THE HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN MOVEMENT

The Christian movement began in the first century in Galilee and Palestine with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus' commission to his first disciples to "go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation" resulted eventually in the global expansion of the movement.

The story of the first apostles, told in the pages of the New Testament book of Acts, documents the early growth of Christianity. In ancient post-biblical times, Christians suffered persecution for their faith in Christ but continued to preach "repentance and forgiveness of sins...in his name."

In the year 312, the Roman emperor Constantine adopted the Christian faith and in the following year issued the Edict of Milan, which legalized Christian worship. Constantine summoned the Council of Nicea in the year 325, a gathering of Christian leaders which resulted in the Nicene Creed.

Enjoying the favor of the State over a period of centuries may have led, possibly, to the corruption in the Church and, most certainly, to a loss of direction. Church leadership often became distracted by the lure of wealth and temporal power, sometimes even contending with civil rulers for control. The monastic movement of the Middle Ages grew up around figures such as Basil of Caesarea and Benedict of Nursia as a means of recalling the Church to its greater purposes of loving God and neighbor.

The Great Schism, as it is called by historians, occurred in 1054, when Eastern Christians and Western Christians divided over irreconcilable differences.

The Western Church witnessed another great era of controversy in the sixteenth century. The Protestant Reformation had its inception when a German monk named Martin Luther posted ninety-five theses on the door of the church in Wittenberg to register his differences with the prevailing practices and beliefs of the Church. His courageous witness inspired others, and soon Christians in other parts of Europe joined in what had become a movement. John Calvin became the leader of the Reformation effort in Geneva, and John Knox, who had studied with Calvin, took the Reformation faith to Scotland.

Christianity is a global presence. While there are identifiable people groups in the world in which no Christian witness exists, most nations have in them Christians who worship and serve God. While the West (Europe and the USA) was once the center of Christian expansion, that distinction now seems to be among Christians south of the Equator. As Isaac Watts' great hymn says, "Jesus shall reign where'er the sun doth its successive journeys run; his Kingdom stretch from shore to shore, till moons shall wax and wane no more."

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