Theology: Historical Theology: Books

The rich tapestry of nearly 2,000 years of church history overflows with persons, places, events, dates, and ideas. This volume in the popular ZondervanCharts series visually organizes large amounts of information from the history of the church for greater understanding and ease of reference. Students, teachers, pastors, and church history buffs will find this collection a valuable reference, one they will turn to again and again for their own information and for teaching others. This revised and expanded edition contains 126 charts (43 of which are new) that cover the history of the ancient church, the medieval church, the Reformation, the modern European church, the American church, and more. The accessible visual presentation assists in grasping not only facts, but parallels, contrasts, and relationships between those facts. Besides the charts themselves, a helpful bibliography and index are included. Book jacket.

Available in print as set and per volume; also available online. History of Global Christianity deals with the history of Christianity and its global development over the past five centuries. Going above and beyond the subject of church history, it deals with the cultural role of Christianity in its widest sense: from the many interactions of Christianity within society, politics, economics, philosophy and the arts, to the myriad of ventures that form civilizations, nations, and communities. How did Christianity involve itself in these overarching structures of human life? The reference work aims to trace the history of the global shift experienced by Christianity between the sixteenth century and the present day. Starting as a localized religion in Europe and Russia with small outposts in other parts of the world, that shift proceeded via missionary efforts that were accompanied by economic forces, movements of conquest, and trends of migration in its evolution toward the current stage: its demographic centers no longer only in the Northern Hemisphere, but most assuredly in the South as well. This project consists of three volumes. The first volume deals with the European state of affairs from the sixteenth until the eighteenth century. The second volume focuses on the nineteenth century, and the third volume discusses the history and role of Christianity in the twentieth century. The German edition of the work is available at Kohlhammer Verlag.

This second volume takes up the story where the first left off. Like its predecessor it has three features which make it different from other histories, so that it is aimed at the widest possible audience. First, it does not separate church history from the wider history of the world in which it is set. Christians live in that wider world, and political, social and economic developments often determine the life of the church. Secondly, it provides direct quotations from the written sources. To make sure that the account covers British and American, as well as French and European, history, an English-speaking historian joins the French author. 'The approach is ecumenical, covering with good balance the full range of denominational developments in the Western church and its missionary outreach ...In general this is a clear, well-written account ...the language is accessible not only to an adult but also to a student readership' (Expository Times).