Lost Christianities

Painting of the world from the 16th century. Note how Jerusalem
is the center of the world and the other continents grow
out from it. For much of Medieval History this was the view of
Jerusalem; that it was the geographical and spiritual centre of the
world.

Here is the outline for the Lost History of Christianity classes that we will be learning about. We will not get through this in one class so we will, most likely, only get through points 1-3 this Monday (the 15th). Then we are going to look at the interaction between the East and the West and Medieval Christianity through the crusades (after all, when Western Crusaders entered the Holy Land they found Christians already there; it is those Christians we are about to meet). In the third week we will return to this topic and conclude with points 4 & 5. I hope you will find meeting these oft-overlooked brothers and sisters in the faith as exciting as I do!

CH1A03 Christian History I

15 November 2010

The Lost History of Christianity:

Global Christianity

“Any history of Christianity that fails to pay due attention to these Jacobites and Nestorians is missing a very large part of the story.” Jenkins, Lost History, xi.

I. Beyond the Pale

            A. Council of Chalcedon

            B. Not Fringe

            C. Terrible History

II. Global Christianity

            A. Semitic Christianity

            B. The Eastern Charlemagne

            C. Creative “Gospeling”

“we are all in a dark house in the middle of the night”

Timothy of Seleucia

III. Churches of the East

            A. Monophysites of Africa

            B. Armenian (Gregorian) Christianity

            C. India

            D. China/Japan

“No one has been sent to us Orientals by the Pope. The holy apostles aforesaid taught us and we still hold today what they handed down to us.”

Rabban Bar Sauma, ca. 1290

IV. Another World

            A. Heaven & Earth

            B. The Elect & the Age of Miracles

            C. Scholarship

                        i. The Last Flowering

            D. From the Early Ages

            E. Church and the Bible

                        i. Interpretation

                        ii. Christian & Asian

                        iii. Bar Sauma’s Dream

“In the year 1639 [A.D. 1328] that is the Dragon Year. This is the grave of Pesoha the renowned exegetist and preacher who enlightened all cloisters through the light—extolled for wisdom, and may our Lord unite his spirit with the saints.”

Syriac grave inscription from Kyrgyzstan

V. The End of the World

            A. The Great Tribulation

            B. New Masters

                        i. Muslim Masters

                        ii. Dhimmis

            C. Survival

                        i. Great Persecutions

                        ii. Becoming Turkey

                        iii. Destruction

            D. The Last Christians

“The bloodstained annals of the East contain no record of massacres more unprovoked, more widespread or more terrible than those perpetuated by the Turkish Government upon Christians of Anatolia and Armenia in 1915.”

James Bryce, the 1^st Viscount Bryce

© James Robertson 2010