Medieval and Early Modern Church History – Online

Course Description

CH 635-OL covers Medieval Church History and Early Modern Church History. Students will study primary and secondary readings in order to engage the lives, practices, and beliefs of Medieval and Early Modern Christians. With the aid of Christian Scripture, students will be encouraged to consider their providential import and significance for contemporary Christian living. CH 625/CH 625-OL, The Early Church, is a prerequisite for this course.

In this course, students will:

1. Learn to study history sympathetically. Students will learn to engage and identify the different perspectives that people bring to the study of history. Students will also learn to evaluate monuments and representations of history critically.
2. Learn about important historical events in the early Church, and about the lives, practices, and beliefs of early Christians. Students will become conversant in speaking about these events and the various forms of Christian life and practice that took root within them.
3. Consider what it means to interpret history in light of Scripture. Students will reflect upon what it means to study the histories in question as Scripturally ordered and what it means to be edified by them.
4. Practice the discipline of charitable reading in order to learn from Christians from the past–even those with whom we seem to have little in common.