Church History: A Captivating Guide

This book was really great, I definitely took a lot from this and learned a lot of new information that I hadn’t come across before. It is a great overarching historical account of Christianity from its early inception through to modern day.

If considering “taking one subject and delving 100m deep” vs. “taking 100 subjects and delving 1m deep” this book definitely follows the latter format. Now, of course that is to be somewhat expected seeing as this is a short introductory book into an incredibly nuanced religious history from a worldwide perspective. It would be a ridiculous ask to expect that kind of nuance and detail in this.

However, I do mention this as a point of minor contention because I did feel like the depth of analysis points was somewhat imbalanced throughout this. For example, there was about 2 paragraphs dedicated to Charles Darwin’s scientific publications and the clash it held within Christian circles and beyond. In comparison to the (surprisingly) consistently resurfacing mention of how church & cathedral architecture changed throughout various centuries. Now while the latter was certainly interesting to read about, I think we can all be in agreement regarding which one of those two subjects was objectively more influential to the history of the church.

In a similar manner, I also felt there was an inconsistency in deliberation across denominations and doctrinal differences throughout this work. Once again, this is a big ask. But, that being said, Catholicism is the predominant history we get in this. Denominational births and splits are, yes, repeatedly addressed, but only for a few sentences to a paragraph. Most often, this was followed by emphasis on how various denominations were viewed by the Catholic Church. Of course, as the Catholic Church is drastically important to the history of Christianity it should be to no surprise that this occurs frequently, however in comparison to other Christian roots (such as Eastern Orthodoxy, Western Orthodoxy, and Protestantism) the Catholic Church by comparison receives significantly more attention.

Having said that, I was really engaged while reading this. It is written in an easy-to-digest manner, and the authorship remains relatively unbiased, straightforward, and factual throughout this entire work. It definitely sparked a lot of curiosity in regards to where to go next, so I would certainly recommend this read for anyone wanting to learn more about Christianity in general who feels potentially lost as to where to start.

Overall Rating: 3.75/5

Would I Recommend? Yes