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248 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud

98-Cracks

9 augustus 2015
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This episode is titled “Cracks.”One of the great concerns of the Roman Church at the outset of the Reformation was just how far it would go, not so much in terms of variance in Doctrines, although that also was a concern. What Rome worried over was just how many different groups the Faith would split into. After all, division wasn’t new. There’d already been a major break between East and West a half century before. In the East, the Church was already fragmented into dozens of groups across Central Asia.But up till the Reformation, the Western Church had managed to keep new and reform movements from splitting off. Most had eventually been subsumed back into the larger reach of the Church structure.The Reformation brought an end to that as now there were groups that defined themselves, not by the Roman Church, but by more local and national churches and movements. It didn’t take long till even some of the early Reformers began to worry about how far the break from Rome would go. The cracks that formed in the Church kept spreading, like a nick on a car windshield sends out just a tiny crack at first, but keeps spreading.The Reformation ended up spinning out dozens of groups; some big, many small.There were Lutherans, Presbyterians, Huguenots, Swiss Brethren, dozens of Anabaptist groups, Mennonites, Hutterites, etc. etc. etc..In Episode 90, we touched briefly on the tragedy that struck at Munster when the Anabaptist movement strayed from its moorings in God’s Word and replaced it with the lunacy of a couple of its leaders who went way off the rails in an apocalyptic frenzy that ended up destroying the town.Munster became a cautionary tale for other Anabaptists and Reformers. The explanation given for the tragedy was Munster’s abandonment of the pacifism preached and practiced by other Anabaptists. Anabaptists regarded the Sermon on the Mount as their guiding ethic and said it could only be followed by a Faith that was committed to the practice of a love that resigned … Lees meer
97-Wars of Religion

2 augustus 2015
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This episode is titled, “Wars of Religion”In our review of the Reformation, we began with a look at its roots and the long cry for reform heard in the Roman church. We saw its genesis in Germany with Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon, its impact on Switzerland with Zwingli and later with the Frenchman John Calvin. John Knox carried it to his native Scotland and Thomas Cranmer led it in England.We’ve taken a look at the Roman Catholic response in what’s called the Counter-Reformation, but probably ought to be labelled the Catholic Reformation. We briefly considered the Council of Trent where the Roman Church affirmed its perspective on many of the issues raised by Protestants and for the first time, a clear line was drawn, marking the differences in doctrine between the two groups. We saw the Jesuits, the learned shock-troops of the Roman Church sent out on both mission and to counter the impact of the Reformation in the regions of Europe being swung toward the Protestant camp.Let’s talk a little more about the Catholic Counter-Reformation because Europe is about to plunge into several decades of war due to the differing religious affiliations of its various kingdoms.There were at least four ingredients in the Counter-Reformation.The first concerned the religious orders of the Catholic Church. There was a spiritual renewal within older orders like the Franciscans, Dominicans, and Benedictines. Reform among the Franciscans led to the founding of the Capuchins in 1528. Their energetic work among the Italian peasantry kept them loyal to Rome.Second, new orders sprang up. Groups like the Theatines [Thee a teen] who called both clergy and laity to a godly lifestyle. The Ursulines [Ursa-leens] were an order for women who cared for the sick and poor. And then of course, there were the Jesuits.The Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, were the most important of the new orders. Founded in Paris in 1534 by Ignatius of Loyola, the order required total obedience of its members for t… Lees meer
96-English Candles

26 juli 2015
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This episode of CS is titled is titled “English Candles.”We’ve spent the last several episodes looking at the Reformation & Counter-Reformation in Europe. In this episode we’ll take a look at how the Reformation unfolded, specifically in England.The story of the Church in England is an interesting one. The famous, or infamous, Henry the VIII was king of England when Luther set fire to the kindling of the Reformation. Posturing as a bulwark of Catholic orthodoxy, Henry wrote a refutation of Luther’s position in 1521 titled “Defense of the Seven Sacraments” and was rewarded by Pope Leo X with the august title, Defender of the Faith. Ironic then that only about a decade later, Henry would hijack the church, officially ousting the Pope as head of the Church IN England and making himself head of the Church OF England.What makes the story of these years in England so interesting is the marital & political shenanigans Henry VIII played. The intrigues played out for the thrones of Spain, France & England all make for the best drama and most people don’t realize that so many of the famous names of history all lived right at this time and knew each other, at least by reputation. If the story was a movie dreamed up in Hollywood, most would consider it too far-fetched.Without getting into the minutiae of the details of Henry’s multiple marriages, it was his lust for power & desire to produce a son & heir that motivated him marry, divorce, re-marry and do it all over again. Henry persuaded the Pope to allow him to marry his sister-in-law, that is, his dead brother’s wife, Catherine of Aragon, herself the daughter of Queen Isabella & King Ferdinand of Spain, sponsors of Christopher Columbus. Catherine gave Henry a daughter named Mary but no sons. So Henry put her aside and married his mistress, the vivacious & opinionated Anne Boleyn.In order to set Catherine aside so he could wed Anne, Henry had to persuade the Pope, who had taken some persuading to allow him to marry Catherine… Lees meer
95-Point Counter-Point

12 juli 2015
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This episode is titled Point – Counter Point and details The Catholic Reformation.We’ve spent the last several episodes considering the Protestant Reformation of the 16th C. The tendency is to assume the Roman Church just dug in its heels in obdurate opposition to the Protestants. While the 17th C will indeed see much blood shed between the religious factions of Europe, it would be wrong to assume the Roman Church of the early decades of the Reformation was immediately adversarial. Don’t forget that all the early Reformers were members of and usually priests in the Roman Church. And reform was something many had called for a long time prior to Luther’s break. The Conciliar Movement we talked about some episodes back was an attempt at reform, at least of the hierarchy of the church, if not some of its doctrine. Spain was a center of the call for Reform within the church. But Luther’s rift with Rome, and the floodgate it opened put the Roman Church on the defensive and caused it to respond aggressively. That response was what’s called the Catholic Counter-Reformation. But that title can be misleading if one assumes the Catholic Church became only more hide-bound in reaction to the Protestants. Several important reforms were made in the way the Church was run. And Protestant theology urged Catholic theologians to tighten up some of theirs.I like the way one historian describes the 16th C in Europe. If the 16th C was likened to a football game, with every 25 years representing a quarter, by the end of the 1st quarter, the Protestants were winning 7 to 0.By halftime, it was Protestants 35, Roman Catholics 7By the end of the 3rd quarter its 42-35 in favor of the Protestants.But by the end of the game, it’s 42 to 45 in favor of the Catholics.I apologize to our European listeners who find American Football a mystery. Don’t worry, many Americans do as well.The point is—Protestants had some quick gains, but by the end of the 16th C, largely because of the Jesuits, the Roman … Lees meer
94-The Ultimate Fighter: Reformation Edition

5 juli 2015
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This episode is titled, The Ultimate Fighter; Reformation Edition.The pioneer of Protestantism in western Switzerland was William Farel. Some pronounce it FAIR-el, but we’ll go with the more traditional Fuh–REL.He began as an itinerate evangelist; always in motion, tireless, full of faith and fire. He was bold as Luther but more radical. He also lacked Luther’s genius.He’s called the Elijah of the French Reformation and “the scourge of priests.”Once a devoted Roman Catholic who studied under pro-reform professors at the University of Paris, Farel became a loyal Protestant, able only to see only what was wrong with the Catholicism of his past. He loathed the pope, branding him antichrist, as did many Protestants of the time. Of course, the popes returned the favor and labeled Reformation leaders with the same title. Farel declared that all the statues, pictures and relics found in Roman churches were heathen idols which ought be destroyed.While Farel was never officially ordained, he thought himself divinely called, like a prophet of old, to break down idolatry and clear the way for the worship of God according to God’s Word. He was a born fighter and echoing Jesus, said he came, not to bring peace, but a sword. He contended with priests who carried firearms and clubs under their frocks, and fought them with the spiritual sword of the Scriptures. Once he was fired at, but the gun blew up. Turning to the man who’d shot at him, he said, “I’m not afraid of your shots.” He never used violence himself, except in the verbal salvos he was fond of firing at critics.Farel was never discouraged or dissuaded by opposition. On the contrary, persecution stimulated him to even greater labor. His outward appearance gave no hint to his indomitable will: he was of short stature and looked frail. His pale complexion was oft sunburnt. His red beard was left to grow wild.What his appearance lacked, his voice made up for. When he spoke, he used both gestures and language that commanded … Lees meer
93-Knox Knox; Who’s There?

28 juni 2015
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This Episode is titled, Knox, Knox, Who’s There?John Knox was born in 1514 in the small burgh of Haddington, south of Edinburgh. At the age of 15 he entered the University of St. Andrews to study, not golf, but theology. After 7 yrs he was ordained a Roman Catholic priest and became a notary since his studies specialized in the Law. Being a gifted speaker, he was employed as a tutor for the sons of some local lairds, a term referring to lower rung of Scottish nobility.Dramatic events unfolded in Scotland during Knox’s youth. Many were angry with the Roman church which owned more than half the land and gathered an annual income of almost 20 times that of the crown. Bishops and priests were more often than not political appointments, and many so morally corrupt, they didn’t even try to hide their debaucheries. Cardinal Beaton, archbishop of St. Andrews, openly consorted with concubines, fathering ten children.The constant traffic between Scotland and Europe saw much Protestant literature smuggled into the country. Church authorities were alarmed by the pernicious German “heresy” as they labeled it and tried to suppress it. Patrick Hamilton, an outspoken Protestant convert, was burned at the stake in 1528.In the early 1540s, while tutoring the sons of Protestant families, Knox came under their influence, and at the preaching of Thomas Guilliame, joined them. Knox then became a bodyguard for the firebrand Protestant preacher George Wishart, at that time touring Scotland.In 1546, Cardinal Beaton had Wishart arrested, tried, strangled, and just to make sure everyone knew how mad he was, Wishart’s body was burned. The Protestants decided such outrage would not go unanswered. So sixteen Protestant nobles stormed the castle, assassinated Beaton, and mutilated his body in retribution for what he’d done to Wishart, who posthumously could wonder where they’d been earlier. Might have been a little smarter for them to take the castle when he was still a prisoner. Oh well.With th… Lees meer
92-The School of Christ

21 juni 2015
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This 92nd episode of CS is titled “The School of Christ” and is part 2 in our look at the Reformer, John Calvin.We left off with Calvin back in Geneva after being banished for a few years following a run in with the City Council. They realized how much they needed him to design the reforms they felt they had to make so they asked him to return and accommodated themselves to being the agents by which his plans could be implemented.While Calvin designed the policies enacted by the city government, he kept himself to his role as a minister in the church. Besides preaching and teaching almost daily, he served as a professor of Old Testament studies three times a week. He was a busy pastor, offering guidance in church matters and assisting the deacons in the administration of their task by offering sage counsel.While later nay-sayers cast Calvin as a kind of dictator in Geneva, that’s certainly NOT what he was. He was appointed and paid by the city council as an advisor. He could have been dismissed by them at any time, as he in fact was in 1538 for a year and a half. Don’t forget that he was a Frenchman, living in Switzerland. He didn’t even become a citizen till his last years.Calvin’s authority was more due to his moral and spiritual gravitas than anything else. His influence was the result of other’s acceptance of an authority gained from God’s call. It stemmed from his conviction he was simply the agent of God’s Word and will. While there’ve been many throughout history who got drunk on the power-potion and became abusive, Calvin was humbled that such influence had been given him and labored to wield it in a manner that brought glory to God alone and would work genuine and long-lasting good among others.As listeners to CS know, I attempt to present as unbiased a presentation of church history as I can. But I will occasionally insert my personal perspective. When I do, I mark it off with a verbal parenthesis. One follows now …I’m not an adherent of Calvinism and Ref… Lees meer
91-Thrust Into the Game

14 juni 2015
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This episode is titled, Thrust Into the Game.So far we’ve marked the rise of 2 of the 3 major branches of the Reformation. We’ve considered Lutheranism and the Radical Reformers or Anabaptists. Over the next few episodes we’ll consider the 3rd branch, called Calvinism, AKA, Reformed Christianity.I begin with a summary of the opening section of Bruce Shelley’s excellent, Church History in Plain Language and his chapter of John Calvin.Because the road to Strasbourg was closed by the war between France and Spain, the young French scholar had to pass thru Geneva. His plan was to spend a night. He ended up spending many.The city was in disarray. Immorality was rampant, the political situation a mess, and there was little prospect for help.The fiery reformer, William Farel had preached in Geneva for four years, and masses at the Catholic church were halted. But Geneva’s embrace of the Reformation was more out of political ambition than sincere allegiance to Protestant theology. No one had taken the lead in transforming the city’s institutions along Biblical lines. Geneva needed a manager; someone who could step into the political and spiritual vacuum and bring order. When Farel heard John Calvin was spending the night, he made it a point to call on him. He found Calvin to be a candidate to meet Geneva’s need, and urged him to stay and help establish the work.Calvin begged off, saying he had further studies he needed to pursue. Farel told him, “Bah! You’re only following your own wishes! If you don’t help us in this work of the Lord, He will punish you for seeking your own interest rather than His.” Calvin was terror–stricken. The last thing he wanted was to offend God. So he stayed and took up the cause of installing the principles of the Reformation in Geneva.Years later, Calvin remarked, “Being by nature a bit antisocial and shy, I always loved retirement and peace.… But God has so whirled me around by various events that He’s never let me rest anywhere, but in spite o… Lees meer
90-Taking It Further

7 juni 2015
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This episode is titled, Taking It Further.History, or I should say, the reporting of it, shows a penchant for identifying one person, a singular standout as the locus of change. This despite the recurring fact there were others who participated in or paralleled that change. Such is the case with Martin Luther and the Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli. While Luther is the “historic bookmark” for the genesis of the Reformation, in some ways, Zwingli was ahead of him.Born in Switzerland in 1484, Ulrich Zwingli was educated in the best universities and ordained a priest. Possessing a keen mind, intense theological inquiry coupled to a keen spiritual struggle brought him to a genuine faith in 1516, a year before Luther tacked his 95 thesis to Wittenberg’s door. Two yrs later, Zwingli arrived in Zurich where he spent the rest of his life. By 1523, he was leading the Reformation in Switzerland.Zwingli’s preaching convinced Zurich’s city council to permit the clergy to marry. They abolished the Mass and banned images and statues in public worship. They dissolved the monasteries and severed ties with Rome. Recognizing the central place the Bible was to have in the Christian life, the Zurich reformers published the NT in their own vernacular in 1524 and the entire Bible 6 yrs later; 4 yrs before Luther’s German translation was available.Zwingli didn’t just preach a Reformation message, he lived it. He married Anna Reinhart in 1522.In one important respect, Zwingli followed the Bible more specifically than Luther. Martin allowed whatever the Bible did not prohibit. Zwingli rejected whatever the Bible did not prescribe. So the Reformation in Zurich tended to strip away more traditional symbols of the Roman church: the efficacy of lighting candles, the use of statues and pictures as objects of devotion, even church music was ended. Later, in England, these reforms would come to be called “Puritanism.”But more than the application of Reformation principles, Zwingli’s bookmark in his… Lees meer
89-Luthers’ Legacy

31 mei 2015
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This episode of CS is titled Luther’s Legacy.Long time subscribers to CS know that while the podcast isn’t bias free, I do strive to treat subjects fairly. However, being a pastor of a non-denominational, evangelical Christian church in SoCal, I do have my views and opinions on the material we cover. When I share those opinions, I try to mark them as such. So >> Warning; Blatant opinion now ensues …We live in the Era of the Instant. People expect to have things quickly and relatively easily. Technology has produced an array of labor-saving devices that reduce once arduous tasks to effortless, “push a button and voila” procedures. Sadly, many assume such instantifying applies to the acquisition of knowledge as well. The internet enhances this expectation with ready access to on-line information, not just thru a desktop computer, but via smartphones where ever we are.And of course, if it’s on the interwebs, it must be true.But knowledge and understanding are different things. Knowing a fact doesn’t equal understanding a concept, truth or principle. And many people now want their history in condensed form. They don’t really care to understand so much as to “get an A on the quiz” or, be able to answer trivia game questions. They can answer multiple choice but wouldn’t have a clue how to write an essay.I say all this as we fill in some of our gaps on Martin Luther for two reasons.First – The very nature of this podcast, short snippets on Church history, can easily foster a cavalier attitude toward our subject. So I need to make a MASSIVE qualifier and say that if all someone listens to is CS, they must never, ever assume they know Church History. My entire aim is to give those who listen reference points, a broad sweep of history with just enough detail to spark your embarking on your own journey of studying this fascinating subject. Pick one era, maybe just 1st C, and one region, then study everything you can find about it. Become an expert on that one span of history.… Lees meer
88-Luther’s Struggle

24 mei 2015
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This episode of CS is titled, Luther’s Struggle.As we saw last time, Luther’s situation after appearing before Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms didn’t look hopeful. The majority of officials there decided to apply the papal bull excommunicating Luther and removing his protection. Some of the nobles knew they could incur the Pope’s favor by taking matters into their own hands and assassinating the troublesome priest. But the German prince Frederick the Wise, one of the Emperor’s most important supporters, arranged to air-quotes à “kidnap" Luther on his way back to Wittenberg. He secreted Luther to his castle at Wartburg under an assumed identity. Now in hiding, Luther used the time to translate the NT from Greek into a superbly simple German Bible. He finished it in the Fall of 1522 and followed it up with an OT translation from Hebrew. This took longer and wasn’t finished till 1534. The completed Bible proved to be no less a force in the German-speaking world than the King James Version was later to be in the English sphere, and it’s considered one of Luther’s most valuable contributions.The revolt against Rome sparked by Luther’s list tacked to the castle church door at Wittenberg began to spread. In town after town, priests and town councils removed statues from churches and abandoned the Mass. More priests and monks stepped forward, adding their voice to the call for reform, many more radical than Luther. More importantly, an increasing number of civil officials decided to back Luther in defiance of the Emperor and Pope.By 1522, it was clear to Luther he could safety return to Wittenberg and put into practice the reforms he was convinced the Church needed to install. What he did there became the model for a good part of Germany. He abolished the office of bishop because he couldn’t find it in Scripture. Local churches needed pastors who were servants, not a religious royalty.During his time at the Wartburg, Luther gave much thought to the issue of celibacy… Lees meer
87-Luther’s List

17 mei 2015
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This episode of CS is titled, Martin’s List.In the summer of 1520, a document bearing an impressive seal circulated throughout Germany in search of a remote figure. It began, “Arise, O Lord, and judge Your cause. A wild boar has invaded Your vineyard.”The document was what’s called a papal bull—named after that impressive seal, or bulla bearing the Pope’s insignia. It took 3 months to reach the wild boar it referred to, a German monk named Martin Luther who’d created quite a stir in Germany. But well before it arrived in Wittenberg where Luther taught, he knew its contents. 41 of the things he’d been announcing were condemned as à “heretical, scandalous, false, and offensive to pious ears; seducing simple minds and repugnant to Catholic truth.” The papal bull called on Luther to repent and publicly repudiate his errors or face dreadful consequences.Luther received his copy on the 10th of October. At the end of his 60-day grace period in which he was supposed to surrrender, he led a crowd of eager students outside Wittenberg and burned copies of the Canon Law and works of several medieval theologians. Included in the paper that fed the flames was a copy of the bull condemning him. That was his answer. He said, “They’ve burned my books. So I burn theirs.” That fire outside Wittenberg in December of 1520 was a fitting symbol of the defiance toward the Roman Church raging throughout Germany.Born in 1483 at Eisleben in Saxony to a miner, Luther attended school at Magdeburg under the Brethren of the Common Life. He then went to university at Erfurt where he learned Greek, graduating w/an MA in 1505. His plan was to become a lawyer, but the story goes that one day he was caught in a thunderstorm; a bolt of lightning knocked him to the ground. Terrified, he cried out to the patron saint of miners: “St. Anne, save me! And I’ll become a monk.” To his parents’ dismay, Luther kept the vow. 2 weeks later he entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt where he became a dedicated… Lees meer
86-Erasmus

10 mei 2015
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This episode of CS is titled Erasmus.As we begin, I once again want to do a brief, and I promise it will be brief, summary of the threads that conspired to weave the tapestry of the Reformation. Others might refer to them less as threads that weaved a tapestry as those that frayed in the unravelling of the Church caused by a pack of trouble-makers. The reason I’m compelled to do all this summarizing is because of the massive sea-change coming in our study and the need to understand it wasn’t just some malcontents who woke up one day and decided to bail on a healthy church. Things had been bad for a long time and the call for reform had been heard for a couple hundred years.The Western European Church of the 14th and 15th C’s experienced a major crisis of authority. This crisis came from challenges both within and without. They combined to plant seeds of doubt in the minds of many about the credibility and legitimacy of Church leaders. Let’s review some of the things they’d done, and that happened to the Church, to create the crisis.Due to the politics of late medieval Europe, Pope Clement V moved the papal seat to Avignon, France, in 1309 in what’s called the “Babylonian Captivity of the Church” because the Pope came under the influence of the French throne. When another Pope was elected in Rome, the Church was faced with 2 men who claimed the title of “Vicar of Christ.” This Papal Schism confused the people of Europe and stirred strong feelings that the office of Pope was more a political fixture than a spiritual office. At the insistence of the Holy Roman Emperor, the Council of Constance ended the schism. But the solution raised serious questions about the authority of the papacy, further dividing church leaders and distressing the people of Europe.In addition to these political shenanigans, the Church was marked by widespread corruption and fraud. Simony, the buying and selling of ecclesiastical offices, was common. Immorality among monks, priests, bishops and … Lees meer
85-Dawn

3 mei 2015
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This 85th episode of CS, is titled, Dawn.I want to take a brief moment here at the start to say “Thank you” to all those who’ve spread the word about CS to their friends and family. We’ve had a significant bump in subscribers and lots of new likes on the FB page. So—Kudos to all who’ve spread the word.As most of you know, iTunes is by far the major portal for podcasts. So, if you use iTunes, a review of CS is a great way to boost our rating – and ratings usually translate into new subscribers. Why do we want more subscribers since there’s no commercial interest in CS? Because information and knowledge about history are crucial to a well-rounded worldview. I’m convinced an accurate view of history is crucial to overcoming prejudice, to tearing down the walls that divide people. That is when we discover not just WHAT people believe but WHY – it helps puts things in perspective and disabuses us of errant opinions.Anyway, that’s my hope.As I’ve learned about different groups, I’ve revised my opinions. Traditions almost always have some origin in history, in some ground that at the time seemed perfectly reasonable to the people who created them. We may not agree with them today, hundreds and even thousands of years later, but at least we can respect those who originally framed them; and if not respect, gain a modicum of understanding for the complexities they wrestled with.Okay, back to it …We’ve come now to one of the most significant moments in Church History; the Reformation. Since it’s considered by many the point at which the Protestant church arose, it’s important to realize a couple of things.First – The student of history must remember almost all those who are today counted as the first Protestants were Roman Catholics. When they began the movement that would later be called the Reformation, they didn’t call themselves anything other than Christians of the Western, Roman church. They began as an attempt to bring what they considered to be much-needed reform to t… Lees meer
84-Lost

12 april 2015
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This 84th Episode of CS is titled Lost & is a brief review of The Church in the East.I encourage you to go back and listen again to episode 72 – Meanwhile Back in the East, which conveyed a lot of detail about the Eastern Church & how it fared under the Mongols and Muslim Expansion in the Middle Ages.Until that time, Christianity was widespread across a good part of the Middle East, Mesopotamia, Persia, & across Central Asia – reaching all the way to China. The reaction of Muslim rulers to the incipient Mongol affiliation with Christianity meant a systemic persecution of believers in Muslim lands, especially in Egypt, where Christians were regarded as a 5th Column. Then, when the Mongols embraced Islam, entire regions of Christians were eradicated.Still, even with these deprivations, Christianity continued to live on in vast portions of across the East. (more…) Lees meer
83-Easter

5 april 2015
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This special episode of CS posts to the sanctorum.us website on Easter Sunday, 2015. I realize many subscribers will hear it at a later time, but since each week’s episode posts early Sunday morning, and this is Resurrection Sunday, a special podcast seemed appropriate. This week, we’ll be taking a look at the place of the celebration of Easter in the Early Church.There’s considerable controversy over the origin of the word Easter as the label that’s come to be attached to the Christian commemoration of the Resurrection of Christ. It’s best to see the word coming from the Germanic languages & the Teutonic goddess of Spring, Eastre. Her festival marked the vernal equinox, & with the arrival of Christianity the holiday morphed to be the anniversary of the resurrection of Christ.Today you’ll occasionally hear someone connect the word Easter to the Canaanite goddess Astarte, the Babylonian Ishtar, or some such other ancient deity. While there may be some etymological connection between the Teutonic Eastre & the Mesopotamian Ishtar, it’s submerged under the mists of time. (more…) Lees meer
82-The Long Road to Reform 07

29 maart 2015
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This is the 7th and last episode in our series The Long Road to Reform.In Italy, the Renaissance was a time of both prosperity and upheaval.Moderns of the 21st C are so accustomed to thinking of Italy as one large unified nation it’s difficult to conceive of it as it was throughout MOST of its history; a patchwork of various regions at odds with each other. During the Middle Ages and a good part of the Renaissance, Italy was composed of powerful city states like Florence and Venice who vied endlessly with each other. Exacerbating the turmoil, was the interference of France and Germany who influenced affairs to their advantage.It was within this mix of prosperity, intrigue, and emerging Renaissance ideals the papacy carried on during the last decades of the 15th Century.I need to insert a cautionary footnote at this point. As this is the last of our series laying out the history for WHY the Reformation occurred, we need to deal with something that may be a bit unsettling for some of our listeners; the string of popes who were, how shall I describe them? Less than holy, less than the men of God others were. Even many loyal Roman Catholics acknowledge the men who’ve ridden Peter’s chair haven’t always been of sterling reputation. Not a few have been a ragged blight on the Holy See. That there was a string of them in the 15th Century helped set the stage for the Reformation.And I hope this mini-series in CS has made it clear that Reform only became something OUTSIDE the Church when the decades old movement for it WITHIN the Church was forced to exit. Never forget Luther began a Roman monk and priest who was forced out.During his reign in the mid-15th C, Pope Eugene IV sought to decorate Rome with the new artistic styles of the early Renaissance. He recruited Fra Angelico and Donatello. This began a trend among the Popes to imbibe the ideas of the Renaissance, especially in regard to art. They sought to adorn the city with palaces, churches, and monuments worthy of its … Lees meer
81-The Long Road to Reform 06

22 maart 2015
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This is the 6th episode in our podcast mini-series The Long Road to Reform.Much of the reform energy in the European Church of the Late Middle Ages was among the poor. Being poor meant being illiterate. The poor and illiterate don’t, as a rule, write books about their hopes and dreams. So it’s often from sources hostile to the reforming movements of this era we learn of them. That hostility colors the picture of them much of history since has regarded them by.Wycliffe’s ideas lived on, not so much among scholars or nobles who initially endorsed them, as among the poverty-committed Lollards who went from village to village, carrying his reforms like torches, continually setting new places ablaze with reforming zeal. The Lollards preached a simple Gospel that contradicted a great deal of what commoners heard from local priests.In Bohemia, the ideas of Jan Hus, at first so popular among the gentry, ended up being embodied by an Apocalyptic sect called the Taborites, made up largely of the illiterate poor.Another movement took place in the late Middle Ages and into the Renaissance that rarely seems mention. We’ve already talked about how some women were drawn to the monastic life and lived in sequestered communities affiliated with a men’s compound. There were orders for women in both the Franciscans and Dominicans. But in the late Middle Ages, the number of women seeking inclusion in these orders swelled dramatically. So many applied, the orders had to limit their intake of new sisters. Those rejected didn’t just shrug their shoulders and go home; back to the default of being a wife and mother. Many of them decided—if the established orders wouldn’t take them, they’d form their own communities. Though not sanctioned by the Church, they devoted themselves to corporate lives of prayer, devotion, and poverty. Called beguines, [beg-geenz] their communities were usually large houses they converted into beguinages. Just what the word ‘beguine’ means is unclear; most likely … Lees meer
80-The Long Road to Reform 05

15 maart 2015
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This is the 5th episode in the podcast mini-series we’re calling “The Long Road to Reform.”What do you think of when I say “The Inquisition”?Many shudder. Some get a queasy feeling in their stomach because of the way the Inquisition has been cast in novels and movies. There’s a bit of truth in that portrayal, one-sided and stereo-typed as it may be.We’re backing up yet again in our timeline as we take a closer look at this sad chapter of Church History.The 4th Lateran Council of 1215 was the high-water mark of the medieval papacy under Innocent III. The Council was little more than a rubber-stamp committee for Innocent’s reforms. Those brought much needed positive change to the morals of the clergy, but installed structures that worked against later reform. The 4th Lateran Council established the doctrine of transubstantiation and the sacrament of penance. It also made official the Inquisition, which had begun as a commission of inquiry under Pope Alexander III a generation before, but now became a permanent feature.The major challenge Innocent III faced was from the Albigensians, AKA the Cathars, inhabiting Southern France. Since we covered this maybe-heretical group in an earlier episode, we’ll just say that, if the reports by their opponents about them are true, they were a dualistic pseudo-Christian cult-turned-movement that possessed a lot of energy during its relatively short life. Innocent sought to convert them by preaching and debates, but early efforts met with little success. So he approved a Crusade against them from 1209 that lasted the next 20 yrs. The Crusade crushed the Albigensians, devastating Southern France in the process. It was the Albigensians that so provoked Dominic, and propelled his efforts in launching the Dominicans.Though this heresy was eventually put down, their earlier success convinced Innocent the Church would be better served if it had a means to conduct official investigations into questions of doctrine. Earlier popes authorized… Lees meer
79-The Long Road to Reform 04

8 maart 2015
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This is the 4th episode in a mini-series we’re calling “The Long Road to Reform.”It was late Spring of 1490 when a Dominican friar stood at the gates of Florence. This was not the first time the 33 year old Girolamo [ger-all-a-mo] had made the 160 KM / 100 miles trip from his native Ferrara to the city of the Medici’s. He’d lived for a spell in the city. The Florentines admired his scholarship but were put off by the vehemence of his preaching. They had a hard time adapting to his accent. But now he returned at the invitation of Lorenzo de Medici; Lorenzo the Magnificent, who virtually owned Florence, and to whom he’d been recommended by the famous philosopher Mirandola.Girolamo Savonarola joined the monastery of St. Mark and began a series of lectures for his fellow friars. Soon others joined the sessions causing them to relocate to the main hall. The lectures turned into sermons. By the Lenten Season of 1491, Savonarola’s growing fame saw him invited to preach at the main church in Florence. Short on tact, Savonarola lambasted the decadence of the city’s rich, of which there were not a few. Lorenzo de Medici was especially displeased. Who did this upstart think he was? He’d only come to Florence at Lorenzo’s invitation. This was no way for a guest in HIS city to act. Medici hired another preacher to attack Savonarola. It failed since the people sided with Savonarola. He’d become their champion in decrying the exorbitant luxuries of the wealthy.The mercenary preacher refused to accept defeat. He went to Rome to plot his revenge.Savonarola was then elected prior of St. Mark’s and within a short time, reformed the life of the community so thoroughly, the people of Florence all remarked on how holy the order had grown. Savonarola sold off some of the monastery’s estates and gave the proceeds to the poor.Savonarola’s reputation was unimpeachably. Though bitter enemies, when Lorenzo lay dying, he asked for the prior to come bless him. Lorenzo’s successor was Pietro de … Lees meer
78- The Long Road to Reform 03

1 maart 2015
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This is part three of “The Long Road to Reform.”In our last episode we looked at The Conciliar Movement that formed to end the Great Papal Schism and so many hoped would be a permanent fixture for reform in the Church. As well-intentioned as the movement was, it ended up resurrecting the Schism instead of solving it. In its long battle with the Papacy, Conciliarism eventually lost.We turn now to look at a reformer from Bohemia named John Hus; or more properly Jan Hus. One of my personal, all-time favorite church leaders.Bohemia was an important part of the Holy Roman Empire; a sovereign state with its capital at Prague. Today, it roughly corresponds with the Czech Republic. It had a long history as a place of vibrant Christianity, especially monasticism. In 1383, Bohemia and England were linked by the marriage of Anne of Bohemia and the English King Richard II. With this union, students of both countries went back and forth between the colleges of Prague and Oxford where the pre-reformer John Wycliffe.The revolt Wycliffe started at Oxford, expanded when he was booted and met with greater success in Bohemia than England because unlike England, it was joined to a strong national party led by a man named Jan Hus.Hus came from peasant parents in the southern Bohemian town of Husinetz. He studied theology at the University of Prague, earning a Master of Arts before teaching there and diving into the cause of religious reform.While a student, Hus was introduced to the early philosophy of Wycliffe, but it was only after his appointment as the pastor at Bethlehem Chapel that was exposed to Wycliffe’s more radical views on religious reform. He immediately adopted Wycliffe’s views that the church was an invisible company of the elect, with Jesus as its head rather than a Pope.Bethlehem Chapel was located near the University of Prague, giving Hus an open door to circulate Wycliffe’s writings. As his ideas took hold, paintings began to appear on the walls of the church contras… Lees meer
77-The Long Road to Reform 02

22 februari 2015
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This is part 2 of “The Long Road to Reform.”Before diving into the THE Reformation, we’ll do some review and add detail to the story of the Church. We do this because I fear too many of us may have the impression Martin Luther and John Calvin were wild aberrations. That they just sprang up out of nowhere. Many Protestants assume the Roman Catholic Church got progressively more corrupt during the Late Middle Ages and that Luther was a lone good guy who stood up and said, “Enough!” Many Roman Catholics would agree that the late medieval Church got a bit off but see what Luther did as a gross over-reaction that took him off the rails.So in this series of podcasts within the larger Church-story, I want to make sure we understand The Reformation was the inevitable result of a long attempt at reform that had gone on for awhile. To do that, we need to go back over some of the ground we’ve already covered.Pope Clement V made his headquarters the French city of Avignon. For the next 70 years, the popes resided there and bent their policies to the advantage of the French throne. The rest of Europe wasn’t real excited about this, giving this period the title of “The Babylonian Captivity of the Church.”When Clement V died in 1314, the cardinals found it difficult to agree on a successor so they decided to elect a 72 year old, assuming he’d not last long, but it would afford them time to reach a consensus on a real pope. But Pope John XXII turned out be far more than a mere place-holder. He lived for 18 years and surprised everyone with his vigorous rule. Pope John was determined to make the Italians honor his papacy and sent troops to force down recalcitrant nobles. To finance these military excursions as well as funding the expansion of the papal court at Avignon, John devised a complex tax system. This only added to resentment against his rule.In the decade Pope Clement VI reigned, nepotism in the Church reached new heights and the papal palace at Avignon rivaled those of th… Lees meer
76-The Long Road to Reform 01

15 februari 2015
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This episode is the first of several I’m calling “The Long Road to Reform.” As I mentioned at the end of the last episode, we’ll track the Church’s long march to the Reformation, then pause before picking it up acwith THE Reformation by doing some episodes tracking Church History into the East.Until recently, most treatments of the History of Christianity have focused almost exclusively on the Church in Europe and what’s often called “Western” Christianity. Mention is made of the Church’s growth into other regions like North Africa, and the Middle and Far East. But it’s barely a nod in that direction. For every 10,000 words devoted to the Church in Europe, 10 are given to the Church of the East. What’s sad is that this Church has a rich history. We won’t make up for the lack of reporting on the history of the church in these regions, but we will seek to fill in some of the gaps and give those interested resources for learning more.Okay, here we go. We embark now on The Long Road to Reform.At the dawn of the 13th C with Innocent III, the papacy reached the zenith. The Dominicans and Franciscans carried the Gospel far and wide, new universities were hotbeds of theological enterprise, and Gothic Cathedrals seemed to defeat the law of gravity.Europe was united under the pope and the emperor; in theory at least. Because the Crusaders had taken Constantinople, the breach between East and West looked to have been finally healed. Yeah – it looked like Christendom was about to enter a Golden Age.As is often the case, looks can be deceiving. These were.By 1261, the West’s influence in Constantinople was over as well as the bogus union the 4th Crusade claimed to have forged. Over the next 2 centuries, Europe saw several changes that set the scene for the modern world.One of the most important was in the realm of economics.When we think of the Middle Ages in Europe, we remember feudalism with its strict rules of class. There was the land-owning nobility and the commoners, serf… Lees meer
75-The Witness of Stones

8 februari 2015
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This episode is titled “The Witness of Stones.”I’ve had the privilege of doing a bit of touring in Europe. I’ve visited the cathedral at Cologne, Germany on several occasions. I’ve been to Wartburg Castle where Luther hid out. Mrs. Communion Sanctorum and I did a 2-week tour of Florence and Rome for our 30th Anniversary. We saw lots of churches and cathedrals. No matter what your thoughts about medieval Christianity, you can’t help but be impressed by the art and architecture the period produced.Some modern Christians, especially those of the Evangelical stripe, visit a medieval European cathedral, and come away impressed at the architecture, but mystified and maybe, a few anyway, a bit angry. Mystified on WHY people would go to such extremes to build such an immense and impressive structure. Angry at the massive expense such a structure meant.This episode seeks to explain the why behind medieval cathedrals.Churches in general and cathedrals in particular served two main purposes. First, the building was a place for worship; that worship being centered on the Mass. Second, the church was a place of instruction.The architecture was used as a tool for BOTH of these.In an age when only a small portion of society was literate, church buildings became a kind of “book in stone,” telling God’s story in the paintings and carvings that adorned the walls, and later, in the dazzling light of stained glass windows.Churches and cathedrals were made elaborate because of the theology of the Mass that we’ve looked at in the episode on the Eucharistic controversy. While the debate was long, the Church eventually settled in on the doctrine of transubstantiation; the belief that at the words of the priest, the bread and wine of Communion are transmuted into the literal body and blood of Christ. A portion of the consecrated host is kept in a container called a tabernacle, making the church into a house that holds the most precious thing in the universe; the body of Christ. It’s for th… Lees meer
74-Overview 2

1 februari 2015
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This 74th Episode of CS is the 2nd Overview, where we pause to sum up the journey we’ve taken since the last overview in Episode 35.That summary began with the Apostolic Church and ran up through the 5th C marking the Fall of the Western Roman Empire. This Overview starts where that left off and brings us up to the 15th C. We’re about to move into what’s called the Reformation and Counter- Reformation Era, but have a bit more work to do in looking at some trends that took place in the Church in Europe in the waning decades of the Middle Ages.Turns out, there was a lot of reform-oriented activity that took place in the Church well before the birth of Martin Luther. So we’ll take a look at that, filling in some of the holes left in the story so far.The reason these overview / review episodes are important is because of the need to set the events of Church history into the larger context of world history. But a danger lies in the very thing many dislike in the study of history; that inevitable list of names and dates. We have an advantage here because the assumption is – you LIKE history > Or for goodness sake, why would you be listening? I sure hope no home-school student has to listen to these, and no parent uses them as a form of discipline. Although, I guess they could be used in some kind of enhanced interrogation technique.Anyway à Here we go . . . Picking up where we left off in the last Overview àChristianity came to England early, at the end of the 3rd C. Patrick took the Gospel to Ireland in the 5th.The Goth and Hun invasions of Europe altered both the political and religious landscape. As the political structures of the Western Roman Empire fragmented, people looked to the Church to provide leadership. Being generally pretty capable leaders, the task of providing guidance fell to the dozens of Christian bishops.Then we briefly examined a subject that could have occupied us for much longer; the emergence of the Roman bishop as the Pope and de-facto leader of… Lees meer
73-A Glimmer of Reform

25 januari 2015
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The title of this episode of Communio Santorum is A Glimmer of Reform.I assume most listening to this are students of history, or—why would you be listening? Some like history in general. Others find a fascination with certain eras or moments of the past. Whatever your interest, every student recognizes that as time passes, things change. Sometimes that change is merely incidental to the thing changed, a cosmetic difference that does little to the substance. Other change is deep, fundamentally altering the thing changed; and in some cases, doing away with it altogether.Institutions and beliefs held for long periods can be swept away in a matter of days, while others abide for centuries without being touched.Jesus challenged the Guardians of Tradition of His day with the Parable of the Wine-skins. The point of the parable is that while truth doesn’t change, the container it’s put in and dispensed from will change, it MUST change. The rabbinic and Pharisaical Judaism of Jesus’ day had become an inflexible complex of traditions that obscured the Spirit behind the Law. The Rabbis and Pharisees played an important role after the Babylonian Captivity in moving the Jews away from their age old tendency to idolatry. But their exaltation of tradition had become so rigid it ended up missing what the Law of Moses was intended to promote. Jesus came to cut through the thick vines of tradition and make a path back to God.Sadly, some seem to think the parable of the wineskins only referred to 1st C Judaism. They don’t realize what Jesus said is an abiding truth with application to every age; including the Church. Historically, God births a fresh move of the Spirit and people are mobilized to maximize the effect of that movement. Spiritual inspiration builds a structure, a vehicle for the movement to take place in and through. But as time passes, man makes policies and procedures regulate the movement. They’re needed so people can work together. Leaders want to ensure future memb… Lees meer
72-Meanwhile, Back in the East

18 januari 2015
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This episode is titled “Meanwhile, Back in the East” because before we dive into the next phase of church history in Europe, we need to catch up on what's happening to the East.The Mongol Empire of the 13th and 14th Cs occupied the largest contiguous land empire in history. Rising originally from the steppes of Central Asia and stretching from Eastern Europe to the Sea of Japan; from Siberia in the north to Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Iranian plateau, and the Middle East. At its greatest extent it spanned 6000 miles and covered about 16% of the planet's total land area.Genghis Khan was a shamanist, but recognizing the need to unite the Mongol clans. He adopted a policy of religious toleration that remained official policy during his reign and that of his son Ogedai. Several of the tribes that formed the core of the Mongol horde were Christians in at least a cultural sense. The Keriats, Onguds and Uighurs owed the Christianization of their culture to the Eastern expansion of Christianity we’ve looked at in earlier episodes.It's important to insert a short parenthetical comment here. Knowing what devastation the Mongols wrought during the 13th and 14th Cs and the literal wagon-loads of blood they spilled, we have to be careful when we call these tribes Christian. They certainly weren't evangelical missionaries. Their faith was a highly-distorted Nestorian version of the Gospel that exercised little restraint on the barbaric rapaciousness that marked their conquests. Still, they called themselves ‘’Christians and their claimed allegiance to the Gospel had a huge impact on what happened in the Middle East.Genghis Khan’s son Tolui, married a Christian woman from the Keriat tribe. One of their sons was the Mongol ruler Hulegu. Another was the famous Kublai Khan, founder of the Yaun Dynasty in China. While Hulegu seems to have identified as a Christian, Kublai certainly favored Christians in his court. When Hulegu conquered Baghdad, the Islamic capital of… Lees meer
71-The Mystics

11 januari 2015
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This episode is titled The Mystics and looks at the Mysticism of the Western Church during the Late Middle Ages.Alongside the Scholastics we spent a couple episodes on, was another movement within Medieval Christianity in Europe led by a group known as “The Mystics.”Don’t let that title mislead you. They weren’t wizards with black, long-sleeved robes and tall pointed hats embellished with moons and stars. Don’t picture Gandalf or some old man bent over a dusty tome reciting an incantation. The Mystics weren’t magicians. They were Christians who thought a vital part of the Faith had been left behind by the academic pursuits of the Scholastics. They aimed to reclaim it.Think of the Medieval Christian mystics this way; if the Scholastics sought to synthesize faith and reason, to give a rational base for the Christian faith, the Mystics wanted such reason to be fervent. If Scholastics emphasized the head, Mystics emphasized the heart. They wanted there to be some heat added to the light the Scholastics shined on the Faith. They added adoration to analysis.The primary message of the Mystics was the call for Christians to maintain a deeply personal and intimate connection to God. For some, that still meant going through the sacraments we looked at in the last episode, but the goal was to experience the divine. This is why they were called Mystics; their movement = Mysticism. That experience of the divine was inexpressible—indescribable. No formula can be given to obtain it, and once felt, to adequately describe it. It’s a mystery, one the mystics thought believers ought to aim for; the essence of the soul’s communion with God.The word which best captures the activity of the mystics is devotion. While the Scholastics looked for evidence of God “out there” the Mystics looked within. Not for some internal divine essence, as the earlier Gnostics had or some later mystics would. Rather, they engaged in an inner quest to discover the presence of the Holy Spirit working to conf… Lees meer
70-Sacramentalism

4 januari 2015
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In this, the 70th Episode of CS , we take a look at Sacramentalism; a mindset that dominated the religious landscape of late Medieval Christianity.The question that consumed Europeans of the Middle Ages was, “How can I be saved? What must I believe and do that will preserve my soul from the torments of hell?”Rome answered that with what’s called Sacramentalism.Now, let me be clear; the basic answer was, “Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.” But the Church went on to define what that trust looked like with a set of rules and required practices. Yes, people are saved by grace through faith, but that grace is received by special acts only authorized clergy may conduct. These acts were called “sacraments” from the word “sacred” meaning holy. But there was a specific flavor to the word sacrament that carried the idea of mystery. Precisely HOW the sacraments communicated grace was unknown, while that they did was a certainty. So while salvation was by grace, one had to go to the Church to get that grace. The sacraments were channels of grace and necessary food of the soul. They accompanied human life from the cradle to the grave. An infant was ushered into the world by the sacrament of Baptism while the dying were sent on their way out by the sacrament of Extreme Unction.While all the sacraments were important, the most essential were Baptism and the Eucharist.Baptism was thought to open the door to the Kingdom of Heaven by removing the stain of original sin. But that door to glory was only opened. The baptized needed to follow up their baptism as an infant with later sacraments like Confirmation, Marriage and others. So important was baptism, in an emergency, when an infant appeared to be in distress and a bishop wasn’t close enough to perform the rite, the Church allowed the nearest available pious person to baptize.The Lord’s Table, Communion, or as it’s referred to by some churches, the Eucharist, was the sacrament of grace by which people nourished and nurtured their sp… Lees meer
69-The Not So Great After All Schism

28 december 2014
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The title of this episode of CS is The Not-So Great After All Schism.At the end of our last episode, a Frenchman, the Archbishop of Bordeaux was elected by the College of Cardinals in 1305 as Pope Clement. But Clement never set foot in Rome, because the locus of political power had shifted to France and her King, Philip. This marks the beginning of what’s called the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy, a 72–year long period when France dominated the papacy. After Clement, the next 6 Popes, all French, made their headquarters in Avignon, France rather than Rome. Though it began as a small town when Clement first located there, over the next 70 years it grew to a population of some 80,000, nearly all of them associated in some way with the Church bureaucracy.This transfer of the papacy from Rome to France had a profound impact on the way all Europe came to see both the Pope and the leadership of the Church. Rome was the Eternal City. The Church of Rome, with the Pope as its bishop, went all the way back to Peter. That’s why people regarded it as special; why it called the shots for everyone else. If the Pope no longer sat in Rome, if he could now reside in some other church, what did that say about his authority? Was he indeed Peter’s successor? Was he truly The Vicar of Christ? And what did it mean when the Pope seemed to be little more than the political mouthpiece for the King of France?While the French enjoyed having the Pope close to home, the rest of Europe didn’t find it much to their liking. The duchies and other regions of what would later be called Germany in particular resented it, being in constant tension with their French neighbors.A good part of the hostility toward the Avignon papacy revolved around the abuse of money. Since the Papal States in Italy were no longer contributing, the papacy nearly went bankrupt. To replace lost income, French popes employed a slew of schemes. There were fees for this and taxes for that. Whenever a new bishop was appoint… Lees meer
68-Of Popes and Princes

21 december 2014
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The title of this episode of is Of Popes and Princes.As far as the Church in the West was concerned, the 14th C opened on what seemed a strong note. Early in 1300, Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed a Year of Jubilee, a new event on the Church calendar. The Pope’s decree announced a blanket pardon of all sins for all who visited the churches of St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s in Rome over the next 10 months. Huge crowds poured into the city.Boniface VIII was interesting. He had a flair for the pomp and circumstance of what some might call pretentious ceremony. He regularly appeared in public dressed in royal, or even better, imperial robes, announcing, “I am Caesar. I am Emperor.” His papal crown had 48 rubies, 72 sapphires, 45 emeralds, and 66 large pearls. He could afford to be generous with pardons. At the Church of St. Paul, pilgrims to Rome kept priests busy night and day collecting and counting the unending offerings.For Boniface, looking ahead the years seemed bright. The Vatican had held unrivaled religious and political power for 2 centuries and there was nothing on the horizon that portended change. The Pope had before him the sparkling example of Innocent III, who a hundred years before dominated emperors and kings. Boniface assumed he’d carry on in the same vein.But just 3 years later, Boniface died of a shock of the greatest personal insult ever inflicted on a Pope. Even as the Jubilee celebrants rejoiced, forces were at work to end the hegemony of medieval papal sovereignty.You don’t have to study history long before you realize there are often major changes brewing beneath the surface, long before people are aware of them. The 14th C was such a time. The Roman popes continued on in a “business as usual” mode while radical new ideas and forces were altering the Faith. The idea of Christendom, a Christian Empire unifying Europe from the 6th thru 14th C’s, was rapidly deteriorating.So-called Christendom had been useful in creating 7th and 8th C Europe . But its i… Lees meer
67-No Dunce Here

14 december 2014
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This episode of CS is titled, “No Dunce Here.”The Franciscans had an answer to the Dominican Scholastic we looked at in the previous episode. In fact, Aquinas’ Franciscan counterpart lived at the same time. His name was John Bonaventure.Born in Tuscany in 1221 as John Fidanza, he became known as Bonaventura when he had a miraculous recovery from a grave illness as a child of four. Upon regaining his health, his mother announced, “Bonaventura = Good fortune” and the name stuck.While Aquinas was predominantly a theologian, Bonaventure was both theologian and accomplished administrator in the affairs of the Franciscans. Where Thomas was precise but dry, John was a mystic given to great eloquence. If Aquinas was prose, Bonaventure was poetry.Bonaventure joined the Franciscans and immediately excelled in his studies. He spent 3 years in Paris studying under the Scholastic scholar Alexander of Hales. Alexander paid his pupil a huge compliment when he said that in Bonaventure, “Adam seems not to have sinned.”Finishing his studies in Paris, he stayed to teach, filling the spot of John of Parma when he took on the leadership of the Franciscans. He was only 26. Anyone would have been in over their head at that age since Bonaventure became the leader of the Franciscans when they ere being split by the fracture we talked about in an earlier episode. He took a middle position between the two parties and was able to negotiate an uneasy peace. It was a brutally hard assignment, but Bonaventure pulled it off with aplomb and earned the title of 2nd founder of the order.The entire idea of mendicancy came under assault during his term at the helm of the Franciscans. He penned a tract that silenced the opposition and reinforced support for the Mendicants.At the direction of the first Franciscan General Council at Narbonne in 1260, he wrote the Legend of Francis, the authoritative Franciscan account of the Order’s founder.In 1273, he was made cardinal of Albano, Italy. He died in Lyons… Lees meer
66-God’s Ox

8 december 2014
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This Episode is titled “God’s Ox.”I begin with a thanks to those who’ve given a review of CS on the iTunes store where many subscribe to the podcast. While iTunes is just one outlet for the podcast world, it turns out to be THE MAJOR venue for rating and promoting podcasts.Look, what we’re doing here is ultra-amateur. CS is a labor of love and makes no claim at being a scholarly review of history. I share these episodes in the hope others can tag along and learn alongside me. I make no claim that this is exhaustive. On the contrary; it’s a cursory account meant to give a brief overview of Church history; a kind of verbal fly-over; with occasional moments when we linger over something interesting. I aim to give listeners a basic sense of when events occurred in relation to each other; who some of the main actors and actresses were with the part they played. And as I’ve said before, the episodes are intentionally short to make it easy to listen in the brief snatches as people are working out, doing chores, going for a walk, driving to work. What’s a kick is to hear about all the ways people HAVE connected to CS. Several have queued up a bunch of episodes and listened as they drive across country or fly overseas.I was at a conference a while back, talking quietly to some friends when a guy sitting in the row in front of me turned around and said, “Are you Lance? Do you have the podcast, Communio Sanctorum?” He recognized my voice. We had a great time getting to know each other better. Another time while on a tour of Israel, I met a guy in the dining room of one of our hotels who’s a fan of the podcast. What a kcick that was.Anyway – I appreciate it when people leave comments on the FB page or send an email. But best of all is to rate the podcast and write a quick review on iTunes, then tells your friends to give us a listen.Now, back to the Scholastics.Though fueled by the work of Abelard and Anselm, Scholasticism reached its zenith when the Greek philosopher Aristotl… Lees meer
65-Scholasticism

30 november 2014
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The title of this episode is ScholasticismOne of the most important questions faced by philosophers and theologians throughout the centuries has been the interplay between Faith and Reason. Are they enemies or allies? Is the Christian faith reasonable, or a blind leap into an irrational darkness? A major advance in answering this came with the emergence of a group of medieval theologians known as the Scholastics. Chief among them were Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th C and Thomas Aquinas in the 13th.In his novel Pillars of the Earth, author Ken Follett spins an intriguing tale of the construction of a cathedral in England. While the cathedral and town are fictional, Follett does a masterful job of capturing the mindset and vision of medieval architecture.I’ve had the privilege of visiting the cathedral in Cologne, Germany a few times and am fascinated by what is found there. While some modern American evangelicals who decry tradition may be put off by all the elaborate decoration and religious symbolism of Europe’s Gothic cathedrals, most find them fascinating studies in art, architecture and with a little research, interesting expressions of theological thought. You see, the Gothic cathedral wasn’t just a building; it was an attempt to embody the period’s thoughts about God and man. As Bruce Shelly says, “The medieval masters of Gothic style tried to portray in stone and glass man’s central religious quest. They wanted to depict a tension. On one hand was man aspiring to reach the heights of heaven; on the other hand was God condescending to address the least of men.”The pillars, arches, and steeples point up like fingers to heaven. But down comes the light through stained glass windows illuminating the Earth, and more specifically, those who’ve gathered inside to seek God. It is the architect’s version of human reason and divine revelation.The schools these cathedrals housed gave rise to the universities of the late Middle Ages. Their task was to understand and e… Lees meer
64-The Eucharistic Controversy

23 november 2014
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This episode is titled “The Eucharistic Controversy.”As we round out the Middle Ages in Europe, we have several topics we need to cover before we launch into the Era of Scholasticism. Last time we took a brief look at the Investiture Controversy and an even briefer look at a doctrinal error that had a long lifespan and several flavors – Adoptionism.Now we’ll consider another controversy that raged in the church of both East and West for a long time; how to understand the presence of Christ in the Eucharist.For Protestant listeners, the issue was; What do we mean when we say Jesus is present at Communion or the Lord’s Supper.I need to begin by making clear à This is not an attempt to expand on ALL the various theories of the Eucharist. That’s a discussion way beyond my ability. It took me a while to compose this episode because I had to work out exactly how to phrase things. Words are the tools theologians work with. Those words carry precise meanings. But we’re dealing with multiple languages; typically, Greek and Latin. And once the ancient theologians worked out some theological formula over decades, and in some cases, centuries, picking just the right words to express truth, then refining those words, as problems with their earlier choices became clear, then we have to find words in English to accurately translate those. THEN, we face the problem of people pouring different meanings into those words.So, if I get some of this less than totally accurate or clear, I beg your forgiveness ahead of time. I’m no Sheldon Cooper. Just a little guy with a pea-brain.The Eucharistic Controversy owes its origin to the tension between the Bible’s call to worship God in Spirit and truth, and the desire to have something tangible to venerate and make focus attention on. The use and veneration of icons in the East had a correlation in the West with the elevation of the Communion elements.While Christians had long discussed the true nature of the elements of Communion, the real c… Lees meer
63-Invest

16 november 2014
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This 63rd episode is titled InvestedWe’ve just concluded a series on medieval monasticism and return to the narrative of the Church during the Middle Ages in Europe.Before we do, let’s remember the story of Church History is much bigger than just what happened in Europe. Until recently, church history spent most its time on the Western Church and only touched other places as it related TO the Western narrative. We’re trying to broaden our horizons, although it’s tough because the source material for the history of the Church beyond the Western realm is much slimmer. It isn’t that there isn’t any; there’s quite a bit; but it’s not presented in the popular format that commends a layman’s format. And an historical layman is certainly what I am So it’s thick wading through most of it.With that said – back to the Church in the European Middle Ages . . .We have several themes and topics to develop. It’s going to take a few episodes to do so. The first we’ll look at, because it ends up being a recurring problem, is what’s called the Investiture Controversy.This was a theological and political dustup that came about as a result of the fusion of Church and State in Feudal Europe. Church officials had both religious and secular roles. Though they weren’t part of the official nobility, they did hold positions in the very strict social structure of the Feudal system. Serfs didn’t just work the lands of the nobility. Many of them worked church lands and holdings. So, many bishops and abbots not only oversaw ecclesiastical duties, they were secular rulers. You can imagine how these clerics were torn in their loyalty between the Pope far off in Rome, and the much closer secular feudal lord; whether a duke, earl, count, or baron, to say nothing of the emerging kings of Europe.When the Roman Empire dissolved in the West, the role and responsibility of civil government often fell to church officials. Most people wanted them to step in. So when feudalism took hold, it wasn’t a diffic… Lees meer
62-Monastic Wrap Up

9 november 2014
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This 62nd episode of CS is the 5th and final in our look at monasticism in the Middle Ages.To a lesser extent for the Dominicans but a bit more for the Franciscans, monastic orders were an attempt to bring reform to the Western Church which during the Middle Ages had fallen far from the Apostolic ideal. The institutional Church had become little more than one more political body, with vast tracts of land, a massive hierarchy, a complex bureaucracy, and had accumulated powerful allies and enemies across Europe. The clergy and older orders had degenerated into an illiterate fraternity. Many priests and monks could neither read nor write, and engaged in gross immorality while hiding behind their vows.It wasn’t this case everywhere. But it was in enough places that Francis was compelled to use poverty as a means of reform. The Franciscans who followed after Francis were quickly absorbed back into the Church’s structure and the reforms Francis envisioned were still-born.Dominic wanted to return to the days when literacy and scholarship were part and parcel of clerical life. The Dominicans carried on his vision, but when they became prime agents of the Inquisition, they failed to balance truth with grace.Modern depictions of medieval monks often cast them in a stereo-typical role as either sinister agents of immorality, or bumbling fools with good hearts but soft heads. Sure there were some of each, but there were many thousands who were sincere followers of Jesus and did their best to represent Him.There’s every reason to believe they lived quietly in monasteries and convents; prayed, read and engaged in humble manual labor throughout their lives. There were spiritual giants as well as thoroughly wicked and corrupt wretches.After Augustine of Canterbury brought the Faith to England it was as though the sun had come out.Another among God’s champions was Malachi, whose story was recounted by Bernard of Clairvaux in the 12th C. Stories like his were one of the main attract… Lees meer
61-Dominic

2 november 2014
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This episode is titled, Dominic and continues our look on monastic life.In our last episode, we considered Francis of Assisi and the monastic order that followed him, the Franciscans. In this installment, we take a look at the other great order that developed at that time; the Dominicans.Dominic was born in the region of Castile, Spain in 1170. He excelled as a student at an early age. A priest by the age of 25, he was invited by his bishop to accompany him on a visit to Southern France where he ran into a group of supposed-heretics known as the Cathars. Dominic threw himself into a Church-sanctioned suppression of the Cathars through a preaching tour of the region.Dominic was an effective debater of Cathar theology. He persuaded many who’d leaned toward their sect to instead walk away. These converts became zealous in the resistance against them. For this, the Bishop of Toulouse gave Dominic 1/6th of the diocesan tithes to continue his work. Another wealthy supporter gave Dominic a house in Toulouse so he could live and work at the center of controversy.We’ll come back to the Cathars in a future episode.Dominic visited Rome during the 4th Lateran Council, the subject of another future episode. He was encouraged by Pope Innocent III in his apologetic work but was refused in his request to start a new monastic order. The Pope suggested he instead join one of the existing orders. Since a Pope’s suggestion is really a command, Dominic chose the Augustinians. He donned their black monk’s habit and built a convent at Toulouse.He returned to Rome a year later, staying for about a half year. The new Pope Honorius II granted his petition to start a new order. Originally called the “Order of Preaching Brothers,” it was the first religious community dedicated to preaching. The order grew rapidly in the 13th C, gaining 15,000 members in 557 houses by the end of the century.When he returned to France, Dominic began sending monks to start colonies. The order quickly took root i… Lees meer
60-Francis

26 oktober 2014
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This Episode of CS is titled, Francis and continues our look at the mendicant orders.Though we call him Francis of Assisi, his original name was Francesco Bernardone. Born in 1182, his given name was Giovanni (Latin of John). His father Pietro nicknamed him Francesco which is what everyone called him. Pietro was a wealthy dealer in textiles imported from France to their hometown of Assisi in central Italy.His childhood was marked by the privileges of his family’s wealth. He wasn’t a great student, finding his delight more in having a good time entertaining friends. When a local war broke out, he signed up to fight for his and was taken prisoner. Released at 22, Francis then came down with a serious illness. That’s when he began to consider eternal things, as so many have when facing their mortality. He rose from his sick-bed disgusted with himself and unsatisfied with the world.The war still on, he was on his way to rejoin the army when he turned back, sensing God had another path for him. He went into seclusion at a grotto near Assisi where his path forward became clearer. He decided to make a typical pilgrimage to Rome, where it was assumed the godly went to seek God. But there he was stuck by the terrible plight of the poor who lined the streets, many of them just outside the door of luxurious churches.Confronted with a leper, he recoiled in horror. Then it dawned on him that his reaction was no different from an indifferent Church, which tolerated such gross need in their midst but doing nothing to lift the needy out of their condition. He turned around, kissed the leper’s hand, and left in it all the money he had.Returning to Assisi, he attended the chapels in its suburbs instead of the main city church. There seemed less pretention in these humble chapels. He lingered most at the simply furnished St. Damian’s served by a single priest at a crude altar. This little chapel became a kind of Bethel for Francis; his bridge between heaven and earth.The change that … Lees meer
59-Monk Business Part 2

19 oktober 2014
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This episode is titled – Monk Business Part 2In the early 13th C a couple new monastic orders of preaching monks sprang up known as the Mendicants. They were the Franciscans and Dominicans.The Franciscans were founded by Francis of Assisi. They concentrated on preaching to ordinary Christians, seeking to renew basic, Spirit-led discipleship. The mission of the Dominicans aimed at confronting heretics and aberrant ideas.The Dominicans were approved by the Pope as an official, church sponsored movement in 1216, the Franciscans received Papal endorsement 7 years later.They quickly gained the respect of scholars, princes, and popes, along with high regard by the masses. Their fine early reputation is counterbalanced by the idleness, ignorance, and in some cases, infamy, of their later history.To be a Mendicant meant to rely on charity for support. A salary or wage isn’t paid by the church to support mendicant monks.The appearance of these two mendicant orders was one of the most significant events of the Middle Ages, and marks one of the notable revivals in the history of the Christian Church. They were the Salvation Army of the 13th C. At a time when the spirit of the Crusades was waning and heresies threatened authority, Francis d’Assisi and Dominic de Guzman, an Italian and a Spaniard, united in reviving the spirit of the Western Church. They started monasticism on a new path. They embodied Christian philanthropy; the sociological reformers of their age. The orders they birthed supplied the new universities and study of theology with some of their most brilliant lights.Two temperaments could scarcely have differed more widely than the temperaments of Francis and Dominic. The poet Dante described Francis as a Flame, igniting the world with love; Dominic he said, was a Light, illuminating the world.Francis is the most unpretentious, gentle, and lovable of all greats of monastic life.Dominic was, to put it bluntly à cold, systematic, and austere.Francis was greater tha… Lees meer
58-Monk Business Part 1

12 oktober 2014
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This 58th Episode of CS is titled – Monk Business Part 1 and is the first of several episodes in which we’ll take a look at monastic movements in Church History.I realize that may not sound terribly exciting to some. The prospect of digging into this part of the story didn’t hold much interest for me either, until I realized how rich it is. You see, being a bit of a fan for the work of J. Edwin Orr, I love the history of revival. Well, it turns out each new monastic movement was often a fresh move of God’s Spirit in renewal. Several were a new wineskin for God’s work.The roots of monasticism are worth taking some time to unpack. Let’s get started . . .Leisure time to converse about philosophy with friends was prized in the ancient world. Even if someone didn’t have the intellectual chops to wax eloquent on philosophy, it was still fashionable to express a yearning for such intellectual leisure, or “otium” as it was called; but of course, they were much too busy serving their fellow man. It was the ancient version of, “I just don’t have any ‘Me-time’.”Sometimes, as the famous Roman orator Cicero, the ancients did score the time for such reflection and enlightened discussion and retired to write on themes such as duty, friendship, and old age. That towering intellect and theologian, Augustine of Hippo had the same wish as a young man, and when he became a Christian in 386, left his professorship in oratory to devote his life to contemplation and writing. He retreated with a group of friends, his son and his mother, to a home on Lake Como, to discuss, then write about The Happy Life, Order and other such subjects, in which both classical philosophy and Christianity shared an interest. When he returned to his hometown in North Africa, he set up a community in which he and his friends could lead a monastic life, apart from the world, studying scripture and praying. Augustine’s contemporary, Jerome; translator of the Latin Bible known as the Vulgate, felt the same tug, a… Lees meer
57-The Crusades Part 4

5 oktober 2014
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This is part 4 of our series on the Crusades.The plan for this episode, the last in our look at the Crusades, is to give a brief review of the 5th thru 7th Crusades, then a bit of analysis of the Crusades as a whole.The date set for the start of the 5th Crusade was June 1st, 1217. It was Pope Innocent III’s long dream to reconquer Jerusalem. He died before the Crusade set off, but his successor Honorius III was just as ardent a supporter. He continued the work begun by Innocent.The Armies sent out accomplished much of nothing, except to waste lives. Someone came up with the brilliant idea that the key to conquering Palestine was to secure a base in Egypt first. That had been the plan for the 4th Crusade. The Crusaders now made the major port of Damietta their goal. After a long battle, the Crusaders took the city, for which the Muslim leader Malik al Kameel offered to trade Jerusalem and all Christian prisoners he held. The Crusaders thought the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II was on his way to bolster their numbers, so they rejected the offer. Problem is, Frederick wasn’t on his way. So in 1221, Damietta reverted to Muslim control.Frederick II cared little about the Crusade. After several false starts that revealed his true attitude toward the whole thing, the Emperor decided he’d better make good on his many promises and set out with 40 galleys and only 600 knights. They arrived in Acre in early Sept. 1228. Because the Muslim leaders of the Middle East were once again at odds with each other, Frederick convinced the afore-mentioned al-Kameel to make a decade long treaty that turned Jerusalem over to the Crusaders, along with Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the pilgrim route from Acre to Jerusalem. On March 19, 1229, Frederick crowned himself by his own hand in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.This bloodless assumption of Jerusalem infuriated Pope Gregory IX who considered control of the Holy Land and the destruction of the Muslims as one and the same thing. So the Churc… Lees meer
56-The Crusades Part 3

28 september 2014
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This episode of CS is part 3 of our series on The Crusades.A major result of the First Crusade was a further alienation of the Eastern and Western Churches. The help provided Byzantium by the crusaders were not what The Eastern Emperor Alexius was hoping for.It also resulted in an even greater alienation of the Muslims than had been in place before. 200 years of crusading rampages across the Eastern Mediterranean permanently poisoned Muslim-Christian relations and ended the spirit of moderate tolerance for Christians living under Muslim rule across a wide swath of territory. The only people who welcomed the Crusaders were a handful of Christian minorities who’d suffered under Byzantine and Muslim rule; the Armenians and Maronites living in Lebanon. The Copts in Egypt saw the Crusades as a calamity. They were now suspected by Muslims of holding Western sympathies while being treated as schismatics by the Western Church. Once the Crusaders took Jerusalem, they banned Copts from making pilgrimage there.Things really went sour between East and West when the Roman church installed Latin patriarchates in historically Eastern centers at Antioch and Jerusalem. Then, during the 4th Crusade, a Latin patriarch was appointed to the church in Constantinople itself.To give you an idea of what this would have felt like to the Christian of Constantinople; imagine how Southern Baptists would feel if a Mormon bishop was installed as the President of the Southern Baptist Convention. You get the picture = No Bueno.Another long-lasting effect of the Crusades was that they weakened the Byzantine Empire and hastened its fall to the Ottoman Turks a couple centuries later. Arab governments were also destabilized leaving them susceptible to invasion by Turks and Mongols.A significant new development in monastic history was made at this time in the rise of the knightly monastic orders. The first of these was the Knights Templar, founded in 1118 under Hugh de Payens. King Baldwin gave the Tem… Lees meer
55-The Crusades Part 2

21 september 2014
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Episode 55 – The Crusades, Part 2As Bruce Shelly aptly states in in his excellent book Church History in Plain Language, for the past 700 years Christians have tried to forget the Crusades, though neither Jews nor Muslims will let them. Modern Christians want to dismiss that era of Church History as the insane bigotry of the illiterate and superstitious. But to do so is to show our own kind of bigotry, one neglectful of the historical context of the European Middle Ages.The Crusaders were human beings, who like us, had mixed motives often in conflict. The word crusade means to “take up the cross,” hopefully after the example of Christ. That’s why on the way to the Holy Land crusaders wore the cross on their chest. On their return home they wore it on their back. [1]In rallying the European nobility to join the First Crusade, Pope Urban II promised them forgiveness of past sins. Most of them held a deep reverence for the land Jesus had walked. That devotion was captured later by Shakespeare when he has King Henry IV say:We are impressed and engag’d to fight …
To chase those pagans in those holy fields,
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet,
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nail’d,
For our advantage on the bitter cross.For Urban and later popes, the Crusades were a Holy War. Augustine, whose theology shaped the Medieval Church, laid down the principles of a “just war.” He said that it must be conducted by the State; its broad purpose was to uphold an endangered justice, which meant more narrowly that it must be defensive to protect life and property. In conducting such a just war there must be respect for noncombatants, hostages, and prisoners. And while all this may have been in the mind of Pope Urban and other church leaders when they called the First Crusade, those ideals didn’t make it past the boundary of Europe. Once the Crusaders arrived in the East, the difficulties of their passage conspired to justify in their minds the wholesale pillaging of the … Lees meer
54-The Crusades – Part 1

14 september 2014
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Episode 54 – The Crusades – Part 1In the first episode of Communio Sanctorum, we took a look at the various ways history has been studied over time. In the Ancient world, history was more often than not, propaganda. The old adage that “History is written by the winners” was certainly true for the ancients. With the implementation of the Scientific Method in the Modern Era, the researching and recording of history became more unbiased and accurate. It was far from a pure report, but it could no longer be considered blatant propaganda. The Post-Modern Era has seen a return to bias; this time an almost knee-jerk suspicion of ALL previous attempts at recording history. Even attempts of Modernity to document history are suspect and assumed guilty of recording little more than the bias of the authors, though their works were footnoted and peer-reviewed. Post-modern critics adopt a presupposition all recorded history is fabrication, especially if there’s anything heroic or virtuous. If it’s a dark tale of hopelessness and tragedy, well, then, maybe it can be accepted. It’s almost as though Post-moderns want to make up for the ancient historians’ penchant for propaganda. Post-Moderns cast history as “neg-paganda” if I can coin a word.Let’s attempt a shedding of our bias, even though we can’t fully do that, as we look at the Crusades. Instead of layering onto the Christians of Europe in the 11th and 12th Cs the sensibilities of people who live a thousand years later, let’s attempt to understand the reasoning behind the idea of taking up a pitchfork or sword and making a life-altering trip over hundreds of miles, through strange lands, to risk one’s life for è What? Oh yeah, to rid the Holy Land of pagan infidels.Wait; Mr. Crusader-person; have you ever been to the Holy Land? Do you own land there that’s been stolen? Do you have relatives or friends there you need to protect? Have you ever met one of these infidels? Do you know what they believe or why they invaded?No? Then … Lees meer
53-Crazy Stuff

7 september 2014
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This episode of CS is, “Crazy Stuff” because . . . we’ll you’ll see as we get into it.A short while back, we took at look at the Iconoclast Controversy that took place in the Eastern, Greek Orthodox church during the 8th & 9th Cs.While we understand the basic point of controversy between the icon-smashers, called iconoclasts, and the icon-supporters, the iconodules; the theology the iconodules used to support the on-going use of icons is somewhat complex.The iconoclasts considered the veneration of religious images as simple idolatry. The iconodules developed a theology that not only allowed, it encouraged the use of icons while avoiding the charge of idolatry. They said such images were to be respected; venerated even – but not worshiped. Though, for all practical purposes, in the minds of most worshipers, there was no real difference between veneration & the adoration of worship.The acceptance of icons as intrinsic to worship marked the entrance of a decidedly mystical slant that entered the Orthodox Church at this time, and has remained ever since. All of this was seen in the career of an author now known as PSEUDO-DIONYSIUS the Areopagite. He’s called Pseudo-Dionysius because while we know his writings were produced in the early 6th C in Syria, they claim to have been written by the 1st C Dionysius mentioned in Acts 17 who came to faith when Paul preached on the Mars Hill in Athens.Pseudo-Dionysius’ most famous works were titled The Divine Names, Mystical Theology, & The Celestial Hierarchy. The Monophysite Christians of Alexandria were the first to draw inspiration from his work, supposing them to be genuine works of one of the Apostle Paul’s disciples. The Byzantines followed suit & incorporated some of his ideas. Then, in 649 when Pope Gregory I and the Lateran Council accepted them as dating to the 1st C, they became more widely looked to as informing Christian theology.Pseudo-Dionysius’ writings merged Christianity w/Neo-Platonism. He saw the universe as d… Lees meer
52-Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

31 augustus 2014
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This episode of Communio Sanctorum is titled, “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.”In our study of the History of the Church, we get to examine some periods when the followers of Jesus did some amazing, God-honoring, Christ-exalting, people-blessing things. In future episodes, we’ll take a longer look at how the Gospel has impacted history and world civilization for the better.But, we have to be honest and admit there have been too many times when the Church totally fumbled the ball. Worse than that, after fumbling, they stepped on and kicked it out of bounds!The danger I face as we deal with these atrocious moments in Church History is of being assumed to be hostile to the Body of Christ. When I speak about the abysmal career of some of the popes, some listeners assume I’m Catholic-bashing. Later, when we get to the Reformation era and take a look at some of the Reformers, I’ll be accused of being a closet-Catholic!So I want to pause here and say à This isn’t a podcast about me, but I need to use me as an example . . .As most of you know, I’m a non-denominational Evangelical pastor. I’m not a scholar, not even close. I’m just a guy who loves history and decided to share what he was learning about the history of the church with others because at the time CS began, there just wasn’t a short-format church history podcast available. While I genuinely try to be unbiased in presenting the story of the Church, it’s inevitable I’ll slant the narrative at points. I’ve already made it clear that when I do offer mere opinion, I’ll preface it with a warning, but infrequent side comments can still color the material. Even what adjectives I pick reveal bias.While I aim to be faithful in my own walk with God, my role in my family as a husband and father, and my calling as a pastor, I freely admit I’m still a man in process. I have many faults and a long way to go to be conformed to Christ’s image. Keenly aware of how far I have to go is what causes me to wonder how God could use me! Yet … Lees meer
51-Icons

17 augustus 2014
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This episode is titled Icons.Those with a rough outline of history know we’re coming up on that moment when the Eastern and Western branches of the Church split. The break wasn’t some incidental accident that happened without a lot of preparation. Things had been going sour for a long time. One of the contributing factors was the Iconoclast Controversy that split the Byzantine church in the 8th and 9th Cs.While the Western Church went through monumental changes during the Middle Ages, the Eastern Church centered at Constantinople pretty much managed a holding pattern. It was the preservation of what they considered orthodoxy that moved Eastern Christians to view the Western Church as making dangerous and sometimes even heretical alterations to the Faith. The Eastern Church thought itself to now be alone in carrying the Faith of the Ecumenical Councils into the future. And for that reason, Constantinople backed away from its long-stated recognition that the Church at Rome was pre-eminent in Church affairs.Another factor contributing to the eventual sundering of East from West was the musical chairs played for the Western Emperor while in the East, the Emperor was far more stable. Remember that while the Western Roman Empire was effectively dead by the late 5th Century, the Eastern Empire continued to identify itself as Roman for another thousand years, though historians now refer to it as the Byzantine Empire. At Constantinople, the Emperor was still the Roman Emperor, and like Constantine, the de-facto head of the Church. He was deemed by the Eastern Church as “the living image of Christ.”But that was about to experience a major re-model in the brueha between the iconoclasts and iconodules; terms we’ll define a bit later.The most significant controversy to trouble the Byzantine church during the European Middle Ages was over the use of religious images known as icons. That’s the way many modern historians regard what’s called the Iconoclast Controversy – as a debat… Lees meer
50-What a Mess

10 augustus 2014
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The title of this episode is “What a Mess!”As is often the case, we start by backing up & reviewing material we’ve already covered so we can launch into the next leg of our journey in Church History.Anglo-Saxon missionaries to Germany had received the support of Charles Martel, a founder of the Carolingian dynasty. Martel supported these missions because of his desire to expand his rule eastwards into Bavaria. The Pope was grateful for his support, and for Charles' victory over the Muslims at the Battle of Tours. But Martel fell afoul of papal favor when he confiscated Church lands. At first, the Church consented to his seizing of property to produce income to stave off the Muslim threat. But once that threat was dealt with, he refused to return the lands. Adding insult to injury, Martel ignored the Pope’s request for help against the Lombards taking control of a good chunk of Italy. Martel denied assistance because at that time the Lombards were his allies. But a new era began with the reign of Martel's heir, Pippin or as he’s better known, Pepin III.Pepin was raised in the monastery of St. Denis near Paris. He & his brother were helped by the church leader Boniface to carry out a major reform of the Frank church. These reforms of the clergy and church organization brought about a renewal of religious and intellectual life and made possible the educational revival associated with the greatest of the Carolingian rulers, Charlemagne & his Renaissance.In 751, Pepin persuaded Pope Zachary to allow Boniface to anoint him, King of the Franks, supplanting the Merovingian dynasty. Then, another milestone in church-state relations passed with Pope Stephen II appealing to Pepin for aid against the Lombards. The pope placed Rome under the protection of Pepin and recognized him and his sons as “Protectors of the Romans.”As we’ve recently seen, all of this Church-State alliance came to a focal point with the crowning of Charlemagne as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in AD 8… Lees meer
49-Charlemagne Part 2

3 augustus 2014
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Welcome to the 49th installment of CS. This episode is titled “Charlemagne Pt. 2.”After his coronation on Christmas Day AD 800, Charlemagne said he didn’t know it had been planned by Pope Leo III. If setting the crown of a new Holy Roman Empire on his head was a surprise, he got over the shock right quick. He quickly shot off dispatches to the lands under his control to inform them he was large and in-charge. Each missive began with these words, “Charles, by the will of God, Roman Emperor, Augustus … in the year of our consulship 1.” He required an oath be taken to him as Caesar by all officers, whether religious or civil. He sent ambassadors to soothe the inevitable wrath of the Emperor in Constantinople.What’s important to note is how his coronation ceremony in St. Peter’s demonstrated the still keen memory of the Roman Empire that survived in Europe. His quick emergence as the recognized leader of a large part of Europe revealed the strong desire there was to reestablish a political unity that had been absent from the region for 400 years. But, Charlemagne’s coronation launched a long-standing contest. One we’d not expect, since it was, after all, the Pope who crowned him. The contest was between the revived empire and the Roman Church.In the medieval world, Church and State were two realms comprising Christendom. The Medieval Church represented Christian society aimed at acquiring spiritual blessings, while the Medieval State existed to safeguard civil justice and tranquility. Under the medieval system, both Church and State were supposed to exist side by side in a harmonious relationship, each focused on gaining the good of mankind but in different spheres; the spiritual and the civil.In reality, it rarely worked that way. The Pope and Emperor were usually contestants in a game of thrones. The abiding question was: Does the Church rule the State, or the State the Church? This contest was played out on countless fields, large and small, throughout the Middle Ag… Lees meer

Alle afleveringen

98-Cracks

97-Wars of Religion

96-English Candles

95-Point Counter-Point

94-The Ultimate Fighter: Reformation Edition

93-Knox Knox; Who’s There?

92-The School of Christ

91-Thrust Into the Game

90-Taking It Further

89-Luthers’ Legacy

88-Luther’s Struggle

87-Luther’s List

86-Erasmus

85-Dawn

84-Lost

83-Easter

82-The Long Road to Reform 07

81-The Long Road to Reform 06

80-The Long Road to Reform 05

79-The Long Road to Reform 04

78- The Long Road to Reform 03

77-The Long Road to Reform 02

76-The Long Road to Reform 01

75-The Witness of Stones

74-Overview 2

73-A Glimmer of Reform

72-Meanwhile, Back in the East

71-The Mystics

70-Sacramentalism

69-The Not So Great After All Schism

68-Of Popes and Princes

67-No Dunce Here

66-God’s Ox

65-Scholasticism

64-The Eucharistic Controversy

63-Invest

62-Monastic Wrap Up

61-Dominic

60-Francis

59-Monk Business Part 2

58-Monk Business Part 1

57-The Crusades Part 4

56-The Crusades Part 3

55-The Crusades Part 2

54-The Crusades – Part 1

53-Crazy Stuff

52-Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

51-Icons

50-What a Mess

49-Charlemagne Part 2