of the worst books on church history I've read, A eurocentric view is taken throughout, and the author's refusal to cite or discuss sources allows for truly glaring oversights and biases to be presented as objective fact without further explanation.
No real consideration or self reflection seems to be encouraged, If the reader took the book at face value, it would seem the church has never
made any real error or had a need to grow or correct itself.
For example, Galileo is presented as an arrogant and largely incompetent scientist who pushed a largely reasonable church leadership to hold him accountable, almost entirely against their better judgment.
The civil rights movement in the United States is presented as a Christian movement with no mention of the church having also played a role in the resistance to that movement.
Nazism is presented as being a sister movement of "socialism" the word "communist" is avoided in favor of socialism in the Soviet Union, with only a few sentences mentioning the German church's partnership with the Nazi agenda.
Overall, the book offers a helpful wide ranging survey of some Christian movements, but the lack of depth or discussion makes it useless to an advanced reader, while the obtuse bias and lack of sources makes it unhelpful for a beginning reader.
Not at all worth the time or effort to make it through an altogether short book on the subject What I appreciate most about Harts history is his attention given to the nonwestern church.
For example, I did not know the long history of the Ethiopian church, Also in my Christian education, the yearstoAD were often often glanced over, as if the Byzantine empire and Constantinople werent important and Rome was the pinnacle city not to mention the theme that Augustine and Aquinas were the only great thinkers in the churchs firstyears.
His corrective histories were informative as wellfor example, his reorientation of the modern mythos surrounding Galileos trial.
Hart also ends with a hopeful tone for Christians, as the future of Christianity likely rests in the South and East.
Bought cheap on Kindle, but the setup was a bit confusing, as the author bounced around to a number of topics.
I think this would be better to read hardcopy,
While the author threw around a number of names of people and people groups that I was unfamiliar with, he also covered quite a spectrum of beliefs.
Not comprehensive by any means but something easy to dip into here and there, In The Story of Christianity, acclaimed theologian David Bentley Hart provides a sweeping and informative portrait of a faith that has shaped the western world and beyond for over,years.
From the persecutions of the early church to the papalimperial conflicts of the Middle Ages, from the religious wars ofth andthcentury Europe to the challenges of science and secularism in the modern era, and from the ancient Christian communities of Africa and Asia to the house churches of contemporary China, The Story of Christianity triumphantly captures the complexity and diversity of Christian history A survey of Christendom from the Apostles to the underground church in China.
It was enlightening to learn more about Christianitys narrative apart from Augustine and Luther hearing about the myriad of Christian philosophers, theologians, and humanists from the Byzantine empire was particularly revelatory.
Not an academic history, but still written in Harts signature prose, meaning that I had to Google a lot of words.
Hart succeeds in writing a popular overview of Christianity, There are, strangely, a few errors related to biblical facts or relationships I'm not referring to doctrinal interpretation.
For example, he identifies Joseph as the son of Isaac rather than Jacob, He does not limit himself to Western Catholic and Protestant history, but also reviews Orthodox and Eastern Christian communions.
He ties the church history in with political, social, and economic history that it both influenced and was influenced by.
He defends the quality of Christian science during the time of Galileo, compares Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, and gives sympathetic, convincing insights as to why William Jennings Bryan may have been correct, and perhaps prescient, in opposing the use of Civil Biology as school science textbook in.
Hart describes the challenges and also incredible current growth of global Christianity as he concludes, I recommend this book if you want an overview of Christianity that remarks on social relevance and introduces to key actors that sometimes are overlooked.
An irenic and thorough, if necessarily selective, overview of the history of the Christian faith,
One thing that I was again struck by was how willing Hart is to admit to the failings of the church and the ways in which the life of the faithful has always been entangled in less than spiritual concerns, as if a faith like Christianity can be relegated to only the "spiritual".
Much like in, the unfortunately titled, Atheist Delusions Hart insists on historical accuracy in describing the failings of Christianity and also what it accomplished.
Over all this is a great survey of Christianity, written with a certain style and humor that was appealing to me.
One minor quibble. I get tired of reading that cruxifixction was anything less than an Imperial Roman method of social control that was more or less reserved for those who rebelled against the empire.
Hart says that cruxifixction was reserved for the "lowest of criminals" which unfortunately masked the political overtones on the whole narrative.
Albeit in the preceding two paragraphs on pgs,he does mention the seditions nature of the charge against Jesus of being "king of the Jews", but it would have helped later discussions of the relationship of the Christianity with the empire if the revolutionary character of the Cross had been foregrounded more.
That aside I really enjoyed this book, The greatest strength of this book is its breadth, Hart gives just as much attention to the history of Eastern Christianity and as he does to the Western Church both Catholic and Protestant, and he highlights little know and often forgotten Christian communities around the world.
Hart occasionally goes after popular distortions and simplifications of Christian history, which I imagine is a theme greatly expanded upon in his book Atheist Delusions a title, I am told, he did not choose.
The book is not an indepth analysis, and it often touches upon everything while not going into great detail about anything, but ayear history inpages could suffer no other fate.
Overall I would highly recommend the book to anyone interested in Christian history, It comes especially recommended as an anecdote to a parochial Western view of Christian history and theology, After reading Diarmaid MacCulloch's engrossing, labyrinthine, poorly organized history of Christianity, I found myself in want of a more compact, navigable history of Christianity that would be useful for future reference.
While not necessarily intended as a reference book, David Bentley Hart's little history of Christianity fits the bill.
As one might expect from Hart an American, Eastern Orthodox theologian, and an outspoken Christian universalist, this book emphasizes aspects of historic Christianity that have often gone unnoticed or unappreciated in the modern Western telling of the story, but without failing to cover the essentials the developments of classical Christology and Trinitarian theology, the Great Schism, the Reformation, Vatican II, and so on.
He takes special care to split his time between Eastern and Western Christianity, and gives sympathetic attention to forms of Christianity that both Catholic and Orthodox churches consider heretical.
The chapters are episodic, focused more on succinct stories and big picture developments than on specific data points, which makes this book accessible for casual reading.
In this connection, it is worth noting Hart is at his most plainspoken here, exhibiting little of his trademark rhetorical flourish and mastery of English, and preferring instead to make his points in a more narrativefocused way.
It is an appropriate choice for a book of this nature, and one that makes me appreciate his literary versatility even more.
Can read like any other text book but where it really shines is when particular historical events and persons are highlighted and their stories told.
David Bentley Hart is nothing if not exactingly factual and because of this I can imagine that there will be those with historical or theological axes to grind who will not appreciate all of the facts presented, his unvarnished look at John Calvin and Calvinism is one such example.
If you've read Church history before the book stands out in one important way that you are unlikely to find anywhere else.
It does not follow the formulaic account of Church history taught in school ie "once upon a time there were catholics and then there were protestants", rather the book gives equal time to the Eastern Church, the Oriental Church, Middle Eastern Church, African church, Chinese Church and in the modern period South American Church.
The author goes out of his way to touch on the history of the assembly globally and is not just another rehash of Western Europe's history though equal time is given there as well.
stars, highly recommend, may be the only book of its kind to provide this kind of over all survey.
Lavishly illustrated and lucidly written, Hart's best book accessible but substantial, He gives due attention to theology and demographic trends across the lastyears, Commendably, this is a proper history of the global church Asia, Africa, The Americas and elsewhere are covered alongside Europe which should correct any mistaken beliefs that the Christian Way is 'European'.
David also decisively destroys modern myths about 'The Dark Ages', 'Wars Of Religion', et cetera, Professor Hart is an Eastern Orthodox Christian, but as in many of his works, he gives considerable and fair attention to the West.
He doesnt cover any new ground in this book that one wouldnt also find in the standard church history book, but he does cover old ground from new angles.
In discussing the different epochs of Church History, Hart asks the reader questions that only an Easterner would ask, causing the reader to pause for reflection and to come away with a richer understanding of his faith.
In this review I will focus on several areas that Westerners do not either speak of or speak of in simplistic terms: Christology, Asian Christianities, and the struggle for faith in theth Century.
So, I wont be giving a pointbypoint outline of the book, Most readers will be familiar enough with the material,
Christology
When we speak of Christ its usually in terms of “God sent him to die for our sins so that we could be saved.
” Thats true, but theres more to the story, As Hart notes of the Incarnation, “human beings were now able to become vessels of the divine presence, and Christians would look forward to a day when Gods glory would be revealed in those who had been joined to Christ, and would transfigure the whole of creation”.
Hart is not changing the story but telling it on different grounds, allowing different but very biblical questions to be raised.
Asian and African Christianities
If any churches can claim continuity with antiquity, it would be Armenian and Indian churches.
Like other Oriental churches, the Armenian church had problems with Chalcedonian formulations one wonders how much of this was substance and how much was language.
According to legend, the Church in India was founded by St Thomas the Apostle.
Hart argues this might not be entirely fiction, There were ancient trade routes from the Middle East to India and there were Christian communities in western India as early as the second century.
The Anguish of Faith in theth Century
Many writers point out the depression and anguish of thes.
NonChristian writers were in despair read a secular novel from theth century and see the quiet desperation.
Christian writers, supposedly, were in flux, And much of this narrative is true, Hart goes on to say that despite the acute attacks on Christianity Nietzsche, Comte, etc, there was a flowering of fresh Christian activity.
And perhaps these were related, The Slavophiles of Russia reacted to the Enlightenment and in that reaction produced arguably the most creative Christian response.
Alexei Khomyakov and Vladimir Solovyov articulated the Sobornost: an integrated approach to reality that values brotherhood, harmony, and concordance all in the context of a connected and rooted Christianity.
Even to this day it is my opinion that Sobornost is the best response to socialism and capitalism.
And finally, theth century gave us one of the greatest thinkers of all time: Fyodor Dostoevsky,
Conclusion:
There is much more to the book, Hart debunks many mythical narratives told by the Enlightenment: Galileo actually had church protection and routinely failed to mathematically prove his conclusions.
He gave the “correct” answers but his models could not allow for them, And Galileo could not allow for the fact that he was wrong, Hart notes that the Islamic empires didnt actually give scientific and cultural breakthroughs, Rather, they inherited the cultural legacy of three different civilizations, Those are other examples in the book, And of course, obviously, the book contains some of the most beautiful art work in Western Civilization,
.