Significant Events and Theological
Developments in (Western) Church History
From what point do we launch our witness to people outside our
theological history?
Today – What churches believe and teach now
1905 – Azusa Street Revival
(Note: as of 2011 Pew
Foundations finds 27% of Christians in the world are
Pentecostal /
Charismatic)
1500s – Protestant Reformation (Luther, Calvin, Anabaptists) / Anabaptist
massacres
1054 – East-West Schism / “Filoque” (and the Son) / Crusades begin in
1096
667 – Synod of Whitby (Celtic Jesus movements put under authority
of Rome in Rome’s
efforts to unify all Christendom)
451 – Chalcedonian Creed (Asian, Egyptian and Ethiopian churches begin pulling
away)
325 – Nicene Creed (no Jewish background Jesus followers present or
invited) /
beginnings of state
church orientation
180 – “Apostles’ Creed” (earliest version) / early church catechisms
developed
(clear Gentile majority)
95 – both Jewish and Gentile communities and expressions of faith,
Jesus’ and apostles’
teaching recorded in NT documents
circa 33 – Jesus’ ministry and teaching on the Kingdom, God raises Jesus
from death, Jesus
ascends to God’s right
hand, the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out, Jewish communities
of faith following the
apostles’ teaching
