Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by Diarmaid MacCulloch, a Professor of the History of the Church at the University of Oxford, is a historical survey of the development of Christianity from 1000 B.C.E to the 21st Century. It boasts 1100+ pages. I chose to listen to its unabridged audio book.
If we think our church is the pure expression of true Christianity, we might need this book for perspective. Christianity has changed and morphed over 2000 years in thousands of different expressions in thousands of different directions. Even before the Nicene Creed, Christianity looked different across the East and the West and North Africa. It seems that as fast as the Gospel spread, the differences in expressions grew. This does not need to cause disillusionment. The core Gospel has not changed. But, we should hold loosely on the other “bits and bobs.”
A BBC TV Series was produced from this book with 6 episodes. Kristin and I watched these episodes. They are good, but so much had to be cut out that it is no equal to the book.
One common theme that I perceived from book was that whenever an expression of Christianity felt like they were the pure faith, they were living in the “end times” and they were the true guardians of the truth, those outside the expression would be tortured, enslaved or killed.
Another common theme of the book was that nationalism brought danger to those outside the nation and to those inside the nation that did not conform to the nationalist’s purity.
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