Church History

About this course

This elective follows the church's story from the upper room to the present. It begins with Pentecost, Paul's journeys, and daily life in the first congregations, then moves through Roman persecution and the early martyrs, the councils that produced the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds, the medieval papacy and the Great Schism, the monasteries that copied Scripture and fed the poor, and the missionaries who carried the gospel to Ireland, Germany, and the Slavic lands. The second half covers Wycliffe, Hus, and the printing press; Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and the five solas; a full unit on the Anabaptists, including believer's baptism, the Schleitheim Confession, Menno Simons, the Hutterites, and the peace position; then the awakenings, Wesley, William Carey and modern missions, persecution under communism, and the church as it stands today in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Each lesson opens with a verse from the King James Bible.

The course is 10 units of 10 lessons each, 100 lessons in all, self-paced rather than tied to a daily schedule. A lesson is a short reading, usually 350 to 550 words, followed by a ten-question multiple-choice quiz that grades itself. The writing is plain high school prose that names dates, places, and people without assuming prior background, so a student who has never studied history formally can follow it. There is no equipment, no project requirement, and no prerequisite beyond steady reading. The final unit turns the story toward the student, arguing that most of church history was carried by ordinary believers whose names were never written down.

A few notes for you and your family. This is a reading course, and it tells the church's story honestly, including the parts that do not flatter it: the corruption and sale of indulgences that provoked the Reformation, and a lesson on the Crusades that states plainly that Crusaders committed terrible violence against Muslim and Jewish people and that this contradicted the teaching of Christ. Martyrdom and persecution come up throughout, from Polycarp and Perpetua to the drowning of Anabaptists to believers under communist regimes and in closed countries today. Those lessons carry a short printed note at the top saying the lesson discusses persecution and martyrdom, and they were written to convey the courage without dwelling on the cruelty. Where Christians have long and sincerely disagreed, the course presents both sides from Scripture and then stops: the lessons on justification by faith alone and on nonresistance versus just war each set out the competing positions fairly and then tell your student in plain words to ask you what your family believes and why. The Anabaptist unit is the longest treatment of any single movement, and the later units describe the Pentecostal and charismatic movements descriptively rather than taking a position on them.

What the course covers

• Pentecost, the book of Acts, and Paul's missionary journeys
• Roman persecution, the catacombs, and the early martyrs
• Nicaea, Chalcedon, the creeds, and the divinity of Christ
• The medieval papacy, the Great Schism, and the Crusades
• Monasteries, manuscript copying, and medieval missions
• Wycliffe, Hus, indulgences, and the printing press
• Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and the five solas
• The Anabaptists: believer's baptism, Schleitheim, and nonresistance
• The Great Awakenings, Wesley, and the modern missionary movement
• The global and persecuted church today

What your student will be able to do

• Trace the church's story from Pentecost to the present in order
• Explain what the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds affirm and why they were written
• Describe what the Reformers and the Anabaptists each recovered, and where they parted
• Weigh the church's real failures honestly alongside its faithfulness
• Recognize a question faithful Christians answer differently and take it home to your family
• Connect an ordinary believer's daily service to the larger story God is telling

Scope and sequence

All 10 units of Church History for Grade 11, in the order they are taught.

Inside the course

These photographs appear in the lessons themselves, not just on this page. Every one is freely licensed and credited to its photographer at the foot of this page.

Every lesson, by title

All 100 lesson titles are listed here — nothing is withheld until you download. Open a unit to read its contents.

One whole lesson, exactly as it comes

This is a real lesson taken from the middle of the course — the teaching text, the practice, the homework, and the first three quiz questions with their answers. It is not a marketing excerpt.

Unit 6: Seeds of Reformation — Wycliffe, Hus & the Printing Press · Lesson 1

Why Reform Was Needed

The State of the Medieval Church

By the 1300s and 1400s, the Christian church had drifted far from its biblical moorings. What had begun as a pure faith centered on Christ and His Word had become entangled with politics, wealth, and human traditions. The church controlled vast territories, commanded armies, and accumulated treasures that would astound us today. Yet for all its earthly power, the church had lost something essential: the simple gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

Spiritual Lethargy and False Teaching

Ordinary believers were kept at arm's length from Scripture. The Bible was written in Latin, a language most common people could not read. The Mass was conducted in Latin. Theology became the domain of scholars and priests, while laypeople were expected simply to obey and believe what the church told them. This created a system where false teachings could flourish unchecked. Priests claimed the power to forgive sins, to guarantee salvation, to control access to heaven itself. The Bible promised that Christ alone is our mediator (1 Timothy 2:5), yet the church had placed itself between God and man.

Corruption and Worldliness

Many church leaders were more interested in power and money than in spiritual truth. Bishops and popes lived in luxury, waged wars over territory, and fathered children they passed church positions to. Clergy broke their vows of celibacy, yet there was no accountability. Simony—the buying and selling of church offices—was rampant. A rich man could purchase forgiveness for his sins; a poor man had no hope. This was not Christianity; it was a perversion of it.

The Hunger for Scripture

Yet God's Spirit was stirring hearts. Faithful believers longed to read Scripture themselves, to know God's Word directly rather than through ecclesiastical intermediaries. They recognized the gap between what Jesus taught and what the church practiced. When Jesus said, "It is written," He was calling people back to Scripture. When the apostles opened the Word in synagogues, they empowered ordinary people to test all things by God's truth (Acts 17:11).

Why Reform Became Necessary

The church had become an obstacle to faith rather than a channel for it. Believers saw that the system was broken—that spiritual truth cannot be monopolized or commercialized. Reform was not rebellion against the church; it was a call to return the church to its foundations: Christ as Savior, Scripture as authority, and grace as the only means of salvation. What began as a whisper of correction would soon become a roar that shook all of Christendom.

The first three of this lesson's 10 questions

What language was the Bible primarily written in during the medieval church?

1. English
2. German
3. Greek
4. Latin

Show the answer

Answer: Latin

According to 2 Peter 2:1, what do false teachers bring among believers?

1. Damnable heresies
2. Scientific knowledge
3. Poverty and hardship
4. Political reform

Show the answer

Answer: Damnable heresies

What practice involved the buying and selling of church offices?

1. Monasticism
2. Simony
3. Tithing
4. Pilgrimage

Show the answer

Answer: Simony

Another 7 questions follow in the lesson itself, each one graded the moment it is answered.

What you will need

Drawn from the materials named across all 100 lessons of this course. Most families already own most of it.