History of Christianity

Interpreting Christian History

Name: Interpreting Christian History
Author: Cameron
ISBN: 9780631215226

by Cameron, Blackwell Publishers

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Overview

"For 2,000 years the Christian churches have developed, disagreed with each other, and divided into separate and often hostile factions. This book, written by a distinguished Church historian, explores the theological lessons to be learnt from this difficult history." The author identifies a recurring historic tendency to identify the Christian life with one or another specific means to holiness, such as ascetic discipline, martyrdom, or the cult of the Eucharist. He examines how historians of Christianity gradually came to terms with the idea that the Church could change, and even lapse into serious error. He also shows how historical perspective has played a key role in many of the most important theologies of the past 100 years. The book concludes that a living Christianity is never absolutely timeless, and that we can only ever perceive a facet of its total revelation, conditioned as we are by our own historical and cultural context.

Synopsis

This book explores the theological lessons to be learnt from 2000 years of Christian Church history.

An exploration of the theological lessons to be learnt from the difficult history of the Christian churches over the past 2,000 years

Opens with an introductory essay on the whole of Church history, making the book suitable for lay readers as well as students

Combines historical, historiographical and theological analysis

Reunites the disciplines of theology and Church history

Concludes that we can only ever perceive a facet of Christianity given our historical and cultural conditioning

Written by a distinguished Church historian.

About the Author, Cameron

Euan Cameron is Academic Dean and Henry Luce III Professor of Reformation Church History at Union Theological Seminary in New York; and Professor in the Department of Religion of Columbia University. He was previously Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. His recent publications include The European Reformation (1991), Early Modern Europe (1999), and Waldenses (Blackwell, 2000).