A Concise History of Christianity

by R. Dean Peterson

This brief and chronologically organized overview of the Christian religious tradition introduces students to the history of the Christian Church, describing the people, places, and ideas that have shaped Christianity. Written in a straightforward, accessible style, this text presents students with at survey of the scholarship of the discipline.

Genres: History, Christianity, Nonfiction, Religion

360 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[R]

This was recommended reading for a class I have in the Fall. It was an easy to read account of Christianity. If you are interested in how and why from a historical point of view Protestants split from the Catholic Church this will provide the who, what, where, and when.

[Pj]

I found this book on the shelves of Half Price books. I went into Half Price prayerfully, looking for a quality book on Christianity at a time when I began to question my Christian faith. This was one of the beginning steps to my becoming a Muslim.

[Joe]

This book starts at 1,750 BCE and traces the history of Christianity through the modern age, at least through about 2006, when it was printed. The history is fairly brief since a lot of material is covered in about 350 pages.

One thing that was somewhat annoying is the frequent use of short sentences, often adjacent to each other. That broke up the reading flow. The author includes some references and further readings at the end of each major section. Also included is a short list of web pages for further research. Unfortunately, as might be expected, some of these web sites no longer exist or have, apparently, been recast into something else by a different owner or maintainer.

Not much, actually nothing, is given about who the author is or what he does other than being associated with College of DuPage.

This is a fairly good fast travel through a long, complex history of the Christian churches.

[InvisaWriter]

This book was okay. It didn't have a very good summation of lutheranism for me. but the exposition on the early church was pretty good. the guy also had a very liberal (and by liberal I mean "the church should change as the culture changes") bent. It was a bit annoying especially since I'm a confessional lutheran. Otherwise decently written and good diagrams and pictures.

[Cheryl]

This is one of my favorite religious studies books. A keeper. A ton of info here.