A New History of Christianity

by Vivian Green

Overview

Written from an objective historical perspective, A New History of Christianity provides the best readable yet scholarly one-volume account of Christianity from its origins to the present day.Chapters cover Christian beginnings, the growth of the early Christian communities, the character of the medieval Church, popular religion, the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Reformation, the early modern Church, the Church in the nineteenth century, the Church in war and peace, and the crisis of the modern Church

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826412270
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	03/03/2000
Edition description:	ILLUSTRATE
Pages:	452
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.91(d)

About the Author

Vivvian H. Green, DD, FRHistS, was formerly Fellow and Rector of Lincolm College, Oxford. His numerous publications include Renaissance and Reformation, Medieval Civilization in Western Europe, and the Madness of Kinds.

Editorial Reviews

"[An] engaging narrative from the origins of the Christian community to the present."
- The Journal of Religion

"A fair and balanced treatment of an enormously difficult and complex subject.... Green's work is a sound, scholarly treatment."
- Library Journal

"An expert guide through Christian history.... The outstanding quality of Green's writing is honesty. The Church is presented here, warts and all."
- The Rt. Rev. Robert Runcie, former Archbishop of Canterbury

"If you want to know where Christianity came from, it would be hard to beat Vivian Green's history.... It provides an unsentimental guide to the good and evil done in Christ's name over the past 2,000 years."
- The Economist

"Green has not tried to be innovative or radical in his approach, but to tell the remarkable story of how Christianity has evolved from a fringe society to become the single most important influence on Western civilization ... Green has a firm grasp on the complex development of Christianity that will be of enormous benefit to many readers."
- America

From the Publisher

Green, the former rector of Lincoln College at Oxford University, has achieved his stated goal of producing a history of Christianity "as a power structure" that "evolved from a fringe society...to become the single most important influence on Western culture." Green offers a fair and balanced treatment of an enormously difficult and complex subject. It is neither as comprehensive as Jaroslav Pelikan's voluminous The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (Univ. of Chicago, 1971-89), nor as personal as Paul Johnson's magisterial History of Christianity (Macmillian, 1979). It does owe considerable (and acknowledged) debt to Owen Chadwick's works, especially his History of Christianity (LJ 6/1/96). But Green's work is a sound, scholarly treatment of the subject aimed at well-informed readers and scholars. Only when discussing "just war" theory does he violate the well-established rule against judging a past epoch by the morals of one's own. Recommended for colleges and universities and public libraries that seek a good one-volume survey.Mark Y. Herring, Oklahoma Baptist Univ., Shawnee

Library Journal