This lecture discusses the difficulties for Christians in ascertaining how to follow Jesus today. Scripture in translation may not accurately convey Jesus' words and thoughts, and without that guidance, it's hard for them to find their own paths.
The apostles were the first missionaries; Paul was the greatest. This lecture traces Paul's travels throughout the world and gives us a sense of the man who was possessive of "his" converts, tireless in spreading the Gospel, impatient with delays, and eloquent in writing and preaching.
This lecture examines the reasons why Christians have often died for their faith, and introduces us to the martyrs. Among them are Polycarp, Stephen, and Felicity and Perpetua, who were persecuted before Constantine's conversion, which made Christianity the faith of the Roman Empire.
Some early Christians lived communally, and some were hermits. Antony, who withdrew to the desert alone at 18 and died at 105, was the first monk. This lecture looks at his life, his discipline, and his insights about the value of solitude, labor, stability, and prayer for those who would follow Jesus.
Monasteries began in Egypt. Desert monks like Pachomius, Basil, and Evagrius left records of their wisdom; some monks were women. Their writings are full of tough-minded wisdom gained in the struggle against themselves.
Augustine is one of the most important Christian writers. His life, and especially his conversion, infuse his writing. This lecture shows us who Augustine was and how he found faith.
Patrick, born in Britain and raised a Christian, was abducted by the Irish as a teenager and enslaved. He escaped and returned to spread the Gospel. He brought the gift of faith to his captors and made Ireland a Christian stronghold.
Monasticism spread throughout the West, but monks' lives were various and disorganized until Benedict, who began as a hermit, transformed monastic life with what is now called The Rule of St. Benedict, written about 530. It combined strictness and flexibility, as well as wisdom, and became the universal guide for Western monks.
By the mid-11th century, the papacy and other ecclesiastical institutions had become secular and corrupt. By asserting papal authority over local churches, prohibiting the lay choice of bishops and abbots, and at least on occasion asserting general papal overlordship of the world, the great reform popes of the 11th century, most importantly Leo IX and Gregory VII, sought the general reform of the Church. But papal reform also caused the split between the eastern and western branches of Christianity.
Because monasteries had become wealthy by owning land, monastic life was also intertwined with secular values by the mid-11th century. Then came the great reformer Bernard, the monk, mystic, and leader who founded a Cistercian monastery at Clairvaux and ultimately made the Cistercians the first real religious order with cen¬tralized authority and a common practice.
Francis came from a wealthy merchant family but chose a life of poverty, giving away all he had, including his clothes, and standing naked at the square in Assisi. His call was not only to poverty but to rebuild the Church. This lecture shows Francis's character—the joy he took in poverty—and his humility and faith, the virtues on which he founded the Franciscan order.
Clare, who was born into the aristocracy, ran away from home to follow Francis; he supported her effort to found a Franciscan community for women. As men joined Francis, women joined Clare. They lived out the values of the Franciscans but did so as women, living in a cloistered community of poverty and faith.
Catherine, one of only three female Doctors of the Church, was extraordinary in being active in Siena at a time when women didn't go into the streets alone. She nursed the sick and became a counselor to all kinds of people, including a condemned criminal, a prostitute, and the pope, whom she advised boldly and directly to return to Rome—advice he took.
Bernardino is considered one of the most influential Christian preachers and a noted Franciscan reformer. He preached sermons that interpreted Christian principles for the rising merchant class.
At the end of the 14th century, a moral reform movement began in Prague. Reformers preached in Czech throughout German-dominated Bohemia, calling for a return to God and frequent communion. When John Hus, who questioned papal authority, became their leader, he was excommunicated. He appealed, and was marched out and burned at the stake. The Hussites were eventually forced back into orthodoxy; however, their reforms survived only in the Moravian Brethren, who later influenced John Wesley.
More was born into privilege, highly educated, cosmopolitan, politically well connected, and apparently quite worldly. But he was a man of strong and humble faith. When he refused to recognize Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn, Henry executed him.
Luther was a prolific and insightful commentator on scripture, an Augustinian friar, and a teacher at the University of Wittenberg. Certainly he was the first Protestant and the father of the Reformation, but he was also a man of extreme faith burdened by his failings, and a man of courage who proclaimed the truths of Christianity as he understood them.
When John and Charles Wesley were at Oxford, they founded the Holy Club in response to what they considered Anglicanism's empty formalism. They wanted to study scripture methodically, not just go to services or superficially believe. Their club, and their approach, eventually grew into a new denomination, which drew from the Moravians' ideas on faith and love.
For 1,000 years, Orthodox hermits and communities have lived on Mt. Athos in Greece. Today they live as they always have, in a place outside time, with no electricity, roads, or women. What do these men, in this remote and protected enclave, have to tell us about Orthodoxy and about contemporary Christian practice? Dr. Cook recounts what he's learned on his own visits to a place most people can never go.
Modern Christians, too, still die for their faith. The Nazis jailed Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor, and transported Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan, to Auschwitz. This lecture recounts these 20th-century Christians' lives and deaths at the hands of the state they opposed.
A central call of Christian life is to care for "the least." Father Damien and Mother Teresa are two great Christians who answered that call. Damien's mission was to help Hawaii's lepers, and Mother Teresa's was to help India's poor.
Africans brought to America as slaves were baptized and instructed in Christianity. But the faith of African American slaves stressed freedom and justice. This faith, evident in slave spirituals, persisted in black churches, and gave rise to the civil rights movement. This lecture shows why social justice was a deeply rooted religious goal in Martin Luther King's life and work.
Christianity today flourishes in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia, the Philippines, and South Korea. Poverty is a great concern; Peruvian theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez believes that pastors must minister first to the poor because the poor need them more. This lecture introduces us to Gutiérrez's liberation theology and to its implications for Christian practice.
Now, with much more background, we can revisit the question of what makes a great Christian and decide what our superstars have in common. The answer is simple but profound: the greatest Christians love most greatly.