Church History Series • Index

Two Thousand Years — A Timeline

Every turning point the series will cover, in chronological order — with links to each lesson as it goes live.

← Church History Archive
This index follows Mark A. Noll’s Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity (3rd ed., Baker Academic, 2012) as its structural backbone, supplemented with additional lessons on Bible translation, denominational origins, and the American Awakenings. Events marked Noll Turning Point are Noll’s chapters; Supplementary lessons fill in between. As lessons come online, the “Read Lesson” link activates.
Legend: TP Noll Turning Point Sup Supplementary Lesson Scr Scripture / Translation Live Lesson deployed Soon Coming in series

Era 1 • Apostolic Foundations (c. AD 30–150)

From the Resurrection to the generation after the Apostles.

c. 30–100
PreludeThe Apostles and the Writing of the New Testament Live How oral teaching became canonical letters and Gospels — authorship, dates, the rise of canon consciousness. → Read Lesson 1
AD 70
TP 1The Fall of Jerusalem Live Titus destroys the Temple; Christianity separates decisively from its Temple-centered Jewish matrix. Josephus as eyewitness, the flight of the Jerusalem church to Pella, and the parting of the ways. → Read Lesson 3
c. 95–150
SupThe Apostolic Fathers Live Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp of Smyrna, the Didache, the Shepherd of Hermas, Papias, and the Epistle to Diognetus — the generation that knew the Apostles in person. → Read Lesson 4

Era 2 • Ancient Church (150–600)

Apologists, councils, creeds, and the formation of classical Christian orthodoxy.

c. 150–200
SupSecond-Century Apologists & the Gnostic Crisis Live Justin Martyr, Irenaeus Against Heresies, the Rule of Faith, the four weapons against Gnosticism, and the exclusion of Marcion and Valentinus. → Read Lesson 5
c. 200–258
SupThird-Century Fathers — Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian Live Latin theology born in Carthage (Tertullian coins Trinitas), biblical scholarship forged in Alexandria (Origen’s Hexapla and De Principiis), ecclesiology under persecution (Cyprian and the Decian crisis), and the Roman liturgical tradition (Hippolytus). → Read Lesson 6
325
TP 2The Council of Nicaea Live Constantine, the Arian controversy, homoousios, and the birth of the Nicene Creed. Athanasius’ lifelong defense, the Cappadocians, and the 56 years to Constantinople (381). → Read Lesson 7
367
ScrAthanasius’ 39th Festal Letter Soon First surviving list of the 27 New Testament books exactly as we know them. Ratified at Hippo (393) and Carthage (397).
381
SupCouncil of Constantinople & the Cappadocians Soon Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus complete Trinitarian orthodoxy; Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed finalized.
c. 382–405
ScrJerome & the Latin Vulgate Live Jerome’s cave at Bethlehem, Paula and Eustochium, the hebraica veritas principle, the gourd-vs-ivy crisis with Augustine, and the Latin Bible that ruled the West for a thousand years. → Read Lesson 12
c. 386–430
SupAugustine of Hippo Live Confessions, City of God, On the Trinity, On Christian Doctrine — the restless heart, the Donatist and Pelagian controversies, and the architect of Western theology. → Read Lesson 9
451
TP 3The Council of Chalcedon Live Two natures, one person: Nestorius vs Cyril, Ephesus (431), Eutyches’ monophysitism, Leo’s Tome, and the four adverbs that define Christ. The Oriental Orthodox (Coptic, Ethiopian, Armenian, Syriac) part ways. → Read Lesson 8
c. 500–1000
ScrThe Masoretic Text Live The Soferim, the Tiberian and Babylonian Masoretes, niqqud and te’amim, the Aleppo and Leningrad Codices, and the Dead Sea Scrolls confirmation. The text behind every Protestant OT today. → Read Lesson 11
530
TP 4Benedict’s Rule Live Benedict of Nursia at Monte Cassino — three vows (stability, conversion of life, obedience), the Divine Office, ora et labora, and the monastic rescue of Western Christianity through the collapse of Rome. → Read Lesson 10
590–604
SupPope Gregory the Great Soon The mission to England; liturgical reform; the title Servus servorum Dei (“Servant of the Servants of God”) enters the papal vocabulary.

Era 3 • Medieval Christendom (600–1500)

Christendom, the East–West split, scholastic synthesis, and the first calls for reform.

800
SupThe Coronation of Charlemagne Live Pope Leo III crowns Charlemagne on Christmas Day in St. Peter’s — the Carolingian Renaissance, Alcuin and the preserved classics, the Saxon Wars and Verden, and the filioque insertion at Aachen (809). → Read Lesson 14
1054
TP 5The Great Schism — East & West Live Mutual excommunications in the Hagia Sophia; the emergence of Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism as distinct branches; three views of the canon and the papacy. → Read Lesson 2
c. 1100–1274
SupScholasticism & the High Middle Ages Live Anselm’s “faith seeking understanding,” Bernard of Clairvaux, the birth of the universities (Bologna, Paris, Oxford), Peter Lombard’s Sentences, Francis and Dominic, Aquinas (“the Dumb Ox”), the Summa Theologiae, Bonaventure, Scotus, and Ockham. → Read Lesson 30
1170s–1415
SupThe Morning-Star Reformers Live Peter Waldo of Lyon (c. 1173) and the Waldensians of the Cottian Alps; John Wycliffe of Oxford (d. 1384) and the Lollards; Jan Hus of Prague burned at the Council of Constance (6 July 1415). “A hundred years from now a swan will come whom you will not be able to roast.” → Read Lesson 31
1204
SupFourth Crusade Sacks Constantinople Soon A Latin crusading army loots the greatest Eastern Christian city. The 1054 rupture becomes a civilizational wound.
1439 • 1453
SupFlorence Reunion & Fall of Constantinople Soon A last attempt at East–West reunion fails; in 1453 the Ottomans take Constantinople, and Orthodoxy’s centre of gravity shifts northward.

Era 4 • The Reformation Century (1500–1650)

Protestantism born; Rome responds; the English Bible takes its classic form.

1517–1521
TP 6Luther & the Diet of Worms Live Ninety-Five Theses (1517), the Heidelberg Disputation, Leipzig, the three great treatises of 1520, excommunication, “Here I stand” before Charles V at Worms (1521), the Wartburg, the September Testament, and the Five Solas. → Read Lesson 15
1525–1564
SupCalvin, Zwingli & the Reformed Tradition Live Zwingli at Zurich, the Marburg split on the Supper, Calvin’s Institutes, Geneva’s four offices and consistory, the Servetus affair honestly, and the Reformed spread to Scotland, the Huguenots, the Dutch, and the Puritans. → Read Lesson 16
1525–1536
SupThe Radical Reformation — Anabaptists Live Grebel, Manz, Blaurock, Sattler’s Schleitheim, the Münster catastrophe, Menno Simons, Jakob Hutter, the Martyrs Mirror, Dirk Willems, and the 1693 Amish split. Roots of Mennonites, Hutterites, Amish, and the Baptist conscience. → Read Lesson 17
1534
TP 7The English Act of Supremacy Live Henry VIII’s Great Matter, Cranmer and the Book of Common Prayer, the Dissolution, the Marian martyrs (Rogers, Latimer, Ridley, Cranmer), Elizabeth’s Settlement, the Thirty-Nine Articles, and the birth of Anglican Christianity. → Read Lesson 18
1540 • 1545–63
TP 8The Jesuits & the Council of Trent Live Ignatius Loyola and the Society of Jesus (1540), the Spiritual Exercises, Trent’s 18-year council (1545–63) with its decrees on Scripture and justification, the Tridentine Mass, the Roman Catechism, Jesuit global missions (Xavier, Ricci, the Paraguay Reductions), and Teresa/John of the Cross. → Read Lesson 19
1380s–1611
ScrThe English Bible Live Wycliffe (1382) → the Lollard ban (1408) → Tyndale smuggled from Worms (1526), martyred at Vilvoorde (1536) → Coverdale, Matthew, Great Bible, Geneva, Bishops’, Douay-Rheims → the King James Version (1611) by six companies and fifty-four scholars. → Read Lesson 13
1609–1650
SupBaptists, Puritans, Congregationalists Soon John Smyth and Thomas Helwys found the first Baptist congregation (1609); Puritan migration to New England; Westminster Assembly (1643–49).

Era 5 • Post-Reformation Revival (1650–1900)

The Wesleys, the Great Awakenings, the American denominational explosion, and modern missions.

1647 • 1722
SupPuritans, Quakers & Moravians Live The English Puritans (Westminster, Bunyan, Owen, Baxter), George Fox and the Quakers (Inner Light, peace testimony, Penn’s Pennsylvania, Germantown Protest 1688), and Zinzendorf’s Moravians at Herrnhut (100-year prayer watch, first modern Protestant missions). → Read Lesson 26
1675–1750
SupPietism & Bach Live Spener’s Pia Desideria (1675) and the Frankfurt collegia pietatis; Francke’s Halle Orphanage and the Danish-Halle Tranquebar Mission (1706, first modern Protestant foreign mission); and Johann Sebastian Bach’s cantatas and St. Matthew Passion at the Leipzig Thomaskirche — every score signed Soli Deo Gloria. → Read Lesson 32
c. 1734–1745
SupThe First Great Awakening Live Frelinghuysen, the Tennents, Edwards at Northampton (1734–35), Whitefield’s seven colonial tours, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (1741), the Presbyterian split, Chauncy’s critique, and Edwards’s Religious Affections. → Read Lesson 20
1738
TP 9The Conversion of the Wesleys Live Susanna Wesley’s Epworth rectory, the Holy Club at Oxford, Georgia failure, Peter Böhler, Aldersgate Street “heart strangely warmed” (24 May 1738), field preaching, class meetings, Charles’s 6,500 hymns, the break with Whitefield, and the birth of American Methodism. → Read Lesson 21
1789
TP 10The French Revolution Live The Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790), the Terror, dechristianization, the Cult of Reason, the Vendée, Napoleon’s Concordat (1801), the 19th-century Catholic reaction and liberal Protestantism, and the long wrestle with secular modernity. → Read Lesson 25
c. 1800–1840
SupThe Second Great Awakening Live Cane Ridge (1801), Charles G. Finney, camp meetings, the Burned-Over District, the New Measures, and the abolition / temperance / women’s rights / missions reforms that grew from the revival. → Read Lesson 22
1809–1832
SupThe Restoration Movement Live Stone’s Last Will and Testament (1804), Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address (1809), Alexander’s debates, the 1832 Lexington merger, and the 1906 split into Disciples of Christ, Independent Christian Churches, and Churches of Christ. → Read Lesson 23
1870
SupFirst Vatican Council Soon Rome defines papal infallibility and universal jurisdiction in Pastor Aeternus. (Referenced in Lesson 2.)

Era 6 • Modern & Global Christianity (1900–today)

Pentecostalism, ecumenism, Vatican II, and the Christianity of the Global South.

1906
SupHoliness & Pentecostalism Live Phoebe Palmer and the 19th-century Holiness movement, Keswick, Parham’s Topeka (1901), Seymour at Azusa Street (1906), the early denominations, the Charismatic Renewal (1960s), and the 650-million-strong global Pentecostal movement today. → Read Lesson 24
1910
TP 11Edinburgh 1910 World Missionary Conference Live The Great Century of Protestant missions (Carey, Taylor, Livingstone, Mott, Student Volunteers), the 1910 conference, V. S. Azariah’s “give us friends,” Cheng Ching-yi, and the birth of the IMC, Faith and Order, Life and Work, and the WCC. → Read Lesson 27
1962–1965
TP 12The Second Vatican Council Live John XXIII opens the windows of the Church; 2,625 bishops across four autumn sessions (1962–1965); sixteen documents including Lumen Gentium, Dei Verbum, Unitatis Redintegratio, and Dignitatis Humanae; the periti (Rahner, Ratzinger, de Lubac, Congar, Küng, Murray); the 1965 joint lifting of the 1054 excommunications. → Read Lesson 29
1978
SupThe Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy Live The International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI) and its 300 evangelical scholars — Boice, Sproul, Packer, Geisler, Henry, Schaeffer, Lindsell, Nicole, Kantzer, Archer, Clowney, Gerstner — produce the 19-article Chicago Statement. The three summits (1978 Inerrancy, 1982 Hermeneutics, 1986 Application), the SBC Conservative Resurgence, and the evangelical doctrine of Scripture for a post-modern age. → Read Lesson 28
1965
SupLifting of the 1054 Excommunications Live Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I jointly “consign to oblivion” the anathemas of 1054. The schism remains, but the personal excommunications do not. (Covered in Lesson 29 Part 6.)
1970s–today
SupThe Global South & Modern Evangelicalism Live The center of gravity shifts to the Global South (67% of all Christians by 2025); the African Initiated Churches; Korean, Chinese, and Iranian growth; Lausanne 1974 and the Cape Town Commitment 2010; voices of Mbiti, Padilla, Escobar, Bediako, Sanneh, Wright; Janani Luwum and the contemporary martyrs. Series finale. → Read Lesson 33

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