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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
informative
medium-paced
informative
slow-paced
Very informative and easy to understand…not overly scholarly.
A really good general history. Also he's not a fan of Catholicism. But other than that. Good job
An impressive condensation of 2000 years of history into 520 pages (just about 4 years per page when you think about it), Shelley and Hatchett do an admirable job of making the great advances of Christian thought easy to understand. This is clearest when writing about the early church councils and the Reformers, with theological conflicts carefully explained, and some clever supplemental material with genuinely helpful tables and charts. Shelley is never shy about his perspective, and any evangelical reader will leave this book with an enriched appreciation of the heritage of their theology.
Two complaints: first, Shelley's theology can overwhelm the history. Especially during centuries preceding the Reformation, the reader is placed less in the shoes of a 12th century Catholic than in the seat of a 2nd year seminarian in an evangelical college. This relatively blatant bias does diminish any work of history, and I'd be fascinated to see what a modern Catholic scholar would make of Shelley's characterisation of their church.
Second, while the language is accessible and the explanations clear, the book seldom moves into the genuine storytelling that distinguishes great history. This is probably a necessary constraint, you can't compress such a vast subject into even 520 pages without streamlining a lot of points of interest, but nevertheless it made for a less engaging read than I would have liked.
Two complaints: first, Shelley's theology can overwhelm the history. Especially during centuries preceding the Reformation, the reader is placed less in the shoes of a 12th century Catholic than in the seat of a 2nd year seminarian in an evangelical college. This relatively blatant bias does diminish any work of history, and I'd be fascinated to see what a modern Catholic scholar would make of Shelley's characterisation of their church.
Second, while the language is accessible and the explanations clear, the book seldom moves into the genuine storytelling that distinguishes great history. This is probably a necessary constraint, you can't compress such a vast subject into even 520 pages without streamlining a lot of points of interest, but nevertheless it made for a less engaging read than I would have liked.
I have always known two things:
1. I love history.
2. I have a major gap in my knowledge between Jesus and Gregorian Chant that needed fixing.
This book met me where I was and took me from point to on the timeline between Jesus and the present. I felt like I was traveling with a linear (modern conservative) Doctor in a Tardis of liturgy and historical anecdotes. It was pretty great and I felt a human connection to many of the people we met along the way. Along the journey, there were odd moments when the author's disdain for/superiority over particular movements and sects appeared and, even though they were slight and small they were distracting and unnecessary, in my opinion. It actually made me question my trust in the content Shelley was presenting due by the end of the book. Then again, I should probably approach all books that way anyways.
Overall, this book filled in my gaps and opened my eyes to important distinctions among various sects of the Christian faith and, for that, I am very grateful and do recommend this work for an historical overview of Christian history.
1. I love history.
2. I have a major gap in my knowledge between Jesus and Gregorian Chant that needed fixing.
This book met me where I was and took me from point to on the timeline between Jesus and the present. I felt like I was traveling with a linear (modern conservative) Doctor in a Tardis of liturgy and historical anecdotes. It was pretty great and I felt a human connection to many of the people we met along the way. Along the journey, there were odd moments when the author's disdain for/superiority over particular movements and sects appeared and, even though they were slight and small they were distracting and unnecessary, in my opinion. It actually made me question my trust in the content Shelley was presenting due by the end of the book. Then again, I should probably approach all books that way anyways.
Overall, this book filled in my gaps and opened my eyes to important distinctions among various sects of the Christian faith and, for that, I am very grateful and do recommend this work for an historical overview of Christian history.
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
This book does the difficult task of surveying the entirety of Christian history from Christ to present day. Shelley does so balancing between various groups within Christianity. I do wish he would have spent more time discussing the involvement of the Covenanters in the United States, though I also understand there are limited pages and this is meant to largely survey the history of Christianity and this it does well.
This is VERY biased and leaves out a lot of information.
Well, this one has taken me a good bit of the year, but I have really enjoyed it. The only problem is that I feel like now I've forgotten what I learned at the beginning! The text is amicably readable, the narrative voice generously humble, and the chapters focused and manageable. It is a well-balanced welcome into the world of church history.