Introduction to the History of Christianity

Tim Dowley

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9780800699697
• eBook ISBN:
  9781451452389
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

Combining the accuracy and readability of the first edition of this highly acclaimed text, Dowley has enhanced the second edition with new contributions from Pheme Perkins on "The Thought-World of Early Christianity" and Richard Burridge on "Jesus and the Gospels" as well as updated and revised contributions from Ward Gasque, Richard Pierard, John H. Y. Briggs, and more. With many new photographs, illustrations, maps, charts, and timelines, the inviting new full-color format tells the dramatic, intriguing, and often surprising story of Christians in their 2000-year journey to the present day.

Editor

Dr Tim Dowley

Consulting Editors

John H. Y. Briggs

Director of the Centre for Baptist History and Heritage and Senior Research Fellow in Church History,
Oxford University, formerly Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of Birmingham, England

Dr Robert D. Linder

University Distinguished Professor of History,
Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, USA

The late David F. Wright

Formerly Professor in Patristic and Reformed Christianity, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY

Second Edition

Fortress Press Edition © 2013

Copyright © 2013 Lion Hudson plc/Tim Dowley Associates

All rights reserved.

Worldwide co-edition organized and produced by Lion Hudson plc,

Wilkinson House, Oxford OX2 8HL, England

This book is published in cooperation with Lion Hudson Publishing, Oxford, England. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Visit http://www.augsburgfortress.org/copyrights/contact.asp or write to Permissions, Augsburg Fortress, Box 1209, Minneapolis, MN 55440.

Original edition published as A Lion Handbook: The History of Christianity, 1977

Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the Holy Bible, New International Version, copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan and Hodder & Stoughton Limited. All rights reserved. The ‘NIV’ and ‘New International Version’ trademarks are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by International Bible Society. Use of either trademark requires the permission of International Bible Society. UK trademark number 1448790.

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are from the New Revised Standard Version published by HarperCollins Publishers, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the King James Version.

Cover image: Abraham with the angels (mosaic), Byzantine School, (6th century) / San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy / The Bridgeman Art Library; The Holy Family (Barcelona, Spain) ©iStockphoto / stan tiberiu loredan; Christ Pantocrator, 1607 (oil on panel), Bulgarian School, (17th century) / National Art Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria / Giraudon / The Bridgeman Art Library

Cover design: Laurie Ingram

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

ISBN 978-0-8006-9969-7

ContentS

Contents

Contributors

List of maps

List of Time Charts

List of illustrations/photographs

Preface

Preface to the Revised Edition

P...

Table of contents

• Contents
• 1. Jesus: His life, ministry, death and its consequences
• 2. The Church Begins: From Jerusalem to Rome
• 3. Establishing Christianity: Challenges to the New Faith
• 4. Spreading the Good News: How and why Christianity Exapnded
• 5. Archaeology and Earliest Christianity: What archaeologists can - and cannot - illuminate
• 6. What the First Christians Believed
• 7. How the First Christians Worshipped
• PART 2: Acceptance and Conquest: AD 325-600
• 8. Constantine and the Christian Empire: Christianity recognized
• 9. Councils and Creeds: Defining and defending the faith
• 10. Buildings and Belief: Early church structures
• 11. Worship and the Christian Year: The making of the Christian Calendar
• 12. Clergy, Bishops, and Pope: The church builds an organisation
• 13. The Church in North Africa: The making of a distinctive tradition
• 14. The Fall of the Roman Empire: How and why it came to an end
• 15. Ascetics and Monks: The rise of Christian monasticism
• PART 3: A Christian Society
• 16. The West in Crisis
• 17. The Eastern Church
• 18. Flowering: the Western Church: Reform and resurgence
• 19. Monasticism in the West
• 20. The Orthodox Church in Eastern Europe and Russia
• 21. An Age of Unrest: The Western Church in the Late Middle Ages
• PART 4: Reform and Renewal: 1500-1650
• 22. Seeds of Renewal: The origins of the Reformation
• 23: Reformation
• 24. A Flood of Bibles: Scripture in the vernacular
• 25. The Radical Reformation: the Anabaptists
• John Bunyan
• 26. The Catholic Reformation
• 27. Art and the Spirit: Christianity and its cultural expression
• PART 5: Reason, Revival, and Revolution 1650-1789
• 28. Expansion Worldwide: European missions
• 29. Awakening: The Evangelical Revival and the Great Awakening
• 30. Reason and Unreason: The rise of rationalism
• 31. The Russian Church: 1500–1900
• PART 6: Cities and Empires 1789-1914
• 32. Europe in Revolt: Church and State in teh Nineteenth Century
• 33. The First Industrial Nation: The Industrial Revolution and the British Churches
• 34. A Crusade Among Equals: REvivalism, Abolition, and Evangelism in the USA
• 35. A World Come of Age: Science and Philosophy challenge Christianity
• 36. Outposts of Empire: The nineteenth-century missionary explosion
• PART 7: A Century of Conflict 1914-2001
• 37. An Age of Ideology: nationalism, Communism, and individualism take on Christianity
• 38. An Age of Anxiety: Theological thinking in troubled era
• 39. Pentecostalism and the Charismatic Movement
• 40. The Arts in the Christian West
• 41. Organizing for Unity
• 42. An Age of Liberation
• Part 8: Epilogue: A New Millennium
• 43. Present and Future: The church in an ever-changing world