Mark A. Noll - Turning Points: Decisive Moments in the History of Christianity

F or help on the subjects of this book, some of it going back many years, I am deeply grateful to a large group of teachers, friends, and colleagues:

• To gifted teachers with whom I studied church history, including Harold O. J. Brown, Jack Forstman, John Gerstner, Dale Johnson, H. D. McDonald, John Warwick Montgomery, Richard Wolf, and John Woodbridge. I hope the ones among these expert teachers who are still in the land of the living, as well as especially David Wells, my first teacher in several senses of the term, will take it as nothing but a compliment if a few of their phrases or a hint of their outlines have worked their way through years of rearranging lecture notes to the printed page. Over the last several years the influence of another kind of teaching from Andrew Walls has profoundly deepened my understanding of the history of Christianity.
• To a generation of college students, mostly in classes at Wheaton College, who through patient listening and probing questions have pushed cut-and-dried information into genuine historical engagement.
• To patrons associated with Wheaton College who generously expedited work on the first edition of this book.
• To friends associated with the work of the Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals who, by being such splendid colleagues on questions of Christian history in North America, have provided a matchless counterpoint for considering the worldwide history of Christianity.
• To Bob Lackie, my first and still among the best ever student assistants, for preparing the study questions.
• To family members who for several decades have encouraged, tolerated, and indulged a fascination with history that leaves me sometimes only half present in the here and now; and especially to my wife Maggie for crucial assistance on this new edition.
• To Robert Brown and Estelle Berger who were essential in completing the first edition, and to Jeremy Wells who was equally helpful for this edition.
• To members and Sunday school regulars at Bethel Presbyterian and Immanuel Presbyterian churches in Wheaton and Warrenville, Illinois, and more recently at the South Bend (IN) Christian Reformed Church, who have shown such eager interest in the Christian past.
• And to the Baptist theological students in Oradea and Cluj, Romania, especially to friends in Oradea who provided an opportunity in the summer of 1989 to condense notes for a two-week introduction to the study of church history onto a single 4 6 card and in so doing planted the seed that has sprouted as this book.

The Idea of Turning Points and Reasons for Studying the History of Christianity

A mong the last words that Jesus spoke to his disciples were statements recorded in Matthew, chapter 28, and Acts, chapter 1. These words, though they are important for many other reasons, also outline a framework for the history of Christianity.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Nothing could now happen to the followers of Christ that lay outside the reach of his sovereignty; no experiences that the church underwent, no matter how glorious or how mundane, were irrelevant to the living Word of God.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations. The history of Christianity would always involve at least two related actions: a movement outward to reach places where Christs name was hitherto not known and a movement inward to train hearts in learning more of Christ.

[S]urely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age. However the church might wander, whatever the sins committed by Christians as individuals and as a body, the people of God would be sustained, not by their own wisdom, but by the presence of Christ.

[Y]ou will be my witnesses... to the ends of the earth. The Christian faith would take root in particular cultures, and it would profoundly shape individual peoples, regions, and nations. But Christianity itself would belong to none of them. Rather, the church would exist to bear witness to Gods love revealed in Christ and to bear that witness throughout the whole world.