Discipleship Freely Keith P. Adams

Time Period: 1900-Present
Topics: Pentecostalism & Charismatic Renewal, the Modernist-Fundamentalist Controversy, Evangelicalism

Time Period: 1800-1900
Topics: the Modern Missions Movement, the Second and Third Great Awakenings, the Emergence of Modern Heresies

In this session we consider the turning of the tide in global and American Christianity. At the start of the 19th century, the church was predominantly European and and American and many were content to leave it that way, but not William Carey and many like him who took the Great Commission seriously. They started the process of spreading Protestant Christianity to the ends of the earth. Meanwhile in the US and in parts of Europe, revivals were taking place that brought new life to the Church.

Time Period: 1600-1700
Topics: the Thirty Years' War, Arminianism vs. Calvinism, the Church of England, Puritans & Separatists

In this session, we look at the clashes that continued in the fallout of the Reformation. There were violent clashes between Protestants and Catholics. There were theological clashes within Protestantism. And there were political and ecclesiastical clashes, especially in England.

Time Period: 1500-1600
Topics: the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, Felix Manz, the Catholic Counter-Reformation

In this session, we explore the century that changed the landscape of the church (and all of Europe). We begin by looking at the life of Martin Luther whose understanding of grace, faith, and righteousness was transformed by reading Paul's letter to the Romans. And Luther's protest against the church's practice of selling "indulgences" sparked further debate and eventually a break with the Roman Catholic Church. Swiss theologians John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, and even Felix Manz also play critical roles in the diverse expressions of the Reformation in Europe.

Time Period: 1300-1500
Topics: The Avignon Papacy, the Great Schism of the Papacy, Pre-Reformers (John Wycliffe and Jan Hus)

In this session we look at the close of the Middle Ages when the papacy reached a breaking point and the long held traditions of the church began to be challenged. Though they didn't know it at the time, these heterodox thinkers were forerunners to what would come a century or two later with the Protestant Reformation.

Time Period: 700-1300
Topics: Cluny and Cistercian Monks, Waldensians, Albigenses, Mendicant Orders (Dominicans & Franciscans), Scholasticism

In this session, we take a second pass through the "middle" of the Middle Ages, looking at the various ways that people tried to purify the church from the rampant corruption and moral laxity that crept its way in over the centuries. There were "reforming" movements among the monks and among the laity through traveling poor preachers. Meanwhile, Medieval scholarship reached its peak among the theologians.