, but only, unfortunately, up to 1000 AD). This is a helpful collection of Church history lectures from Dr. Ryan Reeves of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (he's a Protestant, but he does a good job laying out the facts in an interesting way). You might also keep on hand the Catholic Encyclopedia, which has many wonderfully helpful articles. It was written in the early twentieth century, so it's a little outdated in some areas, but it's still a wealth of helpful doctrinal and historical information, and widely respected as such. You might also keep on hand the Catechism of the Catholic Church for a handy reference to understanding Catholic teaching in various areas.
This is not an apologetics work per se, but I intend it to have apologetic value, so I want to also mention my own background works in apologetics for reference. I've written up a general apologetic for Christianity in Why Christianity is True. I've written up an apologetic for Catholicism in particular in No Grounds for Divorce. Both of these reflect my own approach to why I believe what I believe and how I would explain my own reasoning to others. Catholic Answers is a good source for Catholic apologetics. I would also recommend Bishop Robert Barron's work at Word on Fire Catholic Ministries. And now I must stop myself from recommending a hundred other things that will begin coming to mind. I think I've given you enough for now to get you going.
So, without further ado, here is the Table of Contents for the narrative.
Table of Contents
Published on the feast of St. Vitus.
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