Church History Timeline – The Post Reformation Period [ 1600 a.d. – Present ]
Table of Contents
Outline of the Post Reformation
Literary Works From the Post Reformation Period
The post reformation meaning is defined as the time period that occurred directly after the reformation of the church. The post reformation period runs, beginning from the 1600’s to the current century. During this time period reformed Christianity has well been established and many great men have carried its mantle such as King James, Charles Wesley, and William Carey. The Post Reformation has led to many corrections in Biblical theology, a steadier foundation of the Christian faith and many great revivals and awakenings. These periods have led to massive conversions and convictions to reveal to the public the God who created them and His plan for their lives.
TIMELINE OF EVENTS
The Puritans (1600-1699) – Blaise Pascal, John Bunyan, The Westminster Assembly, Richard Baxter and John Owen,
1603ad – Arminius takes the position that predestination is based on fore-knowledge
1603ad – James the First becomes King
1604ad – The Puritans meet James at Hampton Court. Their hopes are dashed
1609ad – Death of Jacobus Arminius
1610ad – Birth of Brother Lawrence
1610ad – The Arminians issue the Remonstrance containing 5 articles
1611ad – The King James Version, the most influential English translation of the Bible
1615ad – Birth of Puritan Richard Baxter, author of The Reformed Pastor
1616ad – Birth of Puritan John Owen, called the Calvin of England
1618ad – The Book of Sports is published. It contradicts the Puritan view of the Sabbath, but Puritans are forced to read it
1618-1619ad – The Synod of Dort is called in the Netherlands to answer the Arminians. The response forms 5 point Calvinism
1620ad – Plymouth, Massachusetts colony founded by Puritans
1623ad – b. Blaise Pascal
1623ad – Birth of Francis Turretin
1625ad – Charles I becomes King. He too is against the Puritans
1628ad – William Laud becomes Bishop of London and steps up oppression of the Puritans
1628ad – Birth of Puritan John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress among many other works of poetry and prose
1629ad – Charles I dismisses Parliament
1630ad – John Winthrop and many Puritans migrate to America
1632ad – Birth of Locke, founder of empiricism
1633ad – The Book of Sports is renewed
1636ad – Harvard founded by Puritans
1638ad – The National Covenant
1640ad – Charles I summons Parliament. They curtail his power
1643ad – The Solemn League and Covenant
1643-1646ad – The Westminster Assembly
1646ad – Cromwell’s army defeats the King at the Battle of Naseby
1647ad – George Fox founds the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
1649ad – Charles I is executed. Oliver Cromwell becomes Lord Protector. c. 1650’s Brother Lawrence became a monk, and “walk(ed) with God around a kitchen for forty years” (Great Christian Books, 57) But he did it to glorify God
1654ad – Conversion of Pascal. He started collecting notes for an Apology for the Christian Religion. It was unfinished, but his notes were published posthumously as Pensees
1658ad – Death of Cromwell
1660ad – Charles II becomes King of England
1661-1663ad – John Eliot publishes the Bible in Algonkian, a Native American language. Over the course of his life he also helped plant at least 14 Native American churches
1662ad – Death of Pascal
1662ad – New Act of Uniformity, over two thousand Puritan pastors resign or are forced out
1675ad – Philip Jacob Spener’s Pia Desideria helps begin the pietist movement. Edict of Nantes is revoked, making Protestantism illegal again in France. Many huguenots emigrated, some stayed and met in secret
1685ad – Birht of J.S.Bach, called the fifth evangelist
1687ad – Death of Turretin. His Institutes of Elentic Theology were published the next year
1688ad – William and Mary take the throne. Puritans are free to preach and establish their own churches
1691ad – Death of Brother Lawrence
The Great Awakening (1700-1799) – Moravians, Methodists, William Wilberforce, Charles Hodge, Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield
1703 b. Jonathan Edwards
1706 Francis Makemie founds the first Presbytery in America in Philadelphia
1714 b. Immanuel Kant, a leader of the Romantic movement. He said knowledge is not what is, but only what our minds can grasp
1714 b. George Whitefield
1727 “The Golden Summer.” A revival broke out among Count Nikolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf and the Hussite Moravian refugees he had taken in. Many Moravian missionaries were sent overseas
During the 1720’s, revival breaks out as Theodore Frelinghuysen preaches in New Jersey. Revival spreads through Gilbert Tennant to New Brunswick. It is the first stirrings of the First Great Awakening
1734-1737 The Great Awakening continues as Jonathan Edwards preaches in Massachusettes. Revival spreads to Connecticut
1739-41 George Whitefield joins Edwards. He traveled diligently, traveling between England and America 13 times, and was able to reach about 80% of the colonists with the gospel
1739 The Methodists begin as a parachurch society in London
1741 The conservative Old Side/ pro-revival New Side controversy in American Presbyterianism
1746 Princeton founded by the Presbyterians
1754 Dartmouth founded for Native Americans
1758 Old Side/New Side schism healed
1759 b. Charles Simeon, founder of low-church party of Church of England
1759 b. William Wilberforce, an evangelical in the Church of England, who fought against slavery
1761 b. William Carey
1764 Brown founded by Baptists
1766 Rutgers founded by Dutch Reformed. All these new colleges were fruit of the Great Awakening
1768 Lady Huntingdon, who brought Methodism to the upper classes and founded “The Countess of Huntingdon’s Connexion”, opened Trevecca House as a Methodist Seminary
1770 d. Whitefield.
1772 b. Archibald Alexander, who would organize Princeton Theological Seminary
c.1773-1775 Founded, the first black Baptist church in America, Silver Bluff, South Carolina
1779 Olney Hymns produced by John Newton and William Cowper. It includes “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds” and “Amazing Grace”
1783 b. Asahel Nettleton
1784 John Wesley baptizes Thomas Coke, making Methodism a denomination separate from the Church of England
1787 Archibald Alexander at Hampton Sydney College. May be considered the first early stirrings of the Second Great Awakening
1791 d. Lady Huntingdon
1792 William Carey preaches “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.”
1792 Particular Baptist Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen founded, later called the Baptist Missionary Society
1792 b. Charles Finney, inventor of modern revivalism
1795 London Missionary Society founded
1797 b. Charles Hodge
1799 Church Missionary Society founded
1799 Friedrich Schleiermacher’s On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers presented Christianity in a Romantic, subjective light. Precursor to Liberalism
The Second Great Awakening (1800-1899) -D.L. Moody, John Henry Newman, B.B.Warfield, C.H.Spurgeon, Princeton Seminary and Abraham Kuyper
1800 The first camp meeting in Kentucky is presided over by Calvinist James McGready
1801 William Carey’s Bengali New Testament published
1801 The Cane Ridge Revival in Kentucky is an early stirring of the Second Great Awakening
1808 Henry Martyn publishes the New Testament in Hindustani
1809 Harvard having been lost to Unitarianism, Andover Seminary is founded
1812 Princeton Seminary founded
1812 b. James Henley Thornwell, the great Southern Presbyterian mind whose influence is still felt in the PCA
1813 b. David Livingston, missionary and explorer in Africa
1813 b. Soren Kierkegaard. African Methodist Episcopal Church founded in 1816 by Richard Allen, a freedman who had been the first black Methodist to be ordained as a deacon
1824 Charles Finney leads revivals from Wilmingham to Boston. The Second Great Awakening is underway
1825 Charles Hodge founds the Princeton Review
1834 d. William Carey, called “the Father of Modern Missions”
1834 b. C.H.Spurgeon
1835 Hodge’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans
1835 Finney’s Lectures on Revivals. The Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion by William Walker
1833-1841 The Oxford Movement, or the Tractarian Movement, attempts to bring the Church of England closer to Catholicism. Tried to popularize the Via Media. Led by John Henry Newman
1835-1837 Adoniram Judson translates the Bible into Burmese
1837 b. Abraham Kuyper
1837 b. D.L. Moody
1837 Old School/New School controversy splits American Presbyterianism
1843 The Disruption of the church in Scotland
1844 d. Asahel Nettleton, Calvinist leader who opposed Finney’s formulaic view of revivalism during the Second Great Awakening
1845 John Henry Newman converts to Roman Catholicism
1848 b. Mary Slessor, who the Africans she would minister to called “The Mother of All of Life”
1851 d. Archibald Alexander
1851 b. B.B.Warfield, Princeton theologian who would defend inerrancy
1852 b. Adolf Schlatter, a respected conservative voice in liberal Germany
1854 Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary
1855 d. Kierkegaard
1857 Finney’s Lectures to Professing Christians written to influence the practice of “Christian Perfection.” Origen of Species, 1859, Darwin
1860 Essays and Reviews published. A liberal manifesto by 7 Church of England priests
1861 Spurgeon moves to the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Soon he is preaching to over 6,000 per week
1864 Old School/New School schism healed in the South
1869 Old School/New School schism healed in the North
1870 Vatican I, and the declaration of Papal Infallibility when speaking ex cathedra
1870 Fifty year celebration of Friedrich August Tholuck’s professorship at Halle. Tholuck was the spiritual father of thousands of students, and mentored Charles Hodge
1873 d. David Livingston
1875 d. Charles Finney
1874 The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation by Albrecht Ritschl reduces Christianity to a social gospel
1878 d. Charles Hodge
1879 John Henry Newman made a Cardinal
1881 b. J.Gresham Machen
1886 Abraham Kuyper leads a major sucession in the Dutch Reformed Church
1886 The Student Volunteer Movement
1886 b. Karl Barth
1890 d. John Henry Newman, who became one of the most influential Roman Catholic thinkers of his time
1892 d. C.H.Spurgeon
1898 Kuyper’s Lectures on Calvinism at Princeton’s Stone Lectures urge the development of a Christian worldview encompassing all of life
1899 d. D.L. Moody
The Modern Period (1900-Present) – G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, B.B.Warfield and Dietrich Bonhoeffer
1900 What is Christianity by Adolf Harnack reduces Christianity to the personality of Jesus in the synoptics, without any supernatural elements
1905 d. George MacDonald, Christian novelist and Poet
1906 Azusa St. Revival, a major catalyst to the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches
1921 d. B.B.Warfield
1922 “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” sermon by Harry Emerson Fosdick
1922 “Shall Unbelief Win?” sermon by Clarence Edward Macartney
1923 Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen
1925 Scope’s Monkey Trial brings national attention to Fundamentalism
1929 Machen and others found Westminster Seminary after Princeton is lost to the liberals
1934 Conversion of Billy Graham
1936 d. G.K. Chesterton
1941-43 Rienhold Niebuhr’s The Nature and Destiny of Man
1945 Dietrich Bonhoeffer hanged by the Nazis
1945 d. Charles Williams, who wrote Christian metaphysical thriller fantasy novels and hung out with C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien
1950 Doctrine of the Assumption of Mary
1950 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the first of The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
1951 Richard Niebuhr’s Christ and Culture
1955 L’Abri Fellowship founded by Francis Schaeffer
1962-1965 Vatican II
1963 d. C.S.Lewis
1968 d. Karl Barth
1968 Liberation Theology comes to prominence in the second Conference of Latin American Bishops
1968 The God Who is There by Francis Schaeffer
1973 Mission to the World of the Presbyterian Church in America
1999 The twentieth century had more Christian martyrs than all the other centuries combined. Find out more from The Voice of the Martyrs
References – Post Reformation Period
Medieval and Reformation Period Texts and Documents
Christian History Institute – Post Reformation Church History