Book Reviews -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 28:4 (Dec 1985)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous


Book Reviews

The Story of Christianity. Two volumes. By Justo L. González. San Francisco: Harper, 1984, 447 and 426 pp., each $12.95 paper.

Survey books, as a type, can be easily underestimated. Almost by definition they are neither “seminal” nor “pathbreaking” endeavors in the field. Their function is to draw together the basic introductory materials and present them in such a way as to be accurate and “up-to-date” from the instructor’s perspective and, from the student’s perspective, clear and engaging.

González has written a very fine two-volume survey of the history of Christianity. The author’s earlier work has included another noteworthy survey, The History of Christian Thought (3 vols., Abingdon, 1970–1975). This latest venture indicates that the author is well able to move from Christian intellectual history to a competent and useful synthesis of the social and institutional side of Christian history.

The first volume is divided into four major sections: The Early Church and The Imperial Church comprise roughly half of the volume, and Medieval Christianity takes up most of the remainder, with a closing shorter but nonetheless unique section on The Beginnings of Colonial Christianity. Volume 2 also has four major parts. The Reformation takes almost a third of the second volume, as does Orthodoxy, Rationalism and Pietism. The last two parts, The Nineteenth Century and The Twentieth Century, fairly evenly split the remaining pages. Each of these parts is preceded by a chronology, is modestly illustrated with black-and-white photos and simple maps, and is followed by a brief list of suggested readings.

The set has several significant strengths that make it a noteworthy choice for classroom use. González maintains a steady but not overbearing Christian interpretive stance. God has been truly at work in the story of Christianity, but it is also a human story, with not only diversity but also contradiction and sin. González is not afraid to make moral judgments in the course of the story, but he does so with proper historical understanding and empathy. Furthermore he reminds the reader that the mixed historical legacy is ours, not just for its own sake but for the present making of history. The amount of attention given to the range of material involved is remarkably balanced. More than the usual attention by such surveys is given to women; Macrina and Catherine of Siena, for example, are more than passing references in the story. The section on the Spanish and Portuguese empires and the chapters on Latin America and missionary expansion in the nineteenth century commendably expand the story beyond the standard European framework. Throughout the volumes, the writing style is exceptionally lucid, and more ...

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