Church History: A Crash Course for the Curious
In this concise, accessible guide, author Christopher Catherwood takes his readers through the history of the faith, educating them about the uniqueness of Christianity from its birth to the diverse, global Evangelical Church we know today. Church History is the perfect place to start for anyone who wants to know where to begin this quest for knowledge.
Enjoy discovering more about the lives of men and women from various times and places, not only to better understand the church, but also to know how to live wisely in this age. These are some of the many reasons why history is so important.
From those who desire to learn more about their fellow followers of Jesus Christ throughout history to those who want to learn more about church for themselves, this book will test you to dig deeper in your faith.
Top Highlights
“Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, that great twentieth-century preacher (and posthumous Crossway author) always said of himself that he was a ‘Bible Calvinist,’ not a ‘System Calvinist.’” (source)
“We are so used to thinking of places such as Iraq (then called Mesopotamia), Egypt, and Syria as Muslim, we forget that they were once the heartland of the Christian world.” (source)
“God, Augustine realized, is not sitting passively in heaven waiting to see if anyone chooses to become a Christian. Rather, God in love reached out to us through Jesus Christ on the cross. Becoming a Christian, therefore, is not an act of human whim but a process in which God is not merely active but is also the initiator, choosing those whom He in his perfect love and mercy will save.” (source)
“Surely these two extraordinary conjunctions—the size and stability of the Roman Empire and the multinational and equally geographically large use of Greek as a second language—cannot just be accidents. So helpful were they to the easy spreading of the gospel and making Christianity a global faith so early on that they must be seen as part of the providence of God.” (source)
“Richard Evans makes the telling point that if all ‘narratives’ have equal validity, then so does the Nazi.” (source)
Product Details
- Title : Church History: A Crash Course for the Curious
- Author: Catherwood, Christopher
- Publisher: Crossway
- Publication Date: 2007
- ISBN: 9781433519352
Christopher Catherwood (PhD, University of East Anglia) is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and member of both Churchill and St. Edmund's Colleges at Cambridge University. He was a fellow of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust in 2010 and medalist in 2014. Christopher lives in a village near Cambridge with his wife, Paulette.