Church History

Prior to 1500, the church age first underwent sever persecution within and without, under the hands of Nero, Diocletian, Galerius, until the time of Constantine when he became the first Christian emperor in 306 AD and transformed the ancient Greek colony of Byzantium to Constantinople, and remained the capital of the Byzantine empire for the next 1000 years. Although it was a time of convergence, the period after 1500 has been a time of fragmentation. There was religious division, the Thirty Years' War between the Protestant and the Catholic Church, religious diversity with many voices of confessions that needed to be clarified and defended, doctrinal retrenchment that made use of inductive and deductive principles to articulate demoninational doctrines and positions, and the emergence of rationality so there could be some common ground in the midst of the conflicts from different groups.

The Modern period soon followed the Enlightenment period, where there were a number of cultural reform movements in literature, politics, and society. With the aid of technology, the world experienced great economical diversification and mechanization in mass production. Unfortunately, as we are now in the Post-modern period, there is a great sense of discontentment, hopelessness, and narcissism.

What will be next chapter of the church age? Some believe that attention will shift significantly from Europe and America (as churches become more and more secularized) to the developing countries where Asia and Africa are increasingly sending more missionaries abroad each year. Our churches in North America have become less and less relevant to the world they find themselves in. Perhaps we are desperate in need of some foreign aid.