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This issue is a first for Christian History. For twenty-seven issues we have focused on particular individuals, movements, or events. But never have we stepped back to look at the broad, two thousand-year sweep of Christian history. We have looked at individual trees—grand oaks such as Augustine and Calvin—but not the forest.

The very idea seemed overwhelming. How could we possibly present an overview of church history in one issue? Latourette’s classic A History of Christianity requires 1,552 pages of fine print to accomplish the same.

Yet readers had asked for an issue that would orient them to church history, an introductory guide that might be used in classes or discussion groups. And we wanted to show how the diverse figures covered in previous issues of Christian History—Bernard of Clairvaux, John Wesley, and C. S. Lewis, to name three—fit into the sweep of history. By understanding each person’s context, we can better understand his or her contribution.

I discussed these ideas with Christian History’s founder, Dr. Ken Curtis, and he mentioned a book he was planning: The 100 Most Important Events in Church History. The idea made sense for the magazine, too. Perhaps we couldn’t draw a detailed map for every mile of the church’s journey, but we could sketch the most significant landmarks, milestones, and turns in the road. The Council of Nicea, Luther’s posting of The Ninety-Five Theses, John and Charles Wesley’s conversions—these events clearly changed the course of church history. In highlighting these key events, we hoped, we could help people see the big picture, the development and change of the Christian church over time. The project would be an adventure, but we felt it was worth the risk.

Selecting only one hundred key events from church history is not easy. We felt as if we had been given only an afternoon to tour the Louvre, probably the finest collection of paintings in the world. Where do you start, when the museum holds works by Vermeer, Rubens, El Greco, Raphael, and Titian?

Still, a qualified tour guide could show you what are generally considered the more significant works: Rembrandt’s The Supper at Emmaus, or Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. This issue of Christian History aims to be a similar guide through a history filled with treasures.

To determine the dates deserving coverage, extensive research was done by the Christian History Institute and by Christianity Today, Inc. First, a survey was sent to members of the Christian History Institute. Responses were tabulated, the list of events was refined, and a new survey was written.

This was sent to five hundred members of a professional church historians’ society. The group represented a dazzling array of denominations, theological positions, and areas of historical study. Seventy-one percent of respondents hold doctoral degrees.

The survey listed nearly 150 events in church history—the Diet of Worms, the Second Vatican Council, and so on, and asked respondents to mark whether each event was “extremely important,” “very important,” “somewhat important,” “not too important” (or “not familiar” to them). The survey also invited respondents to suggest other church-history dates they considered extremely important.

Finally, the survey was sent to the editorial advisory board of Christian History. These historians completed the survey and suggested still other events worthy of inclusion.

Survey results were tabulated, and “write-in” events were thoughtfully compared and evaluated. From this information a list of the 100 most important events in church history was compiled. (And from that, a list of the 25 most important dates.)

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