A Short History of Christianity

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 256 pages
• Published by: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company July 15, 2006
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0802833829
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0802833822
• Book Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Weighs: 12 ounces

From Publishers Weekly
Journalist Tomkins's breathless portrait of the development of Christianity certainly lives up to its title. Arranged chronologically in roughly 100-year increments, his survey devotes only enough space to major figures and events to introduce them before rushing off to another topic. Everyone who is anyone in Christianity is here: Jesus, Paul, Constantine, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, Joseph Smith and Pope Benedict XVI, among others. Tomkins hurries through the rise of Islam, the Crusades, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, and the Great Awakenings, offering simplistic overviews of the causes and effects of each event. The narrative can be jerky, often shifting unexpectedly and inexplicably. For example, he devotes two paragraphs to 19th-century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher and then jumps to Celtic Christianity with no warning or reason-all under the subsection that bears Schleiermacher's name. He gives Darwin a mere two paragraphs, and fails even to mention the rise of denominationalism, one of the most significant developments in the history of Protestantism. Moreover, no one reading Tomkins would ever know that women or non-European thinkers have played significant roles in Christian history. Racing through more than 2,000 years of Christian history in such cavalier fashion resembles bolting down the Sunday buffet at the local cafeteria: you can sample everything, but you're never full.
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Product Description
Worshiped by 2 billion Christians worldwide, Jesus Christ is arguably the most famous human being ever. Yet grasping the vast story of his followers over the last 2,000 years can be a dizzying, difficult task.

In A Short History of Christianity Stephen Tomkins takes readers on an entertaining and enlightening journey through the key stages of Christian development, covering the people, the events, the movements, and the controversies of the church. Tomkins deals with the well-known (Augustine, Martin Luther), the unique (Simeon Stylites, the people's crusade, the Muggletonians), and the recent (Karl Barth, John Paul II, the Toronto blessing). His penetrating, energetic Short History of Christianity is sure to delight and inform a broad range of readers.

Reader Reviews
First, please note the slightly wry Review Title here. Now to the review of this fascinating, and "successful" little book. I have tried for years to digest historical, religious-related or oriented material, to not much success, as it bogs down and becomes so mundane that I cannot focus on it further and "give it up". The past couple years I have read a lot about the Knights Templar, early Christianity from Jesus' time until about 500 years later. Personally, I seek the early "pure" (as I refer to it) Christian orthodoxy (or whatever one wishes to refer to it as), before it was transferred to Rome, and re-worked and twisted into something completely different than what it originally was supposed to be. In the process of reading this book, I was very pleased with what Tomkins has to say "before" Rome, and also everything he says "about" Rome, and also, everything after that. Here we have an incapsulated, and 100-year or so, stepped history from the beginnings until today, right up to 9-11. This is fascinating to get this kind of overview, and I was most intrigued throughout this journey of 250 pages or so. It "snagged" me in several places, pricking my interest, and leaving me wanting to "know more" about certain eras, sects, etc. So, my reading list just got a little longer! And that is certainly OK! Thus, the "Success" in the review title. Mr. Tomkins has succeeded very well (with others, too, I'm sure) in pricking my interest, and enlightening me, and making me want to go further in deeper readings of some of this material. So, he has certainly done his job, at least in my case, and I consider myself thankful to him for his enlightenment. As a closing, might I also add that Mr. Tomkins is very clever in his writing style, adding just the slightest wry, humorous edge to his words, making this history so easy to get through. If you're curious, by all means grab yourself a copy of this fascinating little book and do enjoy! ~operabruin