Christian History Institute Presents 100 Key Events in Church History: Introduction

magine for a moment that you are approached by someone largely unfamiliar with the Christian church who asks you what are the most important things that have happened in our history. Excluding any event recorded in the Bible, what would you say? What would you list in your top ten?

We at Christian History Institute have come up with a list of one hundred. These can be read by clicking the links above or at the bottom left. Rest assured--we do not take ourselves too seriously in thinking that we know what were really the most important events in changing the history of the church. We do not suppose for a moment that our list is final or unquestionable. No one's would be. Our list leans to Western history because that is what we have the most records on (and face it--for most of its history, Christianity was strongest around the Mediterranean, only moving out in the last five hundred years). Oriental churchgoers, aware of happenings that were never reported in the West, might make quite a different list!

Beyond all that, we suspect that, just as Jesus considered a small coin given by a poor widow far more significant than big donations by the wealthy, so will he rank people, events, and moments high in heaven that have never made it into our church history books.

So how did we generate our less than perfect list? It was based on a survey of Christians from many denominations and a survey of professors of church history. Some of our own favorite stories went in, too. The twentieth century has seen more martyrdoms and a greater outreach to evangelism than any other century. Stories from the twentieth century could have taken up more space than they do. However, we have limited their number, because we are too close to it to properly evaluate the contributions of that era.

A list prepared a hundred years from now will look much different we expect. Women, minorities and nonwestern people will have a more prominent place.