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In this new, accessible overview of the global history of Christianity, Ian Shaw charts the story of Christianity from its birth and infancy among a handful of followers of Jesus Christ, through its years of development into a global religious movement, spanning continents and cultures and transcending educational and social backgrounds.
List of contents
Introduction: Opening Up a Life Story
1: The Cradle: The World into Which Christianity Was Born
2: Smiles: Early Church Growth
3. First Words: Early Christian Writings
4: Tears: Persecutions
5. Learning to Write
6. It’s Official: The Start of Imperial Christianity
7: Moving On and Out
8: Reflecting Inwardly and Reaching Out
9. Disagreements and Rivalries
10: Deepening Thinking Capacities
11. Growing, Contracting, Questioning
12: Divisions
13. Continuity and Change
14: Desires for Purity, Orthodoxy, and Piety
15: Enlightenment
16: Revolution
17: Challenge and Crisis
18. An Age of Turmoil
19: Creeping into Old Age, or Advancing into Young Adulthood?
20: Towards the Next Chapter in Life
Further reading
Index
About the author
Ian J. Shaw is Associate International Director of the Langham Scholars Program and Honorary Fellow, School of Divinity, New College, University of Edinburgh. He is the author of Churches, Revolutions and Empires: 1789-1914; High Calvinists in Action: Calvinism and the City; William Gadsby; and The Greatest Is Charity.
Summary
In this new, accessible overview of the global history of Christianity, Ian Shaw charts the story of Christianity from its birth and infancy among a handful of followers of Jesus Christ, through its years of development into a global religious movement, spanning continents and cultures and transcending educational and social backgrounds.
Additional text
So-called 'histories of the church' are often essentially histories only of the church in the West. It is a joy to meet one that recognizes that 'world Christianity' began in the early centuries, and that the story of the Christian faith is a six-continent one. It is a joy also to find it so helpful and well written
