Church History: Home

This volume of twenty-two original essays, contributed by a group of prominent thinkers in American religious studies, provides a sophisticated understanding of both the diversity and the alliances among Christianities in the United States and the influences that have shaped churches and the nation in reciprocal ways. American Christianities explores this paradoxical dynamic of dominance and diversity that are the true marks of a faith too often perceived as homogeneous and monolithic.

"An A to Z companion to 2,000 years of encounter between Judaism and Christianity, A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations is a pioneering work which explores and defines the many factors which characterise the historic and ongoing relationship between the two traditions. From Aaron to Zionism, the editors have brought together over 700 entries - including events, institutions, movements, people, places and publications - contributed by more than 100 internationally renowned scholars. The Dictionary offers a focus for the study and understanding of Jewish-Christian relations internationally, both within and between Judaism and Christianity. It provides a comprehensive single reference to a subject which touches on numerous areas of study." - Cambridge University Press

A magisterial sweep through 1500 years of Christian history with a groundbreaking focus on the missionary role of migrants in its spread. Human migration has long been identified as a driving force of historical change. Building on this understanding, Jehu Hanciles surveys the history of Christianity's global expansion from its origins through 1500 CE to show how migration--more than official missionary activity or imperial designs--played a vital role in making Christianity the world's largest religion. Church history has tended to place a premium on political power and institutional forms, thus portraying Christianity as a religion disseminated through official representatives of church and state. But, as Hanciles illustrates, this "top-down perspective overlooks the multifarious array of social movements, cultural processes, ordinary experiences, and non-elite activities and decisions that contribute immensely to religious encounter and exchange." Hanciles's socio-historical approach to understanding the growth of Christianity as a world religion disrupts the narrative of Western preeminence, while honoring and making sense of the diversity of religious expression that has characterized the world Christian movement for two millennia. In turning the focus of the story away from powerful empires and heroic missionaries, Migration and the Making of Global Christianity instead tells the more truthful story of how every Christian migrant is a vessel for the spread of the Christian faith in our deeply interconnected world.

Robert Wuthnow and John H. Evans bring together a stellar collection of essays that paints a contemporary portrait of American Protestantism--a denomination that has remained quietly, but firmly, influential in the public sphere. Mainline Protestants may have steered clear of the controversial, attention-grabbing tactics of the Religious Right, but they remain culturally influential and continue to impact American society through political action and the provision of social services.

A rich reader in world Christian history, showing how varied and multi-cultural Christian origins and history really are.

"Prominent scholars in the fields of Archaeology, New Testament Studies, and the Dead Sea Scrolls have come together to focus on early Jewish and Christian communities of faith and their impact on the collections of texts that were their scriptures (and would become, in due time, part of the various canons). Professors, students, and pastors who are interested in how these communities lived—how they developed, what they believed, and how they regarded and preserved the written documents that were their scriptures—will be interested in this comprehensive volume drawn from presentations made to key conferences on the subject. This book's emphasis on a variety of communities of faith (not just Christian) and their early (and critical) influence on the development of religious canonical materials sets it apart from other works on New Testament-period culture." - Hendrickson

The American Religious Experience is an accessible and unique rendition of American religious history. Focusing on Christianity in America, it also integrates the inter-religious, inter-denominational and multi-cultural dimensions of American religious history. The book unfolds consistent tensions between dominant streams of American Christianity and groups relegated to the periphery - groups with roots in visionary traditions, emotionalized religious practice, or ethnic and racial perspectives.

MacCulloch's The Reformation won a spate of awards, including one from the National Book Critics Circle, so you can expect this expanded treatment of Christianity's past, present, and future to be good.

"One of the chief difficulties in studying the history of Christianity is the lack of prior exposure to the subject that students often bring with them. Struggling to keep up with the large numbers of names, dates, and places presented to them, it is easy for students to lose sight of the "big picture," the broad sweep of movement and change that instructors most wish to communicate. Justo Gonzalez has written this book to help students gain just such a quick and basic grasp of the main periods and issues in the history of Christianity. Drawing upon his own extensive experience and that of others, he contends that having been introduced to the essentials of church history in a brief and accessible form, students are then far better able to understand and appreciate what they encounter in more detailed lectures and reading."--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

In their widely praised, long popular Church History, James Bradley and Richard Muller lay out the guidelines, methods, and basic reference tools for research and writing in the fields of church history and historical theology. Over the years, this book has helped countless students define their topics, locate relevant source materials, and write questions.

The Global Church---The First Eight Centuries by Donald Fairbairn introduces students to the initial, formative centuries of Christian history, paying special attention to Christianity's non-Western roots, global expansion, and interaction with the changing world around it from late Antiquity to the Islamic conquests.

The most inclusive church history text on the market today - it pays special attention to Christianity in the southern hemisphere, Eastern Orthodoxy, the church among minority cultures in North America, and the role of women in church history.

Evangelicalism's premier historian provides a general introduction to church history.

Tracing two thousand years of female leadership, influence, and participation, Elizabeth Gillan Muir examines the various positions women have filled in the church.