Bible and History
Free courses on the Bible and the history of the church, built on primary sources: the movements' own documents and statements of faith, contemporaneous newspapers, official records and the founders' own words, with footnotes, photographs, infographics and a short quiz in every lesson. Each movement is described first in its own words and then by the record. Progress is kept in this browser only.
Church history
Church History, Part A: Beginnings to the Reformation
The history of the church from the first century to the Reformation, told from the sources themselves: Jerusalem, Paul and the first churches, the Apostolic Fathers, the Gnostics, Marcion and the Montanists, persecution from Nero to Diocletian and the apologists, Constantine and the Council of Nicaea, the councils of Constantinople, Ephesus and Chalcedon, Augustine and Pelagius, the desert fathers and the monasteries, the Great Schism of 1054 and Orthodoxy in plain terms, Gregory the Great, Charlemagne, the Crusades and the scholastics, the Waldensians, Wycliffe and Hus, Luther and the German Reformation, and Zwingli, Calvin, the Anabaptists, the English church and the Council of Trent. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant readings are each given in their own words, then the record.
Church History, Part B: Denominations
The Protestant families one by one, from the end of the Reformation to 2026, each in its own words and then by the record: the Lutherans and their synods (LCMS, WELS, ELCA and the others) and why they differ, the Reformed and Presbyterians from Westminster to the PCUSA, PCA and OPC, Calvinism and Arminianism point by point, the Anglicans and Episcopalians and the ACNA, the Congregationalists and Puritans, the many kinds of Baptists, the Methodists and the Holiness churches, the Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites and Brethren, the Quakers, the Restoration Movement, mainline and evangelical bodies with their own membership counts, dominion theology, Reconstructionism and the New Apostolic Reformation in their writers' own words and their critics', and a short orientation to the Pentecostal, Orthodox and Catholic bodies.
Church History, Part C: American Movements, Calvary Chapel and Vineyard
How the movements that shaped American Protestant life formed after the Reformation, told from their own documents and the historical record: Pietism, Wesley and the Methodists, the Holiness movement and Keswick, Topeka and Azusa Street, the Assemblies of God, the Charismatic Renewal and the Third Wave, the new evangelicals, Billy Graham and the Southern Baptist resurgence, and the rise of the non-denominational church. Then a full study of Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard: the Jesus People and Costa Mesa, Chuck Smith and Lonnie Frisbee, Calvary's teaching and structure, its growth, succession and controversies, John Wimber and signs and wonders, the Toronto Blessing and the Vineyard today, and a side-by-side comparison with a reader's checklist for any independent church.
Martyrs Briefs
Short, sourced briefs on Christian martyrs from John the Baptist and the apostles to the present, era by era: the New Testament witnesses, the persecutions to 313, Persia, Armenia, Alban and Boniface, Hus, Hieronymus of Prague, the Lollards, Savonarola and Tyndale, the Protestant and Anabaptist martyrs and the Catholic martyrs of the Reformation held to the same standard, the Covenanters, Huguenots and Mary Dyer, the missionary martyrs, Bonhoeffer, Kolbe and Stein, and the martyrs since 1950 with the modern counts and why they differ. Each brief separates what the records show from tradition and legend.
The Great Awakening and Charles Finney
The revivals that shaped American Protestantism and the theologians who argued over them: Puritan New England, Jonathan Edwards and Northampton, George Whitefield and Franklin's account, Gilbert Tennent and the Old Light and New Light split, Edwards as a thinker, the Awakening, the Baptists and religious liberty, Hopkins, Bellamy, Dwight and Witherspoon, Cane Ridge and the camp meetings, Charles Finney's conversion, new measures, theology and Oberlin, the Burned-Over District, and Princeton against New Haven. Each side of the Calvinist and Arminian argument in its own words, from the primary sources.
The History of the Bible
How the Bible came to us, from the Old Testament scribes, the Masoretes, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint, through the New Testament papyri and great codices and the forming of the canon, to the Latin Vulgate, the Old English and Wycliffite Bibles, Erasmus and the Textus Receptus, Tyndale, the Geneva Bible and the King James Version of 1611. Then the textual debate verse by verse, the Revised and American Standard Versions, the NASB and the NKJV, the NIV and dynamic equivalence and the case that it and similar versions fall short (with the counter view), the modern paraphrases and gender-neutral editions, and how to choose a Bible and check it against the Hebrew and Greek.