A History of Christianity

I have been reading Diarmaid MacCulloch's A History of Christianity  for the past 6 weeks.  I haven't got very far, it has 1016 pages and I'm on page 398.  One problem is it's a very heavy book (about two house bricks) and so not really practical to take on the train.  I read it while the computer boots up each day.  I worry my computer is rather slow but if I get it fixed, I'll never finish the book!

And I want to finish it because it is a brilliant book.  It is very well written and although some of the complexities require careful reading, it is because they are complex, rather than a fault in the writing.  This book makes accessible a great deal that puts Christian history into perspective.  It should be essential reading for ecumenists.

I will write about a few of my observations over the next few posts and then occasionally as I work through the book.  Clearly there is a massive amount of information and I cannot possibly cover everything. I hope though to write enough to encourage readers to pick up the book and read it themselves.

The book has a subtitle 'The First Three Thousand Years', and of course most Christians will respond by thinking the last time they looked it had been going for barely two thousand.  Of course, the story begins, according to MacCulloch, with Classical Greece and Rome, followed by Israel of the Old Testament, or the Tanakh.  This takes up only a couple of chapters but does of course raise some immediate questions.

I recently wrote about Dr Cheryl Bridges Johns'  paper at the Global Christian Forum  and how she identifies one of the strengths of the North as it's Hellenic inheritance.  Certainly, the inheritance from Classical Greece and Rome cannot be denied and I suspect to this extent most churches across the globe owe something to it.  Whether this is seen as positive is perhaps a matter for debate but whatever Christians believe about its desirability, we need to be aware of this source of what it is to be a Christian.

The remaining chapters cover six main historical sequences.  After an account of the earliest years of Christianity, MacCulloch presents an intriguing account of the Church of the East and the southern churches.  He then covers the rise of the Latin Church, Orthodox Christianity, Protestantism and modern Christianity since the enlightenment.

This book describes the context for many of today's ecumenical questions.  It shows why so many of the divisions within Christianity seem intractable and possibly helps us understand how our conversations might help us reduce some of the bitterness from the past.

Comments

[non-fiction books]

hey have you tried "Receptive Ecumenism And The Call To Catholic Learning" by PD Murray. its much more condensed.

[Chris Sissons]

I know the book and attended the conference in January 2009. I must confess I haven't read it as I haven't found a copy I can afford. I don't think it covers the same ground as MacCulloch but it is nevertheless an important work.

[Victoria Silvers]

Hi,

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Victoria Silvers
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