Description

The course will be a survey study of the main streams of Christianity from the late Reformation to the Present (i.e. Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, [Pentecostalism]). It will build upon the Reformation and Counter-Reformation context and continue to contextually recount the story of Christianity into the Post-Reformation, Modern and Post-Modern periods, understanding her development with attention to doctrinal/intellectual, social and ecclesiastical contexts. Emphasis will be placed upon Evangelical-Reformed Protestant stories and English contexts, though not to the neglect of other traditions and places. It will cover a wide range of areas from belief, practice, figures, worship, art, architecture, missions, etc.

Opportunity for class discussion will be given whenever possible.

Textbook(s) and readings

Reading is an invaluable tool for learning, so read well, read wide, read deep and above all think about what you have read. The following texts, which combine secondary commentary along with primary sources, are meant to give the student a survey of Church history and will be supplemented by the course lectures, their own research and class discussions to provide a robust overview of the last 400 years of Church history.

Undergraduate and Graduate:

John D. Woodbridge, and Frank A. James III, Church History, vol 2, Pre-Reformation to the Present Day: The Rise and Growth of the Church in Its Cultural, Intellectual, and Political Context. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013.

Mark Noll, What Happened to Christian Canada? Vancouver: Regent College Publishing, 2007.

Graduate Only:

One of the following:

William Wilberforce, A practical view of the prevailing religious system of professed Christians in the higher and middle classes, contrasted with real Christianity. (1797).

or

J.G. Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (1923). Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2009.