A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years
MacCulloch, the author, goes farther back on the timeline than what you would logically think of as purely Christian history; after all, the title claims to speak of the 3000 year history of a religion that has officially only been in existence around 2000 years. But it is impossible to speak of Christianity without addressing Judaism, as well as the philosophical developments of the Hellenistic mediterranean. From there he flies forward through the historical Christ, the early church, the development of the imperial church and the eastern churches, the Churches that eventually came from the patriarchate of Constantinople, the impact of islam, the Church during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the spread of the church across the globe, and finally the impact of American Evangelicalism. Not half bad for a one volume book.
The few faults I could find with this book are those of every history book, they will inevitably favor certain historical theories and ideas over other ones. This especially happens in the first 200 pages, where the story is a bit more uncertain and theoretical. And like most historians, MacCulloch favors certain figures with more attention than other people might have (Origen comes to mind) and is oddly succinct about others (I thought his section of Aquinas was quite succinct, and I can't remember hearing Duns Scotus even mentioned). But despite these acceptable and expected shortcomings, I found that the author is delightfully openminded and objective, keeping a respectful and enthusiastic tone about most every aspect of the Christian religion. He is quite candid about both the good and the bad effects that Christianity has had on the world.
I wholeheartedly recommend this book as a way to become familiar with the cultural and historical context in which Christianity exists today. It is readable and enthralling. I haven't seen a book of its type on the market which can rival it.
7 comments:
Man, all these book reviews make me feel like maybe I should start doing some research. But the very thought of researching Christianity gives me a anxious ball in my stomach. It makes me feel too much like those old Bible classes at ECA.
I suppose if I decide to start, I'll start here...
I dunno, I can't expect the same of everyone. Especially because this kind of research is actually enjoyable for me, and a drag for most people.
That being said, I started the research because the ball in my stomach wouldn't go away. Reading this stuff only made it worse for a while, and then it suddenly started getting better and I think I understand it all better than I did before and am at peace with a lot of it much better than before. It is hard to explain why though.
would you share some of your conclusions? you say you´re at peace with a lot of it, you mean with Christianity and its history? or with eca?
i can definitely say i´m at peace outside of Christianity as a religion and label. any thoughts on that after reading the book?
No daniel, I wasn't talking about ECA, I meant christianity in general.
Since I had my major faith/existential crisis in college, I had kept most of my explorations to the broadest religious ideas (I'm talking things like the existence of God kind of ideas) and had returned to christianity because it fit many of my conclusions as well as because of inertia.
And as I said before, most of my theological background was created in high school, so going back to square one of christianity and exploring things like historicity, canon, creed, etc, was a very interesting experience for me. It was both disturbing and comforting to realize how horrible Christians have been (even, or especially, its leaders). It is hard to explain.
And then it was nice to hear a more objective voice broach a lot of these topics (sure sure, no one is objective, bla bla bla, but a liberal anglican historian attempts to give a kind of objectivity that a fundamentalist evangelical normally doesn't care much about). Just hearing other kinds of opinions (the levites at the time of josiah compiled deuteronomy??), even if some prove to be questionable, was both disturbing and liberating.
As to sharing conclusions, I don't think I came up with conclusions just as much as experiences as I read.
Sounds like an awesome read. You make me even more excited about the next three years!
Ryan,
Somehow I forgot to come back and check this and I forgot to get follow-up emails. So this is a few days late. Alas. Better late than never.
I like your approach to dealing with the anxious ball in your stomach. It's a direct deal-with-the-issue-at-hand kind of approach. And I would like to one day do that. For now, I'm working on other things and hoping that my knee-jerk reactions to much of what I was taught as a kid will eventually subside. I can in no way look at Christianity objectively. I know that no one can, but I also recognize that I still carry too much anger to have a healthy interaction with Christianity. Which is why my current task is to work on that anger. Baby steps.
But I like getting to see you moving ahead in this. It gives me hope for my own future and an interesting place to begin investigation when I am ready.
Man, I'm bummed you took that other post down. I read it while eating breakfast and didn't have a chance to comment because of the kids. But I had liked it quite a bit and had POSITIVE things to say. Will you post something similar again soon?
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