Download Turning Points: Decisive Moments In The History Of Christianity Edited By Mark A. Noll Provided As Audio Books

book highlights select events that seriously impacted the directions and impacts of Christianity defined as Roman Catholics and Protestants from the time immediately following the apostles to today.
In each case, the author lays out his case for why each event was selected as opposed to others.


The book is an almosttextbook on history, with a few subjective Christian observations occasionally added, It is general, but informative if the reader hasn't much knowledge of what the broadly defined Church has been up to since the last univerally recognized apostle passed.


I would say that it's probably best for most readers to take it one chapter at a time, to give time for mental digestion before heading off on a new turning point.


The book suffers from excessive name and accomplishment listing in several chapters, There are simply too many for the average reader to connect with or remember,

I gave it an average rating not necessarily because it is an average book, but more because my interest in the subject wasn't great enough to rate it higher.
A helpful, thorough, and accessible walkthrough of Christian history through the lens of its most crucial events,

Great for anyone who wants a volume on church history that is accessible yet also packed with great stories, insights and book recommendations.


I found the sections on the Council of Nicaea,th century missions, and the Second Vatican Council to be the most enjoyable and thought provoking.
This was an assigned book in my seminary level Survey of Church History class, Noll explores church history by coming up with hismost important events in church history, These are the thirteen things that he feels like changed the church the most in its history, Then, in the afterward, he examines several events/trends in recent years that might be potential turning points for the church today.


This is a great

introduction to church history by way of events, However, Noll's writing is dry and a little academic, so it's a quite, patient book, not really a page turner.
Still, I learned a good bit, especially about the split of the east and west, the counter reformation and how the Wesleys fit into church history, so this one was a win for me.
It's probably a./, but I round academic books up, so you'll see a four as my Goodreads rating, This is a very good basic book on the history of Christianity, which is actually used as a textbook.
In fact, there is a set of detailed questions in the back which is suitable for discussion or study groups.


One of the interesting things about this book is its approach to the subject, It does not try to give an impossibly condensed yet comprehensive history of the subject in one huge unwieldy volume.
Nor does it take the multivolume approach and go into minute details,

Instead, it takes a series of crucial moments in the history of Christianity and explores the impact that each of these moments has had and might still be having on Christianity as a whole.


Even though Mark Noll is a Reformed Evangelical Christian, he teaches at a Catholic institution, the University of Notre Dame.
So maybe that is why he discusses Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy respectfully and without undue Protestant bias.
His area of specialization is the history of Christianity in the United States and Canada, And yet, with this book, he was able to take a step back, as it were, and use a wider perspective.
The turning points on which he focuses range from the Jewish beginnings of Christianity to its various contemporary manifestations in Africa, China and Latin America.


As a person who dabbles in early church history from the New Testament, up to and including the Protestant Reformation, I found it interesting to read about the developments of Christianity in later times, in a way that was neither too confusing to follow nor too dumbed down to enjoy.
Succinct, evenhanded, and insightful. Everything a primer on church history should be,

Outside of the classroom, this book was my first real dive into literature on church history, and I am glad I started here.
This book is written for the layman unfamiliar with church history and is both detailed enough to be enlightening and general enough to keep up a layman's interest.
The structure of the book helps in guiding the reader's interest, with each chapter solely devoted to each historical movement, or "turning point" as Noll calls them.
This makes the book much more readable, allowing for reading in small bursts without loosing the main thread of the narrative.


Noll is up front about his perspective and biases as a Protestant evangelical, and clearly denotes the insights and opinions that are his own.
He gives equal emphasis on developments in the Protestant Church, Catholic Church, and the Orthodox Church, Noll explicitly praises the turning points that redirected the church towards a more Protestant leaning, but is just as explicit in condemning the Protestant Church's failings.
Neither does Noll shy away from praising the Catholic or Orthodox movements that have borne good fruit for the body of Christ.


Noll focuses on the events that are symbolic of larger tectonic shifts in the Christian faith, and is unbiased as to the sources within the church of these shifts.
The greatest strength of the book is Noll's insight into how a certain event or shift is emblematic of the larger changes happening at the time.
This allows him to discuss specific historical events in detail while also generalizing vast amounts of history that could not make it into a book of this size.


The only complaint I have about this book speaks more to my own enjoyment of academic literature rather than any faults of the book itself.
I found it hard to be completely engrossed by this book, While I'm glad I read it and am thankful for the knowledge and insight it has given me, I found myself counting down the pages until I finished the book.
I say this speaks more to myself as a reader only because I have read little academic literature outside of school, and am adjusting to reading such literature for fun.


All in all, this book is a wonderful place to start for anyone wanting to learn about Christian history.
I recommend it to anyone interested in the subject, I am agnostic but, given my deep love of literature and history, wanted to know more about the history of Christianity, and so have been reading about its development.
I read Turning Points right after I finished A History of Christianity by Paul Johnson, hoping for another thoughtful perspective on one of the worlds most influential religions.
Boy, was I disappointed.

Turning Points is a fairy tale masquerading as an academic work it has all the depth of a childrens book youd read in Sunday school.
I was looking for a balanced, or at least multifaceted, view of Christianitys development and its influence on world events, the kind I found in Johnsons work.
What I got was a selfrighteous assembly of essays extolling the virtues of Christianity with very little, if any, critical analysis, and a complete disregard for the religions negative influences.
And before some ass wipe tells me that my assessment of this book is colored by a hatred of Christianity, I will say that I do not hate Christianity or religion in general my belief is that shitty people can be found everywhere and they will use whatever tools at their disposal to be shitty.
I also believe that unthinking adherence to any doctrine is dangerous, especially those that encourage hatred and violence towards others.


Below, Ive detailed my two biggest problems with the book,

. An unapologetic Protestant bias
While I appreciated Nolls coming out and saying that hes coming at history from a Protestant perspective, I felt he did not make any real attempts to even approximate academic objectivity.
Of course, no one can be wholly objective, But given that he is a professor, I was hoping that at least some effort would be made.
It is not. Rather, his views, which of course are not representative of all Protestants, are aired as authoritative, The word “correct” appears multiple times when describing issues of faith, as if he is the final arbiter of what “correct” faith is.
Johnson is also Christian and he comes out as a Catholic in the introduction to his book, But he tries to not let his personal beliefs get in the way of academic rigor, He criticizes and praises people from all denominations,

. His overview of missionary work is offensively lacking
What I hated most about this book was its complete glossing over of the horrors enacted and encouraged by Christian nations and people.
I found his treatment of missionaries especially disturbing: he completely disregards how missionaries were part and parcel of destructive, dehumanizing, and cruel colonial endeavors.
The most cursory reading or googling about the role of Christianity in colonial expansion will teach you that religion was often used as an excuse for the most horrifying violence.
Even with missionaries who were motivated by a sense of altruism, that altruism often came from a racist conviction of the cultural supremacy of white Europeans and Americans.
Native peoples and religions were and are viewed as “primitive,” “barbaric,” and “simple,” views embraced by this book.
And of course there is no mention of how religion was used to justify the horrors of the Inquisition, the Crusades which were political and economic ventures as well as religious, the Holocaust, etc.
etc.

It is obvious that Noll deliberately omitted any facts that would have cast any Christian in a less than noble light.
For instance, when he talks of Bartolome de las Casas, he notes, correctly, that de las Casas was one of the few Europeans who objected to the Spaniards treatment of the Taino and who advocated on their behalf.
But he does NOT mention that it was de las Casas who proposed that, to solve the problem of Spanish cruelty, Africans should be brought as slaves to Hispaniola.
He later went back to say that both forms of slavery were wrong, But we dont hear ANYTHING about it, And de las Casas is one of the more sympathetic figures we see if he cant provide context for this figure, imagine how unbalanced and simplified his profiling of others is.


His treatment of missionaries among Native Americans is also risibly pollyannish, There is absolutely no mention of missionaries deliberately and violently invading Native American culture and life for instance, the kidnapping children and forcing them into “civilizing” schools where they were punished for speaking their own language and, by use of physical and emotional abuse, encouraged to abandon their cultures.


Johnson, whose book was published in, shows racist views in his depiction of the spread of Christianity I would argue, though, that overall he is actually less racist than Noll because at least he explores some Europeans skepticism/disapproval over the whole endeavor and the ways in which missionary work negatively affected the lives of those living in colonized areas.
Johnson also talks about how Christians collaborated with Nazis or remained silent during the Holocaust, and also points out other times in history when Christians behaved in terrible ways.


Turning Points does a disservice to Christians, If I were a Christian, I would want to learn as much about the good AND the bad of my religions history.
By refusing to delve into the intricacies of Christianitys past, Noll denies his readers the opportunity to learn how religion brought people together, how it tore people apart, how it inspired people to incredible feats of generosity, but also how it was used as a tool to dehumanize, enslave, and conquer.
I would want to know the strengths and weaknesses of the people who preceded me so I could have a deeper understanding of how my own religion could be improved, and how I, as a Christian, could become better.
Through Nolls cottoncandy fluff piece, we get none of these opportunities, Rather than being billed as an academic work, this book should be relegated to Sunday school, alongside the equally simplistic Veggie Tales.
The reason I gave this book two instead of one is because, like Veggie Tales, it provided me a sense of how many Christians view themselves, as well as a brief sketch of important events and stories.
I do feel like I have a sense of some big moments and their consequences,

Had Noll simply cobbled together Wikipedia pages on the turning points he explores, he would have had a much better and more extensively cited book.
I cant believe I paid for this bullshit,
.