Christianity As History And Faith

Beginning with the birth of Jesus and tracing the religion established by his followers up to the present day, The Faith is a comprehensive exploration of the history of Christianity. Judiciously covering all the signal moments without bogging down in minutia, author Brian Moynahan's superbly written and generously illustrated book is of central importance to Christians, historians, and anyone interested in a faith that shaped the modern world. Moynahan's research uses little-known sources to tell a magnificent story encompassing everything from the early tremulous years after Jesus' death to the horrors of persecution by Nero, from the growth of monasteries to the bloody Crusades, from the building of the great cathedrals to the cataclysm of the Reformation and the Catholic Counter-Reformation, from the flight of pilgrims from Europe in pursuit of religious freedom to the Salem Witch Trials, from the advent of a traveling pope to the rise of televangelists. Coming just in time for Jubilee 2000, this ambitious book reveals and commemorates the significance of the Christian faith.

"Magisterial. . . . A learned, brilliant and enjoyable study."—Géza Vermès, Times Literary Supplement In this exciting book, Paula Fredriksen explains the variety of New Testament images of Jesus by exploring the ways that the new Christian communities interpreted his mission and message in light of the delay of the Kingdom he had preached. This edition includes an introduction reviews the most recent scholarship on Jesus and its implications for both history and theology. "Brilliant and lucidly written, full of original and fascinating insights."—Reginald H. Fuller, Journal of the American Academy of Religion "This is a first-rate work of a first-rate historian."—James D. Tabor, Journal of Religion "Fredriksen confronts her documents—principally the writings of the New Testament—as an archaeologist would an especially rich complex site. With great care she distinguishes the literary images from historical fact. As she does so, she explains the images of Jesus in terms of the strategies and purposes of the writers Paul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John."—Thomas D’Evelyn, Christian Science Monitor

This superb volume provides the first genuinely global one-volume history of the rise and development of the Christian faith. An international team of specialists takes seriously the geographical diversity of the Christian story, discussing the impact of Christianity not only in the West but also in Latin America, Africa, India, the Orient and Australasia.

Join over forty Christian historians as they journey through the biblical and historical past, reading God's word in light of the experiences of those made in God's image. Along with an invitation to study Scripture from Genesis through Revelation, Faith and History: A Devotional provides a link between modern Christians and faithful believers from the past--reminding us of all we share in our faith in the present day, as well as how different were the past worlds of our sisters and brothers in Christ. With Faith and History, you will read the Gospels in light of the Civil Rights Movement and the Holocaust and pray the psalms alongside Frederick Douglass and Isaac Watts. Learn more about well-known Christians such as Billy Graham, C. S. Lewis, Aimee Semple McPherson, John Perkins, and St. Patrick, and meet historical figures who are less known but no less significant, such as faith healer Kathryn Kuhlman, Anabaptist martyr Felix Manz, and medieval mystic Margery Kempe. Each scriptural passage pairs with a historical reflection, suggests questions for further consideration and discussion, recommends resources for historical study, and closes with a short prayer. This unique devotional integrates historical reflection with study and prayer to help Christians meet their ongoing need for spiritual formation. Faith and History is also intended to help Christians better understand their relationship to the past at a time when history, memory, and heritage are so hotly contested in American politics and society. --Kate Bowler, bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason and Other Lies I've Loved

First published in 1976, Paul Johnson’s exceptional study of Christianity has been loved and widely hailed for its intensive research, writing, and magnitude—“a tour de force, one of the most ambitious surveys of the history of Christianity ever attempted and perhaps the most radical” (New York Review of Books). In a highly readable companion to books on faith and history, the scholar and author Johnson has illuminated the Christian world and its fascinating history in a way that no other has. Johnson takes off in the year AD 49 with his namesake the apostle Paul. Thus beginning an ambitious quest to paint the centuries since the founding of a little-known ‘Jesus Sect’, A History of Christianity explores to a great degree the evolution of the Western world. With an unbiased and overall optimistic tone, Johnson traces the fantastic scope of the consequent sects of Christianity and the people who followed them. Information drawn from extensive and varied sources from around the world makes this history as credible as it is reliable. Invaluable understanding of the framework of modern Christianity—and its trials and tribulations throughout history—has never before been contained in such a captivating work.

FAITH AND HISTORY A COMPARISON OF CHRISTIAN AND MODERN VIEWS OF HISTORY by REINHOLD NIEBUHR. PREFACE: THE theme of this volume was first presented as the Lyman Beecher Lectures On Preaching at the Yale Divinity School in 1945. Some of the same lectures were given, by arrange ment, under the Warrack Lectureship On Preaching at the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen in Scotland in the winter of 1947. Some of the chapters were used as the basis of lectures given under the Olaf Petri Foundation of the University of Uppsala in Sweden. I sought to develop various portions of a general theme in these various lectureships. In this volume I have drawn these lectures into a more comprehensive study of the total problem of the relation of the Christian faith to modern conceptions of history. While the total work, therefore, bares little resemblance to the lectures, it does contain consideration of the specific problems which were dealt with in the lectures. I shall not seek to identify this material by chapters as I subjected the whole to reorganization. Two of these lectureships usually deal with the art of preaching, though not a few of the actual lectures have been concerned with the preachers message. Since I had no special competence in the art of homiletics I thought it wise to devote the lectures to a definition of the apologetic task of the Christian pulpit in the unique spiritual climate of our day. Since several of the Beecher lecturers in the past half-century sought to accommodate the Christian message to the prevailing evolutionary optimism of the nineteenth and early twen tieth centuries, I thought it might be particularly appropriate to consider the spiritual situation in a period in which this evolutionary optimism is in the process of decay. This volume is written on the basis of the faith that the Gospel of Christ is true for men of every age and that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. It is, nevertheless, the task of the pulpit to relate the ageless Gospel to the special problems of each age. In doing so, however, there is always a temptation to capitulate to the characteristic prejudices of an age. The preaching of the Gospel was not immune to this temptation in the past centuries. The real alternative to the Christian faith elaborated by modern secular culture was the idea that history is itself Christ, which is to say that historical development is redemp tive. Typical modern theology accommodated itself to this secular scheme of redemption much too readily. Meanwhile the experiences of contemporary man have refuted the modern faith in the redemp tive character of history itself. This refutation has given the Christian faith, as presented in the Bible, a new relevance. It is not the thesis of this new volume that this new relevance could establish the truth of the Christian Gospel in the mind of modern man. The truth of the Christian faith must, in fact, be apprehended in any age by repentance and faith. It is, therefore, not made acceptable by rational validation in the first instance. It is important, nevertheless, for the preacher of the Gospel to understand, and come to terms with, the characteristic credos of his age. It is important in our age to understand how the spiritual com placency of a culture which believed in redemption through history is now on the edge of despair.

Tim Dowley's masterful one-volume survey of church history is now available in a new concise format designed with today's student in mind. Each section of Dowley's Introduction to the History of Christianity has been reviewed and content edited to create a more compact summary of Christian history. This new, shorter introduction retains the full-color format of the popular full edition, including the third edition's new images and maps. Dowley has assembled a global cast of respected scholars to write the full story of the rise of the Christian faith and to provide a rounded picture of the worldwide development of Christianity. The volume has been praised as accurate, scholarly, and balanced. Its writers are committed to Christianity but also to the unhindered pursuit of truth that does not avoid the darker aspects of the varied story of Christianity. The accessible text is supported by detailed timelines, maps, profiles of key figures in Christianity, colorful images, and a complete glossary. Each section includes questions for discussion.