Introduction to the History of Christianity

Introduction to the History of Christianity | Introduction to the History of Christianity

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Introduction to th...

	Introduction to the History of Christianity Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2002 - 688 pages average customer review:based on 7 reviews view larger image
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Written by more than sixty specialists from ten countries, this volume tells the dramatic, intriguing, and often surprising story of Christianity?s 2000-year history. Its 25 chapters are illuminated by more than 400 photographs and 30 maps, charts, and diagrams. Enhanced with dozens of short special-feature articles, the tremendously informative and fair text presents the story of Christianity in a strong and engaging narrative, always with an eye to the telling detail and the deeper religious currents that have swept through generations of Christian history.

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A great place to start

This is a beautifully illustrated overview of 2000 years of Christian history. Great graphics, good biographies and short, readable articles all make for an excellent start to Christian history. If you are looking for a place to begin, or just a single volume that gives you breadth without drowning you in the details, this volume is for you.

Introduction to the History of Christianity

This book is good to read.
And there are many informations in it.

Not quite the best place to start...

This is certainly not the worst book I have read on church history, but it is far from the best. The way the book is laid out: Instead of Dowley writing everything from cover to cover, he had many different church historians write various chapters and sections of the book. It makes the book very hard to read. One of the most important facets of reading a history book is you are able to get the viewpoint of one author on everything - this gives the book cohesion. Written from so many different perspectives, this book lacks cohesion. I think this is a fine format if a book is about one issue and you want multiple perspectives on a topic, person, etc. This is what a collection of essays is for, not an attempt at a comprehensive history of the Christian church. Another annoying weakness in the book is the very poorly laid out index in the back of the book. It is divided up into three sections: Events, People, Places. I think literate people could do with just one index - this is not a brain buster. I also found myself annoyed by its incompleteness.
Certain events are completely (again, lack of cohesion) left out of the book. As an example, there is not one word about the meeting of the Westminster Assembly in the whole book. This baffles me.
Lastly, the printing of the book is not very good. The text is forced deep into the binding and you will find yourself practically tearing the binding open to read all of the text.

On the positive side, the writers who contribute to the book are very
good. Especially informative are the brief biographical sketches found throughout the text.

These other reviewers who criticise this book as being anti-Catholic are being absurd. There is no such thing found here. These people are no doubt Catholics who don't like the fact that some of their church's more embarrasing moments are written of in this book - I would pay no attention to these criticisms - they are without foundation completely unwarranted.

For a much better introduction to Christianity I would suggest Williston Walker's "History of the Christian Church"; LaTourette's "A History of Christianity" or even Justo Gonzalez's "The Story of Christianity".

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reviews: page 1, 2

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