4. The Beauty in Church History: Part 2

The Black Church and the Civil Rights Movement

Christian courage was also central to much of the American Civil Rights Movement.

Again, this history contains painful contradictions.

Many white churches defended segregation.

Others tolerated it.

Others remained silent.

Martin Luther King Jr. knew this painfully well.

But Christianity was also one of the primary spiritual languages through which Black Americans organized resistance to segregation.

Black churches became essential centers of community organizing, prayer, preaching, fundraising, leadership, and nonviolent protest (Stanford King Institute, “Southern Christian Leadership Conference”; “Letter from Birmingham Jail”).

In 1957, Christian ministers and civil-rights leaders including Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, and others helped organize the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (Stanford King Institute, “Southern Christian Leadership Conference”).

Then, while imprisoned during the Birmingham campaign in April 1963, King wrote his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail in response to Christian clergy who criticized the campaign as “unwise and untimely” (Stanford King Institute, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”).

He did not abandon Christianity because Christians had failed him.

He appealed to Christianity against Christian failure.

That pattern matters enormously.

Again and again in Christian history, Christians have confronted other Christians and said:

We are not living according to what Jesus taught.

That is reform from within.

And it is one of the things I find most hopeful about Christianity.

Christians Built Organizations to Fight Suffering and Injustice

One of the things I find particularly encouraging about Christianity in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is the enormous number of organizations Christians have established specifically to serve vulnerable people.

They come from very different Christian traditions.

Catholic.

Orthodox.

Lutheran.

Anglican.

Reformed.

Baptist.

Pentecostal.

Adventist.

Mennonite.

Evangelical.

Nondenominational.

They do not agree about everything.

Yet Christians across these traditions have organized enormous networks dedicated to hunger, refugees, disaster relief, children, human trafficking, medical care, clean water, poverty, prisoners, war victims, and development.

Consider only a portion of them:

Catholic Relief Services was founded in 1943 by the Catholic bishops of the United States to assist survivors of World War II in Europe. It eventually expanded into humanitarian and development work across the world (Catholic Relief Services).

The organization that became World Relief grew from American evangelical efforts beginning in 1944 to respond to displacement and suffering in war-torn Europe. In later decades it expanded its work with refugees, displaced people, disaster response, health, immigration services, and international development (World Relief).

Lutheran World Relief was organized in 1945 by American Lutherans responding to the humanitarian devastation left by World War II and has continued international relief and development work ever since (Lutheran World Relief).

Christian Aid likewise emerged in 1945 from British and Irish churches responding to European refugees after the Second World War. It grew into a major international development and humanitarian organization (Christian Aid).

World Vision was founded in 1950 by Christian minister Bob Pierce amid efforts to help people suffering from war and crisis in Asia, especially children affected by the Korean War. It developed into a major Christian humanitarian and child-development organization (World Vision).

Compassion International began in 1952 after American minister Everett Swanson encountered children affected by the Korean War. It developed into a large Christian child-development and sponsorship ministry serving children through local churches around the world (Compassion International).

The organization now known as ADRA, the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, grew from Seventh-day Adventist relief work and the establishment of the Seventh-day Adventist Welfare Service in 1956; the organization adopted the name ADRA in 1984. It now works internationally in humanitarian relief and long-term development (ADRA).

Tearfund emerged in 1968 from British evangelical Christians seeking a more organized response to global poverty and disaster. It has since worked through churches and community organizations around the world (Tearfund).

Samaritan's Purse was founded in 1970 by Bob Pierce with a mission focused on meeting emergency needs in crisis areas through evangelical mission agencies and national churches. It later expanded into international relief, medical projects, and disaster response (Samaritan’s Purse).

Food for the Hungry was founded in 1971 by Christian leader Larry Ward to respond to hunger and human suffering internationally (Food for the Hungry).

Mercy Ships, founded in 1978, turned an extraordinary idea into reality: hospital ships providing surgery and medical care in places where safe surgical care is difficult to access. Its international volunteer community includes surgeons, nurses, therapists, teachers, mechanics, engineers, and other professionals, and the organization identifies its mission with Christian values (Mercy Ships).

Convoy of Hope, founded in 1994, is a faith-based humanitarian organization with programs including disaster response, children’s feeding, community outreach, and other forms of development work (Convoy of Hope).

The International Justice Mission was founded in 1997 by attorney Gary Haugen. IJM is a Christian organization that works with local authorities and communities to protect people living in poverty from trafficking, slavery, sexual exploitation, violence, and other forms of abuse (International Justice Mission).

Justice Ventures International (JVI) was founded in 2007 as a Christian organization working to bring freedom, justice, and restoration to people suffering from human trafficking and other extreme forms of injustice. JVI partners with local organizations and government agencies to strengthen justice systems and address bonded labor, sex trafficking, forced marriage, domestic servitude, and other forms of trafficking. It describes its vision as seeing unjust communities transformed into communities that reflect God’s love and respect the dignity of vulnerable people (Justice Ventures International).

Christians are not merely sponsoring children or responding after disasters.

Some are building professional organizations of lawyers, investigators, social workers, and advocates specifically to protect people from violence.

There are also Christian child-sponsorship ministries including World Vision, Compassion International, GlobalFingerprints, and others connecting Christians with children and communities facing poverty around the world (World Vision; Compassion International; GlobalFingerprints).

And this is still only part of the picture.

There are Christian hospitals.

Christian medical missions.

Refugee ministries.

Homeless shelters.

Pregnancy and maternal-care programs.

Addiction recovery ministries.

Prison ministries.

Food banks.

Foster-care and adoption ministries.

Trafficking shelters.

Disaster-response teams.

Clean-water projects.

Agricultural-development projects.

Schools.

Universities.

Counseling centers.

Hospices.

Homes for children.

Programs for people with disabilities.

Ministries serving immigrants.

Local churches quietly paying rent for families who would otherwise lose their homes.

Christians repeatedly encounter suffering and decide to organize in order to do something about it.

Praise God!

Christians Who Once Fought Each Other Are Learning to Work Together

Christians from traditions that once persecuted—and sometimes even killed—one another over theology increasingly work together today.

Catholic and Protestant authorities at times executed Christians from opposing traditions. Reformed authorities persecuted Anabaptists.

Christian states went to war in conflicts deeply entangled with religious identity.

Christians sometimes treated doctrinal disagreement as something governments had the right to punish (Gregory, “Persecutions and Martyrdom”; Oyer, “Persecution”; Erdozain, “‘To Kill a Man Is Not to Defend a Doctrine’”).

That history is tragic and cannot be undone.

But the relationship between many Christian traditions has changed dramatically.

In 1948, representatives of 147 churches from numerous countries and Christian traditions gathered in Amsterdam to formally establish the World Council of Churches. As of 2026, the WCC describes itself as a fellowship of 356 member churches in more than 120 countries, representing approximately 600 million Christians. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member of the WCC, but it collaborates with the Council in significant areas (World Council of Churches).

Evangelical Christians developed their own major international networks.

At the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in 1974, more than 2,300 evangelical Christian leaders from 150 countries gathered to consider how Christians from around the world could cooperate in mission (Lausanne Movement).

The Global Christian Forum, whose development began in the late 1990s and early 2000s, intentionally created a space for Christians who had often existed in separate institutional worlds to meet one another (Global Christian Forum):

Catholic.

Orthodox.

Anglican.

Historic Protestant.

Evangelical.

Pentecostal.

African Instituted Churches.

And others.

This does not mean theological differences have vanished.

They have not.

Nor should Christian unity mean pretending meaningful differences do not exist.

But Christians increasingly:

Pray together.

Feed people together.

Respond to disasters together.

Translate Scripture together.

Discuss theology together.

And recognize one another as brothers and sisters despite disagreements their ancestors once considered reasons for separation—or worse.

Christians and Jews: From Hostility Toward Reconciliation

I am also grateful for changes in Christian relationships with Jewish people.

I will examine the terrible history of Christian antisemitism elsewhere because it cannot be minimized.

But now there are modern efforts at reconciliation.

At the Second Vatican Council, the Catholic Church issued Nostra Aetate on October 28, 1965. It rejected the idea that all Jews then living—or Jewish people today—could be blamed collectively for Jesus' death. It declared that Jews should not be presented as rejected or cursed by God and explicitly condemned hatred, persecution, and antisemitism directed against Jewish people (Nostra Aetate 4).

That was an enormous change from some earlier strands of Christian rhetoric.

Christians and Jews have since developed extensive programs of dialogue, education, Holocaust remembrance, scholarly cooperation, and friendship.

One visible example is the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, founded in 1983 by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein to build bridges between Christians and Jews while supporting humanitarian assistance (International Fellowship of Christians and Jews).

It is one organization among many, and it does not represent every Christian or every Jewish perspective.

But I find it encouraging.

Christians Are Translating Scripture Together

One particularly beautiful example of modern Christian cooperation concerns the Bible itself.

In 2025, Christians in Italy released an ecumenical literary translation of the New Testament produced through cooperation involving eighteen Christian traditions (United Bible Societies; Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity).

Catholics.

Orthodox Christians.

Waldensians.

Evangelicals.

Pentecostals.

Adventists.

And others worked on the same New Testament.

Imagine telling Christians living during the European wars of religion of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—such as the French Wars of Religion (1562–1598) or the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648)—that someday descendants of these traditions would sit around tables together translating the New Testament (Erdozain, “‘To Kill a Man Is Not to Defend a Doctrine’”).

That is hopeful.

God's Word Is Going Into the Languages of the Nations

And this brings me back to one of the developments in Christian history that I find most encouraging:

Bible translation.

Think about the historical arc.

Medieval Christians painstakingly copied Scripture by hand.

Wycliffe's followers produced an English Bible when books were enormously expensive.

Tyndale fled across Europe while trying to print an English New Testament.

Some people paid an enormous price for the conviction that ordinary Christians should have access to God's Word (British Library, “Wycliffite Bible, Earlier Version”; Library of Congress, “‘Let There Be Light’”; Tyndale, “Letter from Prison”).

Now take that conviction and expand it across the planet.

As of September 2026, Wycliffe Global Alliance reported that at least some Scripture existed in 4,170 languages, translation work was in progress in 4,414 languages, and 543 languages were known to still need Bible-translation work to begin (Wycliffe Global Alliance).

And this is not primarily a Western story anymore.

Bible translation increasingly involves local churches, Indigenous translators, linguists, pastors, scholars, technology specialists, and Christian organizations from countries throughout Africa, Asia, Latin America, Oceania, Europe, and North America (Wycliffe Global Alliance; United Bible Societies).

In 2025 alone, United Bible Societies reported Scripture translations published in 100 languages used by approximately 566 million people. For 66 of those languages, it was the first time any portion of Scripture had been translated. The year’s work included complete Bibles, New Testaments, portions, new translations, and revisions (United Bible Societies).

Hundreds of millions of people now have access to at least some Scripture in languages they understand.

But the work is not finished.

Many millions still lack Scripture in their heart language, and many more have only portions rather than a complete Bible (United Bible Societies).

Bible translation is also no longer only about printed books.

Christian organizations are producing:

audio Scripture,

digital Scripture,

sign-language Scripture,

Braille,

phone applications,

video,

and oral translations for cultures where people primarily encounter information through spoken rather than written language (United Bible Societies; Wycliffe Global Alliance).

For centuries Christians fought to put the Bible in English.

Now Christians are working hard together so that a woman in a remote village, a child hearing Scripture through audio, a Deaf Christian using sign language, or a community speaking a language with only a few thousand speakers can encounter biblical texts in the language that feels like home.

The conviction that God's Word and its message of hope should reach ordinary people has gone global.

I am deeply grateful for that.

The Church Is Becoming More Global

Something else has changed dramatically.

The geographic center of Christianity has shifted dramatically. In 2020, sub-Saharan Africa contained a larger share of the world’s Christians than Europe, and recent global-Christianity estimates place roughly two-thirds of Christians in the Global South (Pew Research Center; Zurlo, Johnson, and Crossing).

Mission increasingly moves in many directions. Christians from South Korea, Brazil, India, the Philippines, Nigeria, and many other countries send missionaries across national and cultural borders, including to Europe and North America—a major change from the older pattern in which Western countries were treated primarily as senders and the rest of the world as receivers (Center for the Study of Global Christianity, “Christianity in Its Global Context”). African, Asian, Latin American, and other Majority World theologians likewise contribute increasingly to global Christian scholarship.

The story is no longer:

The West brings Christianity to everyone else.

Christianity has become an increasingly interconnected global family.

Christianity belongs to no single nation.

No single race.

No single culture.

No single language.

And no single denomination.

The Christian family now spans almost every part of the earth.

Christians Have Also Created Extraordinary Beauty

There is another gift from Christian history that is harder to measure in statistics.

Beauty.

For almost two thousand years, Christian faith has inspired people to create music, hymns, poetry, paintings, literature, and other works intended to express love for God, tell the biblical story, give voice to suffering and hope, and help other people worship.

Some of the greatest music in Western history emerged directly from Christian faith.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) spent much of his life writing music for Christian worship. Many of his most famous works—including his Passions and a large body of cantatas—were composed for the church and organized around biblical texts and Christian worship. Bach also frequently placed the initials S.D.G.—Soli Deo Gloria, “Glory to God alone”—on his manuscripts (Bach-Archiv Leipzig).

Whatever conclusions Christians may reach about every aspect of Bach's theology, his music demonstrates something beautiful:

A person can take extraordinary artistic ability and intentionally offer it to God.

Then there was George Frideric Handel (1685–1759).

His Messiah, first performed in Dublin in 1742, uses a text constructed almost entirely from Scripture (Foundling Museum, “Messiah Libretto”).

Its story moves through biblical promises of the Messiah, Jesus' suffering and resurrection, and the hope of God's final victory.

Centuries later, people across cultures and denominations still stand when choirs sing the Hallelujah Chorus.

And Handel's music became connected not only with worship but with mercy.

Handel’s music also became connected not only with worship but with mercy. In 1749, he gave a benefit concert for London's Foundling Hospital; in 1750, he conducted Messiah there, and the performances became a recurring source of support for the institution. In a later codicil to his will, Handel bequeathed the hospital a fair copy of the score and performance parts of Messiah, enabling benefit performances to continue (Foundling Museum).

I love that combination.

Scripture.

Music.

Beauty.

And care for abandoned children.

Christian creativity has also given generations of believers words to sing when they did not know how to express what they were feeling themselves.

In 1772, former slave trader turned Anglican minister John Newton wrote the words that eventually became Amazing Grace. The hymn was first published in Olney Hymns in 1779 (Library of Congress, “The Creation and Dissemination of ‘Amazing Grace’”).

Newton's life was morally complicated, particularly because of his earlier participation in the slave trade.

But perhaps that is part of why the hymn has endured.

Its message is not:

I have always been right.

It is:

Grace can find someone who has been profoundly wrong.

That theme belongs deeply within Christian history.

People can change.

People can repent.

People can discover that something they once accepted was terrible.

And they can spend the rest of their lives becoming different people.

Christian music also became a source of hope under circumstances almost impossible to imagine.

Enslaved Black Christians in the United States created spirituals out of suffering. They drew deeply from biblical stories—especially Exodus, deliverance, suffering, salvation, heaven, and freedom—and transformed those themes into songs (Library of Congress, “African American Spirituals”).

They sang about Moses.

They sang about crossing Jordan.

They sang about deliverance.

They sang about a world beyond the brutality surrounding them.

Those songs were created by people whom society had tried to strip of freedom and dignity.

Yet they created beauty anyway.

The spirituals survived slavery, helped shape later Black Christian worship, and strongly influenced later genres including gospel and blues (Library of Congress, “African American Spirituals”).

Christian beauty has therefore not belonged only to famous composers.

Sometimes it came from people whose names were never recorded.

Sometimes there was no orchestra.

No formal musical education.

No audience beyond the people suffering beside them.

Sometimes beauty itself became an act of resistance.

An act of hope.

A declaration that suffering would not have the final word.

Christian history is also filled with hymns written in grief.

Songs written during revival.

Poems written in prayer.

Stories written to explore faith, sacrifice, forgiveness, and redemption.

Art created to tell biblical stories.

Music written for funerals.

Songs sung beside hospital beds.

Hymns sung by Christians facing persecution.

Songs carried across languages and continents by people who had almost nothing else in common.

And much of it survives because Christian faith speaks to experiences that cross centuries:

grief,

hope,

failure,

forgiveness,

fear,

love,

death,

resurrection,

and longing for God.

Christianity has given people songs to sing when they are joyful.

Songs to sing when they are grieving.

Songs to sing when they are afraid.

Words to pray when their own words fail.

Music through which generations of people have tried to express something about God that ordinary speech could not quite contain.

I am grateful for that too.

Sometimes Christians have served God by feeding someone.

Sometimes by protecting someone.

Sometimes by translating Scripture.

Sometimes by fighting injustice.

And sometimes by taking a gift for music, writing, or art and saying:

I want to make something beautiful for God.

That too is part of Christian history.

The Christians History Never Named

Most faithful Christians never became famous.

Their names are not in history books.

They did not found denominations.

They did not become popes.

They did not write theological works that survived for centuries.

They did not preach to thousands.

They did not advise kings.

They did not establish famous institutions.

They simply tried to follow Christ.

For every Basil whose care for sick people was remembered, how many unnamed Christians entered homes where people were dying and brought water, food, comfort, or prayer (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43 63–64; Caner)?

For every Benedict whose instructions about hospitality survived, how many ordinary monks and nuns quietly welcomed travelers, fed hungry people, tended wounds, buried strangers, taught children, copied manuscripts, and prayed for people whose names we will never know (Benedict of Nursia, Rule 36, 53)?

For every Francis of Assisi whose encounter with people suffering from leprosy became famous, how many Christians cared for someone society considered untouchable and left no written record (Francis of Assisi, Testament)?

For every Tyndale whose Bible translation became part of history, how many unknown scribes copied pages by candlelight (Library of Congress, “‘Let There Be Light’”)?

How many parents taught children Scripture?

How many pastors preached the gospel?

How many ordinary believers hid prohibited Bibles, shared books, memorized passages, or taught another person God's Word?

For every Michael Sattler whose execution was recorded, how many Anabaptists quietly chose forgiveness rather than revenge (Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, “Sattler, Michael”)?

For every William Wilberforce whose speeches survive, how many Christians signed petitions, boycotted slave-produced goods, donated money, helped formerly enslaved people, or simply began questioning something their society insisted was normal (UK Parliament, “The Abolitionists”)?

For every Amy Carmichael whose life became a biography, how many Christian women cared for abandoned children, nursed sick neighbors, taught girls who otherwise would not have been educated, raised children who were not biologically their own, visited prisoners, or gave away money they could barely afford to lose (Dohnavur Fellowship; Elliot, A Chance to Die)?

For every missionary whose biography survived, how many others spent thirty or forty years quietly teaching children, treating patients, learning another language, translating a few biblical books, training local leaders, or simply loving their neighbors?

How many cooked food for organizers?

Opened churches for meetings?

Provided beds for travelers?

Sang when they were afraid?

Kept showing up when doing so was dangerous?

We do not know most of their names.

That is the nature of history.

History remembers rulers.

It remembers theologians.

It remembers councils.

It remembers reformers.

It remembers trials.

It remembers wars.

It remembers controversies.

It remembers people whose writings happened to survive.

But most goodness is quiet.

Most compassion does not produce an archive.

A widow sharing food with another family does not become a historical document.

A father teaching his children to love their neighbors may never appear in a biography.

A woman sitting beside someone who is dying may leave no record at all.

A Christian forgiving someone who hurt them may transform two lives without anyone else ever hearing what happened.

A family may quietly take in an orphan.

A church may pay someone's rent.

A stranger may pay another person's debt.

A teacher may patiently love generations of students.

A nurse may care for thousands of people over a lifetime.

A Christian may visit the same prisoner for twenty years.

A missionary may serve decades without becoming famous.

A grandmother may pray every day for children and grandchildren.

A man may choose not to retaliate against someone who wronged him because Jesus taught him to forgive.

Someone may sit beside a lonely person.

Someone may bring a meal.

Someone may give money anonymously.

Someone may simply live an ordinary life of kindness, faithfulness, repentance, generosity, prayer, and love.

And then die.

History may never notice.

But God did.

In fact, I suspect that the overwhelming majority of the good that Christians have done throughout history belongs to people whose names we will never know.

They are the hidden Church.

Not hidden because their faith did not matter.

Hidden because ordinary faithfulness rarely makes headlines.

Christian history is therefore larger than the history we can write.

The surviving record disproportionately preserves controversies, wars, councils, famous theologians, institutional decisions, persecutions, trials, and rulers because those things generated documents.

Quiet love generates far fewer.

That is worth remembering whenever we evaluate Christianity through history.

The worst things Christians have done sometimes left enormous documentary trails.

The best things Christians did may have happened in a kitchen.

At a bedside.

In a classroom.

At the door of someone hungry.

Inside a prison.

Around a family table.

In a refugee camp.

In an orphanage.

In a hospital.

On a farm.

In a whispered prayer.

I am grateful for those Christians too.

Perhaps especially for them.

I will never know most of their names.

But they are part of Christian history.

The Church Is More Than Its Worst Chapters

I need this part of Christian history.

Because the articles that follow are going to be difficult.

I am going to discuss Christians defending slavery.

I am going to discuss Christian antisemitism.

I am going to discuss religious coercion and Christians killing other Christians over theology.

I am going to discuss ways Christian institutions treated women that I believe were deeply wrong.

I am going to look honestly at Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and other enormously influential Christians and argue that they could sometimes be seriously mistaken.

But so much of Christian history reveals God's kingdom breaking in:

Justin's church collecting money for widows and orphans (Justin Martyr, First Apology 67).

Christians remaining beside plague victims (Eusebius, Church History 7.22).

Basil approaching people with leprosy (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 43 63–64; Caner).

Benedict telling monks to treat sick people and strangers as Christ (Benedict of Nursia, Rule 36, 53).

Francis going among lepers (Francis of Assisi, Testament).

Christians laboring so ordinary people could read the Bible (British Library, “Wycliffite Bible, Earlier Version”; Library of Congress, “‘Let There Be Light’”).

Wilberforce spending decades fighting the slave trade (UK Parliament, “The Abolitionists”).

Moravians leaving a tiny Christian community to serve people across the world (Moravian Church Board of World Mission, “History”).

William Carey helping launch an enormous movement of Bible translation (Carey Center, “Bible Translations”).

Mary Slessor protecting children (Livingstone, Mary Slessor of Calabar).

William and Catherine Booth going into London's poorest neighborhoods (The Salvation Army, “History”).

Amy Carmichael spending her life caring for vulnerable children (Dohnavur Fellowship; Elliot, A Chance to Die).

Jim Elliot giving his life (Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty).

Elisabeth Elliot forgiving (Elliot, “Timeline”).

Christians creating music and hymns that have carried hope across centuries.

Christians building organizations to feed children, protect trafficking victims, care for refugees, perform surgery, provide clean water, respond to disasters, and defend people suffering violence.

Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Protestants, Evangelicals, Pentecostals, Adventists, and Christians from other traditions increasingly working together.

Thousands of translators working so Scripture can reach languages that have never had it before.

And behind every famous name:

millions of Christians whom history never recorded... but God knows them by name.

The Brokenness in Church History

The question I am examining in the next article is not:

Has Christianity been good or bad?

That question is far too simplistic for two thousand years of human history.

My question is much more specific:

If Christians have been seriously wrong before, how should that shape the way we examine the doctrines we have inherited today?

Christians can misunderstand Scripture.

Brilliant theologians have made serious theological mistakes.

Harmful ideas have been embedded within Christian institutions.

The Church has needed to reform.

But Christian history also gives us enormous reason for hope.

Because Christians can change.

Christians can repent.

Christians can reform institutions.

Christians can recover truths previous generations neglected.

Christians can challenge one another.

Christians can translate God's Word.

Christians can cross barriers of race, language, nationality, and denomination.

Christians who once regarded one another as enemies can become partners.

Christians can look back at something their ancestors defended and say:

We were wrong.

And Christians can return to Scripture.

Some of the Christians I most admire did exactly that.

The Germantown Quakers challenged slaveholding Christians (U.S. National Park Service, “Germantown Friends’ First Protest Against Slavery, 1688”).

William Wilberforce challenged a society in which the slave trade had become deeply entrenched (UK Parliament, “The Abolitionists”).

Bartolomé de las Casas challenged Christian treatment of Indigenous peoples (Las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies; Clayton).

Anabaptists challenged the Christian use of violence (Oyer, “Persecution”; Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, “Schleitheim Confession”).

Sebastian Castellio challenged Christians killing people for theology (Castellio, Against Calvin’s Booklet; Almeida).

Martin Luther King Jr. challenged churches that tolerated segregation (Stanford King Institute, “Letter from Birmingham Jail”).

Bible translators challenged the idea that ordinary people did not need direct access to Scripture (British Library, “Wycliffite Bible, Earlier Version”; Library of Congress, “‘Let There Be Light’”).

Reform did not always come because Christianity was abandoned.

Sometimes reform came because Christians became convinced that Christianity itself demanded reform.

That distinction is central to everything that follows.

I do not criticize Christian history in the articles that follow because I want to tear Christianity down.

I criticize parts of Christian history because I believe Christians should love God and truth enough to acknowledge that we have been wrong at times and remain open to the possibility that reform may still be needed today.

The Christians I admire most are not necessarily the Christians who accepted everything their generation handed them.

Many are the Christians who loved God enough to ask difficult questions.

Who returned to Scripture.

Who cared about people more than institutions.

Who spoke when silence would have been easier.

Who forgave when hatred would have been understandable.

Who served when nobody was watching.

Who kept going when change took decades.

Who were willing to reconsider.

The Gates of Hell Will Not Overcome It

Christian history therefore gives me humility, hope, and gratitude.

Humility, because Christians can be terribly wrong.

Hope, because Christians can recognize error, repent, and change.

And gratitude, because in every century there have been Christians whose love, courage, sacrifice, compassion, faithfulness, creativity, and desire to follow God have made the world better.

Some became famous.

Most did not.

I am grateful for both.

I am glad they are part of my Christian family.

Many of them have helped shape the kind of Christian I want to become.

And after looking across nearly two thousand years of Christianity—the beauty and the ugliness, the courage and the cowardice, the truth and the error, the persecution and the forgiveness, the division and the reconciliation—I am reminded of something Jesus said about His Church:

“I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

(Matthew 16:18)

I believe that.

The Church has survived persecution from outside.

It has survived corruption within.

It has survived deeply flawed leaders.

It has survived division.

It has survived Christians persecuting one another.

It has survived theological controversy.

It has survived empires rising and falling around it.

It has crossed languages, continents, cultures, political systems, and almost two thousand years.

And it is still here.

More than that, Christians are still feeding hungry people.

Still caring for children.

Still treating the sick.

Still visiting prisoners.

Still fighting human trafficking.

Still helping refugees.

Still translating Scripture.

Still crossing cultural barriers.

Still forgiving enemies.

Still seeking reconciliation.

Still creating beauty.

Still worshiping.

Still praying.

Still asking God to make us more faithful.

The gates of hell have not overcome the Church.

But I do not think Jesus' promise should make Christians complacent.

I think it should make us hopeful enough to be vigilant.

Jesus promised to build His Church and that the gates of hell would not overcome it.

He did not tell Christians that every Christian teacher would be right.

The New Testament repeatedly warns us about false teaching, deception, distorted doctrine, and error arising even from within the Christian community (Acts 20:29–30; 1 Timothy 4:1; 2 Peter 2:1; 1 John 4:1).

That means loving the Church does not require assuming that everything the Church has inherited must be true.

Quite the opposite.

If we love the Church, we should care deeply about protecting it from error.

If we love God, we should want to know God as God actually is—even if that requires us to reconsider assumptions about how we have understood and spoken about God.

If we love Jesus, we should want to understand him truthfully.

If we love one another, we should care whether doctrines about God, judgment, salvation, women, humanity, or anything else have been distorted in ways that harm people.

And if Scripture is God's Word, Christians should continually return to it to test what we have inherited.

Jesus himself warned religious people about “making void the word of God by your tradition” (Mark 7:13).

So Christian vigilance is not disloyalty to the Church.

Sometimes it is an expression of love for the Church.

There may be teachings Christians inherited faithfully.

There may also be assumptions, traditions, misunderstandings, or distortions that entered Christian thinking somewhere along the way.

Our task is not to become suspicious of everything.

Our task is to test everything (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

To remain humble.

To listen.

To pray.

To study.

To stay close to God.

To stay close to Scripture.

And to remain willing to reform whenever we discover that what Christians have been teaching does not match what God actually revealed.

The promise that the gates of hell will not overcome the Church does not mean the Church never needs correction.

Christian history itself demonstrates that it does.

Perhaps one of the ways the gates of hell do not overcome the Church is precisely this:

God continues calling His people back to truth.

Christians repent.

Christians reform.

Christians rediscover things they had neglected.

Christians challenge errors that previous generations accepted.

Christians return to God's Word.

And the Church continues.

That gives me enormous hope as I turn to the difficult history that follows.

I am not examining Christian error in order to condemn.

I am examining it because loving the Church means being willing to look honestly at our history, learn from our mistakes, and remain open to correction ourselves.

Jesus is still building His Church.

The gates of hell will not overcome it.

And because I believe that promise, I do not think Christians need to be afraid of examining our history, questioning our traditions, or testing our theology.

Truth will not harm the Church.

Truth will strengthen it.

So let us love the Church enough to celebrate what is beautiful.

Let us love the Church enough to acknowledge what was wrong.

Let us love God enough to seek truth even when it requires us to reconsider tradition.

And let us remain vigilant, prayerful, and grounded in His Word so that whatever error may have entered Christian teaching does not remain there simply because it is old.

The Church has been wrong before.

That leads directly to the next article:

The Brokenness in Church History.