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 PrintableVersion How Christianity came to Britain and IrelandAppearances can be deceptiveHOW CHRISTIANITY CAME TO BRITAIN AND IRELAND If you are looking for a coffee table book, you might well be tempted to choose How Christianity came to Britain and Ireland by Michelle P. Brown. A beautiful book full of glossy colour photographs and, at the reasonable price of £16.99, it certainly might seem a good buy. But that is where the commendations must end for this is emphatically not an evangelical book, nor based on a concept of Christianity as the revealed truth of God’s word. Instead the Christian faith is portrayed as a religious thought system on a par with the other major religions of the world. Michelle Brown is able to dismiss the greater part of the New Testament in one breath-taking sentence: ‘The moment Jesus Christ left this earth, his teachings were supplemented by the man-made trappings of religion’ (p.8). She continues by propounding that ‘Christianity originated in the Middle East but its character evolved and was enriched…by the various cultures of the Roman provinces within an empire that stretched from Syria to the Atlantic seaboard’ (p.9). The book is strongly evolutionary. One example among many is the statement that ‘Humans first came to these islands more than 500,000 years ago’ (p.11). Although the contents are erudite and often fascinating (for Ms Brown was Curator of Mediaeval Manuscripts at the British Library for 18 years), this book is little more than an illustrated history of various artefacts that have been discovered together with mediaeval works of art. It is, of necessity, sprinkled with uncertainties expressed in such words as ‘perhaps’, ‘maybe’ and ‘it is thought that’, for it is often dealing in the realm of speculation. So despite its attractive appearance this book cannot be recommended. Faith Cook,
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