Know what you believe, and why.

Start here

• Before you beginWhat this site is, who it is for, and why it covers four traditions and not others.

God, creation and the fall

• The TrinityOne God in three Persons - the ground on which everything else in this course stands.
• Creation and the image of GodWhy there is something rather than nothing, why it is good, and what it means that you bear His likeness.
• The fall, sin, and why we need savingWhat went wrong, how deep the damage goes, and why no amount of effort repairs it.

Jesus Christ

• Jesus Christ, true God and true manThe incarnation, the virgin birth, and the one Person who is both God and a particular Jewish man.
• The ministry and the crossWhat Jesus did, why He had to die, and the several true things the Church says about the cross.
• The resurrection and the ascensionThe bodily rising of Christ, the evidence for it, and what it means that a man now sits at the right hand of God.

The Spirit, the Scriptures and the Creeds

• The Holy SpiritThe third Person of the Trinity - who He is, what He does, and why He is not an impersonal force.
• Scripture and authorityHow God's word comes to us, where the Bible came from, and the real disagreement about who reads it.
• The Apostles' Creed, line by lineThe baptismal creed of the West, taken one clause at a time.
• The Nicene Creed, line by lineThe Church's conciliar confession, clause by clause, with the arguments each phrase was written to settle.

The Church and the sacraments

• The Church and the ordained ministryWhy the Church is visible, what bishops and priests are for, and the one question that divides the four.
• BaptismWhat God does in the water, and the full case for baptising infants.
• The EucharistWhy the bread and wine are never merely a reminder, and how the four traditions explain what they will not deny.
• Repentance, confession and forgivenessHow sin after baptism is dealt with, and why the Church has always had a ministry of absolution.
• The other sacraments and mysteriesConfirmation, marriage, ordination and anointing - and why the four traditions count differently.

Grace, salvation and the saints

• Grace, faith and justificationHow a sinner is put right with God - the argument that split the West, and how much of it still stands.
• AssuranceCan a Christian know he is saved? The four traditions answer differently, and the difference is pastoral before it is theological.
• Calvinism examinedThe five points, stated fairly, and how each of the four traditions answers them.
• The communion of saintsThe Church across death - honouring the holy, asking their prayers, and where the four divide.

Prayer and worship

• Prayer and worshipWhat prayer is, the kinds of it, and why Christian worship has a given shape rather than an invented one.
• The Lord's Prayer, petition by petitionThe prayer Christ gave, taken one clause at a time - the shortest complete summary of the Christian life.
• LiturgyThe shape of Christian public worship, where it came from, and why it is not an optional style preference.
• Daily prayerA rule of prayer you can actually keep - the hours, the psalms, and what to do when it goes cold.

The Christian life

• The Ten CommandmentsThe commandments one by one, why the traditions number them differently, and what each requires as well as forbids.
• Marriage and familyWhat marriage is in Christian teaching, what the home is for, and where the four traditions differ on divorce and remarriage.
• Vocation and workWhy ordinary work is a calling, and why God does not need your good works but your neighbour does.
• Charity and care for one's neighbourWhat love actually is, who counts as a neighbour, and why almsgiving was never optional.
• Divine healingWhat the Church prays for the sick, what she has never promised, and how to answer both the sceptic and the faith healer.

The last things

• Death, judgment, and the life of the world to comeWhat happens when you die, what the Church prays for the dead, and why the hope is resurrection rather than heaven.

The Modern Church

Where modern beliefs and movements actually came from, and how to answer them. Written about these movements for readers in the four traditions, not for them - this site does not offer teaching material for any of these churches.

• Why this section existsWhat the Modern Church section is for, how it is written, and the three threads that run through every movement it covers.
• Timeline of the movementsEvery movement in this section on one chart, with the lines of influence drawn in - trace any modern belief back through the people who passed it on.
• Where modern beliefs came fromA lookup table - find a modern belief, see where and when it actually began, and follow the link to the full story.
• PersonalitiesFull profiles of the people who shaped these movements most, and a brief card for everyone else - teachings, documented controversies, death, legacy and sources.
• The Radical ReformationZwickau, Zürich and Münster - where believer's baptism, the "inner word" and the self-appointed prophet first appear, and what Luther said about them.
• Zwingli, the Puritans and the first BaptistsWhere the "memorial" Lord's Supper, worship stripped to what Scripture commands, and the Baptist churches actually came from.
• Revivalism and the "second blessing"Wesley's Christian perfection, the Holiness movement's second blessing, and Charles Finney's "new measures" - the origins of the altar call and the sinner's prayer.
• The Plymouth Brethren and dispensationalismDublin, Powerscourt and Plymouth in the 1820s and 1830s - where the "ruined Church", the secret rapture and the Scofield Bible came from.
• Edward Irving and the Catholic Apostolic ChurchTongues, prophecy and twelve restored "apostles" in 1830s London - a forerunner of Pentecostalism that ended, strangely, as one of the most liturgical churches in Britain.
• Restorationists and date-setters"No creed but Christ", the Great Disappointment of 1844, and the churches that grew from the conviction that the true Church had been lost.
• The healing movement, 1870s-1910s"Healing in the atonement", John Alexander Dowie's Zion City, Maria Woodworth-Etter's trances and John G. Lake's healing rooms - the bridge from the Holiness movement to Pentecostalism.
• The Welsh Revival, 1904-05Evan Roberts, the meetings without preaching, the visions and the breakdown - and how reports from Wales lit the fuse at Azusa Street.
• Topeka and Azusa StreetCharles Parham's Bible school in 1901, William Seymour's mission in 1906, the quarrels that followed, and where "tongues as the initial evidence" came from.
• The history of tonguesFrom "missionary tongues" to private prayer language - what early Pentecostals expected, what happened on the mission field, what linguists have found, and what the Fathers said.
• Oneness PentecostalismThe 1913 "New Issue" - how a camp-meeting sermon on baptism led part of the Pentecostal movement to reject the Trinity.
• Pentecostal celebrity evangelists, 1910s-1940sAimee Semple McPherson's Angelus Temple and her 1926 disappearance, Smith Wigglesworth's rough methods and legends, Charles S. Price, A.J. Tomlinson and George Jeffreys.
• The healing revival, 1947-58, and afterWilliam Branham's angel and serpent seed, Jack Coe's arrest, A.A. Allen's miracle oil, Oral Roberts's tent, Kathryn Kuhlman's miracle services - and what doctors found when they followed up.
• The New Order of the Latter Rain, 1948North Battleford, Saskatchewan - gifts imparted by laying on of hands, restored apostles and prophets, personal prophecy and the "Manifest Sons of God".
• Word of Faith and the prosperity gospelE.W. Kenyon, Kenneth Hagin and Oral Roberts - positive confession, health and wealth, "little gods", seed faith, and the televangelist scandals of 1987-88.
• The Charismatic Renewal, 1960 onwardWhen Pentecostal experience entered the Episcopal, Lutheran and Catholic churches - Dennis Bennett, David du Plessis, Duquesne - and how each of the four traditions responded.
• The shepherding and discipleship movementThe "Fort Lauderdale Five", personal "covering" and submission to shepherds - a charismatic attempt at order that became a system of control, and was repented of by its own founders.
• The Third Wave, the Vineyard and the Kansas City ProphetsJohn Wimber's "signs and wonders", the Kansas City Prophets and their failed predictions and moral failures, and the Toronto Blessing.
• The New Apostolic Reformation and the "five-fold ministry"C. Peter Wagner's "Second Apostolic Age" - modern apostles and prophets governing networks of churches, spiritual mapping and territorial spirits, and the "five-fold" reading of Ephesians 4:11.
• The Seven Mountains Mandate and dominionismFrom Loren Cunningham and Bill Bright's 1975 "spheres of influence" to a mandate to take dominion over every sphere of society - with Christian Reconstructionism and "Kingdom Now" alongside.
• Church growth, seeker churches and the megachurchDonald McGavran's homogeneous units, Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller's self-esteem gospel, the seeker-sensitive service, and worship as performance.
• The modern movements in IndiaGroves and Aroolappen in Tirunelveli, the Kerala Brethren, Mukti, the Indian Pentecostal churches, The Pentecostal Mission, Bakht Singh, Paulaseer Lawrie and D.G.S. Dhinakaran.