This course will explore the history of the Christian Church in the world with attention to institutions, ideas, and practices over time and in various societies. The primary texts are The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity edited by John McManners, Christianity: The First Two Thousand Years by David L. Edwards, and Christ and Culture by H. Richard Niebuhr. The Niebuhr volume will provide a typology for considering diverse relationships between church and world, and the McManners and Edwards volumes will provide an organizing structure for the course. A Chinese language translation of the McManners volume is available.
The course is concerned with the enormous variety of institutions and ideas which have characterized Christianity over the past two thousand years. Historical methodology will be used to explore Christianity's varied cultural and social aspects as well as its cultic, theological, and institutional dimensions. The objective of the course is to enable students to increase their understanding of both the coherence and the diversity that have characterized Christian churches through time as they have sought to witness to a vision of God's purposes for peoples and societies. Students completing the course should have a clearer understanding of the origins of Christianity within Judaism, its major institutional expressions in Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism, and the evolution of theological ideas over time. They should recognize the diversity of expressions of Christianity in cultures where it has been dominant and in others where it has been a minority religion. They should understand the importance of establishment and disestablishment in European Christianity and the impact of scientific and philosophical developments on religion. They should appreciate the complex relationship of religion and culture and the extent to which religious ideas have both shaped and been shaped by cultural, social, political, and economic forces.
A schedule of topics to be covered and reading assignments follows. Students should make every effort to read the Niebuhr and McManners volumes. Those with greater fluency in English may have time to explore the Edwards volume and other items that will be recommended from time to time. Students with limited ability to read English should attempt to secure a copy of the Chinese translation of the McManners volume. The dates are only approximate, but changes will be announced in class.
I have scheduled four examinations during the year, two in the fall term and two in the spring. Though I know that many are accustomed to only one examination each term, I hope the more frequent tests will enable students to organize their study more effectively and will reduce examination anxiety. Additionally, one short paper will be assigned in the spring term after consultation with individual students regarding their particular interests. I am available to students in my office, in my apartment, or by telephone. If you have questions about course material or if you have difficulty with the course or my instruction, please contact me promptly.
Week of September 2
Getting Acquainted
Prolegomena to the study of the history of the Christian Church
a) Methodology and point of view
b) Relationship of religion and culture
c) Concept of development
Week of September 9
Prolegomena to the study of the history of the Christian Church - II
a) Relationship of Church and culture - R. Niebuhr's typology
b) Christ against culture
c) Christ of culture
Assigned reading: Niebuhr, chapters 1, 2, 3
Week of September 16
Prolegomena to the study of the history of the Christian Church - III
a) Christ above culture
b) Christ and culture in paradox
Assigned reading: Niebuhr, chapters 4 and 5
Week of September 23
Prolegomena to the study of the history of the Christian Church - IV
a) Christ the transformer of culture
b) The relativism of faith
Assigned reading: Niebuhr, chapters 6, 7, 8
Week of September 30
National Day Holiday
Week of October 7
Jesus and the Palestinian context
a) Judaism in the first century of the common era
b) The historical Jesus
Assigned reading: McManners, chapter 1
Week of October 14
Earliest Christianity
a) Pauline and Apostolic Christianity
b) Jewish Christianity
c) Early Christian Fathers
Recommended reading: Edwards, chapter 1
Week of October 21
Growth and Diversity in Early Christianity
a) Spread of Christianity to Asia Minor, Rome, North Africa
b) A variety of emphases
c) Marcion, Montanism, and Gnosticism
Recommended reading: Edwards, chapter 2
Week of October 28
Attempts to define Orthodoxy
a) The concept of orthodox belief
b) Canon, creed and episcopacy
Week of November 4
First Examination
Fourth and fifth century Christianity
a) Relationship of Christianity to the Roman Empire
b) Establishment
c) Renewed theological disputes and Council of Nicaea
Assigned reading: McManners, chapter 2
Week of November 11
Post-Nicene Christian Churches
a) Orthodoxy
a.1) Impact of Christianity on the People
a.2) Christianization of Time and Space
b) Arians
c) Nestorians
c.1) Nestorianism in Tang Dynasty China
Recommended reading: Martin Palmer, The Jesus Sutras
Recommended reading: Samuel Hugh Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia, volume 1, chapter 15
Week of November 18
Christianity in Western Europe
Assimilation of Barbarian Tribes
Assigned reading: McManners, chapter 3
Week of November 25
Missionary Christianity
Increasing influence of Latin Churches
Week of December 2
Eastern Churches
a) Christianity in the Byzantine Empire
b) Divergence of Latin and Greek Churches
Assigned reading: McManners, chapter 4
Recommended reading: Edwards, chapter 3
Week of December 9
Theological Schools and Church Schism
Eastern Christianity after Byzantium
Recommended reading: Edwards, chapter 4
Week of December 16
The Rise of Islam
Expansion of Islam into North Africa and Europe
Relationships among the three "Religions of the Book"
Required reading: McManners, chapter 5
Week of December 30
Review
Weeks of January 6 and 13, 2002
Examination as scheduled
Chun Jie Hao!
Week of February 24
Christendom and The Holy Roman Empire
Assigned reading: McManners, chapter 6
Recommended reading: Edwards, chapter 5
Week of March 3
Conflict between Empire and Papacy
Monasticism
Scholasticism and Mysticism
Week of March 10
Late Medieval Christianity
Precursors to Sixteenth Century Reform
Assigned reading: McManners, chapter 7
Week of March 17
Sixteenth Century Reformations
a) Lutheranism
b) Zwinglianism and Calvinism
c) Left Wing Reform
Assigned reading: Edwards, chapter 6
Week of March 24
Sixteenth Century Reformations, continued
d) Reformation in England
e) Catholic Reform
e.1) The Reforming Orders
e.2) The Council of Trent
Week of March 31
Secularization of European Society
Enlightenment Critique of Religion
Religious Responses: Rationalism and Pietism
Assigned reading: McManners, chapter 8
Week of April 7
Expansion of Christianity since the Sixteenth Century
a) Africa
b) Asia
Assigned reading: McManners, chapter 9
Recommended reading: Edwards, chapter 9
Week of April 14
Expansion of Christianity since the Sixteenth Century, continued
c) North and South America
Recommended reading: Edwards, chapter 8
Week of April 21
Third Examination
European Churches in the Modern Era
Assigned reading: McManners, chapter 10
Week of April 28
May Day Holiday
Week of May 5
Churches of the United States and Canada in the Modern Era
Assigned reading: McManners, chapter 11
Week of May 12
Churches of Hispanic America in the Modern Era
Assigned reading: McManners, chapter 12
Week of May 19
Churches of Africa in the Modern Era
Assigned reading: McManners, chapter 13
Week of May 26
Churches of Asia in the Modern Era
Assigned reading: McManners, chapter 14
Week of May 26
Churches of the Eastern Tradition in the Modern Era
Assigned reading: McManners, chapter 15
Week of June 2
Term Papers Are Due
Churches in the Twenty-first Century
Assigned reading: McManners, chapter 19
Weeks of June 9
Churches in the Twenty-first Century, continued
Review
Assigned reading: Edwards, chapter 10
Weeks of June 16 and 23
Final examination as scheduled
