Library: Christian Studies by Credo Reference: History of Christianity

Major Themes

Atonement: Topic Page
The reconciliation, or "at-one-ment," of sinful humanity with God. In Judaism both the Bible and rabbinical thought reflect the belief that God's chosen people must be pure to remain in communion with God. The Bible prescribed Temple sacrifice for the removal of sin and uncleanliness.
Eschatology: Topic Page
Doctrines of the end of time. Christian eschatology concerns the end of this Earth and of time; the resurrection of the dead; the Antichrist; the return of Jesus Christ to overthrow the Antichrist; and the culmination of history with the destruction of this world.
Free will: Topic Page
The power of making choices without the constraint of fate or some other uncontrollable force, regarded as a human characteristic.
Logos: Topic Page
In Greek and Hebrew metaphysics, the unifying principle of the world. The central idea of the Logos is that it links God and man, hence any system in which the Logos plays a part is monistic.
Predestination: Topic Page
In theology, doctrine that asserts that God predestines from eternity the salvation of certain souls. So-called double predestination, as in Calvinism, is the added assertion that God also foreordains certain souls to damnation.
Sin: Topic Page
Transgression of the will of God or the gods, as revealed in the moral code laid down by a particular religion.
Theotokos
From Late Antiquity: A Guide to the Post-Classical World
Theotokos, a title given to the Virgin Mary, literally means in Greek “the one who bore God” but is commonly translated as “Mother of God.”
Trinity: Topic Page
In Christianity, the union of three persons - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit/Holy Ghost - in one Godhead. The precise meaning of the doctrine has been the cause of unending dispute, and was the chief cause of the split between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.

Notable Eras

Early Christianity
From Houghton-Mifflin Encyclopedia
By the 1st century b.c.e., JUDAISM had been diffused in the Roman Empire, with Jews residing mainly in Palestine and in the cities of the east.
Inquisition: Topic Page
In the early Middle Ages investigation of heresy was a duty of the bishops. Alarmed especially by the spread of Albigensianism (see Albigenses), the popes issued increasingly stringent instructions as to the methods for dealing with heretics.
Middle Ages: Topic Page
Period in Western European history that followed the disintegration of the West Roman Empire in the 4th and 5th centuries and lasted into the 15th century, i.e., into the period of the Renaissance.
Renaissance: Topic Page
Period in European cultural history that began in Italy around 1400 and lasted there until the end of the 1500s. Elsewhere in Europe it began later, and lasted until the 1600s.
Reformation: Topic Page
Religious and political movement in 16th-century Europe to reform the Roman Catholic Church, which led to the establishment of the Protestant churches.
Counter-Reformation: Topic Page
16th-century reformation that arose largely in answer to the Protestant Reformation; sometimes called the Catholic Reformation. Although the Roman Catholic reformers shared the Protestants' revulsion at the corrupt conditions in the church, there was present none of the tradition breaking that characterized Protestantism.
Enlightenment: Topic Page
The scientific and intellectual developments of the 17th cent [...] fostered the belief in natural law and universal order and the confidence in human reason that spread to influence all of 18th-century society.
Revivalism
From The new encyclopedia of the American West
Revivalism, a phenomenon of Protestantism, appeared first in the English colonies of North America in the Great Awakening of the early eighteenth century. It crested in the United States in the first half of the nineteenth century and continued, with declining importance, far into the twentieth century.