Church History Events Flashcards
Council of Nicea
325 AD
The council of Nicea was concerned primarily with the nature of the second person of the trinity—Jesus Christ. Assembled to address the Arian controversy.
Arius asserted that Christ was not eternally generated from the father, but created from the non-existent. Athanasius and his followers asserted that Christ was eternally begotten of the father. The semi-Arians argued that Christ was homoiousios (“of similar substance”) with the father. The Council adopted the Athanasian position of homoousios (“the same essence”).
Council of Chalcedon
451 AD
The Christological council. Christ is one person, with two natures. The Council of Chalcedon dealt with the heresies of Nestorianism and Eutychianism.
Nestorianism taught the independence of the natures of Christ making him two persons loosely connected. Denied the reality of the Incarnation and represented Christ as a God-inspired man rather than as God-made-man. This was also denounced at the counsel of Ephesus in 431.
The Eutychians taught that Christ possessed two natures in one person, and that each performs its own function.
The Council asserted that the redemption of fallen humans required a mediator who was human and divine, passible and impassible, mortal and immortal, and that Jesus Christ permanently assumed human nature. Significantly the Council asserted that properties of both Christ’s human and divine natures can be attributed to one person, that the suffering of the God-man can be regarded as truly, really infinite, yet the divine nature remained impassible, that divinity and not humanity is the root and basis of Christ’s personality, and that the logos did not unite with a distinct human individual, but with a human nature.
Council of Constantinople
(381 AD)
Key issue: The nature of the Holy Spirit, in response to the Pneumatomachian heresy, and further clarification of the Nicene Creed.
Outcome: The Nicene Creed was expanded, affirming the divinity of the Holy Spirit and solidifying the doctrine of the Trinity.
Council of Ephesus
(431 AD)
Key issue: The nature of Christ, particularly in response to Nestorianism, which claimed that Christ’s divine and human natures were separate.
Outcome: The council affirmed that Mary is the Theotokos (God-bearer) and rejected Nestorianism, affirming the unity of Christ’s two natures.
Reformation
1517
We may use this as a date for the Reformation since the beginning of the Reformation is traditionally tied to Luther’s nailing of his Ninety-five theses to the door at Wittenburg. This was the culmination of a developing movement to Reform the Catholic church from it Medieval laxity. Above all it was a time of spiritual renewal in which God graciously intervene to return his gospel to the center stage of human history.
Counter-Reformation
1534-1563 (1540’s). The Counter-reformation was the Catholic response to the Reformation in which many of the abuses of the Catholic church were corrected, and traditional Catholic doctrine was resoundingly re-affirmed. This formulated in the articles of the Council of Trent, a council which was held to combat the spread of Protestantism. Affirmed that Church/tradition were on par with Scripture, sacraments and transubstantiation, and justification is faith plus works.
Heidelberg Catechism
1563
Written by Olevianus and Ursinus this beautiful work has the form of a catechism, but the content of a confession. Held by the Continental Reformed Church (European—German, Dutch). Many say that the Heidelberg Catechism has a more personal feel than the Westminster Confession.
Belgic Confession
1561
Written by Guido de Bres this confession is one of the three standards of the Dutch Reformed Church. It draws heavily on the Gallican Confession.
Synod of Dort
1618 to 1619
A convening of Reformed thinkers to answer the assertions of the Remonstrants. Although political and other issues affecting the Dutch church were raised at this Synod, its primary business was answering the five points of Arminianism. Their response is what we today know as TULIP, or the five points of Calvinism.
Westminster Assembly
1643-1652. The Westminster Assembly was a gathering of eminent Puritan divines, assembled by the British Parliament in 1643 with the charge of producing a Confession of Faith to unite the United Kingdom ecclesiastically. The assembly sat from 1643-1652, during which time it handled ecclesiastical concerns such as the ordination of ministers, trial of heretics, etc. its most enduring work is the Confession of Faith, and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms. These would become the standard of faith and practice for the Presbyterian, Congregational and Reformed Baptist churches in Scotland, England and America. The Confession and Catechisms were borne out of Scotch and English Calvinism, and were structured upon the foundation of the “Irish Articles of Faith” of 1615.
Pietism
1600’s. Primarily based in Germany, it was a movement against dead orthodoxy in the Lutheran church. The common emphasis was on individual conversion and living orthodoxy which lead to a changed life. The duo of Spener and Franke at the Halle began the movement which was later carried by Zinzendorf and the Moravians. The movement played a large influence in the development of the modern missionary movement.
Emphases:
*lndividual experience over theology
*New birth
^Spiritual discipline
*Lay involvement in the church
*Renewal preaching
*love for all people.
Great Awakening(s)
First Great Awakening 1741-1745. The Great Awakening was a remarkable outpouring of the Holy Spirit that swept through New England colonies. Through the Reformed preaching of George Whitefield and Jonathan Ed-wards, thousands were truly converted to Christ. There were however, many instances of abuse that accompanied the outpouring prompting the able mind of Edwards to defend the true nature of the Awakening in such works as “Distinguishing Marks” and “Treatise on the Religious Affections.” Tennet—”Danger of an unconverted minis-try.”
Second Great Wakening 1800-1825. After the First Great Awakening steady religious decline brought the country to a new religious low by the 1800’s. Unlike the First Great Awakening this revival went in to the frontier as well. It was also characterized by a longer duration and more fervor than concern for theology. This awaken-ing led to significant church growth, improvement of morals and national life, checking of the growth of Deism, growth of missions, and social reform movements. It left a permanent mark on the American evangelical scene with its revivalistic emphasis and Arminian theology.
Old School/New School
1837: The formal division between Old School and New School Presbyterians.
This was the controversy over the Second Great Awakening. There was an effort to create a cooperative plan for reaching the frontier out of which emerged a debate over seeming doctrinal indifference. The Old School were strict subscriptionists, and skeptical about the excesses of the Cane Ridge revivals and the New Measures of Finny. The New School were, at best, lax subscriptionists, and often Arminian or rationalists. This controversy would split the Presbyterian Church into two denominations in 1837, a division that would last until the reunification—only to split again along North-South line in the Civil War Era.
Auburn Affirmation
The Auburn Affirmation was issued by a group of Presbyterian ministers in 1924 in Auburn, New York, as a response to the growing divide between liberals and conservatives in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (PCUSA). It aimed to safeguard the unity and liberty of the church by promoting tolerance and freedom of belief in theological matters. However, it ultimately became a point of contention in the fundamentalist-modernist controversy that characterized much of 20th-century American Christianity.
It rejected the requirement for ordained ministers to commit to the five essentials of fundamentalist theology, which were:
Inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture
The virgin birth of Christ
Substitutionary atonement
Christ’s real and historical resurrection
The performance of miracles by Jesus
