Crises, Controversies, and Councils: Christianity Under Construction (CH1109T)

Content

In this unit students will undertake an historical theological study of the first five centuries of Christianity with an emphasis on the developments in doctrine and liturgical practice across the Christian communities of the Middle East, North Africa, and Western Europe. Students will examine how the formal clarification of doctrine emerged out of apologetic and exegetical controversies, that pushed the Church to the limits of its language about God.

Learning outcomes

Unit sequence

Prohibited combination: ‘Practice and Belief in the Early Church’

Pedagogy

Online

Indicative Bibliography

• Bradshaw, Paul F. The Search for the Origins of Christian Worship (2nd ed.; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
• Burrus, Virginia (ed.) Late Ancient Christianity: A People’s History of Christianity Vol. 2 (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2005).
• Cohick, Lynn, and Amy Brown Young. Christian Women in the Patristic World (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017).
• Edwards, Mark. Catholicity and Heresy in the Early Church (Farnham/Burlington: Ashgate Pub., 2009).
• Giles, Kevin. Patterns of Ministry Among the First Christians 2nd ed. (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2017).
• Gonzalez, Justo L. The Story of Christianity, Volume 1: The Early Church to the Reformation (New York: HarperOne, 2010).
• Humphries, Mark.Early Christianity (London: Routledge, 2006).
• Ludlow, Morwenna. The Early Church (London/New York: IB Tauris, 2009)
• McGowan, Andrew B. Ancient Christian Worship: Early Church Practices in Social, Historical and Theological Perspective 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014).
• Young, Frances. The Making of the Creeds (London: SCM Press, 1991).

Assessment