100 Most Important Events in Christian History

I would recommend a book I picked up last night ($3.99 at Hastings, $11.99 list), “The 100 Most Important Events in Christian History” by A. Kenneth Curtis, J. Stephen Lang and Randy Petersen.

It is by no means definitive, but it is a good starting point to studying 2000 years of church history. It also is admittedly subjective and Protestant. But it’s a good read.

Among particular interest to Baptists:

Circa 196, Tertullian Begins to Write Christian Books: “After all, he reasoned, weren’t all believers priests? Was this a church of saints who administered themselves or a rabble of saints and sinners administered by a professional ‘class,' the clergy?"

251 Cyprian Writes “On the Unity of the Church": “A bishop could determine church membership, so in effect he had the power to say ‘You are saved. You are not saved.’ Instead of relying on the Spirit working through the church at large, Cyprian implied that the Spirit worked through the bishops."

1054 The East-West Schism

1173 Peter Waldo Founds the Waldensians

1215 The Fourth Lateran Council: “Disagreeing with the church no longer could be a matter of taste; the heretic endangered both this own soul and others’ “

Circa 1380 Wycliffe Oversees English Bible Translation

1415 John Hus Burned at the Stake

1525 Anabaptist Movement Begins

1608-09 John Smyth Baptizes the First Baptists

1620 Pilgrims Sign the Mayflower Compact

1678 John Bunyan’s "The Pilgrim’s Progress" Published

1811 The Campbells Begin the Disciples of Christ

1812 Adoniram and Ann Judson Sail for India

1854 Charles Haddon Spurgeon Becomes Pastor in London