Matthew Burden's Blog, page 21

Church History: Schisms & Crusades

(Click here for the church history series page)

Lecture audio: Schisms & Crusades (High Middle Ages) (click here to listen or right-click to download)

Lecture Notes Outline
A New Order: Turmoil & Consolidation

- The Vikings

- Rise of European monarchies

- East and West begin their final split

          - Photian schism (9th century)

          - The Papacy’s rising claims

          - The Great Schism (1054)

          - Sack of Constantinople (1204)

          - Eastern Orthodoxy flourishes amid Byzantine decline

          - Council of Florence (1430s-1440s)

The Crusades & Eastern Christendom

- The First Crusade & the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem

- Military-Monastic Orders & the Second Crusade

- Saladin and the Third Crusade

- Crusades of the 1200s

- Fall of the Latin kingdoms in the Levant

- Mongol invasions & the fall of the Church of the East

- Northern European crusades

- End of the Byzantine Empire

- Reconquista in Spain

The Evangeliad

(Click here for an introduction and previous installments of the Evangeliad)
Section 28, extended (corresponding to John 7:32-36)
The Pharisees heard what the crowds had said,And with the chief priests, they all went aheadIn summoning guards, preparing the wayTo have Jesus arrested that very day.
And Jesus, knowing their plan was in play,Spoke to the crowds: "I stand with you today,And a short time hence, but the day draws nearWhen I'll return to Him who sent me here.
You'll seek me but you will not find me;Yes, I'll be gone when you look for me,For you cannot come where I must go."The crowds said, "What's he saying? I just don't know.
Is he leaving Judea, off to the Greeks?Where is he going that we could not seek?"The words of Jesus would soon be proved true,But there in that moment, the crowds were confused.

Photo of the Week

Rise, my soul, to watch and prayto the Lord unceasing.God protects you day by day,strength and faith increasing.so that still mind and willshall unite to serve himand forever love him.
- from a hymn by Johann Freystein

Quote of the Week

"God has a university. It's a small school. Few enroll; even fewer graduate. Very, very few indeed. God has this school because he does not have broken men and women. Instead, he has several other types of people. He has people who claim to have God's authority...and don't--people who claim to be broken...and aren't. And people who do have God's authority, but who are mad and unbroken. And he has, regretfully, a great mixture of everything in between. All of these he has in abundance, but broken men and women, hardly at all. In God's sacred school of submission and brokenness, why are there so few students? Because all students in this school must suffer much pain."

- Gene Edwards (from A Tale of Three Kings: A Study in Brokenness)

A Prayer from Thomas More (adapted)

Give me the grace, good Lord:To set the world at naught. To set the mind firmly on Youand not to hang upon the words of men’s mouths.To be content to be solitary. Not to long for worldly pleasures. Little by little utterly to cast off the world and rid my mind of all its business.Gladly to be thinking of God, and to call for His help. To lean into the comfort of God. Busily to labor to love Him.To have continually in mind the passion that Christ suffered for me. For His benefits unceasingly to give Him thanks.Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life and all--to set the loss at naught, for the winning of Christ.Amen.

Church History: Light in the "Dark Ages"

(Click here for the church history series page)

Lecture audio: Light in the "Dark Ages" (click here to listen or right-click to download)


Lecture Notes Outline
Medieval Missions:

- Martin of Tours & the rural pagans (4th century)

- Patrick goes to Ireland (4th-5th centuries)

- Clovis & the Franks (5th-6th centuries)

- Columba and his followers go to Scotland & northern England (6th-7th centuries)

- Gregory, Augustine, and the mission to the Angles (6th-7th centuries)

- Columbanus plants monasteries across Europe (7th century)

- Boniface goes to the Germans & Frisians (8th century)

- Charlemagne’s military “missions” (8th-9th centuries)

- Ansgar goes to Scandinavia (9th century)

- Cyril & Methodius go to the Slavs of eastern Europe (9th century)

- Prince Vladimir & the conversion of Kievan Rus (10th century)


Christianity & Culture in the Early Middle Ages

- “Dark Ages” or “Bright Ages”?

- Benedict & western monasticism

- Christians under Muslim rule

- Gregory, Boethius, and the preservation of Western thought

- Carolingian renaissance & the “Holy Roman Empire”

- Advances in the technical arts

 

The Evangeliad (28:29-32)

(Click here for an introduction and previous installments of the Evangeliad)
Section 28:29-32 (corresponding to John 7:28-31)
Jesus lifted his voice over the crowd;There in the temple-courts, he said aloud:"Yes, you know me, and know where I'm from,But you know not Him from whom I have come!
For I do not speak to you on my own,But on the authority of His throne!I know the One who sent me; He is true.I am from Him, and I know Him, but you--
If you hear not His voice within my call,Then He who sent me you know not at all!"Enraged by his words, some reached out at him,Seeking to seize him, by force bring him in.
But his time hadn't come; he slipped away.Others believed there, and this they would say:"When Messiah comes, will he do more than this?If he sounds like Messiah, maybe he is!"

Photo of the Week

Pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace,along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
- 2 Timothy 2:22

Quote of the Week

"O the wonder of this new union! He who is comes into being, and the Uncreated is created, and the Uncontained is contained [...]. The One who enriches becomes poor; He is made poor in my flesh, that I might be enriched through His divinity. The full One empties Himself; for He empties Himself of His own glory for a short time, that I may participate in His fullness."

- Gregory of Nazianzus, writing on the Incarnation of Christ

Another Podcast Interview on My Book

For any who are interested, here's another podcast interview on my book, Missionary Motivations: Challenges from the Early Church. Click on the logo below to be taken to the audio file: