CH1036 —

A Survey of Early Modern and Modern Church History (1450 — Present)

2nd semester Monday morning (Min. No. 6)

Content

This unit examines key events, leaders, and issues in the Western churches (and to a lesser extent the Eastern churches) since the mid-fifteenth century. Discussion of institutional and social developments in the Church community will alternate with analysis of breakthroughs in Christian thought. Recent interpretations will serve to highlight pivotal topics and to demonstrate fundamental historical methods, for example, how to research the sources, how to analyse them, and how to interpret them.

Prerequisites None

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this unit, it is expected that students will be able to:

1. debate the relevance to church history of problematic concepts like “forerunners of the Reformation,” “Catholic Reformation,” and “Radical Reformation”
2. characterise Early Modern, Modern, and Postmodern eras of church history and identify their salient innovations
3. demonstrate skills in research and written communication
4. trace the emergence of the concept of “spirituality” and differentiate it from related terms like “mysticism,” and “contemplation”
5. recount how methods of ministry developed since 1500 and cite European precedents for contemporary Australian forms
6. evaluate the effectiveness of techniques of overseas missions in diverse regions and state differences between Roman Catholic and Protestant approaches to missions.

Assessment

Two document studies of 500 words each (10% each); 1000 word short biography of a significant person (20%); 2000 word research essay (60%)

BIBLIOGRAPHY *= set texts recommended for purchase

Alberigo, Giuseppe, and Joseph Komonchak. History of Vatican II. 5 Vols. Maryknoll, NY: Obris, 1995-2004.

Aubert, Roger. The Church in a Secularized Society. New York, NY: Paulist, 1978.

*Bireley, Robert. The Re-fashioning of Catholicism, 1450-1700: A Reassessment of the Counter-Reformation. London: Macmillan, 1999.

Chadwick, Owen. The Christian Church in the Cold War. Ringwood, VIC: Penguin Books, 1993.

Hastings, Adrian, ed. Modern Catholicism: Vatican II and After. London: SPCK, 1991.

MacCulloch, Diarmaid. The Reformation. New York, NY: Viking, 2003.

McLeod, Hugh, and Werner Ustorf, eds. The Decline of Christendom in Western Europe,1750-2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

O’Malley, John. Trent and all that: Renaming Catholicism in the Early Modern Era. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.

Rouse, Ruth, and Stephen Charles Neill, eds. A History of the Ecumenical Movement. Geneva: World Council of Churches, 1986-2004.

Lecturer

Peter Price