Church History, Volume One Video Lectures: From Christ to the Pre-Reformation

Church History, Volume One Video Lectures features 24 lessons (on 3 DVDs) and offers a unique contextual view of how the Christian church spread and developed from the days of Jesus to the years prior to the Reformation. The church did so not in a vacuum, but in a setting of times, cultures, and events that both influenced and were influenced by it. These lectures help explore the integral link between the history of the world and that of the church.

A companion to the widely used textbook Church History, Volume One by Everett Ferguson, the lectures feature the author teaching through each chapter in the book. Designed with the student in mind, each lecture is approximately 20 minutes in length. Useful for traditional students, students in distance and online courses, and independent learners alike, these lectures provide a full introduction to church history from the time of Christ to the pre-Reformation.

Session Titles and Runtimes:

1 - The Setting for the Story's Beginning (19 min)

2 - Jesus and the Beginnings of the Church (18 min)

3 - The Subapostolic Age (17 min)

4 - The Church and the Empire (22 min)

5 - Heresies and Schisms in the Second Century (15 min)

6 - The Defense against Rival Interpretations (20 min)

7 - The Fathers of the Old Catholic Church and Their Problems (25 min)

8 - Church Life in the Second and Third Centuries (15 min)

9 - Development of the Church during the Third Century (19 min)

10 - Diocletian and Constantine: On the Threshold of the Fourth Century (19 min)

11 - The Church in the Fourth Century: Doctrine, Organization, and Literature (21 min)

12 - Monasticism, Expansion, Life, and Worship: The Church in the Fourth Century (19 min)

13 - Christological Controversies to Chalcedon (17 min)

14 - Augustine, Pelagius, and Semipelagianism (20 min)

15 - Transitions to the Middle Ages: Germanic Migrations, Doctrinal Developments, and the Papacy (19 min)

16 - Eastern and Western Churches in the Fifth and Sixth Centuries (17 min)

17 - The Eastern Church from the Seventh to the Eleventh Centuries (18 min)

18 - The Western Church from the Seventh to the Ninth Centuries (18 min)

19 - Decline and Renewal of Vitality in the West: The Ninth to the Eleventh Centuries (15 min)

20 - The Papal Reform Movement and the First Crusade (17 min)

21 - Intellectual Revival: The Rise of Scholasticism (20 min)

22 - Monastic, Literary, Cultural, and Political Activities in the Twelfth Century (17 min)

23 - The Glory of the Western Medieval Church: The Thirteenth Century (18 min)

24 - Portents of Decline (18 min)

Everett Ferguson (PhD, Harvard) is professor emeritus of Bible and distinguished scholar-in-residence at Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas, where he taught church history and Greek. He is the author of numerous works, including Backgrounds of Early Christianity, Early Christians Speak, and Baptism in the Early Church: History, Theology, and Liturgy in the First Five Centuries. He was also general editor of the two-volume Encyclopedia of Early Christianity.