Bookraft

A History of Christianity by Paul Johnson - Penguin Books, $19US

Interest in religions is starting to peak. This may be a renewed interest if not commitment to ethics and morality or the constant in and out tide of or the ever-present armageddon factor. Whatever the case, books and TV shows on religion are doing well , particularly those going back to original sources both in religious texts, but also in historians of the era as well as the vast accumulations of archeology.

These works are appearing in books as diverse as Bruce Feiler's Walking the Bible and Elaine Pagels Gnostic Gospels. Certainly popular fiction like the DaVinci Code "enflames" futher interest - as does the ideology conflicts seen in Islam against not just Christian faiths, but also Hindus of India, Nigerian tribes and Christians in West Africa, Buddhists and local religions in the Asian steppes and Southeast Asia.

So we shall be doing a series of reviews of books on religion that derive conclusions through a strong "from the historical and scientific sources" as well as the earliest written records approach. Paul Johnson's A History of Christianity is our starter because it has breadth and just good writing. As a Penguin book, it also has the virtue of low-cost reach - and as a scholarly work it has been very comprehensive and the stamp of scholarhip - sampling from over 200 books and works of the past 2000 years; but notably within the past century.

In the epilogue, Johnson sets the historical tone:
"Christians appeared at a time when there was a wide and urgent, if unformulated need for a monotheistic cult in the Graeco-Roman world. The civic and national deities no longer provided satisfactory explanations for the cosmopolitan society of the Mediterranean, with its rising living standards and growing intellectual pretensions.; and being unable to explain, they could not provide comfort and protections from the terrors of life. Christianity offered not only an all powerful God, but an absolute promise of a felicitous life to come, and a clear explanation of this was to be secured. Furthermore, it was disembodied from its racial and geographical origins, ... St Paul, by giving it an internationalist thought structure , made it a religion of all races"
This style and attitude then results in the following 8 parts:
The Rise and Rescue of the Jesus Sect (50BC -250AD)
From Martyrs to Inquisitors(250-450AD)
Mitred Lords and Crowned IKon(450-1054AD)
The Total Society and Its Enemies(1054-1500AD)
The Third Force (1500-1648AD)
Faith, Reason, and Unreason(1648-1870AD)
Almost Chosen Peoples(1500-1910AD)
The Nadir of Triumphalism(1870-1975AD)

For the sheer breadth of coverage and the citing of other readings and sources, this is a good place to start on your examination of Christian religion - it does not flinch very often at examining the warts as well as virtues of Christianity. But the book also brings a sort of Jekyll and Hyde scholarship. The author at times takes a distinct shine to a historical personality starting with Paul of Antioch. One cannot help but seeing the hand of grace being bestowed on Paul or later Galileo - rather than the detachment that comes from accumulated evidence presented by his contemporaries and the historical record.

In short Johnson has favorites. But fortunately he also subjects himeself to the historical record and supplies a great set of resources and citations current to the early 1980's. Now again, that is a mixed return - because so much research has been done in the past 25 years including the Dead Sea Scrolls, Middle Eastern archaeology, Gnostic Gospels and other early Church writings recently recovered. So take this book as a very comprehensive and somewhat level headed introduction to Chritianity which lacks two things. Evidential detachment and one thing I have come to appreciate in other coverage - notes to important points in each chapter. This is not a faultless guide, but reads as well as Bruce Feiler's Walking the Bible with less of Bruce's "trust me and my friends" and "more well go to some of these sources and see for yourself". I think of a History of Christianity as Michelin Guide - I respect the opinions but I am prepared to form my own and have been given sufficient pointers and references up to 1980 to begin doing so .

(c)JBSurveyer 2006