Customer Reviews

Christianity Through the Centuries

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

What is good about this book is its clarity and readability. It also contains many maps and charts.

Although I am myself Protestant I am ashamed of the strong calvinist bias of this book. Very little is said of the Catholic Thomas Aquinas, although he is probably the greatest philosopher and theologian of all times. Worse: the little that is said about Aquinas is false (accusing him of creating a two contradictories realms of knowledge, truths, whereas it is on the contrary Aquinas who solved this problem). The views of Augustine are also misrepresented (Cairns follows the common protestant myth that Augustine believed that faith was prior to reason, p. 229), this just to name a few examples. Some Catholic major thinkers of the 20th century (Maritain, Gilson) are simply ignored. All what is Catholic is under- and misrepresented. Calvinists thinkers are on the contrary over-represented, and too well spoken of.

Concerning Christian movements, the book contains also many mistakes (e. g. that Darby founded the Brethren movement! He never did, only joined them later; when he had become influential he created a schism and took full control of a large fraction, the "exclusive" brethren). Or for example there is no mention that the montanist heretics were charismatic.

The auithor is very (too) enthousiast about some charismatic ideas such as the (short term) growth movement of the third charismatic wave. It is a pity that he never speaks of the authentic spiritual revival happening through the work of Norman Geisler and J. P. Moreland. Although I am also an evangelical, I must say that I find the author much too uncritical of the evangelical movement (there is no mention of the scandal of the evangelical mind, and the emphasis on experiences and emotions).

Earle Cairns take the reader on an epic journey of the history of the church from the day of Pentecost to the middle of the last decade of the 20th Century. The 560-page volume gives the reader an overview of the people, events, movements, doctrines, and cultures that sometimes shaped the church and that the church often shaped. The author shares little known details (Charlemagne was 7 foot tall), while presenting the broad-brush stroke of two thousand years of history.

The book was written from a conservative, nondenominational perspective. Though the author is from the Reformed tradition, I thought the book was thoughtful, fair, and balanced. It is easy to read and contains an abundance of pictures, photographs, maps and charts. Christianity Through the Centuries is an outstanding introductory presentation of Church history that I would heartily recommend.

Earle E. Cairns is professor emeritus at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. He is a member of the American Society of Church History, the American Historical Association, and the Conference on Faith and History.

I felt this book had a clear approach, and was concise in scope and delivery...to those points the work stands as an admirable contribution and clearly is important in terms of advancing modern notions of what really is a history of Christianity supposed to present. That being said, with all due respect I feel that this book does not significantly contribute in its intended mode of providing an accurate and unbiased history of Christianity (albeit an extremely difficult task that the author himself admits is not accomplishable with complete neutrality). Cairns does claim that his text is carefully selected and founded in impartiality (18) as necessitated by its genre. It is here that I feel he clearly misses the mark.

I am as conservative in my theology as you will find, and although I am relatively new to the scholarly/academic arena this book began leaving a foul bias after-taste in my mouth from the earliest chapters. I was so very discouraged to discover that balanced history was so easily and rapidly replaced by agenda promotion. I am a charismatic by association, but do not adhere to denominational constrictions. I love my RC brethren, I love my seeking humanist friends who have not quite yet fully experienced the terrestrial and spiritual treasures of a life in full intellectual submission to the authoritative Spirit of Holy Scripture; I myself am only beginning to plumb the depths of a life in full submission to God by the power of his Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ and his living Word.

Cairns summary of the meaning of Christ in Ch. 2 was especially troubling (57), talk about leaving out the good stuff...heaven forbid he should include the words love or forgiveness when talking about the meaning of Jesus in a "text book". Without adequate space to properly discuss points of theological distinction it seems irresponsible in the least (deceptive and misleading if I were to be destructive with my criticism) to posit denominational ideologies so frequently camouflaged by the shroud of historical objectivity.

This is especially dangerous for those seeking an introductory text. As others have commented before me, an effective argument in favor of evangelical considerations would acknowledge and address criticisms of the broader movement (eighth grade English...thank you Ms. Tinder). It is fascinating how easily these authors justify their distortions; perhaps they have not read their own material. It seems if there truly was a hidden agenda, Cairns would have more cleverly masked his deep bias.

I learned a lot from reading this book. It filled in many gaps in my knowledge and is in general a useful book. I should point out, however, that it IS a scholarly textbook, and does not read like other books with more popular appeal (Da Vinci Code, etc).

2000 years of church history is compressed into 560 pages, covering from the Pentecost to 1995. It does have a Western and American slant, and if I were to suggest a subtitle for the book, it would be "How the Christian Church in America Came to Be." With such a scope, some topics (such as the Crusades, the Vatican II Council) are not covered in satisfactory detail, although other topics (Calvinism, Evangelicalism) are discussed in too much detail.

I thought many of the maps and graphs were minimally helpful, and soon skipped them entirely. I also noticed many redundancies of the information, which is part of the textbook nature of the book.

Controversial issues are handled in a (mostly) even-handed fashion, although the author does lean towards supporting his personal views (e.g. "the early church was right to oppose this dangerous idea").

I think someone who is already familiar with much of church history will not gain much from this book, but for the novice it is a good resource.

I believe this fine work by Dr. Cairns is in process of becoming a conservative evangelical classic. Almost everyone I have talked with who has gone through a seminary or Bible College survey of Church History course has used this text in some capacity.

It is very accurate and surprisingly readable. Cairns does a great job of showing Church History in the context of world history, and the interdependencies of the two. Although a strong Christian world-view is evident, Cairns objectively analyzes various movements and events and does not bless or condemn in wholesale fashion.

The purchase price is a bargain for the wealth of information and this is a keeper for the library. You'll refer to it again and again. I do hope that the publisher will continue to update it, as the decade which has passed since the last edition has been ripe with significant events and movements.

This book is a good introduction to the history of Christianity. Cairns was a former professor of history at Wheaton College several decades ago. As such he writes from a conservative, evangelical perspective. The book has several benefits to recommend it:

* It is written as a simple introduction to the history of Christianity, and so one can read it without having a background in church history.
* The book does as good a job as can be expected integrating the history of Christianity with general history. The history of Christianity is shown in its broader historical context.
* The book is written as a textbook. As such, it is clearly organized with an explicit outline. The whole scope of the history of Christianity is divided and subdivided into periods; each chapter is further outlined.
* The book has several helpful charts.
* The style of the book is clear, informative, and engaging.
* Many books are recommended at the end of each chapter as guides for further study.

The book has a few drawbacks, but they aren't very significant. Cairns can get a bit preachy in a few places. The chapters about recent history read like a descriptive lists of groups and movements rather than an analysis of the relationships between groups and broader movements, but the earlier chapters are much better. On the whole, this is the book that I would recommend to anyone who either wanted to read just one book on church history or who is beginning the study of church history.

In my humble opinion, Cairns has written and excellent title on the spread of Christianity over the centuries.

The book is divided into 3 main periods:

1. Ancient Church History (5 B.C. - A.D. 590).
2. Medieval Church History (590 - 1517).
3. Modern Church History (1517 and After).

In all, the book contains 42 chapters roughly divded into the three periods. The writing style is interesting, easy to follow and is supported by several charts and maps.

I was required to read the book for a class and thoroughly enjoyed the title and have referred to it often when teaching a Bible study lesson.

An excellent source of information, I highly recommend the book. Read and enjoy!

This book is great for the student that has no familiarity with Church History, like me when I first started reading it. Cairns starts you from the beginning with the ministry of Jesus and lays out history for you in a way to bring it to life. His structure is very effective. Each chapter is outlined according to event or idea to keep the concise focus on topic. This book is a great resource to start with when beginning study of Church History!

Cairns isn't subtle in conveying his theological opinions in his book. It is clear from the beginning that he is a card carrying, five point following Calvinist. Which is great, except that this leads him to do the following: to embarrassingly limit his history of the Christian church and to bash anyone in church history who disagreed with Calvinism in any way. Sadly, Cairns' dislike of anything Catholic that is prevalent throughout the book is almost mean spirited. He also doesn't even devote any print at all to the Orthodox Church. There has to be a Christian book that more objectively reviews the history of the church.

I was too harsh. This book is not perfect, but still valuable, especially given his limited size and great clarity.
Concerning early Christianity, my favorite is Danielou's "Nouvelle histoire de l'eglise". A possible alternative to Cairns could be the books of Henri Chaldwick, or those of Justo Gonzales...