Christianity: Two thousand years

A brief history of the faith

CHRISTIANITY: TWO THOUSAND YEARS
Eds. Richard Harries & Henry Mayr-Harting
OUP. 279 pages inc. index. £12.99
ISBN 0 19 924485 5

This book originates in a series of lectures given in Oxford by academics who are mainly historians. When I asked OUP for the review copy they told me that the book was designed for the general reader. So this is why this review is not by a professional historian.

In a short review it is not possible to consider all the articles in detail. But this is not a straightforward history of 2,000 years of Christianity. Each author faces in his own way an explanation of what he or she is trying to do. The individual chapter headings should make it clear that the authors are presenting a bird's-eye view. It is plain that to deal with the early Middle Ages, the late Middle Ages, and the Reformation, etc., in a single lecture or a single chapter cannot cover all the ground. So the authors deal with broad sweeps of historical influences. Alexander Murray in his chapter on the later Middle Ages makes it plain when he says, 'In presenting medieval Christianity to you in terms of material changes, of a kind so big as to be visible from space, I may seem guilty of a kind of dialectal materialism, of wishing to reduce religious experience to a function of economics, and to ignore free will, with its inner response to God - which is what Christianity is all about.'

In the first chapter Henry Chadwick says: 'In beginning from the church in ancient society we are looking at the nursery of European civilisation. Into this the early church injected faith in a merciful act of God making himself known to a wretched and rebellious race, and through the central person of Jesus of Nazareth, uniquely chosen to be redeemer, continuing this act through a community to communicate to believers, forgiveness, renewal, and a high moral discipline.' But from then on the authors, by and large, are concerned with major events so that climate, kings, disease and famine and other historical factors play their role in shaping what happens to the church. The writers are successful in presenting this overall view, some more than others.

The advantage of this approach is that it makes one examine one's position and prejudices. But at times it results in what seems a very unbalanced point of view. Jane Garnett uses popular religious art as a peg on which to hang her discussion of the 19th century. But to discuss the growth of the worldwide church and the planting of nationally-run churches in China without mentioning Hudson Taylor and John Nevius seems very unbalanced. Adrian Hastings deals with the 20th century very much from the point of view of The World Council of Churches. Most readers of EN would find it hard to credit that Wim Visser't Hooft, the first general Secretary of the WCC was 'without doubt one of the most significant religious figures of our century.'

In short, this book gives an insight into how academic religious historians see the history of the centuries.

I found the last three chapters the most unsatisfactory. Some parts of the book demand careful re-reading, and I wondered how the hearers of the original lectures managed to take it in at one hearing. But part of the audience may have been students of the historical faculty and were not faced with completely new concepts. It is good to be reminded that there are views of the church miles apart from a Reformed evangelical view, and the chief advantage of this little book is to be able to see ourselves as others see us. I was stimulated by and enjoyed this book, but I think it is a specialised readership that would want to buy it.

A brief history of the faith

John Marsh

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