Lesson 7: The Late Middle Ages: A.D. 1054-1417

By the end of this lesson, the student should:

(1) Understand some underlying causes for the rapid spread of Islam.

(2) Know the lasting effects of the Crusades.

(3) Recognize the need for reform in the medieval church.

(4) Appreciate God’s faithfulness in preserving the gospel message during a time of apostasy in the official church.

For many people, cathedrals such as Notre Dame and Chartres provide the most memorable images of the Middle Ages. These beautiful buildings are probably the greatest artistic achievement of this period of history.

The Gothic cathedrals represent both the best and the worst of medieval Christianity. On the plus side, they show a deep hunger for God. The cathedrals were “theology in stone,” a way to communicate the glory of God in a building. In a day when most people could not read, the stained glass windows of a cathedral told Bible stories in a way that ordinary people understood.

On the negative side, the statues, altars and chapels show a ritualized religion that had lost the intimacy of relationship with God. Candles replaced personal prayer; worship was conducted in a language that few people understood; the mass became a ritual reenactment of Christ’s death that was unavailable to laymen (only the priest could drink the communion wine).

In this lesson, we will survey the late Middle Ages. We will see the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church as popes sought political power rather than spiritual reality. We will also see how God raised up faithful servants who preached the truth of the gospel, even at the risk of their lives.

Church history in the late Middle Ages cannot be understood without understanding the growth of Islam. Two of the most difficult issues of the late Middle Ages, the Crusades and the deteriorating relationship between the Eastern and Western churches, were strongly influenced by the rapid spread of Islam.

Muhammad was born around 570. In 610, he claimed that the angel Gabriel had given him a message from Allah, the only true God. These revelations were gathered in the Koran and Muhammad raised up a group of followers called Muslims (“those who submit”). Their religion is known as Islam.

When Muhammad and his followers were driven out of Mecca in 622, they retreated to Medina where many more Arabs began to follow this new religion. By 630, Muhammad had returned to Mecca victorious.

After this, the spread of Islam was rapid. By 632, when Muhammad died, Arabia was one-third Muslim. By 634, all Arabia was claimed by Islam. In the next ten years, Islamic armies had conquered Syria, modern Iran, Palestine, and parts of Egypt.

By 638, Muslims controlled Jerusalem. In 690, they built the Dome of the Rock over the stone from which Muslims claim Muhammad ascended to heaven. By the end of the seventh century, Carthage and much of North Africa was controlled by Muslims. From there, Islamic armies began to conquer the eastern Mediterranean. In 711, they invaded Europe and conquered Spain and Portugal. By 720, Islamic armies had crossed into what is now France.

The spread of Islam can be attributed to several factors:

(1) Military strength. The Islamic armies were made up of effective warriors led by strong generals. The promise of eternal salvation won the loyalty of many soldiers.

(2) Political factors. In early days, Muslims allowed some religious freedom in the areas they conquered. Because of this, many Christian communities did not see the threat that Islam represented. This was especially true in North Africa, where many people resented the heavy taxes that Christian rulers from Constantinople imposed on areas under their rule.

Later, after Islam gained control, they took away these freedoms. Conquered people were faced with three choices: conversion to Islam, death, or fines.

(3) Theological. Muslim armies found North African Christianity badly divided. Following the Arian controversy, many African Christians held only a shallow commitment to the church. Much of Arabian Christianity was Nestorian. In addition, the use of icons gave the appearance of idolatry.

Islam’s commitment to monotheism seemed stronger than that of the African church. The simplicity of Islam’s doctrine of God (“There is one God”) appealed to those who were confused by arguments over the Trinity.

Some villages did not even resist the invaders; they willingly transformed their churches into Muslim mosques. Islam took advantage of the church’s weakness to win a large part of North Africa.

Muslim expansion was finally stopped by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732. Both the Eastern and Western churches suffered as a result of the Muslim conquest, but the Eastern Church was most affected. The North African church (home of Augustine, Athanasius, and Clement of Alexandria) disappeared. The Holy Land was lost. Throughout the rest of the Middle Ages, missionary activity was focused almost entirely on northwestern Europe. Western missionaries had little or no success in evangelizing among Muslims.

► Theological confusion in the church of North Africa opened a door to Islam. What doctrinal weakness today provides an opening for false religions in our world?

Although the westward expansion of Islam was stopped at the Battle of Tours in 732, it was not until 1095 that any significant effort was made to regain Muslim territory beyond western Europe. Sadly, this effort was a military rather than a gospel effort. The Crusades were a series of military campaigns to try to reconquer land that was now controlled by Muslims.

Prior to 1095, western armies fought to expel the Muslims from areas they controlled in western Europe. From 1095 to 1291, the Crusades tried to recover Palestine from the Muslim Turks.

There were at least two motivations for the Crusades: access to the Holy Land and the threat of further Muslim expansion into land controlled by Christian rulers. Many people in the Middle Ages believed that they could earn favor with God by going on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. After 638, Muslims controlled Jerusalem and the roads leading into the city. They forced Christian pilgrims to pay high taxes to travel on these roads.

When Pope Urban II called for the First Crusade to free Jerusalem from Muslim control in 1095, thousands of people responded. One monk, Peter the Hermit, gathered 20,000 peasants to fight. They were untrained and had no capable military leaders. All of them were killed. However, on July 15 1099, trained armies captured Jerusalem. Some Crusaders saw no difference between Muslims and Jews, burning Jews alive in their synagogues. Onlookers reported that blood flowed ankle-deep on the Temple Mount. Already in the First Crusade, it was clear that military attacks brought different results than evangelistic outreach.

In 1146, Bernard of Clairvaux called for a Second Crusade to fight off a Muslim threat to Jerusalem. The crusade failed, and Jerusalem was recaptured by Saladin in 1187. The Third Crusade was led by the Kings of France and England, along with the Holy Roman Emperor. Crusaders failed to recapture Jerusalem, but were able to negotiate with Saladin to permit pilgrimages to Jerusalem.

In 1198, Pope Innocent III called for the Fourth Crusade to recapture Egypt. Unfortunately, the Crusaders attacked Constantinople and attempted to dethrone the leader of the Eastern Empire. On Good Friday 1204, Crusaders ransacked the city. For three days, they destroyed churches, melted gold communion vessels, and raped and killed fellow Christians in the name of Christ. Crusaders from the Roman Church ruled what had been the Eastern Empire for the next sixty years. From this point, there was no possibility of reunion between the two parts of the church. The division between Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox was permanent.

Another low point of the crusades was the Children’s Crusade in 1212. About 100,000 teens and children attempted a crusade. The average age of these “crusaders” was twelve. The crusade failed to accomplish any military goal. Many died on the trip; most of the survivors were captured and sold as slaves. The Crusades ended in 1291 when the city of Acre (the last remaining stronghold of the crusaders in Palestine) fell to the Muslims.

What were the lasting effects of the Crusades?

• Politically, the Crusades strengthened the power of national kings. In the early Middle Ages, people’s primary loyalty was to their local “lord" or landowner; the king had little or no impact on their lives. However, as kings raised armies to fight the Crusades, people became more aware of their national identity.
• The Crusades temporarily strengthened authority of the popes. However, as kings became stronger, the authority of the pope was reduced.
• Another impact is seen in the relationship between the Eastern and Western churches. The Crusaders’ actions in Constantinople caused lasting bitterness in the East. The Crusades may have prevented the reunification of the church.
• The practice of indulgences gained prominence during the Crusades. The sale of indulgences was a primary motivation for Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses.
• The Crusades inspired a new interest in the Arabic world. Raymond Lull learned Arabic in order to evangelize Muslims. He set up a college to train missionaries to Islam and wrote apologetic arguments to win Muslims. He died as a martyr in North Africa.

The Crusades, like the formation of the Holy Roman Empire, show the results of attempting to spread the Christian faith by the sword rather than by the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

► With the rise of radical Islam and Islamic terrorism, the issues that inspired the Crusades are again front page news in many parts of the world. How should Christians today respond to the challenge of Islam? If you live in a part of the world in which Islam is a strong force, how are churches in your country attempting to reach Muslims for Christ?

Raymond Lull  is known as the first missionary to Muslims. At the time when the Crusades were proving to be a failure, Lull began a campaign of love. He was sometimes called the “Fool of Love” because of his conviction that the Muslim people could be won to Christ through genuine and sacrificial love. The ministry of Raymond Lull shows that the Crusades were not the only Christian response to Islam.

[3]

Lull was converted at the age of 28, after a wicked life as a young adult. Like Augustine, Lull sought fulfillment in a sensual lifestyle. Following his conversion, Lull sold his property, gave the money to the poor, and offered himself as a “slave of Christ.”

At the age of 40, Lull was called to a missionary career. For nine years, he studied the Arabic language and Islamic culture and religion. He rejected anti-Islamic attitudes encouraged by the Crusades. Unfortunately, as he tried to recruit other missionaries to the Islamic world, Lull found little interest. At the age of 52, Lull made his first evangelistic trip from Genoa, Italy to Tunis in North Africa. There he debated with Muslim scholars. Several Muslims professed faith in Christ. The king ordered Lull arrested and sentenced to death.

After an appeal by some merchants, the king agreed to deport Lull rather than execute him. However, Lull jumped from the ship and returned to Tunis. He remained in hiding while continuing to disciple new converts.

When he returned to Italy, Lull tried to recruit missionaries to both the Muslim and Jewish communities. He continued to take missionary trips to North Africa, Cyprus, and Armenia. He was often beaten and was once kept in a dungeon for a year and a half. Even there, he continued to preach to fellow prisoners.

At the age of 80, Lull again traveled to Algeria where he taught in secret for one year. Finally, after a year, he could not resist the opportunity to preach publicly. He went to the city marketplace and preached until a mob stoned him. Lull died at the age of 80 after declaring, “Death has no terror for a sincere servant of Christ who is endeavoring to bring souls to the knowledge of the truth.” Throughout his ministry, he had insisted that those he recruited as missionaries be committed to the possibility of martyrdom; Lull lived out this conviction.

Lull’s writings continued to influence missionaries to Muslims even after his death. As he prepared for his missionary outreach, Lull learned that no Christian writers were responding to the challenges of Islamic philosophers. He began to write prolifically, writing nearly three hundred works, many of which responded to Islamic objections to the gospel.

In his study of the history of missions, Timothy C. Tennent identifies three contributions Raymond Lull made to missions.[1] Each of these are important to Christian evangelism to Muslims today.

• Lull recognized the long-term effects of the Crusades. He knew that a military campaign is not the most effective way to communicate the gospel.[2] In our world, Christians must not allow political and military issues to hinder our ability to spread the gospel.
• Lull understood the importance of apologetics for Christian evangelism. He knew that effective evangelism must answer Islamic objections to the Christian faith. Today, Christians must continue to respond thoughtfully to Islamic objections to the Christian faith.
• Lull was committed to mobilization of other missionaries. He understood that evangelism in the Islamic world could not be accomplished by one man alone. Like other effective missionaries throughout history, he was committed to recruiting other missionaries. Throughout his life, he devoted his efforts to recruiting other missionaries. Today, we must continue to recruit missionaries. The unreached people groups in Islamic nations will receive the gospel only as Christians commit their lives to the spread of the gospel.

[1] Timothy C. Tennent, Invitation to World Missions, (MI: Kregel Publications, 2010), 240-243

[2]“I see many knights going to the Holy Land in the expectation of conquering it by force or arms; but instead of accomplishing this object, they are in the end all swept away themselves. Therefore, it is my belief that the conquest of the Holy Land should be attempted in no other way than as Christ and his apostles undertook to accomplish it; by love, by prayers, by tears, and by the offering up of our own lives.”
- Raymond Lull

[3]Image: "Bildnis des Raimvndvs Lvllvs", retrieved from the Leipzig University Library https://www.flickr.com/photos/ubleipzig/16874103939/, public domain.

The spread of the Reformation movement is usually dated to 1517, beginning with Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses. However, the Reformation did not begin with Martin Luther. The Reformation was the culmination of a series of revival efforts that grew through the five centuries prior to Luther and his contemporaries. Several factors in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries pointed to the need for reform in the Roman Catholic Church.

Unlimited Power

On the night before he was crucified, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet and said:

"If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him."[1]

Claiming this model, Pope Gregory I took the title, “Servant of the Servants of God.” By contrast, later popes gloried in power. By the thirteenth century, Innocent III took the title, “Vicar of Christ.” Rather than a servant, he saw himself as the ruler of “the whole world.”

In the eleventh century, Pope Gregory VII declared that the authority of the pope was universal, that princes must bow to the pope, and that the pope had authority to free subjects from their allegiance to an earthly ruler.[2] Gregory VII also declared that the Roman Catholic Church had never been in error and would never err.

In the thirteenth century, Pope Innocent III claimed that the pope is “a mediator between God and man, below God but beyond man; less than God but more than man.”[3] This was far from the spirit of Jesus. The pope held nearly unlimited power.

Innocent III said that the papacy was like the sun; the kings were like the moon. Just as the moon receives its light from the sun, kings receive their power from the pope. Popes used their power to control European politics. With the threat of excommunication, popes were able to force kings to submit to their rule.

When a king resisted the commands of the pope, an entire nation could be threatened with an “interdict,” closing all the churches. When a nation was under the pope’s interdict, priests could perform no sacraments other than infant baptism and “extreme unction” for the dying. Masses could not be performed and bodies could not be buried in consecrated ground.

To people who believed that salvation came only through the church, this was a very serious threat. They believed that the pope had the power to bring damnation on every person who lived under a king who resisted the commands of the pope. As a result, the people would revolt against the king in order to force him to obey the pope. Pope Innocent III successfully threatened the interdict eighty-five times to force rulers to submit to his orders. By the twelfth century, the political power of the pope seemed unlimited. The power of the pope was greater than the power of any king.

The Inquisition

The Inquisition remains one of the darkest blots on the history of the Roman Catholic Church. In the early church, the councils rejected heretics who denied the essential truths of the Christian faith. In the early Crusades, the pope used military power to punish those who opposed Christianity. By the late Middle Ages, popes launched the Inquisition against Christians who rejected any teaching of the pope. It was not enough to excommunicate heretics; those accused of heresy were now tortured and killed. Innocent III launched a crusade in which northern French “Christians” killed southern French heretics.[4]

The Inquisition first appeared in 1184 when Pope Lucius III ordered bishops to “inquire” into the beliefs of their members. Those who taught heresy were to be excommunicated. In 1215, Pope Innocent III called a church council in the Lateran palace in Rome. This Fourth Lateran Council officially approved the Inquisition as a church institution.

In 1220, the pope gave the leadership of the Inquisition to the Dominicans, a religious order committed to poverty, service, and obedience to the church. In the Inquisition, an accused heretic had no rights. There was no written law guiding the inquisitor. The trial was secret, and the accused had to prove his innocence without knowledge of his accusers. Few of the accused were able to get lawyers for their defense; lawyers knew that they might be charged by the Inquisition if they defended an accused heretic.

In 1252, Pope Innocent IV authorized torture as a tool for gaining confessions from accused heretics. The Inquisition became the vehicle to torture and kill those who sought to bring revival to the church.

[1] John 13:14-16

[2] The Dictatus Papae

[3] Quoted in Bruce L. Shelley, Church History in Plain Language, 3rd ed. (USA: Thomas Nelson, 2008), 185.

[4] The Albigenses were a heretical group that shared the Gnostic idea that matter is evil. They denied that Christ was truly human. The Albigenses taught that marriage, meat, and material possessions were sinful.

Even as popes like Innocent III gained unlimited power, there were signs that all was not well in the Roman Catholic Church. Like a cancer that grows inside a person who outwardly appears healthy, there were growing signs of weakness.

Scholasticism

Scholasticism refers to the theological method of the late Middle Ages. It sought to reconcile Christian doctrine and human reason. The goal of scholasticism was an orderly and reasonable presentation of Roman Catholic doctrine.

Scholasticism could be presented in either the section on the growing power of the Roman Church or in this section on weakness in the church. Scholasticism shows both a growing emphasis on study in the church (a sign of strength) and a growing dissatisfaction with the authority of the Roman Catholic Church (a sign of weakness). “Scholars” (theologians of the Scholastic movement) raised questions that led directly to the Reformation.

The Rise of Universities

In the early Middle Ages, most schools were operated by Roman Catholic monks. In the late Middle Ages, large cathedrals operated schools. In time, teachers began to open schools independently of the cathedrals. These developed into the universities. By the thirteenth century, important universities were established at Paris, Orleans, Cambridge, Oxford, Bologna, and Padua.

The early universities were not opposed to Christian doctrine. Instead, they were opposed to the absolute authority of the church hierarchy. They believed (like the Christians of the first centuries) that Scripture and reason are not contradictory. The universities became the strongest centers of opposition to the absolute power of the Roman Catholic church.

Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109)

Anselm was a Benedictine monk who served as archbishop of Canterbury from 1093-1109. He is considered the founder of Scholasticism because of his emphasis on rational understanding of Christian theology and philosophy.

Anselm developed the “ontological” argument for the existence of God, an argument that is still used by apologists today. Rather than church authority, Anselm appealed to reason. Anselm did not believe reason replaces revelation or faith. He spoke of “faith seeking understanding.” Anselm believed that faith precedes reason. He used reason to understand more deeply what he believed.[5]

Anselm’s most famous work is a study of the Incarnation, Cur Deus Homo (Why God Became Man). In this book, Anselm explained the importance of the incarnation by showing that only the God-man could satisfy the demands of justice for our sin.

Using the medieval language of honor, Anselm wrote that man’s sin offended the honor of God. This honor must be restored by satisfying the penalty for our sin. However, the satisfaction due to God is greater than humans can ever pay. Sin against God cannot be atoned by humans.  We can never pay the debt we owe to God. Anselm concluded that God must become man to provide satisfaction for sin.

Anselm recognized that Jesus (the God-man) was the only one who could pay this debt. As God, Jesus has the ability to provide satisfaction for man’s sin; as man, Jesus can justly pay humanity’s debt. Anselm’s theory is known as the “satisfaction theory” of the atonement and has remained a very influential way of explaining the doctrine of the atonement.

Peter Abelard (1079-1142)

The French philosopher and theologian Peter Abelard spent much of his life in monasteries, often in exile from church authorities. Church councils twice condemned Abelard for heresy.

Abelard’s most influential writing was a treatise titled Sic et Non (Yes or No) in which he asked 158 questions and answered them with quotations from earlier sources. Abelard quoted Scripture, church fathers, and even pagan classics. He showed that these sources often appeared to contradict each other. Abelard’s purpose was not to discredit Scripture or the church fathers. His purpose was to show that the Roman Catholic hierarchy was not the final authority.

Like Anselm of Canterbury, Peter Abelard tried to explain the atonement. Instead of focusing on the principle of divine justice like Anselm, Abelard argued that the primary purpose of Christ’s death was to demonstrate God’s love to humankind. As sinners saw God’s love, they would be drawn to repentance. Abelard’s theory is known as the “moral influence” theory of the atonement and has been popular among liberal theologians.

Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274)

Thomas Aquinas is considered the greatest theologian of the Roman Catholic church. Like Abelard, Thomas Aquinas studied Scripture, the early church fathers and non-Christian scholars. In his masterpiece Summa Theologica (Summation of Theological Knowledge), Aquinas showed that reason and Scripture are not opposed. The God who inspired Scripture gave us minds with which to understand Scripture. Like Anselm, Aquinas produced arguments to prove the existence of God.

A major difference between Aquinas and Abelard is that Aquinas had much greater respect for church authority. He believed that salvation was available only through submission to the authority of the pope.

Aquinas and his followers taught the doctrine of transubstantiation. The doctrine of transubstantiation teaches that in the Eucharist (communion), the bread and wine are changed into the actual body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Aquinas taught the Roman Catholic doctrine of penance and accepted the practice of indulgences. According to Aquinas, the church had access to a “treasury of merit” (built up through the work of Christ and the good deeds of later saints). After death, the wicked go immediately to hell; the faithful go immediately to heaven. Most Christians, however, are not pure enough to go immediately to heaven. They must be purified in the fires of purgatory. According to Aquinas, the pope and his priests have the authority to dispense “indulgences” from the “treasury of merit” to free souls from purgatory.[1]

The Reformers rejected the practice of indulgences because forgiveness that is based on payment or merit is not based on grace alone. Against the pope’s claim to be a mediator between God and man, the Reformers remembered the words of the Apostle Paul, “there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.”[2]

The “Babylonian Captivity” and “Great Schism”

In 1300, Pope Boniface VIII proclaimed a Year of Jubilee. He announced an indulgence guaranteeing pardon for all sins for those who visited the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul in Rome during the Holy Year.[3] Thousands of pilgrims visited Rome that year.

It appeared that the Roman Catholic Church was strong. However, within three years, Boniface would die in disgrace and the church would face a century of difficulty. Never again would a pope have the unchallenged power wielded by Innocent III during the thirteenth century.

In 1296, Boniface issued a document threatening excommunication for any ruler who taxed the clergy. One hundred years earlier, Innocent III had used the same threat to force national rulers to submit to his wishes. However, in the intervening years, Europe had changed. Now, Edward I in England and Philip the Fair in France refused to submit to Boniface. Both kings threatened retaliation, and Boniface was forced to rescind his threat.

After the successful Year of Jubilee in 1300, Boniface again tried to exert his authority by announcing, “It is necessary for every human being to be subject to the Roman pontiff.” One of Philip’s minister’s responded, “The king’s sword is made of steel; the pope’s sword is made of words.” In the end Boniface was imprisoned in his own bedroom by the king’s troops and died in humiliation. An announcement of the pope was no longer the last word in European politics.

Boniface’s successor (Clement V) was a Frenchman who never set foot in Rome. Clement and the following six popes ruled from Avignon, France. This seventy-two year period was called the “Babylonian Captivity” because people felt that the church was like a prisoner to the French king. In the past, the Holy Roman Emperor had been a tool of the pope; now the pope was a puppet of the French king.

In 1377, Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome. However, the church soon experienced greater problems. No sooner had the “Babylonian Captivity” ended than the “Great Schism” began.

Gregory died shortly after his return to Rome. The Cardinals chose a new pope, Urban VI. Within a few months, the cardinals decided that he was too dictatorial and should be removed. They elected a new pope, but Urban VI refused to leave.

For thirty-nine years, Pope Urban VI ruled from Rome while a rival pope, Clement VII, ruled from Avignon. Each claimed to be the true successor to Peter. Battles were fought between their followers.

By 1409, cardinals from both groups agreed that the situation was intolerable. The Council of Pisa agreed to replace both popes with a third man, Alexander V. However, the original popes refused to step down. Now there were three popes, each of which claimed to hold authority over the entire church. Anyone will agree that three popes are too many popes!

In response, another church council of 350 bishops met at Constance (1414-1418) to end the schism, battle heresy, and reform the church. They convinced one pope to resign, deposed the other two, and elected a new pope, Martin V.

The Babylonian Captivity and Great Schism show the weakness of the Roman Catholic Church prior to the Reformation. Corruption destroyed the credibility of the church long before Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses. The Roman Church created the environment in which Luther’s accusations were understood. Already during the late Middle Ages, God was at work to revive true biblical Christianity.

The Failure of the Conciliar Movement

In the early church, theological differences were resolved through ecumenical councils.[4] Councils at Nicaea and Constantinople affirmed the great creeds of the Christian faith. However, by the Middle Ages, the councils were controlled by the popes. When a pope wanted to gain authority for his teaching, he would convene a council to stamp their approval on his decisions. The councils had no power beyond that given by the pope.

During the Babylonian Captivity and the Great Schism, some church leaders decided to return to the model of the church councils. They believed that a council that was independent of the pope could bring reform to the church. Following the Council of Constance which ended the Great Schism, the bishops agreed to meet regularly to settle issues within the church. This became known as the conciliar movement.

Church leaders hoped that this would lessen the dangers of corruption by an individual pope. However, the conciliar movement failed. Pope Martin V’s successor, Pope Eugene IV rejected decisions by the next council. By 1449, the conciliar movement was dead. Once again, the pope held ultimate power in the Roman Catholic Church, although the church was losing its power in society.

[1] From Cyprian in the third century, churches required acts of penance to show genuine sorrow for sin. An indulgence allowed a person to avoid these acts of penance. In time, they became an excuse for continued sin. People would willingly continue in sin and “buy indulgences,” rather than repenting and turning from the sin.

[2] 1 Timothy 2:5

[3] The practice of “Plenary Indulgence” (full pardon for all sins) for visiting Rome during a “Holy Year” was repeated in 1975 by Pope Paul VI.

[4] An ecumenical council is a meeting of representatives of the entire worldwide church.

[5]“I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. Unless I first believe, I shall not understand.”
- Anselm

We have seen the impact of the conversion of Constantine in Rome, of Clovis among the Franks, and of Vladimir in Russia. The story of Kublai Khan shows how another historic opportunity for evangelism was missed because of church politics.

In 1266, Marco Polo’s father met Kublai Khan, the Mongol ruler. The Khan asked for one hundred monks to teach his people. However, in the 13th century, the Roman Catholic Church was engulfed in political conflict. Church leaders were more concerned with power than with evangelism. Pope Gregory X found only eight monks for this mission. When the trip became difficult, even these eight turned back. By the time missionaries reached Mongolia decades later, Islam and Buddhism were both strongly established. For the next several centuries, the Chinese people remained captive to these two false religions.

One missionary (Patrick) evangelized Ireland. Because of Patrick’s passion for evangelism, Irish missionaries spread the gospel throughout western Europe. Think of what one hundred Christian missionaries could have done in thirteenth-century China!

► Are we missing opportunities for evangelism today? Are there unreached peoples among your neighbors? Visit operationworld.org to learn about opportunities for mission today.

I have a friend who, because of the errors of Roman Catholicism, believes that no true Christians ever belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. In his mind, people who attended Christian worship from 313 to 1517 were no different than pagan idol worshipers.

Living in a modern society, it is hard to understand real Christians worshiping alongside Crusaders who murdered and raped other Christians. It is hard to picture real Christians receiving spiritual food from a corrupt clergy. We would quickly change churches!

However, Christians in the Middle Ages could not imagine starting a new church. To be Christian meant to belong to “one, holy, apostolic church.” Until the late Middle Ages, everyone assumed that the one church in a village was part of that holy, apostolic church. Within a single church, there was a wide range of theological beliefs and worship practices.

One lesson for us today is the encouragement that God has always had a people! Even when much of the church was in bondage to false teaching, God preserved a holy people. Even when the leadership of the Roman church cared more for political power than spiritual piety, there were people who hungered for a deep relationship with God and who lived holy lives.

In the darkest days of the Middle Ages, when the official church was apostate, when Islam was conquering vast regions of Africa, and when there were few voices for the gospel, God raised up men to preserve his Word. Today, when Islam, the New Atheism, and other opponents of Christ seem to be winning the battle for the hearts of this generation, we must remain faithful to God’s Word. Perhaps God is preparing you “for such a time as this.”

Peter Abelard (1079-1143). Scholastic theologian who emphasized the use of reason for theology. He developed the moral influence theory of the atonement.

Anselm (ca. 1033-1109). Scholastic theologian and Archbishop of Canterbury.  He developed arguments for the existence of God and the satisfaction theory of the atonement.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Greatest of the scholastic theologians. His Summa Theologiae attempted to integrate Christian theology and Greek theology.

Innocent III (1161-1216). One of the most powerful popes in history. Claimed power over all secular rulers.

(1) Take a test on this lesson. The test will include dates from the “Key Events in Church History” timeline (1054-1517).

(2) Prepare a biographical sketch of one of the following Christian leaders: Francis of Assisi, Bernard of Clairvaux, or Thomas Aquinas. Your sketch should include four parts:

• Biography: When did he live? Where did he live? When and where did he die?
• Events: What are the most important events in his life?
• Influence: What was his lasting influence on the Christian church?
• Application: What is one lesson for today’s church from this leader?

You have two options for presenting this sketch:

• Submit a 2 page written paper to your class leader.
• Give a 3-5 minute oral presentation to your class

(1) What two theological issues contributed to the success of Islam in North Africa?

(2) ________ _______ stopped Muslim expansion into Europe at the battle of Tours in 723.

(3) The Crusades were fought from ________ to _______.

(4) Pope ______________ in the thirteenth century claimed that the pope was “less than God, but more than man.”                 

(5) The ________________________ was the Roman Catholic system for finding and punishing accused heretics during the late Middle Ages.

(6) The scholastic theologian _____________________________ developed the satisfaction theory of the atonement in his book on the incarnation.

(7) Peter Abelard developed the _____________ ________________ theory of the atonement.

(8) ____________ __________________ is considered the greatest theologian of the Roman Catholic Church. He taught the doctrines of transubstantiation and indulgences.

(9) The years 1305-1377 are called the ____________ __________ of the Roman Catholic papacy.  

(10) During the ___________ __________, three popes claimed authority over the church.