Charting the rise and development of Christianity, Carter Lindberg has succeeded in writing a concise and compelling history of the world's largest religion. He spans over 2,000 years of colorful incident to give an authoritative history of Christianity for both the general reader and the beginning student.
Ranges from the missionary journeys of the apostles to the tele-evangelism of the twenty-first century.
Demonstrates how the Christian community received and forged its identity from its development of the Bible to the present day.
Covers topics fundamental to understanding the course of Western Christianity, including the growth of the papacy, heresy and schism, reformation and counter-reformation.
Includes an introduction to the historiography of Christianity, a note on the problems of periodization, an appendix on theological terms, and a useful bibliography.
An authoritative yet succinct history, written to appeal to a general audience as well as students of the history of Christianity.
Written by internationally regarded theologian, Carter Lindberg, who is the author of numerous titles on theology and Church history.
Preface x
1 The Responsibility to Remember: An Introduction to the Historiography of Christianity 1
Tradition and Confession 4
2 The Law of Praying is the Law of Believing 6
The Roman Empire and its Political Achievements 10
Hellenization and its Cultural Achievements 10
Development of the Biblical Canon 12
3 Sibling Rivalry: Heresy, Orthodoxy, and Ecumenical Councils 17
The Structure of Tradition: Confession and Doctrine 18
Doctrine as a Key to Christian Memory and Identity 19
Heresy 21
Jesus' Relationship to God: The Doctrine of the Trinity 22
From the Council of Nicaea to the Council of Constantinople 26
Jesus and Humankind: Christology 28
4 The Heavenly City: The Augustinian Synthesis of Biblical Religion and Hellenism 35
Augustine's Path to Conversion 40
Augustine's Theological Contributions 41
Augustine and Donatism 44
The Pelagian Controversy 47
5 The Development of Medieval Christendom 51
Monasticism to Mission 52
The Emergence of the Papacy 54
Papacy and Empire 59
The Gregorian Reform 61
The Investiture Conflict 66
The Crusades 68
6 Faith in Search of Understanding: Anselm, Abelard, and the Beginnings of Scholasticism 71
Universities and Scholasticism 73
Contributions of Early Scholastic Theology 79
7 The Medieval Church 84
The Cultural and Theological Development of the Sacraments 84
The Rise of the Mendicant Orders 89
The Rise and Decline of Papal Authority 95
The Decline of the Papacy 97
Conciliarism 99
8 The Reformations of the Sixteenth Century 104
Context 105
The Reformation in Germany 108
The Reformation in Switzerland 112
The Reformation in France 116
The Reformation in England 117
Scandinavia and Eastern Europe 120
Early Modern Catholicism 121
The Reformations' Aftermath 122
9 Pietism and the Enlightenment 125
The Enlightenment 135
The Catholic Church and the Enlightenment 141
10 Challenge and Response: The Church in the Nineteenth Century 143
The Churches and the French Revolution 144
From the French Revolution to the Congress of Vienna 145
Church Reform in Germany: The Prussian Union and its Consequences 146
Inner Mission and the Social Question 147
The Catholic Church in the Nineteenth Century 152
Pope Pius IX and Vatican I 153
From Kulturkampf to the Anti-Modernist Oath 154
Nineteenth-Century Theology 155
The Awakening 157
Theological Currents 158
Liberal Theology 160
11 The Christian Churches since World War I 163
New Formulations in Protestant Theology 164
The Churches during National Socialism 167
Developments in the Catholic Church after World War I 171
The Ecumenical Movement 173
Back to the Future: Christianity in Global Context 179
Appendix: Periodization 181
Glossary 189
Further Reading 195
Index 204
