Church History 2:  From Pre-Reformation to the Present Day


Course Description

Church history is the story of the greatest community the world has known and the greatest movement in world history. Yet just as the biblical record of the people of God is the story of a mixed people who display great acts of faith and great failures in sin and unfaithfulness, so is the history of the people who have made up the church through the ages similarly mixed.


In Church History: From Pre-Reformation to the Present Day, scholars John D. Woodbridge and Frank A. James III recount the ups and downs, the triumphs and struggles, of the Christian movement. They offer a unique contextual view of how the Christian church spread and developed from the period just prior to the Reformation through the next five hundred-plus years. This course also looks closely at the integral link between the history of the world and that of the church, detailing the times, cultures, and events that both influenced and were influenced by the church.


Primary attention is given to the history of Christianity in the West, but the course also covers developments in Africa, eastern Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

By completing this course, you'll gain:

  • familiarity with the most important figures and ideas that shaped the church from just before the Reformation until modern times
  • an understanding of key turning points in church history
  • insight into the dynamic relationship between broader world history and church history
  • confidence in your growing knowledge through personalized review sessions, including award-winning memory building tools, and unit assessments

Course Instructors

Frank A. James III

Ph.D., Oxford; Ph.D., Westminster Theological Seminary


Frank A. James III is the president of Biblical Seminary in Hatfield, Pennsylvania. He is the author or editor of numerous works on the Reformation and has been a consultant and script writer for a historical documentary film series.


John Woodbridge

Ph.D., University of Toulouse, France


John Woodbridge is research professor of Church History and History of Christian Thought at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, where he has taught since 1970. He was previously a senior editor of Christianity Today and is the author of Biblical Authority: A Critique of the Rogers/McKim Proposal and coauthor of Letters Along the Way. He is the editor of Great Leaders of the Christian Church and coeditor of works including The Mark of Jesus. Woodbridge is the recipient of four Gold Medallion Awards.

Course Outline

1.   European Christianity and Renaissance

2.  Luther’s Reformation

3.  Swiss Reformations, Radicals, and Rome

4.  Reformations in England and Refining the Reformation

5.  Christianity in an Age of Fear, Crisis, and Exploration; the
     Question of Authority

6.  Christianity Under Duress

7.   Christianity in the Age of Lights

8.  Christianity in an Age of Revolutions

9.   MIDTERM EXAM


10.  Adjusting to Modernization and Secularism

11.   Nineteenth-Century Christianity in the British Isles

12.  Christian Churches on the European Continent

13.  Global Christianity

14.  Modern Theological Trajectories

15.  Catholicism and Orthodoxy

16.  Contemporary American Evangelicalism; Christianity
       and Islam

17.   FINAL EXAM

Course Textbook

This Course is based on the book Church History Volume Two: From Pre-Reformation to the Present Day by Frank A. James III and John Woodbridge. While taking this course, you will have online access to most of this book's contents. However, if you want offline access or want this book in your personal library as a long-term reference, you may purchase it by clicking on the button to the right which will link you to amazon.ca. 

Course Details

Church History 2

by Frank A. James III and John Woodbridge


15 Units, Self-paced

9 Hours of Video

12 Months of Access to All Online Content

3 Credits toward a Certificate, Diploma or Degree

Support by a Clearwater College Professor


Cost: $510 CAN