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How Christianity Changed the World Paperback – December 12, 2004

by Alvin J. Schmidt (Author)

4.6 387 ratings

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Western civilization is becoming increasingly pluralistic, secularized, and biblically illiterate. Many people today have little sense of how their lives have benefited from Christianity’s influence, often viewing the church with hostility or resentment. How Christianity Changed the World is a topically arranged Christian history for Christians and non-Christians. Grounded in solid research and written in a popular style, this book is both a helpful apologetic tool in talking with unbelievers and a source of evidence for why Christianity deserves credit for many of the humane, social, scientific, and cultural advances in the Western world in the last two thousand years. Photographs, timelines, and charts enhance each chapter. This edition features questions for reflection and discussion for each chapter.

Print length

448 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Zondervan
Publication date

December 12, 2004
Dimensions

6.05 x 1.55 x 9.05 inches
ISBN-10

0310264499
ISBN-13

978-0310264491
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Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Western civilization is becoming increasingly pluralistic, secularized, and biblically illiterate. Many people today have little sense of how their lives have benefited from Christianity's influence, often viewing the church with hostility or resentment. How Christianity Changed the World is a topically arranged Christian history for Christians and non- Christians. Grounded in solid research and written in a popular style, this book is both a helpful apologetic tool in talking with unbelievers and a source of evidence for why Christianity deserves credit for many of the humane, social, scientific, and cultural advances in the Western world in the last two thousand years. Photographs, timelines, and charts enhance each chapter. This edition features questions for reflection and discussion for each chapter.

About the Author

Alvin J. Schmidt (PhD, University of Nebraska) retired in 1999 as professor of sociology at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois, where he still lives. He is the author of several books, including The Great Divide: The Failure of Islam and the Triumph of the West, and served as a consulting editor for Dictionary of Cults, Sects, Religions and the Occult.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Zondervan (December 12, 2004)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 448 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0310264499
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0310264491
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.05 x 1.55 x 9.05 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #202,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #727 in Christian Social Issues (Books)
- #859 in History of Christianity (Books)
- #1,109 in Christian Church History (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.6 387 ratings

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Alvin J. Schmidt

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Alvin J. Schmidt (PhD, University of Nebraska) retired in 1999 as professor of sociology at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois, where he still lives. He is the author of several books, including The Great Divide: The Failure of Islam and the Triumph of the West, and served as a consulting editor for Dictionary of Cults, Sects, Religions and the Occult.

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4.6 out of 5

387 global ratings

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Wauwepex

A True “take” on World History

Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2023

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Here is a book that, in easy and refreshing fashion, does several things, including: reviewing history; focusing on what a “religion” - Christianity in this case - has done to and for the world; and emphasizing that numbers of current opinions and tends will take us back to the Dark Ages. This is an insightful and thoughtful approach … and it’s not just for Christians.

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Taparaho

Even the things atheist want resulted from Christianity

Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2023

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Schmidt reviews how Christianity influenced western civilization. Nothing he writes is controversial, just a connect lion that is lost on post modern society. Art, science, architecture, medicine, literature, women’s rights, value of human life and rights, charity, and even democracy, all originated through the life of Jesus. His teachings have changed the hearts and minds of the world more than any other historical figure.

2 people found this helpful

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Every "student" of Christianity will want to read this book

Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2008

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Wonderful read, would highly recommend this book to any student of Christianity, especially those who love history! Schmidt does a remarkable job of clearly delineating history as the worldview and thought systems before Christ and how the teachings of Jesus completely revolutionized the world as we know it today! Obviously Christianity is rooted in the historical Jewish tradition and teachings of the law, but the revolutionary concept comes as Jesus the person explains the comprehensive worldview of Christianity. The impact of Christianity in the lives of its followers and thus on the world in which they lived and sought to transform for the glory of God is utterly remarkable - Schmidt probably could have filled another 400 pages with additional biographies and stories, but I am glad he was as brief as he was!

After examining some of the individual lives transformed by Christ, Schmidt turns his attention to how those individuals completely turned the world on its head on issues such as the sanctity of human life, the elevation of sexual morality and marriage, the release of women from cultural bondage, as well as the impact of Christianity on hospitals, education, labor, science, justice, slavery, art, music, and literature. Schmidt finishes with a chapter looking at how the terminology of Christianity has become mainstreamed and commonplace, so much so that many words like holiday have even lost their spiritual significance.

The book did a wonderful job of giving the reader a glimpse into the world before Christ - comparing how people lived and thought without the teachings of Christ and then how radically different they were following their personal transformation into a follower of Jesus Christ and how their lives completely altered the course of human history is so many critical areas. Schmidt also compares what he describes as the Western world (influenced by Christianity) to other cultures that have not as yet experienced this spiritual and cultural transformation.

10 people found this helpful

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Craig T. Owens

Every sphere of life has been improved by practicing Christians.

Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2021

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Alvin Schmidt claims, “No other religion, philosophy, teaching, nation, movement—whatever—has so changed the world for the better as Christianity has done.” And I quite believe him. He lays out the evidence to back up this bold claim in his book “How Christianity Changed The World.”

A few years ago I presented a series of messages to make the case for the resurrection of Jesus. One of the pieces of evidence I presented was the cultural engagement of Christians whose lives had been transformed by a personal relationship with the resurrected Jesus Christ. Alvin Schmidt’s book is like taking this single point of mine and putting it on steroids!

Using the reports of first-person observers from the first century all the way through present day, Mr. Schmidt shows how there is not a single part of the culture that hasn’t benefitted from the involvement of those who live out the Christian principles they have discovered in the Bible. From the care of the sick and elderly, to the elevation of women and marriage, to art, and architecture, and music, and medicine, and science, and education—every sphere of life has been improved by practicing Christians.

I would highly recommend reading this book and then keeping it close at hand to share with those ignorant or skeptical of the claims of Christianity. As William Barclay noted, “Anyone who asks the question, ‘What has Christianity done for the world?’ has delivered himself into a Christian debater’s hands. There is nothing in history so unanswerably demonstrable as the transforming power of Christianity and of Christ on the individual life and on the life of society.” To that, I add a hearty Amen!

Please get a copy of “How Christianity Changed The World” for your library.

6 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Glen Moore

Good book!

Reviewed in Canada on April 3, 2018

Verified Purchase

This is a really good book! I'm getting a lot out of it. The author is egalitarian, which I am not. But it's so good in so many other ways.

One person found this helpful

ReneG8

Arrived in one piece

Reviewed in Australia on June 17, 2023

Verified Purchase

No complaints, paper and printing quality was not the best

Mathew

Good perspective

Reviewed in India on August 15, 2017

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Good perspective of how culture and society has changed during the course of history as a result of Christianity

Chrissy

Well worth reading!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 27, 2012

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Heard about this book on a TV programme and as I enjoy history thought it would be an interesting read. I found it very easy to read and it definately gives you a picture of what society was like in New Testament times. It also highlights the positive infuences of Christianity on our world especially how Christianity changed attitudes towards children and the role of women. I have been reading this in chunks and although not quite finished as yet I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to gain a better understanding of the world of the early Christians.

3 people found this helpful

Roman Nies

For those who do not want to know it

Reviewed in Germany on January 3, 2010

Verified Purchase

How Christianity changed the world? How much? Nobody knows. But this book gives many examples that it did change the world` s course in many positive ways.
Even knowledgeable believers will be amazed at how many of our present institutions and values reflect a Christian origin. Not only countless individual lives but civilization itself was transformed by Jesus Christ and his followers. Christians committed a lot of crimes. But when they did, they did it not in accordance with the Christian faith, rather they were in that case unfaithful.
This book`s task is not to work out in how far true Christian faith or wrong conceptions about how the faith has to be practised influenced the world. It wants to say that the Christian faith alone produces good fruits, which after reading the book is hardly deniable. In the ancient world, Christ` s teachings elevated brutish standards or morality, halted infanticide, enhanced human life, emancipated women, abolished slavery, inspired charities and relief organizations, created hospitals, established orphanages, and founded schools.
All this fits the theory that a valuable philosophy has always to prove truth carrying capacity in practise.
Christianity even kept classical culture alive through recopying manuscripts, building libraries, moderating warfare through truce days and providing dispute arbitration. It were Christians who invented colleges and universities, dignified labour as a divine vocation, and extended the light of civilization to barbarians on the frontiers. In the modern era, Christian teaching, properly expressed, advanced science, instilled concepts of political and social and economic freedom. Fostered justice, and provided the greatest single source of inspiration for the achievements in art, architecture, music, and literature that we treasure. That Faith seems to be the most powerful agent in transforming society for the better across 2 thousand years since Jesus lived on Earth. No other religion, philosophy, teaching, nation, movement - whatever- has so changed the world for the better as Christianity has done.
Many today who disparage Christianity may not know or believe that, were it not for Christianity, they would not have the freedom that they presently enjoy. The very freedom of speech and expression that ironically permits them to castigate Christian values is largely a by-product of Christianities influences that have been incorborated into the social fabric of the Western world.
This freedom ironically permits the possessors of freedom to dishonour the very source of their freedom, as Fernand Braudel stated: "Throughout the history of the West, Christianity has been at the heart of the civilization it inspires, even when it has allowed itself to be captured or deformed by it." When I mentioned this in respect of the freedom of press in a reader`s letter the editor expurgated it.
The book contains 15 chapters in which all this is elucidated. The Christian faith transformed many people to the better, changed the moral values of the antique society to the good, as well as the status of the women who had no rights in ancient times. It brought the development and maintenance of Christian Charity and Compassion, it gave origin and development to hospitals, it set milestones in education, it improved the perspectives of labour and economics, it advocated and enriched scientific research, it brought up the ideas of liberty and justice to secure it with laws and in constitutions, it influenced strongly art and architecture and highlighted music and literature and much more. Where would we be in the world without Christianity? Maybe nowhere!

One person found this helpful

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