A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story [Paperback]

Diana Butler Bass (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 23, 2010

The Grassroots Movements That Preserved Jesus's Message of Social Justice for 2,000 Years and Their Impact on the Church Today

For too long, the history of Christianity has been told as the triumph of orthodox doctrine imposed through power. Now, historian Diana Butler Bass sheds new light on the surprising ways that many Christians have refused to conform to a rigid church hierarchy and sought to recapture the radical implications of Jesus's life and message.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this panoramic view of two millennia of Christian history, Butler Bass (Christianity for the Rest of Us) attempts to give contemporary progressive (the author prefers the term "generative") Christians a sense of their family history, refracted through little known as well as famous men and women whose work within and outside the institutional church fueled sometimes "alternative" practices as they tried to follow Jesus the Prophet. "Without a sense of history, progressive Christianity remains unmoored," argues Butler Bass, a former columnist for the New York Times syndicate. Organized chronologically, each section of the book includes a chapter on religious observance and one on social justice, illuminating the author's conviction that authentic Christianity can be discovered in the practice of loving God and neighbor. Laced with stories from the author's own life and with contemporary examples of "generative Christianity," Butler Bass's version of Christian history includes familiar figures like the fourth-century church father Gregory of Nyssa and lesser-known individuals like the 19th century American abolitionist Maria Stewart. Is this truly "the other side of the story," as the subtitle proclaims? It's definitely a start. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Bass borrows Howard Zinn’s perennial concept of history from the perspective of ordinary people to tell the story of Christianity by focusing not on institutions but on tales told down through the ages by the constituents of what she calls “generative Christianity,” who sought to live the Christian life by doing right in the eyes of God, as well as on those who rebelled against the church when they felt it necessary; that is, when the church became too rich or too comfortable with the wielding of power. Still, besides ordinary folks, she includes well-known authors, pastors, and theologians (e.g., Origen, John Calvin, Henri Nouwen). It’s a messy story, incorporating plenty of personal anecdotes en route from the early Christians (100–500) through medieval (500–1450) and Reformation (1450–1650) Christianity to modern (1650–1950) and contemporary Christianity (1945–the present). Clearly, Bass intends this to be the alternative history of a complicated topic and an important contribution to the historiography of Christianity. --June Sawyers --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; 1 Reprint edition (March 23, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061448710
• ISBN-13: 978-0061448713
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #172,239 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Diana Butler Bass was born in Baltimore, Maryland and grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona. For as long as she can remember, she's been interested in religion, history, and politics--the passions she intertwines in her books and writing. She holds a Ph.D. in American religious history from Duke University. After a dozen years teaching undergraduates, she became a full-time writer, independent researcher, educator, and consultant. Her work has been cited in the national media, including TIME Magazine, USA TODAY, and the Washington Post, and she has appeared on CNN, FOX, PBS, and on NPR. For five years, she wrote a weekly feature on American religion for the New York Times syndicate. She currently blogs for Huffington Post and Washington Post OnFaith and is a contributing editor at Sojourners magazine.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 86 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Unusual History Offering New Friends from Christianity's Past March 3, 2009

By David Crumm TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

"History will not tell us what to do, but will at least start us on the road to action of a different and more self-aware kind, action that is moral in a way it can't be if we have no points of reference beyond what we have come to take for granted." (Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, quoted in "A People's History of Christianity")

Earlier this week, I was talking with a small group of educators -- women representing various religious and cultural backgrounds -- and I told them that one of the most powerful things we can do to light up our neighbors' lives is: "Teach people how to make a friend across a boundary they don't expect to cross."

The most important thing I can tell you about Diana Butler Bass' new book, "A People's History of Christianity: The Other Side of the Story," is that you'll leave her book having made dozens of new friends across the chasms of history -- friends who will light your spiritual pathway in directions you may not have expected.

The title of Bass' new book pays homage to the influential historian Howard Zinn. His famous 1980 book, "A People's History of the United States," recovered the stories of many Americans -- and groups of Americans -- whose stories were marginalized in traditional histories. Bass is a historian and educator herself and knows how to produce a 14-week course that jogs undergraduates quickly through 2,000 years of Christian history.
This new book is not that kind of work.

Rather, this new book is more of a manifesto about rediscovering and reclaiming spiritual gems long overlooked in Christian history. Or, as Diana herself puts it: "Exploring the past, we begin to understand our actions anew; we discover new spiritual possibilities for our lives."

You -- as you read this Amazon review on the Internet right now -- already are a part of this same community of inquiry that Diana is trying to encourage in her new book. This is a book specifically about Christian history, although the interfaith significance of the book is obvious in correcting many misconceptions about the world's single largest and most powerful faith.

But don't miss the catalytic energy between these covers. Millions of people already are reclaiming the treasures in their religious history. They're discovering, for example, that Protestants may have been too quick to abandon ancient practices like fasting and fixed-hour prayer. They're learning that figures like Methodism's founder John Wesley actually had strong and prophetic messages about the importance of the natural world around us. They're discovering often-overlooked moments of religious heroism -- like those Muslims who rescued Jews during the Holocaust.

In this book, Diana is providing rich provisions for our journey. Her book also is a terrific choice for small-group discussion and study.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Well-researched and well-written guide to Christian history August 1, 2009

By Christopher Reed

Format:Hardcover

This latest book by Diana Butler Bass continues a string of Spirit filled books that help challenge modern Christians to return to the Way taught by Christ and followed by Christians of earlier time periods. I was excited to read this book because Butler Bass's two previous books, "The Practicing Congregation" and "Christianity for the Rest of Us" were extremely useful in my own church as we attempted to develop first a Single Adult ministry and then Young Adult ministry that focused on growing and nuturing disciples of Jesus Christ through encouraging them to take up traditional spiritual disciplines utilized by Christian Spirituality from the earliest centuries of the Church but that have been seemingly lost over the last 300 years.

This book does not disappoint. If you have never read about Christian history or if you engage it as a hobby, such as I do, Diana Butler Bass takes you on an exciting tour of Christian history while continuing to emphasize the spiritual practices and disciplines utilized by followers of the Way at the various time periods. Additionally, Butler Bass also paints an enlightening picture of the ethical lens employed in the various epochs of Christian history through which Christians in their historical context viewed their interaction with their neighbor as they also sought to engage and deepen their relationships with God. Interestingly, as I start seminary this Fall her book is on the required reading list for my first semester of church history!

Using the tools of spiritual disciplines and ethical frameworks, Butler Bass in a most easy to read way successfully unpacks five historical periods, each full of unique challenges and obstacles, in which individual followers pursued an ever deepening relationship with the Divine. While unpacking these eras, she highlights the lessons which Christians today can learn and apply from many different Christian pioneers. Some of the individuals she highlights may be familiar to most church goers, such as Augustine, St. Benedict of Nursia, St. Fracis of Assi, or Hildegard of Bingen. Others are less familiar but shine Light into the problems faced by current followers of Christ, such as St. Martin-of-the-Field and Abelard and Heloise. She also redeems some of the figures in Christian history that I had a rather negative view of, such as Irenaeus of Lyons. ("The glory of God is a human being fully alive.") As she moves into the more complicated and fractured world from the Reformation until Contemporary times, Butler Bass does a remarkable job holding together and highlighting the ever growing tension between faith and reason, practice and relationship that faces the currently splintered Church, in which each denomination or sect holds its proprietary view of Christianity as sacrosanct while hurling hate-filled bombs of judgment at their brothers and sisters within Christianity that do not agree with their narrow point of view on issues of theology, worship, and/or practice. However, given the thesis she presents and the limits of time, Butler Bass is not able to address all issues arising in Christianity in the 20th Century. Personally, I did not think this a weakeness of the book but a strength as it allowed her to focus on her thesis of exploring the evolution of spiritual disciplines and Christian ethics through the Modern and Contemporary periods.

If you want a book that does not challenge you to think more broadly about what it means to be a modern Christian; if you do not want to confront how the example of Jesus or his Great Commission can be lived out in today's multi-cultural, multi-polar world with various voices of propaganda trying to speak as the voice of God by learning from the examples of those who came before--with some of whom you may not agree --then this book is not for you. You would be more comfortable with a book that merely pats you on the head and holds out some hope that the Rapture is near. However if you take seriously Jesus' command following the story of the Good Samaritan to "go and do likewise" and what that means or how that might look in an evolving Church in an rapidly changing time, then you will be glad you invested the time to read this book! I look forward to reading more from this great thinker and challenger of the Church as she continues to remind us to be intentional in our journey to strive to have the same mind in us that was in Christ.

Grace and peace in the Risen Lord,
Chris Reed
Beaumont, Texas

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Much-Needed Reminder of the Dynamic Nature of Lived Christianity, Then and Now March 19, 2009

By Robert P. Jones

Format:Hardcover

Gifted historian Diana Butler Bass has a knack for bringing back into focus ignored or forgotten parts of the story of Christianity. Just over two years ago, she gave us Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church Is Transforming the Faith, the story of much-ignored mainline Protestant congregations that were defying stereotypes and thriving by combining traditional worship practices with social engagement.

In her latest book, she gives us an accessible and much-needed reminder of the dynamic--and often contested--nature of lived Christianity as expressed both in the lives of its people and its institutions. In our times, when churches are wrestling with a variety of issues that challenge the orthodoxies of the past, the reminder that the traditions we take for granted today represent the outcomes of struggles from the past is invaluable. This modest but powerful insight, brought home through lively examples, has the potential to humanize current debates. It moves the question from, "What was the winning argument from the past?" to "What does faithfulness for our time require?" While seminary courses delve into the material covered here, Bass makes it accessible. The importance of these insights and the accessibility of this book make it a major contribution.

Dr. Robert P. Jones
President, Public Religion Research (www.publicreligion.org)
Author, Progressive & Religious: How Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist Leaders are Moving Beyond the Culture Wars and Transforming American Public Life