Founded around 30 A.D. by Jesus Christ.

Jesus was killed by Romans in Jerusalem, a main city in Palestine. He spent no more than 3 days and 3 nights in a tomb. He rose from the dead and appeared to several people over the next few weeks. He then ascended to a place he called heaven. At that time, there was no real organized church.

He told his followers to wait for power from "on high" before they went out to form any kind of movement in his name. No problem, because they were afraid of the persecution that had already arisen from the brief ministry of Jesus in Palestine. However, power did come, miraculously, in the "pouring out" of what is called the Holy Spirit. The newly empowered disciples, as they were called, went everywhere preaching the good news of their faith, no longer afraid but filled with faith and the Holy Spirit. The only real, authoritative, history we have of the "primitive" church is the New Testament, especially the Book of Acts. This book takes us to no more than around 60 A.D., leaving us with Paul imprisoned.

Any other early church history we have comes from scant sources, some more unreliable than others. We have speculations pieced together from men trying to figure out when someone wrote something, like the letters written by the apostles. Other speculations use documents pretty far removed from the actual events. They are unreliable because they are written for subjective reasons such as self-promotion (witness Josephus), or they are promoting favorite doctrines by editorializing on remote sources, such as what I am doing right now. But as we cull through a lot of testimonies, we can piece together a picture of how it must have been for the first hundred years of the church. This is the way church history is written, and there are probably several hundred such books. This brief history does not attempt to outdo them or undo them, but merely to set in order a couple of things for the average Christian reader who has no time for finding things out.

The early church was persecuted. All histories verify this. The disciples had a powerful new religion, but it seemed there was a powerful opposition to it from Jews and Gentiles alike. This is fully documented in many historical accounts. The main account we have for this period comes from Roman history. Rome tried to stamp out Christianity by stamping out Christians. This went on for almost three hundred years. Both Christian and secular sources verify this. During this period, most, if not all, modern Christian ideas and attitudes were formed, argued about, fought over, discarded, reformed, anathematized, held precious, held in contempt and fought over some more. During this period, the New Testament was canonized, that is, only some writings were included as inspired and authoritative; the rest were excluded as non-canonical. Underlying all this activity, the preaching of the gospel brought persecution no matter where in the world the good news went. We can imagine that during this three hundred years many evangelists went not only through the Roman Empire, but everywhere in the world. We don’t have much of an account outside the "known world" (that is, the Roman world); however, that doesn’t mean the gospel stayed put; only that it was pretty much rejected.

All of the foundational tenets (religious teachings) of the faith were set in stone by, say, 325 A.D. Up until this time, in order to be a Christian you had to be willing to die for your faith. Your religious ideas were in direct conflict with the religious ideas of those in power. If you renounced your faith, as many did, some churches did not readmit you when the heat was off and you decided it was time to be a Christian again (this caused much division in the early church) Then there were church bodies who felt that Jesus didn’t really come in the flesh, or some that allowed other ways to God besides Jesus, or he wasn’t really born of a virgin, etc., etc., etc. So they started their own denominations, or cults (whatever). These things are still fought over today, if not in fights between churches, then at least in one’s own mind.

It is interesting to note that even though the Roman government in all its power tried to rid the world of Christianity, it was not successful, whereas other parts of the world appear to have succeeded in their effort. We have little history of the gospel outside the Roman Empire for the first three hundred years. This is important to keep in perspective that early church history as we have it today is mostly a Roman thing. I am aware that there are plenty of histories, Egyptian, Indian, Mormon, etc., that are not Roman histories, but I don’t see any real authority in these histories, either.

Something very interesting happened in the early part of the fourth century. The Roman Emperor, Constantine, made Christianity into the state religion. Just like that. Christianity went from being the persecuted to being the persecutor. This is where church history really comes alive, of course. The Roman Empire was crumbling, but the Church rescued it. With the powerful teaming up Christianity and Rome, the church could now have big buildings, fancy festivals, gospel campaigns (bloody and otherwise), and the blessings of secular government. They could also use the state propaganda machinery to spread the new religion (you can have your cake and eat it too).

It took another 250 years or so for the Holy Roman Church to put its first Pope in power, but all the preparations for a secularized church had been in place since Constantine. So, say from about 590 to around 1517, the Catholic Church had supreme power in the area formerly the Roman Empire. There may have been millions of true conversions in this time period; maybe not. How many thousands of true Christians were martyred during this time is hard to estimate. We have a few records, but remember that they are mostly official church records. Also, we have things like Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, but where did he get his information? However, in piecing together various accounts, it is clear that much persecution of true Christians continued regardless that the state religion was Christianity. Later records, say from the fourteenth century on, are more reliable and show the vast efforts to stamp out unauthorized Christianity. Present-day news reports tell the same story, so we have no reason to discount this trend in church activity..

Missionary activity consisted mostly of conquering pagan countries in the name of the Church, according to the official records. However, there must have been some preaching of the good news apart from organized establishments in various locales. Maybe the message of the gospel was passed word of mouth to relatives and associates, much like it happens today. The official church may have been taking all the credit, but it is disputable that the Holy Roman Empire and its Catholic Church was doing much real evangelizing at all. It seems, from modern perspective, that they were merely spreading the Holy Roman Empire and its flavor of Christianity. They certainly tried to dull the effect of unauthorized preaching by various efforts (like mounting armies against settlements, or burning heretics if they could catch them singly).

There was something called the Reformation, somewhere in the early sixteenth century. To place it in American history, Columbus had just sailed the ocean blue and found the West Indies. Remember that we are mostly dealing with European history at this point. Russia, Turkey and those guys had their own brand of Catholicism by now (called the Orthodox Church). The British were becoming a force to be reckoned with. The Renaissance was around the corner. The Dark Ages were over. If you haven’t read a story about the Reformation, then you should. That’s what launched our modern world view (some would discount this and say it was the Renaissance, but they are secularists anyway).

As the Reformation swept the civilized world (Europe, mostly), the above-mentioned church began to lose its military strength. It lost its power to be the sole propaganda machine. Germany was lost, then Switzerland, France, England. The Russians had already had their own Catholicism, so they don’t count. The Catholic missions remained strong, however. The formerly uncivilized world was indoctrinated into the Catholic religion. But now, the rebellious "Protestants," as they were called, began to do their own missionary outreaches. Wars were fought and people were killed, tortured, run out of their own countries, and worse. Modern church history is just loaded with persecution stories.

The British rebelled and formed their own state church. They also decided they should own the rest of the world, too, and sent colonists to their holdings. They ruined the Spanish navy and their Catholic cause. This allowed them to establish their sway in Northern America. I don’t know what they teach in public school nowadays, but I was told some Pilgrims and other dissidents came over and had something to do with the setting up of local government. They grew tobacco and made rum. After a while, they rebelled against England and started their own government, with an attempt to provide religious freedom. That was a little over two hundred years ago. This government was called "a noble experiment," but was deemed too unstable and unrealistic to last very long. It has lasted and become the world power.

The church history we are likely to hear from American schools today is that our forefathers died trying to make sure that Islam, witchcraft, Buddhism and North American spiritism should have equal representation in state affairs. This is a lie, because our forefathers hated those things and were active in converting or removing such elements from society. For instance, North American Indians (called "native Americans" by the politically correct) were either eliminated or absorbed into the culture of European religion. Protestants appeared to have the day. The Roman Catholics were tolerated, if suspiciously so.

It wasn’t long before the right to freedom of religion was put to the test. Eventually, in order to keep up the appearance of toleration, every sort of vile religious practice and devilish belief system had to be accommodated. Today, America stands as the model of Christian toleration. However, true Christians who don’t have any nation or church they can call home, who don’t really care to be called Protestant or Catholic or Orthodox, are still persecuted. They just don’t seem to fit in. Their teachings are based on the Bible, in which they profess to be skilled. They say such things like "scripture alone," or "faith alone." If they find a practice in a church that is contrary to the Bible, they make a noise about it. They think they have some sort of authority apart from the state religion, or, in the case of America, apart from every sect run by itinerant preachers. Even worldwide fads like Pentecostalism have no authority over them, they say.

It’s nice to know that public education, the media, and just about every other form of propaganda, is being run by the loving, tolerant and non-judgmental children of the sixties and seventies, who once participated in the "Jesus People" movement and are now the antichrist counselors of a nation whose church is weak and its people fat and bloated with greed. We can be assured of many comfortable years of having our cake and eating it too. Unless, maybe, we have to defend ourselves from the oil-crazed terrorists out there, but that’s another story. At any rate, persecution becomes rare when the wheat is dressed up like the tare.

Because I am not a historian, I realize some of the foregoing is not technically correct. The reader is welcome to add any corrective or illustrative historical information to the foregoing, as long as it isn’t pedantic or self-promoting, and lends itself to the flavor of this rumination; that is: the true church has always been, and will always be, persecuted. Large historical tracts that show the superiority of the author are boring, anyway.

- Chris Simonson

We encourage you to email the author to prove or disprove, from the Scriptures, the intent, meaning, purpose or doctrine of this piece. email Chris