God's Story: A Student Guide to Church History Read Online Free PDF

it out. The church, too, once entered a period of darkness; what we refer to as the “Dark Ages.”
    In 330, Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the Roman Empire from the western city of Rome to the eastern city of Byzantium, which he then renamed “Constantinople.” With this move, the city of Rome began to lose political influence to the new capital. Constantinople would remain the bastion of Christianity until 1453 when the Muslims conquered it and (later) renamed it “Istanbul.” But other factors would also weaken and destroy the power and influence of the Roman Empire.
    While the Middle Ages span from roughly 500 to 1500, the period between 500-1000 is often referred to as the Dark Ages because of the economic, intellectual, and spiritual deterioration across Europe and around the Mediterranean Sea. It would also witness the rise of a militaristic religion, Islam.
    In addition to the destruction of Rome in the 5 th century and its “light” eclipsed by war, disease, and a lack of intellectual pursuit, the church began to steer away from the Bible in its worship, ministry, and theology. Church hierarchy (from pope down to priest), an overemphasis on the sacraments to exclusion of the Bible, and internal conflicts rendered the institutional church “dark.” However, the church invisible —the true body and bride of Christ—would continue on as the elect and remnant of God as he had planned from the beginning. Years later, during the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s, a Latin phrase would capture the essence of the Reformation spirit: Post Tenebras Lux , “After darkness, light!”
The Sack of Rome
    Various Germanic tribes throughout Europe —collectively known as the “Goths”—began to rise in political and military power during the 4 th and early 5 th centuries. One of these tribes, called the Visigoths , attacked and sacked Rome in 410 and then headed to Spain, where they ruled until the Muslims conquered them in the early 8 th century. In 455, another tribe, the Vandals , leveraged a devastating attack on Rome. Each of these attacks on Rome weakened it until finally, on the 4 th of September 476, the Roman Empire fell to Odoacer, a Germanic chieftain.
    Most of these various Germanic tribes subscribed to the Christian heretical sect of Arianism (see discussion in the last chapter), which taught that Jesus Christ was not fully God, but was God’s first created being. While the Roman Empire and these Germanic tribes thought of themselves as “Christian,” such a designation caused serious problems in identifying who the true Christians were.
    Unfortunately, as is often the case, confor-ming to a Christian culture is often confused with becoming a Christian. How do you tell the difference between someone who simply conforms externally to a Christian “culture”—doing all the right things—and someone who truly believes?
The Pope and the Papacy
    Today, the pope (derived from the Greek word for father ) is the “Bishop of Rome” and leader of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) worldwide. But this position was not always clear and the title was added after the first centuries of the church for the purposes of control, power, and “Christian” influence. In fact, it wasn’t until the 11 th century, that the title “pope” came to apply solely to the Bishop of Rome! The office itself grew in particular influence after the decline of the Roman Empire, as a kind of stability for the people. Tracing its roots back to the first “pope” in Rome, who the RCC believes to be the apostle Peter, the RCC takes pride in its long, uninterrupted history. But is that the real story?
    Peter, of course, never used or bore the title “pope.” Moreover, there is no evidence that Jesus appointed Peter to be the “Bishop of Rome” nor did Jesus establish the papacy. When Jesus told Peter, “On this rock I will build my church” (Matt. 16:18), the RCC takes “rock” to mean Peter (the Greek word for